Why Australia matters

In a significant upset during the Australian elections, Labor-candidate Kevin Rudd became the new Prime Minister after longtime Bush-ally John Howard's Conservative-coalition party was stunningly defeated.

Rudd has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq. This would mean the United States will be the final industrialized nation to have NOT signed the global warming treaty.

And it makes things very lonely for President Bush and his US-led Coalition loose grouping of a couple countries in the fraudulent War on Terror.

Rudd is 50, a former diplomat who speaks fluent Chinese, and apparently listens to the Australian people when they say they want to stop global warming and get out of George Bush's bogus war.

In contrast, President Bush is 60, a former drunk who speaks with a phony Texas twang, and laughs at Americans who are against global warming and the bogus war in Iraq.

You know what? It must be nice having a leader who listens!

Being American, I tended to know very little about the outside world; but I've made great strides in recent years. For instance, I now know that Australia isn't just "Men At Work", Vegemite and Steve Irwin (R.I.P.).

So, in honor of the fine and outstanding Australian people who chose to be represented by a progressive party, here's a strip from my favorite online comic from The Land Down Under, a somewhat twisted and politically incorrect weekly geekfest known as "Bigger Than Cheeses" (as in, "bigger than Jesus", but different, get it?):

click to enlarge
Kind of sick, I know. But funny. You gotta hand it to those Aussies...they never let political correctness get in the way of having a laugh!