Loose Cannons

A nuke in every car?

"A review will help establish whether uranium enrichment or nuclear power plants are viable options for Australia ... If nothing else, the high petrol prices of the past few months show that we are approaching a crisis in oil production and consumption ... We need to ensure access to diversified sources of power and energy." — Prime Menzies John Howard, June 6, on why Australia should use nuclear power.

Right on the money

"I could see straight away this was an economic inquiry about wealth creation, not about addressing the problem of climate change." — Greg Bourne, former petroleum boss and current executive director of the Australian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature, explaining to the June 8 Melbourne Age why he turned down environment minister Ian Campbell's offer to serve on the Howard government's nuclear energy review panel.

That's our cover-up, and we're sticking with it!

"The Pentagon has already told members of Congress that its probes found that Marines killed about 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, on Nov. 19 [in Haditha, Iraq] and then lied about it ... But, for public consumption, the secretive Pentagon is still sticking to its six-month-old press release saying that 15 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb." — Washington Post, June 8.

From Green Left Weekly, June 14, 2006.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 671