Monk

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SYDNEY, Australia

Almost everywhere you travel these days, people are talking about their weather — and how it has changed. Nowhere have I found this more true, though, than in Australia, where “the big dry,” a six-year record drought, has parched the Aussie breadbasket so severely that on April 19, Prime Minister John Howard actually asked the whole country to pray for rain. “I told people you have to pray for rain,” Mr. Howard remarked to me, adding, “I said it without a hint of irony.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

So, that's where we've been getting our rain from. I dearly wish we could give some of it back.

Mr. Friedman relates how, in Australia, you can see more dramatically how influential climate politics has become, for liberals and conservatives alike.

( Friedman )

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I don't suppose these will be gracing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition anytime soon, but now there is swimwear for Muslim women: the burquini!

It is the product of Australians' concerns that they might have been harboring some anti-Muslim racism, concerns that were heightened after a neo-nazi rampage of violence against Muslims. In response, the country has been carrying on an outreach program to bring Muslims into mainstream Australian life, and apparently few things are more Australian than their beach life and their Surf Life Savers, or lifeguards as we would know them.

(Source: Raymond Bonner for The New York Times)

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