Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world’s legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.
“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.” Read the rest of this entry »
We could not have made this one up. From the BBC (p.s. the comments after the story are a must-read bonus):
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine. Read the rest of this entry »
Speaking on Tuesday, Khatami’s initial focus was the promotion of “global dialogue”, the concept that he launched more than a decade ago in response to the notion of a “clash of civilizations”. (Irfan Yusuf offers an interesting account.) He offered a general connection with the recent development in US-Iran relations, “”Let us not be worried about the big number of elusive politicians who are not yet prepared for dialogue. In an atmosphere of dialogue, neither side considers themselves as being in a position of power and would not speak from an upper position.
Khatami did address more specific matters, notably military intervention in Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »
For those of us assessing US foreign and military policy, Wikileaks is an essential site. Amongst its scrutiny of governments, churches, and corporations, it posts American documents that offer insight into the past, present, and future of the Government’s approach to international affairs. Only last month we featured Wikileaks’ release of a NATO memorandum that laid out the propaganda line for the Afghanistan conflict, including the revelation:
”Opposing Militant Forces” is the correct term [for Afghan insurgents] but is not suitable for use with the media. Depending on the audience and the group being referred to, the phrases militants/insurgents/extremists/Taleban extremists/enemies of Afghanistan may be used.
Well, good thing we’re coming out of Birmingham rather than Brisbane because a link to Wikileaks in Australia can be punished with a fine of $11,000 Australian ($7250 American). It has been added to a list of almost 1400 sites, mostly with pornographic content, that are blacklisted.
Ironically, Wikileaks earned its place in Australian censorship by revealing a secret Danish list of banned sites. And both appropriately and ironically, it was Wikileaks that revealed the news of its own banning, noting in Fight Club fashion, “The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship.”
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.
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Geographically (but not politically) far away from the main arenas of US-Iranian relations, 
For those of us assessing US foreign and military policy, Wikileaks is an essential site. Amongst its scrutiny of governments, churches, and corporations, it posts American documents that offer insight into the past, present, and future of the Government’s approach to international affairs. Only last month 
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