Secondment

*



The children are walking back from the beach
Sun on the sidewalk is burning their feet
Washing the salt off under the shower
And just wasting away, wasting away
The hours and hours and hours

Come on, climb over your father's back fence
For the very last time we'll take the shortcut across his lawn
Then lie together on the estuary bed
Perfectly still, perfectly warm

Sleep no more
Sleep is dead
Sleep no more on the estuary bed
Ache no more
Old skin is shed
Sleep no more on the estuary bed

I see you still
I know not rest
Silt returns along the passage of flesh
I hear your voice
I taste the salt
I bear the stain, it won't wash off
I hold you not
But I see you still
What use eyesight if it should melt?
What use memory covered in estuary silt?

I know your shape
Our limbs entwined
I know your name, remember mine

Sleep no more
Sleep is dead
Sleep no more on the estuary bed
Ache no more
Old skin is shed
Sleep no more on the estuary bed

Estuary Bed, The Triffids.



Oh, unique salvation, playing in the sand, it suddenly struck him: all his Christmases had come at once. Every step on this strange planet was profound. Moon walking, the diseased mind, they showed pictures of the Pied Piper, the child molester, Michael Jackson surrounded by hordes of children, the secret bedroom, porcelain dolls lining each step. And still the public forgave. Jackson was the worst example of someone who had never heard the words: No. Catch me if you can, that's what he was saying, the ped chaser intoned. These things had haunted all our lives. And yet the mainstream mourned his death; the stations played his music. Genius they said. This overblown character, this sad but sick transformation. There had been so many nuances. The past had been so dark. All news was bad news. If you see me coming you're having the worst day of your life, he was fond of saying, and this dark regret was all that he could muster, the vague semblance of humanity, he who had been sent to observe.

The planet was so complex, the life forms all parasitic, he had had great trouble entering into the species. Farewell to the dead, that's what he wanted to say. To lament the passing of a generation. Oh darkness, embrace me. And the chirpy little voice: hey oblivion seeker, I'm here, I'm here. You could always hear the stern voices of the zealots, the god botherers and the step Nazis, those who had nothing better to do with their lives, it's our way or the highway. He had never believed. And yet his scepticism was masked by his willingness to conform. I was effed and now I'm fabulous and I owe it all to you guys. Half of Australia sits up all night, watching Lleyton play Roddick, the nation holding its breath as every ball sails over the net. As a kid he had played at the courts at Bayview, been on the school team. How's things at your place? The journalists hovered. The politicians gave their polished, bland performances.

And he didn't believe, didn't believe, in any of it anymore. The words had played forth over the pages, over the years, dictating their own life, not just the snail trail but a record of a grander, more difficult time. Nothing had been aced, because nothing made sense, the shifting self definitions had been cycling through at such blurring speed that there was no real person left. He stood on the corner of Oxford Street as the sun came up, waiting, waiting, for a handsome love, for an intoxicating river, for something that would come along and rescue him, make sense of his life. It was not to be and was never to be and the decline was now accelerating, his path towards a street alcoholic already visible to those who cared to see. He didn't understand what was happening, didn't understand his own decline. As far as he was concerned, he was still having a great time, the party was not over.

But the dripping fear on wet walls, the tendrils of decay that now grew along the bar walls, the misshapen shapes of the bar warriors and the weird, angulated, sick, pale, evil face of the barman, that was new. He hadn't realised what was happening. He still thought he was embarked on some profound adventure, and would ultimately survive, do well. But what to others was nothing but a bit of relaxation at the end of the working day had become to him everything. He loved the characters, the stories, the personalities, the hidden tension in the air, who's going with who, who's sleeping with who. What's this, the vicious little bitch said, rubbing his fingers together? The biggest joint in the world, rolled just for you. And the bitch died of Aids, smothered by his boyfriend. And he sat drinking bourbon and cokes, his dark drink for a dark night, the black river engulfing him. "I don't know what you're like normally but you seem drunk, not your usual self. You're probably actually quite a nice person." He shrugged, he didn't care, he truly didn't care.

There was no one there to say, I love you. There was no one to warn him as to what was happening. No one to throw a friendly arm around his shoulder. To say, old friend, turn back, turn yourself in, you need to go to hospital, to detox, to change your life. The decline was terminal. Only that week he had seen dead bodies in the morgue; the puffy faces of the John Does, the street alcoholics who died without a name, without a family, without friends. And suddenly he saw the same puffiness in the faces all around him, in his drinking companions. He knew he was battling death on a nightly basis. He knew the oblivion seeking, his endless predilections, were turning on him. And yet he saw no other alternative but to drown his consciousness in alcohol, ever more alcohol. To drift still further from the normal world. To stay up all night, as if he was still a young stud instead of a man in his 30s. Drinking, drinking, that's all they did. Gathering in the afternoons at their special table at the Oxford, watching the evening turn into night, gossiping, perving at the office workers as they made their way home or stood at the bus stop outside the bar.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25711333-5015839,00.html

TWO lucky people have shared the biggest Tattslotto draw in Australian history.

Tattslotto said the two winners were from Queensland and South Australia.

Unprecedented demand for tickets blew this week’s first division total to more than $106 million - more than $16 million more than the expected $90 million first division prize pool, the Herald Sun reports.

The lucky numbers drawn were: 12, 3, 38, 21, 23, 29, 40 and supplementary numbers 43 and 22.

Tattersalls had guaranteed a minimum first division prize pool of $90 million, but spokeswoman Karen Anning said huge sales today had pushed the prize pool higher.

Queues formed outside many Oz Lotto agents yesterday and the lines of fortune hunters grew even longer today.

Many newsagents stayed open an hour later than usual tonight to handle the rush, but were required by law to shut shop at 7.30pm.

"Nationally we have had 10 million entries, close to three million in Victoria and two million in Queensland,'' Ms Anning said.

"We are receiving approximately 200,000 entries an hour in Victoria.''

NSW Lotteries Communications Manager John Vineburg said it was predicted that half of the adult population would have bought a ticket in tonight's draw.

The Oz Lotto jackpot soared to a record $90 million after there were no first division winners in the June 23 draw.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD9954P1G2

Car bomb kills at least 27 people in Iraqi city

By PATRICK QUINN – 46 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — A car bomb exploded in a crowded outdoor market in the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people, police said, a deadly reminder of the challenges facing the Iraqi government even as it celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities.

The bombing marred what had otherwise been a festive day as Iraqis commemorated the newly declared National Sovereignty Day with military parades and marching bands. It also came hours after four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat Monday in Baghdad. Although there were no immediate claims of responsibility, the bombing and the way it was carried out bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Despite the violence, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki assured Iraqis that government forces taking control of urban areas were more than capable of ensuring security.

"Those who think that Iraqis are not able to protect their country and that the withdrawal of foreign forces will create a security vacuum are committing a big mistake," he said in a nationally televised address.

He later appeared at a military parade to mark the day in the walled-off Green Zone in central Baghdad, with soldiers and policemen marching in formation while Iraqi helicopters flew overhead.

The withdrawal, which was completed on Monday, was part of a U.S.-Iraqi security pact and marks the first major step toward withdrawing all American forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will be gone by the end of August 2010.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196158/Michael-Jackson-death-foul-play-claims-father-Joe.html

Michael Jackson's father has claimed his son's death was linked to 'foul play'.

Joe Jackson said he had 'suspicions' about how the superstar could be alive one moment and dead the next.

He told California's ABC7 new channel: 'Michael was dead before he left the house. I'm suspecting foul play somewhere.

'He was waving to everybody and telling them he loves them and all the fans at the gate, a few minutes after Michael was out there, he was dead.'

In a second interview at the Black Entertainment Awards, the 80-year-old alluded to the Jackson family's fears over the singer's death.

He told a CNN reporter: 'Yes I am. I have a lot of concerns. I can't get into that but I don't like what happened.'

The Jackson family lawyer Londell McMillan then stepped in, saying: 'We cant talk about that right now - there is a second autopsy underway. We will let that process take its course, we will have more to say at a later time.'

Bizarrely, Mr Jackson then went on to use the interview to plug his record company.

The development comes after it was revealed that Michael Jackson’s aides took an astonishing 50 minutes to call an ambulance, it was revealed last night.

Their 911 emergency call was not made until frantic attempts to resuscitate him had failed.

The entire drama was witnessed by the singer’s 12-year-old eldest child Prince - who thought his father was clowning around before a doctor began pumping his chest to try to start his heart.

Criminal Issue

*



O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; 'O Johnny, let's play':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
'Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver and golden silk gown;
'O John I'm in heaven,' I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.



The yellow flowers were in the field, surrounding the old cemetery. It was one of the most profound moments of his life, yet hidden, embarrassing, something better forgotten. He had made such a fool of himself. Their smug faces, their pornographic lives, their hugely entertaining sex romps on the wide beds, their laughter. He had been in love and failed to declare, and when he chanced his hand in a land of multiple partners and shifting alliances, of old allegiances, it was simply the wrong thing to do. He had come from such a lonely space, there in the early hours, unable to sleep, his time. He had swept up out of infancy and his psychic abilities had blossomed. Turn around, turn around, he would say to the grey head on the bus into town, and sure enough they would turn around. He could hear them thinking. He could feel their multiple presences. And in the dense, crowded air, he could even recognise their personalities, the ghosts crowding in upon him.

She was infinite in her beauty, the ancient, corrupted fingers which ran down his cheek, the spark of amphetamines which were already beginning to rot his soul. Oh ancient lover, ancient one. Where have you been? He couldn't tell fact from fiction anymore. And he was the wild one, the one who had been born again, thrown down through the millennia into a world he barely even recognised as human, so much had changed. As a young man those thoughts had been so distinct: he bore the shadows of a former time, past lives, of the catacombs and Roman baths. Here in suburban Australia, his head full of books, his life a one step agony, cowering in corners as the belts snaked out. In the years to come abuse would become a fashionable topic; in his childhood there was no escape. No escape at all. He would never recover from those beatings. He never spoke of them again.

"Don't think I don't remember," he felt like saying, when he finally spoke to his father after decades of absence. Don't think I don't remember you waiting in the kitchen with the belt spread out across the table, neatly arranged across the hard plastic top. As a 15-year-old he would alight from some queen's car at 3a.m., already shuddering from tip to toe at the beating he was about to receive. "It will be alright, you'll get through it," the queen would say, as if they really cared. It wasn't happening to them. They had got what they wanted. They'd be called paedophiles these days. They'd be arrested. He would walk down the steep slope towards the house, could see the light in the kitchen, his father waiting. All around was the great silence of the bush, the sleeping houses of the neighbours. No one knew what he was about to suffer. No one cared. No one intervened.

Because no one stepped in to help, although it must have been common knowledge that he was being badly beaten, he learnt to internalise every last hope, every thought, every aspiration. Fear of ridicule was almost as strong as the fear of the beatings. If he ever had children, he swore he would never do to them what was done to him. As his father laid into him as hard as he could. The monster. What pleasure he must have got! As the belt rained down, as the welts began to form, as he cried in a sign of weakness and he beat him harder, joyful at the tears. The cringing animal. It was a wonder he didn't kick him, but his father stuck to the belt. And he would hobble off to school the next day, sore from the welts, bruised from the beating. And he would never tell a soul. Not until the next time, the next 3am the following week, when the same queen, or another gay man, would emphasise briefly as he told of his fears at returning to that house, and then peck him goodbye and be gone, the sound of their car disappearing around the winding bends.

Each time, as he walked down the path to that front door, and could feel the first tears prickling even before the first belt struck. "Don't think I don't remember," he thought, decades later when, after the beating and subsequent suicide of his youngest half-brother, the brother who "even looked like you", he began talking to him again. The capacity to forgive was nothing short of astonishing. But he didn't really forgive. He simply tried to move on. To forget it ever happened. To make a fool of himself amongst the yellow flowers of the cemetery, so survive as a malformed creature in an oxygenless environment, the air the heavy mercury of his homeland so long ago, so many lives ago. The human frame was weak and he could not stay long. There was danger in the crossings, danger of being lost. And so he detached, that was the word, from his own body as often as he could, the loose knitting of the components haunting him, the sterile world which he so feared. Beaten black and blue, he had retreated into fantasy. And there, for many many years, until all the walls collapsed and left him shrieking in the shocking light, he stayed.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/support-for-turnbull-sinks-in-new-polls-20090629-d1f5.html

Senior Liberals have dismissed speculation of a leadership challenge after Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's disastrous showing in a series of opinion polls.

Mr Turnbull's personal approval ratings plummeted in the wake of last week's ill-judged call for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's resignation over his relationship with a Brisbane car dealer in the OzCar affair.

While Labor increased its lead over the coalition, the polls released on Monday also found a majority of voters thought Mr Turnbull was arrogant and not altogether honest.

Mr Turnbull made no public comment on the polls, while a number of his frontbenchers spoke in his defence.

Opposition leader in the Senate, Nick Minchin, acknowledged they'd had "a pretty tough week" but he said they would be competitive at the next election, due late next year.

He said the polls were a rollercoaster and urged his colleagues to keep their feet on the ground.

"I don't want an opposition leader who's too scared to get out of bed in the morning," Senator Minchin told Sky News on Monday.

"Malcolm is a risk-taker and sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't and when they don't you get a bad poll."

Senior Liberal Tony Abbott also stood behind his leader, saying the opposition had a bad week but Mr Turnbull would be leader going into the next election.

"Just as Malcolm didn't flinch last week it's important that the party doesn't flinch this week," Mr Abbott said.

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2610915.htm

There are reports out of Los Angeles that a second autopsy on the body of Michael Jackson has been completed as the family tries to find the cause of the pop star's death. Over the weekend the Reverend Jesse Jackson, no relation to Michael, said the family was suspicious about the role Jackson's doctor played immediately before he died. The doctor has been interviewed by police but they say he is not a suspect.

TONY EASTLEY: There are reports out of Los Angeles that a second autopsy on the body of Michael Jackson has been completed as the family tries to find the cause of the pop star's death.

Over the weekend the Reverend Jesse Jackson - one time presidential candidate and no relation to Michael - said the family were suspicious about the role Jackson's doctor played immediately before he died.

John Shovelan reports.

JOHN SHOVELAN: After a second interview that lasted three hours, Los Angeles Police found no evidence the one person who was with Michael Jackson at the time he collapsed, cardiologist Dr Conrad Murray, had committed a crime.

The Los Angeles Times reported police found "no red flag" or "smoking gun" that would indicate a crime had taken place.

An attorney with Doctor Murray's legal team, Matt Alford says they have been assured by police their client is under no suspicion.

MATT ALFORD: Homicide division has assured us that Dr Murray is not a suspect of any kind in Mr Jackson's death. He is just a witness that the police want to talk to to get the facts out to help fill in some blanks that they have as to the events leading up to Mr Jackson's death.

TONY EASTLEY: Dr Murray who performed CPR on Jackson at his rented home and who travelled in the ambulance to the hospital had, according to his legal representatives, assisted police identify the circumstances around the death and clarified inconsistencies.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12376

By Viv Forbes Saturday, June 27, 2009
Australia’s EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) has been negligent in listing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant without conducting an independent public review of the scientific evidence to support that decision.

The Garnaut Doomsday report, the CSIRO Scare forecasts, and the Cap-N-Tax Scheme of Senator Wong are all based on faulty foundations. Like trusting children following the Pied Piper, Senator Wong follows the EPA, which follows CSIRO and Garnaut, who follow the US EPA, which follows the IPCC, which follows the Pied Piper of Gore, whose movie has been found to contain many untruths. Only a few key people in this Conga Line of gullibles know where they are going and why. Even fewer have checked the scientific basis of the Global Warming Theory.

They are all following the completely outdated IPCC AR4 report. This report was published in 2007 but relies on scientific papers at least 3 years out of date, and some such as the NAS 1979 study are 30 years old.

Now a critical draft report has emerged from inside the US EPA. It was written by very competent EPA staff, warning that organisation that their classification of CO2 as a pollutant was too heavily based on the latest IPCC report “which is at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field.” This EPA report has been suppressed for months.

The comprehensive 98 page report details six areas where important new findings demand re-assessment of the EPA ruling. These include the end of the warming trend that is now obvious, the gross failure of IPCC forecasts of temperature and CO2 emissions, the lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature, and the “strong association between solar/sunspots/irradiance and global temperature fluctuations.”

The report also finds that the assumption of positive feedback from water vapour that underlies all global warming models is “not supported by empirical evidence and the feedback is actually negative.”

Finally, in a statement that demolishes the key argument for the Cap-N-Tax Scheme, this suppressed EPA report notes: “Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations appear to have so little effect that it is difficult to find any effect in the satellite temperature record, which started in 1978”.

Brett

*



The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep
And the combo went back to New York, the jukebox has to take a leak
And the carpet needs a haircut, and the spotlight looks like a prison break
And the telephone's out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking...

And the menus are all freezing, and the light man's blind in one eye
And he can't see out of the other
And the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
As the bouncer is a sumo wrestler cream-puff casper milktoast
And the owner is a mental midget with the IQ of a fence post
'cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking...

And you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends and you just can't get served without
her
And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire
And the newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired
because the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me...

Tom Waits



Brett Whitely was the most famous of us, that gang which hung around inner-Sydney in the 1980s and early 90s. His moppet hair, his acclaim as a painter, his smart little white BMW, his ample cash, above all his fame, set him apart, or above, so that he was always surrounded by acolytes, his gorgeous girlfriend Janus, the scandals that always attached. How many magazine features could be written about one man? How often could he publicly confess his predilection for heroin, his struggles with addiction, and not get busted? Twelve step programs were all the rage back then, AA, NA, Sex Addicts Anonymous, even Co-Dependence Anonymous for a while. At one time there was a 12-step program for people addicted to 12-step programs. It had all got completely out of control. The detoxes tipped dozens, hundreds of new victims into the meetings each week.

He could remember, he would always remember, their last conversation. There's gaps in your memory, I've just noticed, the naturopath said, staring at a diagram of his iris. There's some sort of encroaching loss, a vagueness. We need to fix that. But he would never forget that day, when they sat together at the Tropicana and chatted busily, the two most famous people there, albeit in their different fields, had naturally drifted together. Creative, driven, recognising in each other the same haunting talents which drove them to succeed. Brett had always been an entertaining talker, and by now he knew most of his life story, from his days at the Chelsea Hotel in New York to his early struggles to his extravagant successes; and the extravagant sweep of pen, or paintbrush. There was love in every curve, a desire to triumph from humble background, a confidence in their own abilities.

Brett never doubted he was gifted. And so they talked about how boring everybody was around them, stick in the mud talentless little gits who had nothing to do but be sycophants to the famous, sycophants to them. At last they had met a kindred soul, there amongst the durgs. "I go down to Thirroul sometimes, just to get away from everybody," Brett confessed. And they agreed, total abstinence was for morons, there was nothing wrong with a bit of a dabble. Just how good, how saintlike could they be, and still create, still be human? Surely God would understand, the greatest art was only produced in extremis, by people such as themselves. Surely they were different, the normal rules didn't apply. "I rent a hotel room and I don't tell anyone where I am." He tried to imagine the hotel room, the mysterious people that Brett knew down there, and he might have known, if he could straighten out the connections.

His car was in the garage and Brett offered to drop him to work at the Sydney Morning Herald, the famous, ugly old Fairfax building on Broadway, regularly ranked one of the ugliest buildings in the entire city. They flashed through the city in that cute, famous little white BMW sports car, the cool morning air whipping around them. Brett asked questions about journalism, and he told him it was a bit like working for the Manly Daily, it wasn't that exciting once you had done it for a few years. Long before the executions, long before the modern era. It was Sunday morning, and they pulled up outside the docks, littered with the leftovers of the previous nights frenzy, as tens thousands of papers were printed and then loaded on to trucks, distributed out through the feeder networks into the hands of suburbanites; leafing through the gossip and scandal over their lazy Sunday morning breakfasts.

The news that Brett Whitely, Australia's most famous painter, had died in a hotel room in Thirroul of a heroin overdose shocked the country. So many people were sad. So many people had been caught up in his madness, had admired the grandiose sweeps of his paintings, their adventurous beauty. He, too, amidst the turmoil of his schizophrenic life, was deeply saddened by the loss of someone who could easily have become such a great friend. Who he had admired for his gumption and his get up and go, the fact that he defined himself as an artist first and last, that his entire life was dedicated to creativity. Even the addictions, the heroin, surely that was meant to boost his creativity, to put him out there on the front line of beauty. And now he didn't have to imagine the hotel room and the seedy, ordinary red brick hotel Brett had told him about, where he used to escape so regularly, because pictures of it; and the hotel room in which he died, were all over the papers. The smoking dope, the heroin, the whisky, all of it was detailed in the newspaper reports. And while grander friends and artistic pundits alike publicly lamented Brett's death, all he could remember was their funny, intimate little conversation as they zipped through the empty city streets; each on the way to their own destinies.

Fifteen years after Brett's death in 1992 he covered the sale of his paintings at auction. These days they regularly fetched more than a million dollars each, looking so fabulous on the walls of Sydney's wealthy residents, a must have. A status symbol. And he wondered sometimes what Brett, who hated the mongrels crawling over each other for status, the dreadful conformity of Australia, would have made of it all, as the bidding soared in $50,000 increments. And wondered what he would have done with all that money he never got to see.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8122849.stm

Los Angeles police investigating the death of Michael Jackson say they have carried out an "extensive interview" with his doctor, Conrad Murray.

Dr Murray - who was with the singer when he collapsed last Thursday - had provided information that "will aid the investigation", the police said.

A spokeswoman for Dr Murray insisted he was not a suspect in the case.

Michael Jackson's family are said to be seeking a second autopsy because they still have questions about his death.

Coroners said there was no evidence of foul play after an autopsy on Friday, but gave no cause of death, saying the results of toxicology tests could take weeks to come back.

A spokesman for the coroners office said Michael Jackson had taken "some prescription medication" without specifying which.

Unconfirmed reports suggest the 50-year-old singer had been taking a daily dose of Demerol, a painkiller also widely known as pethidine.

Mr Jackson's body was released to the family on Friday night.

'No way a suspect'

A spokeswoman for Dr Conrad Murray said he was interviewed for three hours by police on Saturday.

Dr Murray is doing all he can to help the inquiry, his spokeswoman says

Miranda Sevcik said the doctor had "helped identify the circumstances around the death of the pop icon and clarified some inconsistencies".

"Investigators said the doctor is in no way a suspect and remains a witness to this tragedy," she said.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25704547-661,00.html

MALCOLM Turnbull has suffered serious damage from Ute-gate with a majority of voters judging him dishonest over the hoax email scandal, a poll reveals.

The Opposition Leader's credibility has taken a severe hit in the latest Galaxy poll, conducted exclusively for the Herald Sun.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd looks to have escaped the Ute-gate furore comparatively unscathed.

Of those surveyed at the weekend, 34 per cent believed Mr Turnbull had been "somewhat deceitful" over the controversy, and 17 per cent rated him "dishonest" - a total of 51 per cent questioning his truthfulness.

As for Mr Rudd, only 14 per cent judged him "somewhat deceitful" and 8 per cent "dishonest".

The gap between the two leaders was just as telling among respondents with a more positive view.

Mr Rudd's account of himself in Ute-gate was seen as "open and honest" by 33 per cent and "economical with the truth" by 28 per cent.

Only 7 per cent regarded Mr Turnbull's statements as "open and honest" and 23 per cent as "economical with the truth".

Further concern for Mr Turnbull emerged when the results were broken down along voting lines.

Of ALP supporters, 81 per cent backed Mr Rudd's honesty.

But Coalition voters were not so certain about Mr Turnbull: 29 per cent judged him deceitful and 10 per cent dishonest, indicating that a significant proportion of the backlash is coming from his own supporters.

The harsh assessment of Mr Turnbull's performance coincides with a slump in the Coalition's primary vote of two points to 38 per cent.

http://www.examiner.com/x-13886-New-Haven-County-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m6d27-Lord-Monckton-has-agreed-to-debate-James-Hansen

In an article I released yesterday,"News flash!the great global warming debate with James Hansen is now off", I indicated I would inquire of Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley, as to whether he would be interested in filling in for Don Blankenship in a debate on climate change with James Hansen of the Goddard Institute of Space S
tudies. In my experience with Lord Monckton he has always been willing to assist in the sceptic fight for good old fashioned science. He has also been willing to debate any of the advocates of anthropogenic global warming. Recently he was told he could debate Al Gore head to head in a Congressional committee hearing. It was not until he was getting off the plane that he was told the debate was off. Al Gore apparently wasn't up to the task.

But who is Lord Monckton? Back in the 80's he was a technical policy adviser on a number of topics for Margaret Thatcher. He was intimately involved in the early investigation of CO2 caused global warming and presented at the Royal Society on the subject. The difference between Monckton and many others is that he realized that it couldn't be true. Although I suspect his paycheck didn't depend on AGW alarmism, I believe it would not have affected his conclusion. As he once commented to me in an email "As the temperature continues to fail to rise as the doomsayers suggest it will, fewer and fewer will believe them, and those who have nailed their colours to the mast of this particular ship will go down with it, with few to mourn their passing." So eloquent. So true. He is currently the Chief Policy adviser for the Science & Public Policy Institute and some of his articles can be found here, here and here

About 3 years ago I wrote Lord Monckton concerning a paper he had written. Being early in my climate education, I had several elementary questions. He was very patient with me and I was able to follow the thought progression and math to the conclusions, mostly. Last year I had the occasion to see his presentation at the 2008 International Climate Conference in New York City. A couple of days later at the University of Hartford, in a program advanced by Physics Professor Larry Gould, I had the privilege of seeing a second, different presentation suitable for policymakers. It was just down the road from the Capital and do you think one of our state officials would trot down the road to see an international figure in the climate debate. No sir. Not even one, despite a personal invitation to our Governor.

Joe

*



As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

W.H. Auden



Once upon a time; but that time was so long ago. He had been shattered and reassembled so often the cracks showed all over him, like a dissembling egg. They had called out "murderer" after Joe's death; for Joe had loved him and he had been a heartless fool. "Murderer, murderer," and he swished his hips and pretended not to care, there in the dark spaces around the Alemain fountain, in the shadows where drug deals and soliciting, the nether world exchanges of the human soul, took place. Oh yes there were rhythms, days when it all made sense. But not then. Deeply alcoholic, Joe had fallen head over heels. His tiny frame, his effervescent personality, their moments together when he gave it away for nothing, when, drunk to the point of barely being able to stand up, they went back to Joe's little place in Ward Avenue, and in hte blur of alcoholic depravity they made love.

All was not lost, but it had seemed that way, the blur of their time together, the way their eyes and their hearts lit up when they saw each other, the way he abandoned his sugar daddy bought sports car in the back lanes of Kings Cross, failed to go home to the expensive apartment provided for him. He wanted to be at the heart of the matter. He wanted to live a life rich in meaning and experience. He wanted to understand everything, be everything, know everything. And most of all he wanted to understand, to document, the Rex Hotel, the Bottoms Up bar, the murky darkness where the fish tanks bubbled through the evening and the fish lived out their peculiar lives while in front of them we all descended into hell: another round, another round. Joe wasn't used to it. He didn't know what to make of it.

He had warned him. You can't love me. I'm working. Or if not working, surviving. I don't do it for love. I don't even do it for fun. It's never been fun. I've never actually liked it. They can make me come and get all excited, but in my heart of hearts I couldn't care less, for I was the one with a heart of stone. But Joe didn't believe him, and fell hook line and sinker. He would be there at 11am, in the bar, waiting to see him, to catch a glimpse. He would wander in with his little gang of juvenile miscreants, into that dark space where the moss hung from the wools in evil tendrils and the stroking touch of old queens was everywhere; he would sit there and wait. The others had clients to catch, tricks to do. He had already been bought; and was far more successful than any of them. He liked the idea of being a high class rent boy.

His assignations with Joe were under the table, so to speak, unpaid for, one of the only people in years he had been off with and not demanded money. Joe was from Ireland, and despite his tiny frame could drink as well as any Irishman. They would start drinking before midday and drink all day, while outside the sun passed through the sky and the office workers went to work and came back home, the city went about its duties. The day Joe drank himself to death was only a few days, perhaps a week, after he had told him he couldn't see him anymore. He couldn't see him because he didn't have it in him; to service his benefactor and service him as well, even if he was a nice bloke and he genuinely liked him, he wasn't going to give up his smart car and his smart apartment and his ready money, just for love. Bugger that. There was the rest of life to be in love, now he was handsome and ready to exploit the fact.

Joe didn't take it well. In fact was heartbroken, so he heard from mutual acquaintances. Joe had gone into the pub early that day, perhaps hoping to see him, and from all reports began drinking scotch early. They estimated he had drunk the equivalent of three bottles of scotch when he was found dead in his apartment later that day; that day when he had told everybody about his love, about his heartbreak, his longing, the boy he wanted to love forever. But why fall in love with a rent boy, how stupid could you be, that was his point. He had never given him false expectation, but in the few weeks when they got drunk together and went home together, something had blossomed which could have been profound. Emotional blackmail. They were all at it. His first lover had also attempted suicide after they broke up; and he wasn't going to let any of them touch him, his heart, his soul, were the only parts not for sale. But Joe died in dismal circumstances with a broken heart, and it was all his fault.

And when, as he walked the streets and they called out "murderer, murderer" from the passing cars, he knew he deserved it. He never went to the funeral. He would probably have been lynched.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8122579.stm

The Iraqi authorities are tightening security in preparation for next Tuesday's deadline for US soldiers to pull out of the country's cities.

All police leave has been cancelled and extra troops have been drafted in, amid a spate of bomb attacks this week which has left 250 people dead.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says the attacks may be aimed at stirring up sectarian tensions.

But he says he is confident his government can safeguard security.

"[The attackers] want to sweep delight from the Iraqi people's hearts. They have revealed their real intentions," said Mr Maliki.

"But this will not bend our determination and will for what we have agreed upon - that is, to return security responsibilities to our military and police forces."

US forces have already left many bases in cities such as Baghdad.

But our correspondent says the troops are not far away, in positions just outside urban areas where they are poised to intervene should they be called on to help by the Iraqi forces.

Most of the deadly bombings this week have targeted Shia areas - leading the Iraqi authorities to blame Sunni militants from the al-Qaeda group.

The authorities have beefed up security across urban areas - with special attention given to controlling access to markets.

Militants have frequently targeted markets, hoping to inflict as many casualties as possible.

http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=346573

The federal government has dumped its once-much-promoted Grocery Choice price-monitoring website.

The announcing came late yesterday with Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson conceding the website was not achieving what the government had had in mind when it was launched.

The decision came after Senator Nick Xenophon and Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce introduced a private member's bill to end geographic price discrimination.

That bill would forces supermarket chains to charge the same price for their goods in shops within a 35-kilometre radius preventing unrealistic price drops targeted at competitors in one locality.

Choice says the decision to pull the website suggests supermarkets were worried they'd lose their market power.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25700275-662,00.html

NEW pictures have emerged of Kevin Rudd and members of Brisbane's 51 Club - whose president, John Grant, is the used car dealer at the centre of the Ute-gate row.

Mr Rudd has denied membership of the club, saying through a spokeswoman he had only dined with them once while in opposition.

Club member Allan Mair has said Mr Rudd's links to the club go back a decade.

The pictures obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun show Mr Rudd posing with club members outside the Cabinet Room in Federal Parliament, a highly secure area requiring special clearance to access.

Other photos show members of the club lounging in the Cabinet anteroom - also a secure area -- with Queensland Labor MP Bernie Ripoll, the backbencher who first asked Treasurer Wayne Swan to help Mr Grant access government finance through its OzCar scheme.

Another picture shows an unidentified club member obscuring the "no" part of a "No Access" sign outside the Cabinet Room.

The photos are understood to have been taken last October.

The club's website - which has been removed - billed itself as having "strong links to the corridors of power".

The OzCar row dominated Parliament during the week as Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull pursued Treasurer Wayne Swan over emails that allegedly showed Mr Grant received special treatment from Mr Swan and Treasury officials.

Una's

*



Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden.



They shouted at windows at him, "murderer", time encusted on every lamp post. When a srikingly handsome, charismatic, alright gorgeous, fascinating and personable young woman started going on about how she might bonk a really old person, say someone in their 50s, for a billion dollars, but she wouldn't marry them, not for all the money in the world. No amount of money would be worth submitting to something so utterly gross. They all agreed, the bright, astonishingly good looking young group of 20 somethings. It was about then he decided to take his 57-year-old body home to bed, or at least home to the couch to watch Wimbledon. Lleyton Hewett won his match last night, the little Aussie battler now in the final round of 16, putting him amongst the best tennis players in the world. Oh how he wished things were different; how crowded was his head; how deep his longing for another life.

Joyce, about to turn 85, who's heroic story and charming manner had endeared her to him long ago, wanted a plain feed, so as they were in the area he took her to Una's, now a busy, popular German restaurant in the Cross. "I remember Una's when it was Sydney's only 24-hour coffee shop, I used to know the original Una's," he said. "I was 16 and looked young for my age and I would stumble in drunk at two or three a.m. She was always very kind to me. She would sober me up with icecream and black coffee. She encouraged me with my studies, to finish high school. She was a really nice woman. That was more than 40 years ago." He sighed. Joyce listened abstractedly, for she was dying of leukemia and loved being out with what she saw as a handsome young man.

"I never thought I would be out like this ever again," she said. "Out with a nice looking fella." He laughed. The days when he classified as a nice looking fella were long gone. The gruff waittress with the offhand manner, the one who could barely be bothered to notice them until he shouted: "Mind if we order?", took their orders. No one here, almost no one in the city, would remember the original Una. How nice she was. How kind she had been to him. How much it had meant, someone on his side, after he had escaped the extreme and insistent bashings by his father and had become a real person, a delinquent youth, in that place which had always fascinated him, Kings Cross. William Street crossed with Victoria and Darlinghurst Street underneath the giant Coca Cola sign to form a kind of a T-intersection, or a cross, and he always thought of himself as being "sacrificed on the Cross".

"He should be at home with his mother," the voices whispered, as he swayed unsteadily on his legs, the almost empty bottle of whisky still in his hand, the massive damage he was doing himself of no consequence. For who wanted to live forever. Forty, forty two years later, he sat with this elderly woman in Una's, so differnet to the cafe he had known, which had been tiny and astonishingly colourful, full of late-night drag queens, rent boys, the gay crowd. He couldn't believe it when a drag queen swept her manicured nails across his cheek and said: "You'd look lovely in drag". This was nirvana, so far away from the terror he had known and endured only months before. Derek, if that was his real name, swanned in, complaining about the number of clients he had serviced that night. A dozen, or so he said. Nothing that came out of Derek's well used mouth was very reliable, but nonetheless he was fascinated by him.

And Una, Una was always there, a substitute mother, someone who cared. He shared his dreams about finishing high school and going to university. None of the other boys had dreams or ambitions, beyond meeting a rich sugar daddy or having the op or staying out of jail for another month, and she treated him as her own special adoptee. He could have asked her for anything, she would have helped. She always wanted to know how his studying was going. She always said he would make something of himself. And then Una sold up and went back to Germany; and he never heard or saw of her again. The cafe migrated down the road to its present site, and she sold the business and returned to her homeland. She would be a woman in her seventies now; maybe no longer alive. He wished he could reach across time and thank her; and tell her that yes, things had worked out better than anyone could have possibly imagined.
He had a good job and two children and yes, he had finished high school and gone to universithy; and graduated. How proud she would be. How kind she had been.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jackson-tv27-2009jun27,0,5837449.story

Michael Jackson was the first great pop star whose career was shaped by television -- not merely showcased by it, like those of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, but inseparable from the medium. He was indebted to it and influenced it in turn. Across his four-decade career, he was often someone to listen to, but he was always -- for better and sometimes for worse -- something to see. A lifetime of pictures came back into focus on the day of his death, as cable news outlets ran bits of old videos and Facebook bloomed with links to YouTube clips.

He first appeared on TV in 1969, on "The Hollywood Palace" and "The Ed Sullivan Show" at the time of the Jackson 5's debut single, "I Want You Back." The sound of that single is astounding -- like Jackson's moonwalk, it seems to deform time. But the song told only part of that story: There is the dancing and the colorful funk of the costumes, and above all there is the face of Michael Jackson, the face of Things Beginning. The song is about a loss, but there is only elation in his performance. Watching that "Ed Sullivan" appearance now, he looks fearless, clear-eyed, beautiful and in charge. That he was only 11 years old -- you couldn't ignore it, and it was completely beside the point.

A family-friendly family band then, before they became a thing of tabloid fascination -- expressed in a 1992 TV movie, "The Jacksons: An American Dream" -- the Jacksons were made for television, and appeared there often in the twilight of variety. (They also became an animated cartoon, like the Beatles before them.) But as time went on, as Michael grew taller and unpredictably different, they seemed momentarily to fade. Things were changing, but you couldn't see where it would lead.

That was settled on the night of the 1983 TV special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever," in which he appeared with his brothers, but also, for five minutes, claimed the stage for himself -- performing a song not released on Motown, "Billie Jean," seizing upon the occasion to remake himself utterly. (He had already begun to remake himself physically.)

The appearance replayed the look and moves of the song's video; he wore a suit of spangles, a fat white glove, pants cut short to show his ankles and make his long legs look even longer. The dancing was encyclopedic, one move following hard on another: spins, crouches, kicks, Bob Fosse angles, Gene Kelly silhouettes, and of course the brand-new moonwalk. But the smile of the happy kid or the earnest entertainer was gone, replaced by a pleading anger that would thereafter become the dominant note in his self-presentation. It was a beginning, and it was also

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8579812

Further tests will be needed to determine whether prescription drugs played any role in Michael Jackson's death, coroner's officials have said.

The results of the post-mortem examination were deferred, possibly for between four and six weeks, and attention turned to Jackson's doctor, who was with him when he fell ill.

Dr Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who practices in California, Nevada and Texas, will now be questioned further by detectives, while his car was seized from outside Jackson's house in case it contained drugs or other evidence.

Charlie Beck, assistant police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said it was "way too early" to draw any conclusions about the singer's death.

He said officers spoke to Dr Murray immediately after Jackson's death but now wanted to carry out "an extensive follow-up interview".

Craig Harvey, operations chief of the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, said there was no evidence of foul play or trauma on the superstar's body but further tests were needed.

He said he could not comment on any specific drugs which Jackson may have been prescribed, but added: "We know he was taking some prescription medications."

He said: "There was no indication of any external trauma or any indication of foul play on the body of Mr Jackson."

The post-mortem examination took about three hours and Jackson's was later released to his family, he said.

A source close to the investigation said Jackson appeared to have suffered a heart attack. A heart attack would not rule out drugs playing a role in his death, but could also indicate a long-term problem such as heart disease.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/27/michaels-estate-may-turn-around/

It's the ultimate irony -- Michael Jackson's death could make his struggling estate flush with cash.

It's simple math. Jackson spent millions of dollars every year. He was paying $100,000 a month just for renting the Holmby Hills house.

We're told the bottom line could get significantly better and quickly.

That brings up an obvious point -- with significant child support on the line, there's even more of an incentive for Debbie Rowe to fight for custody. If she does, there will be an epic fight between Rowe and Katherine Jackson.

Spindly Stalks

*



Where I come from, no one knows
Where I'm going I can't disclose
but I'll wear no labels upon my clothes
on the day of my ascension

I deal the pack by remote control
I pluck straight aces from a garbage hole
but I won't take with me what I can't hold
on the day of my ascension

Chorus
From this moment on, all laws are reversed
Truth will be revealed to the creatures of this earth
on the day of my ascension

There's always someone I have to lose
I've got 4 freeways from which to choose
I'll have 8 exits that I can use
on the day of my ascension

People love me, well, people try
I have to leave them all by end by
Some day I'll leave them high and dry
on the day of my ascension

Where I come from no-one knows
Where I'm going I can't disclose
The angels will shriek when the engine blows
on the day of my ascension

The Triffids



"I heard 'hotel room' and I was there," the young man, a friend of his son, babbled excitedly; and they all laughed. They had all been at a dance, Uni Fest, in a club in Kings Cross. How different it was living with teenagers, in contrast to the cute little blond things which used to cling to him so determinedly. Even now, sometimes, if he happened to be walking down the street with his son and daughter, he would notice how they would walk so close to him on either side, as if they couldn't get any closer. After everything that had happened, everything they had been through, it was understandable, the clinging. "It wasn't easy," he said, often, and they stood in circles at yet another farewell, this time for the old News photographer Bob Finlayson, who has been made redundant at the age of 70. Join the queue. What was going on?

"Dad, will you drive us down to pick up Todd, they won't let him into the hotel room, he's down at Darling Harbour," my son said. It was four a.m. He had just got up. They had just got home. How funny they were. "Alright," he said, pretending he, too, might have once been young. "You don't have to get out of your pyjamas," Sam said. He shrugged. "No worries." As if anything mattered anymore. In these dark times. At least someone could laugh. Suzy gave him a peck on the cheek and wished him happy birthday; for his 57th. "How much can the passage of time solve," Bernard said at the farewell, when he retold the story. Their conflict, his fight for his children, had been legendary around the office, and even now the first question many people asked was, how's your kids?

"The boy's in university," he would say and they would express astonishment, for they all remembered him and his sister as little blond knee high kids running around the office while he desperately tried to file. All was lost. All harked back to the eighties. The photographers were settling in for one of their tribal gatherings, at the Aurora, the once seedy pub near Central which had now been renovated and was filled to the rafters with office workers on a Friday night. Many hadn't bothered to go home. Someone had put $500 on the bar. It was going to be a wild night. All else, all out, he could feel the cold fires burning in another place, he could see the night descended on the scrappy, depressed, over controlled city, where sniffer dogs hunted the citizenry and parking cops tyrannised the public. Where totalitarianism was only one step away.

We are certain, we really are, that in the pyramidic forces, in the shallows and even in the deeper waters, with the flash of silver fish and bright brick colours of the water and the sun drenched, colour drenched hills behind, of finding our fate. God has chosen you for a higher purpose, the voice intoned. Not just witness. Not just celebrant. To expose the human condition, to make sense of the unfathomable. To understand why, at Hawke's Nest, a little girl was deliberately starved to death by her parents, why the most evil of things could so easily happen. "Dead Evil" the father had tattooed on his knuckles. It was so cruel, beyond cruel, the staggering indifference these people displayed, the horror, the horror, hidden behind suburban doors, a little girl locked in a room, peering out.

It was perhaps the worst case of child neglect Australia had ever seen; and as the government continued to pour ever more greater sums into ever more dysfunctional departments, and the increasing swathes of welfare dependent under-class grew and grew and grew, and Labor politicians bleated about the country's most vulnerable, and did more harm than good with their bleeding heart rhetoric. A weak man needs someone weaker to make him feel strong; the ideology of the left ensured a public discourse ripe with victimhood, and the toiling masses, those who lived decent, simple, humble lives, just got up and went to work while bureaucrats built ever expanding empires and politicians, the pimples on the pie, spouted nonsense with all the profundity of a genuine believer. But they didn't really believe, he knew that. Their sole motivation, like every other life form, was survival.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN26331380

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday his hopes for a direct dialogue with Iran had been affected by what he described as the brutality of Tehran's "outrageous" crackdown on protesters in the aftermath of its disputed election.

"There is no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks and we don't yet know how any potential dialogue will have been affected until we see what has happened inside of Iran," Obama told a joint White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"There are going to be discussions that continue on the international stage around Iran's nuclear program. I think the direct dialogue between the United States and Iran and how that proceeds, I think we're going to have to see how that plays itself out in the days and weeks ahead," he said.

Obama rejected a demand for an apology from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said Obama was interfering in the Iranian election.

"I don't take Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements seriously about apologies, particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran," he said.

The U.S. leader praised Iranian protesters, saying: "Their bravery in the face of brutality is a testament to their enduring pursuit of justice. The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous."

He said Ahmadinejad's chief rival, former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, had "captured the imagination" of Iranians who want to open up to the West.

Obama reiterated U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear program, which Washington fears is to develop atomic weapons but Tehran says is for generating nuclear energy.

"Iran's possession of nuclear weapons will trigger an arms race in the Middle East that would be bad ... for the security of the entire region," Obama said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8578947

The cause of Michael Jackson's death may not be known for weeks, investigators have said.

Los Angeles County Coroner Jerry McKibben said an autopsy (post-mortem examination) was being held on Friday but results were not likely to be final until toxicology tests could be completed, which could take several days and maybe weeks.

However, if a cause of death can be determined by the autopsy, the results will be announced, Mr McKibben said.

Police said they were investigating the death, standard procedure in high-profile cases.

Officers are searching for a doctor who they hope will help in the investigation.

A Los Angeles police spokeswoman said they towed from Jackson's house a BMW owned by one of the superstar's doctors.

"We have not been able to interview the doctor yet. His car was impounded because it may contain medications or other evidence that may assist the coroner in determining the cause of death," she said.

Celebrity gossip web site TMZ.com reported that the doctor lived at the home. The spokeswoman said she could not confirm that and did not know the doctor's identity. She stressed that the doctor was not under criminal investigation but coroner's investigators wanted to contact him.

Jackson's brother Jermaine earlier said: "It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/turnbull-was-as-shocked-as-everybody-else-20090626-czv2.html

LIBERALS are fretting over what Godwin Grech may tell the police after the Treasury official was coughed up as the Coalition's Treasury mole.

Mr Grech, who has been in hospital for the past week, is understood to have started helping police with their inquiries into the fake email which has embarrassed the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull.

The investigation has also been widened to cover other leaks to the Coalition from Treasury over the past 18 months concerning Fuel Watch and the bank deposit guarantee.

Liberal sources have outed Mr Grech as the Coalition's mole in the Treasury, ostensibly to back Mr Turnbull.

If previous information was solid, Mr Turnbull could not be criticised for believing the email to be real, one source reasoned.

Mr Turnbull's leadership was damaged by the fake email affair, with Liberals agreeing that it was only the lack of an alternative that was preventing widespread destabilisation.

Mr Grech was the Treasury official who told a Senate hearing on June 19 of an email purportedly linking Kevin Rudd to efforts to assist car dealer John Grant. Mr Grant had given Mr Rudd a ute.

If the email were true, Mr Rudd would have misled the Parliament. The email turned out to be a hoax and it subsequently transpired that Mr Turnbull and his chief inquisitor, Eric Abetz, had had a secret meeting with Mr Grech in the lead-up to his Senate inquiry appearance.

Mr Turnbull and Senator Abetz have refused to confirm or deny the meeting, saying the whole fake email is subject to a police investigation.

Dark Wilderness

*



On stinking hot days when the ground burns your feet
You stare at the ceiling; the trains break your sleep
The roads have got pot holes, and your car falls apart
And the milkbar attendant would like to sell up

And our neighbours hold on to the things they know best
They sweep out verandahs and cry for their kids

The primary school children on the gravel school yard
They've got grins that start one side and go all around
Happy as they play make-believe games with themselves
For a while

And it's the older Greek women who are the ones dressed in black
Not new wave guitarists with cows on their backs

And the Thistle Hotel is a dream on it's own
And every pool table has blood on the cloth
The motor car workshop has dogs chained and tied to the fence
For the night

And the further you travel the longer it takes
Your car takes a beating, the roads aren’t the best
And I don't think the Colbys have been out to Thomastown
And somehow I doubt that they will
Somehow I doubt that they will

Thomastown.



There were so many shadows, it was like battling through a forest. But what was astonishing - and new - was that there was hope. Too easily wound back, they had said. Unfortunately their words were prophetic. Social movements came and went, but now, in the 21st century, the tyranny of the dominant ideologies had become all encompassing. No one was allowed to disagree, or debate. If questions were raised you were labelled an immoral person. It was an effective manner of shutting down debate. Everyone wants to be accepted. Everyone wants to be part of the pack, loved and admired. There was no independence of thought. There was no courage. There was no grace. The graceful cathedral towers of yesteryear had been painted in a bright, sickening yellow, and soared against a dark, polluted sky.

Their medieval origins, the faith people had put in these institutions over centuries, only made them more vulnerable to attack. He was mustering a uniform; he was seeking sustenance of the soul, to reach back and find a belief system which could service him now, in 2009. The inbetween year when the planet plummeted into the future, dizzying in speed, dazzling in intent. We were such tiny, frail creatures, and as attention moved away from the baby boomers, who had thought their generation was the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the most progressive, most morally correct, most committed, most talented generation of them all. What a shock it was for them to realise they weren't the centre of the universe after all. Even outsiders had been caught up in the fervour, in a higher moral cause, and believed their lives worthy.

We were shadows. They had grown fast and strong, out in the paddock, in the sunlight, but they had seriously over-reached. Now their spindly forms could barely sustain their own weight. The hypocrisy of the arguments was so apparent the myths could not be sustained. I'm trying to get ordinary dads on to the show, he had said, thrusting a microphone underneath the man's nose, his kid squirming with curiosity or frustration. His own children were teenagers now. How quickly the focus had shifted, how quickly things had changed. He had loved them so dearly. They had been such georgeous little things, blonde, cute, bubbling over with personality. Now they were gallumphing big things with their own personalities and their own lives; and he had been caught out with utter surprise when the principal kissed him on the cheek. The left wing principal who was always promoting some leftwing cause or other.

She had kissed him on the cheek and his daughter had prospered, so all the tiny things he could have picked a fight over he just ignored, let through to the keeper as the saying went. Life was so busy. He hadn't slept in four days; and finally passed out from exhaustion. I don't sleep anymore, he had cheefully announced. I'm getting so much done. But in the end we're all flesh and blood, ordinary souls, ordinary frames, and the astonishing images which marched through his brain, at once like soldiers and again like random episodes, veils, sheets of half completed narratives. These glimpses of a bigger, more chaotic world, assailed him from dawn to dusk. In the wee hours the thinking became more linear, but even then the parade of images was nonsensical, urgent, pointless, emotionally overwhelming.

Disgrace had been the movie, J.M. Coetze, the winner of so many literary prizes, the author of the book on which it was based. Was this the ultimately politically correct movie? the disgraced John Malkovitch, his fine, intelligent, older face dominating the movie, the sweeping African landscape. Joyce, the 84-year-old lady he took to the movies once a week, wriggled in her Dendy seat and afterwards they looked at each other quizzically. What was all that about? Did you like it. Full of moral ambiguities, like life itself. He had sex with a student and was in disgrace, yet displayed no remorse. His lesbian daughter was raped by a gang of black youths, yet she kept the baby. Just because I'm a lesbian doesn't mean I hate children, she said. And so we shrugged, not knowing what to think, acknowledging we had been rivetted, drawn into a world, walking in beauty, as the film's theme song went, and we didn't know what would drive us, as we walked out of the cinema, how much longer any of us had to live, how fast the late-life leukemia would destroy her.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=345610

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is acting like a three-year old throwing a tantrum by refusing to co-operate with police investigations into the OzCar affair, the government says.

Senior Treasury official Godwin Grech has been leaking unofficial information to the coalition since the days of the Howard government, Liberal MPs have told the ABC.

Mr Turnbull on Wednesday said the opposition would refuse to explain to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) its relationship with Mr Grech.

'There has never been a case where parliamentarians have assisted governments in trying to trace down leaks from the public service,' he told ABC Television's 7.30 Report.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said Mr Turnbull's actions were comparable with those of a toddler.

'His performance today has reminded me a bit of my three-year-old daughter throwing a tantrum after she's been caught scribbling on the walls,' Mr Tanner told ABC Television's Lateline.

'It's not going to work for Malcolm Turnbull, it doesn't work for her.'

An AFP search of Mr Grech's Canberra home on Monday uncovered a fake email, which purported to have Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office seeking to give Queensland car dealer John Grant special access to the government's $2 billion OzCar financing scheme.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=345547

Kevin Rudd's flair for languages isn't limited to Mandarin - he's spoken Spanish to welcome the King of Spain and his wife Queen Sofia to Australia.

The prime minister impressed visiting Spaniards when he used their native tongue to welcome the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, and his wife Queen Sofia to Australia at a reception at Parliament House on Wednesday.

The Spanish royals were on their first state visit since the Australian bicentenary in 1988.

They arrived in Canberra on Wednesday morning, part of a three-day visit to the national capital and Sydney.

Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull paid tribute to the shared values of Australia and Spain as modern democracies.

They thanked the King and Queen for the contribution their homeland had made to one of Australia's iconic industries - sheep farming.

Prized Spanish Merinos arrived in Australia via South Africa about 20 years after European settlement.

Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull will both have an official audience with the royals at Government House on Thursday.

The King and Queen will then fly to Sydney, where they will open the Instituto Cervantes, a Spanish government cultural institution.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=345613

Rental vacancy rates across NSW have dropped even further with Sydney recording its lowest rate in 12 months, Real Estate Institute figures show.

The Hunter, Central Coast, Sydney and the Illawarra have fewer rental properties available, new monthly figures from the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW) show.

Sydney's vacancy rate plunged 50 basis points from 1.5 per cent in April to 1.0 per cent in May.

'This is the lowest result recorded since May last year and is extremely disappointing,' REINSW president Steven Martin said in a statement.

Over the same period, available rentals dropped in the Illawarra from 1.9 per cent to 1.6 per cent.

In the Hunter, rates fell by 20 basis points to 1.7 per cent.

Mr Martin said first-time home buyer grants and record low interest rates had not boosted rental vacancies.

'These results are a double-edged sword - great news for landlords but grim news for tenants,' he said.

Second Class Warriors

*



I recall a schoolboy coming home
Through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky
A rain of falling cinders
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants
Like everyone
Just waiting for a chance
His father’s watch
He left it in the showers
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world
A world of books
And silent times in thought
And then the railroad
The railroad takes him home
Through fields of cattle
Through fields of cane
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
The waste memory-wastes
Further, longer, higher, older

Cattle and Cane, The Go Betweens.



He couldn't believe he had been robbed, yet again. Show the slightest vulnerability and they attack. These are the country's allegedly "most vulnerable". But it's perfectly alright for them to call us "white c...s". Why? Was the grumbling old right winger rising in him again, that one who had embarrassed him before, ranting against the injustices perpetrated by the pack mentality of the left. And yet he, too, had once been happy to accept the label "marshmallow left"; so long ago. So long ago there had been love and triumph and long wild nights as de rigeur; as the way things were. Stumbling, because you hadn't had a night out unless you experienced at least one black out. "I was thinking of making a pass at you," he said; and the handsome young man looked startled, and put his feet back in the car. "Were you?"

From all these days to ancient days, when Tennessee Williams haunted the back of cinemas looking for trade and the Dancer from the Dance bloke moaned about caring for his mother, about how all his friends were dying of AIDS. About how the great gay liberation movement had descended to a few ragged queens shuffling their pride porn collections from rented apartment to rented apartment, deteriorating in quality as they grew sicker and their finances dried up. And the fabulous nights dried up. And everything dried up. And rather than turning heads and hearts; they attracted nothing but a sympathetic stare from the young. How could you have let yourself go so badly? Time was cruel, but to the untouched, to the fantasist, to the secret lovers, to the young and young at heart, time was indifferent. They would never grow old.

Something to be, something to say you had been. That was the phrase that rang in those far off days, when he wrote deep and meaningful, fractured, incoherent, barely readable stories about the encroaching sterility of the modern world, the crystalline frost eating into the fabric of everything. How sad he had been, for no accountable reason. Living life on the bottom of a lead aquarium, squashed by the weight of the liquid mercury which passed for water in this terrifying place. There would be no saving grace. Except in oblivion, which he constantly sought. Except in the adventures he thought would mark him out; smashed as, never trust a man who doesn't drink. The increasing contrast between his private life and the mainstream job he now held down ultimately led to a schitzsophrenic break. The crippled dwarf hiding behind all those shields, it just wouldn't come out.

And so, ultimately, these strange constructions formed on the back of a wave of alcohol and other substances; abuse; oblivion. It was cute when he was stumbling into Una's at 3am as a young looking 16-year-old, and Una, a German woman who had come out here and established Sydney's first 24-hour coffee shop, would sober him up with black coffee and icecream, and all around him the voices: "He should be at home with his mother". But oblivion, desperate incoherence, a deep drunkenness; all of it was increasingly pathetic for a man in his 30s, 40s, 50s. There would always be people circling, that he had learnt. They were never well intentioned. They circled in the school yard and they circled in later life; and the deeper darknesses which had haunted his every waking moment, they were gone amidst the clutter of lost loves and uncompleted projects.

What was the lesson, if any? Live each day at a time, don't waste whatever you have left? Be humbled. Show an attitude of gratitude. He didn't think so. The lesson was one of narrative strength, of structure, of the broad sweep of people's lives. Don't take anyone for granted. Don't jump to conclusions. And so he smiled, in what he thought was a gracious way, and did not rise to the bait; the jackals sliding off him into the night. I'm so horny I'd f... a monkey, the rent boy loudly declared; and the old queen literally put his wallet back in his pocket. Easy availability cheapened the price. The desperate grunts. The frantic backs and forths; preying they would come quickly. So many young faces populated these tortured dreams; this life so far from any suburban normality. Television had changed us; media had changed us. And now what had once been a glittering surface was opaque, shot through with contradictions, complexities. He was sacred and he was ready; but the person he had waited for all his life, that great love which would override physical abnormalities and psychic tortures, the crippled, drunken dwarf who had lived so triumphantly in all his dreams, was not to be. He passed by every opportunity; and instead opened the door to strangers.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25681459-661,00.html

VICTORIA'S first swine-flu fatality remained critically ill at a country hospital for several hours because no intensive-care beds were available anywhere in the state, his family claim.

Anthony Splatt, 35, died on Saturday, two days after collapsing at his Colac home, becoming the second Australian to die from the flu strain.

Last night, his devastated parents Brian and Judith told of their nightmare, saying they believed their son had to wait about three hours while fighting for his life for a bed to be found, eventually at Maroondah Hospital early on Friday.

"His poor GP was pacing the floor in Colac because he was getting sicker and sicker," said Mrs Splatt, a nurse.

An angry Brian Splatt, 73, said: "There were no beds in Victoria. It seemed like forever (before a bed was found).

"We hope in a way his death makes more intensive care beds available."

The family told how Anthony, described by his shattered mum as "a gentle giant", had appeared to be suffering only a common cold last week.

"Anthony appeared to have an ordinary common cold with the usual symptoms," his mum said.

"He didn't complain (but) he was probably feeling a lot worse than he let on.

"He collapsed when he went to get up on Thursday."

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-23-voa26.cfm

Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf describes the declared victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran's recent presidential elections as a "coup d'etat."

Makhmalbaf says the present situation in Iran is not the result of voting irregularities, but a true and proper "coup d'etat."

Addressing the foreign media in Rome, the man who has become the official spokesman abroad for Mir Hossein Mousavi, spoke out strongly about the situation in Iran following the presidential election.

No peace

Makhmalbaf says opposition candidate Mousavi was preparing his victory speech when military commanders came to tell him he could not be the winner. He adds that the people of Iran do not want to be ruled by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the next four years and there will be no peace in Iran if he is the leader.

Makhmalbaf spoke of the slogans called out by the people in Iran, saying they do not want the atomic bomb, but democracy. The people, he says, feel they have been robbed of their vote and that Mr. Ahmadinejad is not their president. He says they shout out that they do not want a dictatorship, but a free society.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25682399-601,00.html

AT first you don't realise the young woman is actually dying.

She's lying on the ground, people around her, looking stunned.

Her eyes swell. She looks traumatised. Her eyes swell even more.

It's all happening so quickly that it's hard to work out what's going on - all you can see now are her swollen white eyes.

She could be any woman in Iran - a young Iranian woman with all her adult life ahead of her.

Except that she's been caught at the receiving end of her government's crackdown.

Suddenly you see blood start coming from her mouth. Then men around her begin screaming. It's not clear what they're shouting, but within seconds the shouts go from cries for help to shouts of horror.

Then she dies. She dies in 10 seconds. We sit in an internet cafe in Tehran and watch her die.

Since we first watched the video, the world has come to know the woman as Neda.

But before the world saw Neda Salehi Agha Soltan's death, the video had gripped the internet cafes of Tehran that particular day. There's a different one each day.

In this strange civil war, internet cafes have become the command-and-control centres of the opposition.

A man who had been sitting opposite me in a booth called me over - he gave me headphones and wanted me to watch and hear the 26-year-old music student dying during Saturday's protest in Tehran. Then he showed me others. Then someone else in the cafe beckoned me to their terminal. They had photos they wanted me to see.
We're all sitting at our computers in a suburb of Tehran, looking at the latest pictures from the city's killing fields.