The Illusionist at his Very Best

PM John Howard, performing tonight his latest magic trick. Watch the grand conjurer transform dismay into hope:

This from today's SBS News:

Poll, Iraqis disillusioned

Iraqis are feeling increasingly pessimistic and insecure about their future, four years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, according to a poll published today.

According to the survey, just 39 per cent of Iraqis questioned think things are going well in their lives, while only 35 per cent think their lives will improve over the next year.

Just 40 per cent believe the general situation will improve.

The poll, commissioned by the BBC and US broadcaster ABC News, made for generally bleak reading, with barely more than a quarter — 26 per cent — of respondents saying they felt safe in their own neighbourhoods.

Other basic necessities were also found to be lacking, with 88 per cent of respondents saying the availability of electricity was either "quite bad" or "very bad"...

And now to John Howard's magic trick. Abracadabra fidibus and we get this from today's The West Australian:

Cautious sense of optimism in Iraq: PM
Prime Minister John Howard says there is a new sense of cautious optimism in Baghdad...

Incredible, Joh Bjelke Howard is amazing, David Copperfield couldn't have done this better.

And just to make us really proud of John Howard, the SMH has a lovely piece on how the elevators work in the Liberal Party:

Howard excels when it comes to mates

YOU might call it the FOG syndrome. Friends of the Government just keep getting appointed to the commanding heights of the system, into key positions on government boards and instrumentalities that either compete with, or can have a profound effect on, Australian business.

...But the Howard Government has arguably taken it to the next level. While this is not to question their capacities, or suggest that they are not well qualified in their own right, many top jobs on government boards and agencies have gone to prominent supporters, heads of key business lobby groups, big financial donors to the Coalition parties, staffers, or people personally close to senior ministers.

The latest is last week's appointment of former senior private secretary to John Howard, cabinet secretary and now company director, Paul McClintock, as chairman of Australia's biggest private health insurer, the Commonwealth Government-owned Medibank Private. Just by-the-by, McClintock is also chairman of Symbion Health, a company with extensive interests in private health care, health centres, radiology and medical imaging, pharmaceuticals and other health products like vitamins.

Of course, the Government denies his appointment represents any risk of a conflict of interest, despite what, to the lay observer, would appear to be a fertile field with Symbion on one side as a health goods and service supplier and Medicare Private on the other as a major insurer and funder of such goods and services...

You Beauty! How can someone not vote for the Liberal Party, Australia's Grand Old Party. So sophisticated, so refreshingly corrupt, so magic.

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