Australia is holding a general election and things will get confusing for Americans because the labels and colors are mixed up.

The Hedgemony’s good friend, Prime Minister John Howard, leads the conservative Liberal Party, the blues.

The main opposition party led by Kevin Rudd, is the liberal Labor Party, the reds.

While Labor has been leading in the national polls, this thing could be decided at the local level, and it’s possible that the Liberals could hold on to power, but John Howard could lose his seat in parliament, as his constituency is not considered “safe.”

Update: Looks like a big ALP [Australian Labor Party] win, and John Howard lost his seat in parliament, Bennelong.

Dr Cole looks at foreign fighters in Iraq:

A treasure trove of guerrilla documents, according to the NYT, shows that 41% of the foreign jihadis in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia, which is also a major source of funding for them. Another big group comes from Libya, with Yemenis the third largest cohort. There were none from Lebanon, despite constant US accusations of Hizbullah involvement. Of the some 25,000 alleged insurgents in US custody in Iraq, only 390 are foreigners. 4/5s of the Iraqis and nearly all the foreigners are Sunni Arabs. (The US appears to have never captured a Shiite Iranian fighter in Iraq.) The statistics raise the question of why US military officials are always focusing on Iran and Hizbullah so much, when they clearly are not very much of the problem, while never, ever, mentioning the Saudi issue. The Guardian has more.

All of the hard evidence says Saudi Arabia is the problem, but nothing is done about it. The Saudis finance every Sunni whacko in the world, but Saudis are exempt from scrutiny. Saudi Arabia is a theocratic kingdom with an abysmal human rights record that flogs and imprisons victim of rape, but not a peep from the State Department. Is it any wonder that Islamic moderates don’t want to engage with the US?

Tryptophan Tripping

Yo, dude, what was that?

[Editor: The weather is getting colder and they overdid the turkey, so all of the indoor cats are sleeping.]

Friday Ark