Feverish and Indistinct

*



All the single ladies, all the single ladies, the music pounded in the bars and he danced, briefly, without consequence, without need for approval, without cooperation. Feverish and indistinct, he had been sick ever since he had arrived in Cambodia. There were alternatives, but none were savory. Diseased fate lines. Paths not taken. Consequence coming home. Outside the sun never stopped. By 7.30am the sky was a single glare and the heat was already kicking up from the ground. His own state made it impossible to embrace wherever he was. He couldn't be free. He couldn't see what was coming. Love to shadows, black moths picking at his skin. They pay you all the attention in the world, until the money runs out, his companion said, and they both laughed in the knowledge.

Here one eyed strangers and old Asian hands gathered to help, but there was nothing they could do. He had been free and he had made the wrong choice. He was sick and the era was not his own. Too many things had happened. Feverish and indistinct, he padded around the massive mansion, as empty as his own life. The ceilings were high. The marble gleamed. There were servants to accomplish everything. All was calm. All was bright. All was an infinity that could not be mustered. He was strong. He was weak. He had seen too much. He had betrayed too many. He had seen off his friends and survived, only to end in this terrible state.

The past is a troubled vault for both of us, my son, let's not open it up. The past is a troubled country, and all was past, all was lost, he was trapped in circumstances not of his own, the diseased fate line from which he struggled to survive. All was lost but not lost, all was crazy. He felt indistinct, as if nothing had ever mattered. The paper's were full of complex stories of another era; and everything he had hoped to contain, within himself, within his own story, was as nothing. The feverish intensity of this place, of the millions, of its frontier quality and the plain intensity of other things, these days we made our own.

All was coming but not conquered. He bowed his head to the surrounding tide. Next door the clatter of construction began early and ended late. Hard lives, different lives. Sometimes he came through, sometimes he simply wasn't there. Others looked on in concern, tried to treat him like a normal person. But there was nothing normal about this terrible state. He came back, I come back, the guard smiled. But there was nothing there, nothing to say: come get me, I am human, you are not divine. The gaps in the force field, the fabric of reality, they were opening up everywhere and there was little he could do to resist. Serious things were happening. It was quaint, die hard, and doomed to failure.

If things could be rewritten, if things could be done again, he would take a different path. He should never have come here. All these things were different. All these places were feverish and discontented, as if the world itself was turning upon him. They looked with kind eyes, from the comfort of their own places. Keep coming back, they said, as if it would make the slightest difference, as if this terminal train had another destination. All the time, everything, closing in, washing away, as his stomach roiled and everything became faint. It wouldn't be clear what was going to happen. There wasn't anyway out, perhaps he would just catch a plane to a different place, perhaps there was a solution, he just didn't know what it was, not right now.

The sting of the Scotch whisky made little sense, except as a symptom of relief. The beggars came and went. All was not lost, but he couldn't feel that now. Time would take him through to the end; on the passenger train; on the path less followed. He would climb into the hills and never forget. He was heading to Sihounikville, but perhaps, perhaps very easily, it was just another mistake. The times were crowded and decayed. He could see everything and nothing. He could finally come back into his own skin. He granted an audience to the king, as the spirit between the worlds. Yet even his own riding of the border of the real made little sense; and he could impart no wisdom, no advise. Stay clear of slippery places. Be clean and comfortable. Let the days roll away, for all is not lost, you only think it is, now, sick, feverish and indistinct.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/01/2832826.htm

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's admission that the Government deserves a "whacking" from voters is simply a ploy to gain headlines, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

In an extensive mea culpa yesterday, Mr Rudd said he needed to improve his performance following the home insulation debacle and the delay of some government policy announcements such as health.

His deputy, Julia Gillard, says the comments were needed but Mr Abbott says they are simply the words of a "rattled" Prime Minister who wants to keep his job.

"I think plainly this is the politics of seeking forgiveness that he's interested in," Mr Abbott said.

"The thing about this 'I'm sorry' routine is that he really wants to get off scot-free.

"I think he's shocked by the scale of his Government's own ineptitude - I think that's what's got him worried."

The Government is preparing to announce its plan to improve the country's hospitals - a plan that has been due since the beginning of the year.

Yesterday Mr Rudd indicated that the Commonwealth could take more control in the funding and planning of hospitals but was unlikely to take over their operation.

"Our challenge for the future is to make sure the system is properly funded and properly planned, but it has always been my view that hospitals are best run locally," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8541790.stm

A roadside bomb has killed 11 civilians in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, officials say.

The bomb, blamed on Taliban insurgents, hit a coach in Nawzad district, said a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The blast was well to the north of where Nato and Afghan troops are waging a major offensive against the Taliban.

Taliban insurgents have increasingly resorted to using roadside bombs as Nato countries have increased their troop numbers in Afghanistan recently.

"A newly-planted mine of the Taliban hit a coach bus, killing 11 civilians including two women and two children," said the spokesman, Dawud Ahmedi.

The Taliban has come under pressure from the increased foreign forces acting with Afghan troops but have struck back with bombings and suicide attacks.

A bomb left on a bicycle in Helmand's capital on Tuesday killed seven civilians.

And on Friday, the Taliban said they were behind an attack on the national capital Kabul which lasted several hours.

At least 16 people were killed, including 11 foreigners, two policemen and three gunmen.

Times At A Lost

*




Hard eyed girls served him drinks in the girly bars, their hands massaging him like black moths. He didn't like any of it. The boys were out for a drink. It was their world. Naked appetites. Things not seen. Rooms. Places above the stairs. Levels of desperation. Hard, black eyes which never smiled. All was a farce. All was different. Beyond this point there will be no memory. He was shadowed by something he could not see. He was walking hand in hand with someone who simply wasn't there. He courted psychosis and let it die away, like an ancient breed. The world had become a very complicated place.

He was skipping across fate lines because there was no choice. There were shadows everywhere, in the pot holed streets. Wealth cut swaves through the indigenous poor. Surely there were more important things than drunken westerners stumbling into bars, begging to be fleeced. There were other ways of being. Other paths. He was shot through with envy and happy to be alive; fragile, questing. There weren't any simple solutions. He shadowed everywhere, the paths of others, ignoble professions. Aqui estoy, he said in Spanish, here I am, such a talented man in such a degrading occupation. And yet it had once seemed such a noble occupation, the only one. Telling other people's stories.

Now the stories had burnt to cinders and he had moved on. Spiders moved across pages and rewrote words. Things shifted fundamentally. If there was a beginning there had to be an end. But in the great silence at the end of time who was to know what was real and what was not. He was heading down to Sihanoukville soon; down to the beach, to be quiet, to gather all the different threads that had brought him to this strange place. The gardens might be manicured, but beyond the walls life was harsh. He looked out and beyond, and could not see. There was no solution. There was no way forward. He could be free. He could be safe. He could be anything he chose to be.

The crowded Sky Train sped across the darkened lots and the snarling traffic far beneath. He had entered another realm. The future was always going to be another country. He didn't want, much, to be calm about anything. His stomach was lead and chaos; and all things had come down to this. There was no way out. He would soon enter another realm. Become a different person. It was possible to ceaselessly reinvent. Shadows stopped at the fringe of everything. Maybe there was a light after all. Were any of these stories worth telling. The newspapers were full of amazing tales; every last one of them a world within a world. It wasn't too late.

Things were closing in. The alternatives were closing down. His lungs gasped at the slightest exercises. He danced, briefly, on the floor of the bar, All the Single Ladies, All the Single Ladies, Beyonce. My kids like this song, he said, how pathetic is that. The girls joined in, because they were paid to join in. Anything to humour the Westerners. The big tipping westerners. They clapped, but they didn't even really know what they were clapping to; the rhythms complex and alien to their ear. But anything to please. Mister, mister. All was lost. He finished dancing and sat back on the bar stool; surrounded, as always, by the black moths patting at his flesh; money talks, only money talks. Soon, he would just have to escape.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61R03720100228

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Labor government has lost the lead it has held over the conservative opposition since coming to power in 2007, a poll published Sunday showed.

The Taverner poll, published in Sydney's Sun-Herald newspaper, showed Labor and the conservative coalition running equal at 50-50, once other parties were eliminated under Australia's system of transferable voting.

However, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd remained the preferred prime minister, with 53 percent saying he was the better choice for the job, compared to 40 percent for opposition leader Tony Abbott. An election is expected by the end of the year.

The poll of 609 voters was conducted in New South Wales state Wednesday and Thursday nights, as Rudd's government was struggling with the fallout from a controversial home insulation scheme linked to several deaths.

Friday, Rudd demoted the man in charge of the scheme, Environment Minister Peter Garrett, handing responsibility for it to other ministers.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/peter-garrett-barefoot-and-broken-after-demotion/story-e6frf7jo-1225835104165

A DEJECTED Peter Garrett yesterday insisted he would stay on in politics, despite being demoted for his role in the $2.5 billion home insulation fiasco.

The Environment Minister was photographed outside his Randwick home in Sydney, looking miserable, barefoot and dressed down in tracksuit pants and a grey T-shirt.

Stepping outside his house to give his dog Woody a quick comfort stop, a polite Mr Garrett declined to answer any questions about the bungled insulation project or how he felt about his demotion.

But his spokesman said he fully intended to contest the next election in his seat of Kingsford Smith.

"The Minister fully intends both on continuing to represent Kingsford Smith and serving in the Cabinet as the Minister (for) Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts," the spokesman said.

But some of his caucus colleagues say Mr Garrett - a former rock star who fronted the hugely successful Midnight Oil - is privately considering an exit from politics.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Caucus sources were putting it about last week that Mr Garrett had discussed the option of not standing again with close friends.

They said Mr Garrett's wife in particular was pushing for him to get out as she grew increasingly appalled at the humiliating treatment being meted out to him.

Recruited by former Labor leader Mark Latham as a star candidate in the 2004 federal election, Mr Garrett has always struggled with the impossible task of melding mainstream political reality with the strong conservation and human rights views he espoused as lead singer of the Oils.

He was named Environment Minister - but did not have responsibility for the headline-grabbing area of climate change, which was given to Penny Wong.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday stripped him of further responsibility following revelations that Mr Garrett had been warned at least 19 times about the risks of defective and dangerous work emerging within the home insulation scheme - linked to a spate of house fires and the deaths of four young installers.

Some of his caucus colleagues say he should resign for the good of the Government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/asia/28thailand.html

BANGKOK (AP) — The former determination after a court ordered the seizure of $1.4 billion of his assets.

But analysts and editorials speculated that the Supreme Court’s decision not to seize all $2.3 billion of Mr. Thaksin’s frozen assets would at least temporarily ease political conflicts that have plagued the country for the past four years.

The court ruled Friday that Mr. Thaksin, who made a fortune in telecommunications, abused his power to enrich himself and his family while in office.

In a statement issued Saturday, Mr. Thaksin, who is in self-imposed exile in Dubai, said the ruling would not stop him from trying to lead a nonviolent struggle against the government.

In possible fallout from the court’s decision, a small explosive shattered the glass doors of a branch of Bangkok Bank in the Thai capital on Saturday night, but it caused no casualties.

No one claimed responsibility, but the bank has been the target of protests by Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, who associate it with figures they blame for Mr. Thaksin’s ouster in a military coup in 2006.

The Bangkok Post said Saturday in an editorial that “now that the issue of Thaksin’s billions has been legally settled, it is time to give the wounds a chance to heal.”

The Border Of The Real

*



He had woken up at the end of his own life; felt frail, felt feverish, indistinct, unreal. Outside the sun beat down mercilessly. Yet all was frail, all was unreal. He could not connect. He did not want to go outside. He did not want to see what there was to see. Mass murder was just another item in a crowded life. Too much had been absorbed. He was skipping across fate lines and was now at the end of one path, the beginning of another. Times were quiet, muffled, indistinct. Shadows were everywhere, yet he couldn't see past them. There were other things to be doing, yet he could not do them, not here, not now. It was going to be a long time before he felt sane again.

If memory kept him alive, they too were feeble and indistinct. If life boiled down to only a few distinct fates, what did it matter what path he chose? He had done as much of the right thing as he could possibly manage. He had done the right thing by his children as best he could. There were paths and there were paths. There were bungalows by the sea and futures not yet written. There were quiet times and enormous pain. Shame, guilt, regret, remorse, it rolled off his tongue. Cunning, baffling, powerful, it rolled off his tongue. There was no answer. There was no solution. There was no way back. Lost opportunities were simply that, lost.

If all was removed, if all was taken back, what lay behind? There were brief flashes, flesh on flesh, brief loves in other decades, and even then, no way back, not really, not except for brief flashes of altered time, images that could almost be real, connections that could almost be made. He had finished City At The End Of Time, In the beginning was the word, and the feverish intensity of the book which had fitted so remarkably well with the intensity of Bangkok and his own fragile deliriums, was already fading. There would be other worlds, other places, other times. He didn't even know why he had begun this, or where it would end. He wasn't who he used to be.

At the end of all time, or the end of their own times, when they were buffeted before oblivion, other things would settle, other truths were out. He was living his life backwards, trekking back through places he had already been. Even the Riverside Bar, he had been there before in a different time, with the legless beggars stopping at their table, the elephant walking down the street, the American stopping at their table to shout them a beer before being caught up in the swirl of the traffic and whatever else he was up to, in the multiple fate lines that represented every single day in this terrible, heat blitzed frontier, in this place where cruelty and opulence jostled each other.

Broken down and broken apart, he had tried to call his kids but couldn't get through. He could see the shadows rising. He could feel fate turn to a crisp. He could send them running and never see them again. He could hand everything over and hope for the best. Nothing was sane. Nothing was sacred. Feverish dreams haunted him even while awake. Feverish and indistinct. There was nothing to hold on to. He saw his name held up by the driver in the waiting crowd at Pnom Penh airport, that name which had been viewed in so many different contexts, here in such a different place. All would be well, but it wasn't well now. Feverish and indistinct, these days were simply to be endured. Let it go now, let it go.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/27/2831982.htm

Political commentators are warning the decision to seize more than $1 billion belonging to Thailand's former prime minister might precipitate a 'final showdown' between his red shirt supporters and the yellow shirts who support the army and the monarchy.

Thailand's Supreme Court had prepared for the trial for weeks and the interest in it was so high that the entire seven-hour verdict was broadcast live on television.

Thaksin Shinawatra still has many supporters in Thailand, and as the decision was read out his red shirt supporters were seen crying on television.

An extra 20,000 security personnel have poured into Bangkok in recent weeks in the expectation it would provoke riots.

On the one hand the decision legitimises the army's decision to stage the 2006 coup on the grounds Mr Thaksin was corrupt, while letting him keep the assets he earned prior to becoming prime minister.

Pavin Chachawanpunpang, from the Institute of South East Asian Studies, says the verdict was seen as something of a compromise.

"Thaksin has always claimed that prior to becoming prime minister for 2001 all the assets and the money he earned honestly, so this portion of money Thaksin says that the court should not take it away," he said.

"So it's a good decision for the court, but obviously because of the military coup in 2006 they had to find some kind of justification."

http://www.news.com.au/national/humbled-kevin-rudd-admits-failings-after-garrett-demotion/story-e6frfkw9-1225834987287

KEVIN Rudd has admitted his Government has "disappointed a lot of people" and let itself down by not living up to its promises or talking enough.

In a candid interview with columnist Laurie Oakes, the Prime Minister admitted he had been too focused on policy details and had not spent enough time explaining his climate change scheme to voters.

"We've disappointed a lot of people," he said. "We've let ourselves down."

The debate over the bungled handling of the Federal Government's home insulation scheme "reflects a wider disappointment in the community about what the Government has done".

Hours after the interview, he demoted Peter Garrett and announced a rethink in his Government's climate policy.

The Government's "Mr Fix-it", Greg Combet, has been handpicked by Mr Rudd to find a solution to the insulation mess. The scheme has been dumped after the deaths of four workers installing insulation batts, dozens of house fires and faulty insulation leaving more than 250,000 homes potentially unsafe.

Mr Rudd had stood by Mr Garrett for weeks amid sustained pressure from the Opposition over the scheme. But yesterday afternoon he cut his losses.

"Let's not try to sugar-coat this," Mr Rudd said. "This represents a reduced range of responsibilities."

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Mr Rudd "can't even sack a minister properly."

The Wild West

*



He was fragile, sick on the gut, looking out the mansion doors across the scaped garden and the guard at the gate. It's the wild west here, the wild west, David says. Cambodia is a dangerous place. Dangerous place. We began at the Riverside Bar, and it was as if we had always been here, or he had been here before. First time deja vu, it was always strange. Time crawled and yet the universe was his answer. He had surrendered and died and spun out from a former life. He had been here before and he had never been here. Moments were everywhere, time splashing. He couldn't help himself, he was back to zero. It was awful and it was nice. At least he knew he was alive.

Until he woke up in the morning and all he could remember were the hard faced girls in the Ten Bar; all of them attentive if you wanted. He could surrender. He could die. But things would never be the same. There wasn't a solution to this. Sick to the core, he tried to stop from vomiting. He wasn't going back, or backwards, in any sense of the word. The car bounced over pot holes, and the contrast between the glistening top end aspects of Bangkok and the barely developed aspects of Pnom Penh were complete. There were shadows everywhere, gangsters, gangsters. He could find his path and he could say sorry. It was the cruellest and most blessed of times.

In equal measure, the past and the future, one step forward and one step back, every movement a crab like sideways shuffle. These guys are gangsters, he said, mowing through the dark streets. It's dangerous. Don't walk out here on your own. Some do, but I don't. It's the wild west and I'm top of the food chain. In equal measure. In times gone by. In the future which may never be ours. In times gone by. In the briefest of circumstances. In compassion and kindness and hard eyed bar girls who couldn't care less, who didn't really want to dance, who didn't really like you, who covered you with affection if they were paid and ignored you if they weren't.

There weren't any friends here, there were only opportunities. There were only different ways of being. There was kindness, but only of the most desperate kind. Sometimes I think he's still on it, he said. And the streets were marked. He was marked. There were shadows everywhere, now that the night had fallen. They passed the Pnom Wat, after which the city was founded. People lounged under trees, just as he had imagined. But there was complete disregard. He didn't know what he was doing. The sickness came in waves. He had done a job on himself yet again. His time was over. Time for someone else to take over. The sentinel. The reporter. The documenter of lies.

It had come to his attention; here in the sickening, filthy heat. Here where grand gestures meant everything. The four wheel drive parked outside the Riverside Bar denoted high status. Beggars wheeled themselves by. Are they really land mine victims? he asked. Some of them are, came the reply. This was a different place. These were different times. There wasn't one simple answer. He needed to rest. Oh save me, save me, he thought, yet he was beyond saving and beyond death; and these last spasmodic movements, periods of sobriety, work, communion, togethernes, they were all coming to an end in a spasming fit. He couldn't keep anything down; he couldn't survive much longer, not like this, not with this level of mental dysfunction. They pased more shadows and amidst the old wooden houses; and he was gone.

Above The Traffic

*



Everything turned to dust, or more precise than that hoary old cliche, everything he had ever believed in turned out to be false. That was the way of it. Bukowski, Ballard, Burroughs, they were all wrong. We were born to strew flowers down dead avenues. Really? Well, perhaps. He was surrounded by diseased consciousness and crumbling overpasses, crowded train carriages, empty lots and soaring apartment blocks. Everywhere wealth and poverty, extremes, jostled against each other. In a city of 14 million people that never stopped.

He thought, ever so briefly, of revisiting the Miami Hotel where they used to stay forty years ago. A young man, a different man. Bangkok was astonishing; and the people he met, petty English crims, gangsters, harsh times, loud mouthed Americans. He had the picture clearly: if he heard one more loud mouthed American he would turn into a whirling dervish and slice their heads off; and the meeting would be full of bouncing balloon heads shouting: get yourself a sponsor, step 11, surrender or die.

Ian has finally gone back to Oz after spending up big on a Thai girl he particularly loved. She showed him a very good time. He showered her with gifts and money. We took him to the airport yesterday; driven in a private car from Pattaya. The driver gave me a big hug after I tipped him 250 baht - ten dollars - and the muggy heat closed in around him as he entered the lair of yet another gangster. Why was it so? Wasn't there a straight man left on the planet?

All too soon the wild ones were there, the mawing giants in the head. He was crystallised and confused, confirmed and bereft. He knelt down to prey and rose up to condemn. He saw the shadows flickering everywhere and knew there would be no end. He hoped and hoped that sanity would prevail. All the future held was dread. He had heard enough, made enough friends. He saw the darkness take his best friends and could barely look up, could barely process the grief. They had been everything to him. Even in the bars, even late at night in perilous circumstance, they had been his tribe, his bedrock, his firm belief.

And it all fell apart. Funny the stuff that went cycling and cycling through his brain. They were the bait, allowed into the Rex Hotel under age to attract the queens; live bait. Later, in therapy, the rare ones he met or heard from the same time and circumstance spoke of a most astonishingly abusive situation, of being terribly scarred by all that had gone down, the creeping hands, the drinks, the money. Those snakey men. They spokes of having never felt worse and of having barely survived. They spoke of the streets and they spoke of that bar; and it was the cruelest circumstance.

He had survived; in a manner of speaking. And he was here. Soon to be gone. The days followed. He reached out in sadness and relief; and was surrounded by strangers.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7036973.ece

Relatives of 27 people killed when Nato aircraft bombed a civilian convoy in southern Afghanistan have demanded that foreign forces leave the country.

Afghan officials said that at least four women and a child were among the dead. Twelve other civilians were wounded when three minibuses were attacked on Sunday in a remote part of Uruzgan province.

“They came here to bring security but they kill our children, they kill our brothers and they kill our people,” said Haji Ghullam Rasoul, whose cousins died in the attack. “We’ve had enough.”

The local governor and the Interior Minister said that all of the victims were civilians. Nato commanders said that their new strategy was focused on protecting the population — but the airstrike capped a week in which more than 60 civilians were killed by Nato weapons. The Afghan Cabinet called the attack “unjustifiable”.

The convoy was travelling from Day Kundi to Kandahar when Nato and Afghan forces targeted it. Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that troops on the ground thought the civilians were militants “en route to attack a joint Afghan-Isaf unit”, but later confirmed that there were women and children at the scene. Isaf refused to say how the airstrike was authorised, “to avoid prejudicing the investigation”.

Dutch and Australian troops are based in Uruzgan alongside US Special Forces. The Netherlands is expected to withdraw its forces by the end of this year after the collapse of the Dutch Government.

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/02/23/the-time-has-come-to-go-mr-garrett/

WHAT’S happened to the Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil fame?

You know, the bloke who lamented about the big corporations, the destruction of our environment and our treatment of indigenous Australians.

Now he’s part of it – the political machine which seems more intent on survival than truly saying sorry.

As one radio jock crudely joked, he should be singing the Batts are Burning over his government’s bungled home insulation scheme.

Yesterday, as pressure mounted on the federal environment minister to resign, he was trying to suggest it would be wrong of the opposition to claim to know the cause of the home insulation deaths before State

Government safety authorities and coronial inquests had delivered their findings.

“I certainly do acknowledge where there has been a tragic loss of life, in relation to the potential linkages between this program and a fatality, that that is a matter of great concern,” he told parliament.

“I make the point to the leader of the opposition that I have made no judgement on what the cause of those fatalities was.

“And neither should I in my position as minister and frankly, neither should he as opposition leader.”

Mr Garrett claimed it was an abuse for MPs to infer what had or had not caused the deaths.

“It is the case there have been, regrettably, these fatalities and their association with this program have been identified and I very, very much regret that.”

Not as much as the people who have lost loved ones because the scheme was rolled out without proper safety systems – or checks on shonky operators – in place.

In Rudd’s rush to save the economy and deliver stimulus cash, there was no thought for the huge number of fly-by-night operators who could emerge – grabbing the money and ripping off pensioners with unsafe insulations in the process.

Mr Garrett argued he was responsible for delivering a program that had helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stimulate the economy during the global financial crisis and created extra employment.

“I take responsibility ... for ensuring that it was delivered in a way that was safe,“ he said.

Of course, he’s talking exactly like the corporate giants he blasted in his Midnight Oil days.


Computer sample pics. Laptop stolen. Travelling. In Bangkok, Thailand.

Beyond The Border Of The Real

*



A man can stand almost anything except a succession of ordinary days.
Goethe.



Sick blocks of yellow and green floated before him. He couldn't stand the crowds. He couldn't stand the claustrophobia. He couldn't stand the Americans. And then the kids started coming, Chuck said loudly, they were always called Chuck. And this 15-year-old delivered the most death squad hard core AA speech I had ever heard, and he finished: if you have a substance abuse problem, and you don't go to meetings and you don't get yourself a sponsor, God have mercy on your soul. Everyone laughed, even he to some degree, as whole patches of the room disappeared beyond the real.

There isn't anyway, in the middle of the biggest open air brothel on the planet, that he could feel comfortable. There were too many ghosts haunting the belfry, he was simply too old to do it all again, or even to take it seriously. Wars were fought far off. Young men died for no good reason. Injustice stalked the earth. As an ancient, web-footed creature, his natural instinct was to hide. Whatever the environments had been in his past lives; some had been extremely hostile indeed. They walked. They watched the sun rise over Pattaya Bay. The luke warm water sapped at his feet.

The working girls, hoping to catch a falang even now spilling out of one of the bars, pissed, horny, ready to spend on her. Their hard black eyes hit him as he walked. Some transformed hard old faces - well 30 is old in Thai prostitute years - into dimpling smiles of the pretty young girls they had once been. There was no connection and he kept on walking. If anyone approached he waved them away. Where you go? Walking, he would say; but perhaps they would confuse it with the famous Walking Street where the katoys, the lady boys, flogged their many wares. He was dimpled in a smile and waves of sickness came upon him, even now, all these days later. He would not survive. He had made too many mistakes.

The speed boats have pulled up along the thin strip of sand, ready for the tourist day to begin. Workers put up the umbrellas, waiting for the rich to past their day in the shade, watching the bay, being fed upon. His own gross flapping of wings, the strange creatures that lived up there, the haunting, the very severe haunting, would probably never leave him now. Once diseased always diseased. Once a junkie always a junkie. He knew it wasn't true, but struggled down the ages with his own instinct for flight. If there was any way out of the cycle he did not know it.

Oh collapse me, oh grasp me, God have mercy on your soul, your ancient souls - for there was always more than one visitor. There had been the grim faced days when he had shown up for work, when the hallucinations were effectively suppressed, or partially suppressed, and he could function like an ordinary person in an ordinary working world; but everything was different now. Oversea Call All Over The World, the sign declares on what purports to be a 24-hour internet cafe on Beach Road, Pattaya. But it wasn't open at 5am. He saw the old men walking their little dogs. He saw the working girls in odd little knots, watching him in vain hope.

And he cried out: don't leave me now. I didn't mean to be so indifferent. I will surrender. I will become a pack animal. I will never have another original thought. Whatever it takes. I will become a drone like the rest of you, preaching to the converted and the unconverted alike. I've been very successful, as you can tell, the American said; and no, he couldn't tell. He looked like just another honky to him. The girls have almost all gone now. The bars have fallen quiet, briefly. By ten am the hard core drinkers will be back, reliving the best times, having the best time. He saw an old soul in a young man's body standing in a desolate doorway, perhaps the entrance to cheap lodgings, drug dens, iniquity and despair. And he shuddered. For beyond the border of the real lay many mysteries; and in particular this door, this young man, these people he may once very well have been, lay the chaos.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j3NbzvMmUDvfcUVYJxn3bTV7wZRA

BANGKOK — Thousands of protesters forced Thailand's biggest bank to close its headquarters Friday, raising tensions one week before a court ruling on the fortune of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Bangkok Bank shut its head office for the day and sent 3,000 staff home because of the rally by Thaksin's supporters, who say the bank has links to a royal aide whom they blame for the 2006 coup that toppled their idol.

Police said around 1,500 demonstrators had gathered in Bangkok's Silom business district. The protest movement, known as the "Red Shirts" because of their signature clothing, said 10,000 attended.

"Bangkok Bank is a capitalist institution which has destroyed our democracy," Red Shirt speaker Worawuth Wichaidit told the crowd from a stage.

The Red Shirts said former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda, who is now the chief adviser to Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, used to be Bangkok Bank's chief adviser and continues to have ties to it.

They accuse Prem of masterminding the September 2006 putsch. Telecoms tycoon Thaksin is now living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term imposed in absentia in 2008 for corruption relating to a land deal.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gZ4HaJhGZVjzdJHEy6N3FQOWkhMQ

BANGKOK — Thailand's army chief vowed Thursday that troops would continue using a British-made bomb scanner that failed a series of tests, as a fresh blast in the troubled south wounded 13 people.

The government and army have both faced criticism since Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Tuesday that tests showed the scanners, on which Thailand has spent 21 million dollars, performed worse than sniffer dogs.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement Thursday calling on the government to stop arresting people based on evidence gathered using the GT200 wand, made by British firm ATSC.

But army chief General Anupong Paojinda told reporters that the machines, which are widely used in the insurgency-hit, Muslim-majority south, would stay in use and had proved successful on 300 occasions.

"What the army is trying to tell the public as well as the media is that low-ranking soldiers in the south have used it and have had success in protecting people's lives," Aung he told press conference.

"I respect the scientific tests but at this stage there is no banning order by the government so the army will continue to use it," he said.

The detectors have already been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

White Knights and Fading Gents

*



It was too cruel; and indifferent; and whole slabs of fate just pealed away; flapping, diseased. It's not linear, a voice said. Why did you think it would be? Nor is it constant. Love comes and goes. Opportunity comes and goes. Now he was staring across the Thailand sea. No butts: For King, For Country, For Wildlife, says the sign. Even now, at 7am, prostitutes cruise Beach Road on Pattya, picking up westerners who have been out in the bars all night. There were times of need. There was a hunger which was so morbid, so filled with wrong thoughts and inappropriate gestures. Little Willy didn't work anymore, had become disconnected from the brain, from the body, from the life it had once been so ready to entertain. A dick has no conscience, he said to Rebecca, and they both laughed. See, she said, you've got your first line already.

We didn't get to walking road last night, we didn't even get to go out dancing. She's 47, no children, very good looking for her age. But what future for an older woman? What future at all here, where the Western men only glance at them, aghast at their size and ugliness, before continuing their pursuit of the baby faced prostitutes, the good time girls, I love you long time. At night there are shadows everywhere, as people by their hundreds, indeed thousands, lounge along the thin strip of the beach; watching, waiting. What's he selling, Ian asked of someone they had brushed past. Himself, probably, he replied. Yuck, declared Ian, who had three girls in tow and was forking out a small fortune on a daily basis to keep the circus in dazzling synch.

Despite his best instincts he had somehow come to Pattya for the convention; and was now expected to pay more than $50 to listen to a bunch of loud mouthed yanks. He didn't care, it was keeping him sober, in some sense. But the wild child; the dysfunctioning brain, the emotional sighs, the wobbly glitz that was reality on a bender, all of it played havoc. All he wanted to do in a new town was sort out which bar he was going to make his home; which drugs were able to be scored where; and settle in for a good time Charlie, for days following days which he would only ever remember as a blur, and couldn't care. It was dark, it was wrong, but that was it: there was no escaping his diseased consciousness, the way things just didn't work properly, the way the sky and the sea, the palm trees and the prostitutes, all merged together in a sickening desire to escape.

He listened to all those voices droning on, all those egostical f'ng idiots; he lounged comfortable in the lower lobby of the five star hotel; he saw things he wished he had never seen. The traditional Thai fishing boats dot Pattaya Bay, their red bows dipping in the morning sea, adding atmosphere to an undeniable scene. Speed boats cut their way through. The water bobbed. The prostitutes lingered. The umbrellas began to go up for the day's tourist traffic. The weather was nothing and the beach was nothing, but here it was all about Go Go girls and getting wasted. The tug of the heart. And lots of other tugs as well. What you like, bomb bomb, mouth, breast? He shivered in some sort of terrible male despair. There wasn't anyway out of this. He tipped her well for effort.

These ancient chrones, these ancient voices, all were coming back to aunt him. There was no way he was going to stay sane, sober or sensible. How could it be, when every shrieking voice said the opposite, come dance with me, come die with me. I don't have another recovery in me, they would all declare. But how could you really know? Wasn't there depth without end, wasn't their permutations on every available theme, wasn't it possible to make love to both sexes, to be kind to older women; and to even make love. Wasn't it possible, as he watched the speed boats cut past the traditional Thai fishing boats, for all ife to be consumed in a single flame, for everything, fate, desire, oblivion and fulfilment, for all of it to come rushing up from the bottom of a glass or a dripping, brand new needle. Wasn't it possible to seek oblivion in all the wrong places and still survive?

Well, not really. Most all the stories were sad stories. Most all the stories had sad endings. Lynn died pregnant. Colin died of AIDS. Jan left behind two bewildered, psychically gifted children. Their deaths, just a skeleton in the ground, makred a tragedy beyond understanding. Already the red white and blue of the sails, tiny figures beneath, drifted over the fishing boats. Tourist fishing boats just as like. He felt compounded and deranged, concerned and yet, as a provisioned oblivion seeker, worried about the dark and the derangement that was just beyond eyesight, just beyond physical thought, just beyond the "border of the real", to quote the city at the end of time. Do you dream of a city at the end of time? We're already there. We travelled out of Bangkok, past the concrete phalanxes of the Sky Train, past the airport, down the surreal, futuristic, despairing highway with its endless cars and grey skies closing in, right on to the highway. And they knew, they were already there.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j3NbzvMmUDvfcUVYJxn3bTV7wZRA

BANGKOK — Thousands of protesters forced Thailand's biggest bank to close its headquarters Friday, raising tensions one week before a court ruling on the fortune of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Bangkok Bank shut its head office for the day and sent 3,000 staff home because of the rally by Thaksin's supporters, who say the bank has links to a royal aide whom they blame for the 2006 coup that toppled their idol.

Police said around 1,500 demonstrators had gathered in Bangkok's Silom business district. The protest movement, known as the "Red Shirts" because of their signature clothing, said 10,000 attended.

"Bangkok Bank is a capitalist institution which has destroyed our democracy," Red Shirt speaker Worawuth Wichaidit told the crowd from a stage.

The Red Shirts said former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda, who is now the chief adviser to Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, used to be Bangkok Bank's chief adviser and continues to have ties to it.

They accuse Prem of masterminding the September 2006 putsch. Telecoms tycoon Thaksin is now living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term imposed in absentia in 2008 for corruption relating to a land deal.

"Prem is the one who has caused our country to collapse," Worawuth added.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/tigerwoods/7273941/Tiger-Woods-sticks-to-the-script-in-his-apology-and-reveals-nothing-of-note.html

He may have been among “40 friends, colleagues and close associates” gathered in a room at the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Florida, but he looked about as comfortable as he must have been that November day when his wife smashed a golf club through the window of his Cadillac.

Stiff, staccato, lumpen, he appeared to be a man speaking under duress. Indeed in his formal buttoned-up collar but no tie, he had the sartorial arrangement of a hostage, hastily dressed for a video ransom demand. Though in truth most hostages look more relaxed than this.

Related Articles

Woods has never done spontaneous. Since his minders pulled down the shutters around him after he had revealed himself as a gauche frat boy with a string of off-colour gags during an interview with GQ magazine in 1997, his every utterance has been stage-managed.

Even his extra-marital relations exuded an air of organisation; many were seemingly prearranged by a third party in advance. This is a man who even conducted his flings to timetable.

Thus was his public confession more controlled than a tee shot from the third at Augusta. There were no cameras in the room snapping away to catch him looking vulnerable. No reporters to ask tricky questions. No unauthorised television lenses ready to zoom in the moment his bottom lip quivered.

The White Pidgeon

*



"There's a pidgeon here, it's sick," Ian said in the front garden. He didn't bother to look at first. He was reading City At The End Of Time and did not feel well - and Ian's endless enthusiasms were exhausting. He looked inside to the cool of the house. The pool burbled occasionally beside him. Not so far away, the ever chaotic traffic of Bangkok growled and snarled; and people sat inside their tin cans. He deliberately looked down now as the Sky Train flew high across the darkened streets at night, the open air markets, the derelict buildings, the condos, the ancient style Thai shops and the glistening malls.

"It was as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had woken up in the future of his own life," someone said, and he shuddered because he could feel the contradictory forces pulling him in all sorts of directions. Perhaps he had woken up in the city at the end of his own life. Next morning, as he pottered about after yet another restless, semi-sleepless night, rotating from couch to bed to floor to sitting outside reading to couch to couch to bed to floor, he saw the white pidgeon in the garden. It had not flown away.

He liked to watch the pidgeons in the evening. They were roosting in the edge of the eves in the house next door. Half a million dollar house and they let that happen, I'd kill them, Paul declared; and we knew bad spirits had come to rest. He picked it up, after it shuttled nervously from him, and it instantly spewed liquid on to the ground. It was clearly very sick; pretty, white, and very very sick. He placed it next to the pool in the hope that it would at least take a drink of water. He had saved a pidgeon in Redfern, and after communing with the ancient spirits of the land, those voices left from long ago, it had flown away, rebuilt, refreshed, perhaps not grateful.

The pidgeon sat stunned next to the pool for the next two hours while he did his morning routines, including this. And when he went out it had barely moved more than a few inches, looking startled, sad. None of the other pidgeons came to visit it. Why was it so alone. He had liked watching them swoop down to the side of the pool for a quick dip of their beaks into the water until they flew high up into the protection of the neighbouring house; away from any danger at all. That's what he wished he could do; except his own head was the most dangerous place to be. Our heads are dangerous places, do not enter alone, went the old saying.

He shepherded the pidgeon into the sheltering plants of the garden before he left, hoping to give it shave and to protect it from the killer. And the next time he saw it it was back on the ground and legs in the air, clearly dead, barely two or three feet from where he had left it, sheltering under a wide tropical leaf. He looked at it briefly, sadly, and wondered whether he should bother to remove the corpse or leave it where it was. The sad little bird who's pidgeon friends cooed nearby, apparently unaware, unalarmed, uncaring about the fate of their colleage, their friend, their son. Things were always brutal, but why did they have to be so simply, so frequently so?



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/world/asia/18marja.html

MARJA, Afghanistan — In five days of fighting, the Taliban has shown a side not often seen in nearly a decade of American military action in Afghanistan: the use of snipers, both working alone and integrated into guerrilla-style ambushes.

The Continuing Assault Five Marines and two Afghan soldiers have been struck here in recent days by bullets fired at long range. That includes one Marine fatally shot and two others wounded in the opening hour of a four-hour clash on Wednesday, when a platoon with Company K of the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, was ambushed while moving on foot across a barren expanse of flat ground between the clusters of low-slung mud buildings.

Almost every American and Afghan infantryman present has had frightening close calls. Some of the shooting has apparently been from Kalashnikov machine guns, the Marines say, mixed with sniper fire.

The near misses have included lone bullets striking doorjambs beside their faces as Marines peeked around corners, single rounds cracking by just overhead as Marines looked over mud walls, and bullets slamming into the dirt beside them as they ran across the many unavoidable open spaces in the area they have been assigned to clear.

On Wednesday, firing came from primitive compounds, irrigation canals and agricultural fields as the bloody struggle between the Marines and the Taliban for control of the northern portion of this Taliban enclave continued for a fifth day.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/18/2823197.htm?section=justin

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is defending his driver after yesterday's near miss at a Princes Highway accident blackspot near Geelong.

Mr Abbott's car was turning right off the highway when a semi-trailer travelling behind was forced to brake hard and swerve, narrowly missing the car.

This morning Mr Abbott told Macquarie Radio his driver did nothing wrong.

"A car is perfectly entitled to turn right into a rural laneway," Mr Abbott said.

"And I think that the Commonwealth car [driver] was doing his job professionally, and good on the truck driver for having the skills to avoid a difficult situation."

Mr Abbott's car had been waiting to turn right on a single-lane section of the road at Winchelsea when the truck nearly rammed him from behind.

Sick Bastards

*



One sick eff, that's all they could say. He was covered tattoos. He spent most of his tims e in his room; too much time in jail over too many years. He was most comfortable in a confined space. One sick eff. There was not a kind word in his heart, not one. Sucker, he would say dismissively of anyone he had ripped off. There was a long queue. There were many tails, of high, dangerous times, of very flash cars and significant amounts of money, all of it illegal. There was an inappropriate Buddha tattooed on his chest. An aging gangster, wheezing from too many cigarettes, nothing sadder.

When the times had passed, when he found himself in the future, when a million voices had overlaid and overwritten his past actions, leaving no trace of what they had once thought of as pioneering, sharman like activities, the Byronesque quest, he was left as one tiny pinprick in a very crowded world, with nothing to say and dread in his heart; the churning disease. It had seemed so adventurous, so important. Now they lay in the stifling heat. Now they were middle aged men. Now they listened to each other's weary, salacious tales, laughing, diverted, spoilt from money they did not deserve.

He watched the Thai workers in the morning, some already with their yellow caps on, despite the early morning heat, trudging in groups towards the construction site where no doubt a hard day lay ahead. It was a very hard life. He drank his morning coffee as he watched them pass, a falang in an entirely different world. How many baht for a days labour? Not many. A couple held hands, similar in their slim wiry frames and dark work uniforms, the man cocky with his yellow cap perched on his head. He drank his coffee and paid his ten baht and wandered back through his own empty halls.

It was evil what had happened, the neglect he had shown for his own welfare. It was as if he thought he would be young forever. As if the laws of physics and human physioklogy had no hold on him; as if time hadn't passed at all. Captured by his own illusions, self deceptions, ridiculous sense of destiny, he finally reached out to help someone else. And they sang on the Bangkok Streets and high above the traffic on the Sky Train platforms: apple bottom jeans, fur topped boots, when she hit the dance floor everybody looked. Low low low low low low...

They were very clever some of the people he met, old Asian hands, people who had escaped their own cultures, loose spirits skipping across the strands of fate, the vile carriage, the thin belief, the easy days, the gathering sickness and alarm, the old time soldiers, the passing parade. He smiled and grinned and waved, as if a celebrity, at the merest acknowledgement. Or sat quietly, grim faced, as the dominant personalities took over. It was shattered and difficult. It was simple and triumphant. At least it was different. Ill health beckoned and he turned his back. There was hope, of that no doubt. He shook his shoulders and prepared for his morning coffee, his morning voyeurism, watching the life of others.





THE BIGGER STORY:

http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201002/2821114.htm?desktop

Thailand's army has been put on a heightened security alert after two failed bomb attacks in Bangkok.

The army has moved to a level three security alert and has set up checkpoints in sensitive areas throughout Bangkok.

It comes amid growing fears of increased unrest in the run up to a high profile court case involving ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

At the end of the month the Supreme Court will decide if the state can seize more than $US2 billion of his assets.

On the weekend, plastic explosives were found near the court and judges have been offered accommodation in safe houses.

The Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has also upgraded to a bullet proof car and guards with machine guns are stationed outside his home.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/16/capture-taliban-leader-pakistan-karachi

Pakistan's powerful military is ready to move aggressively against the Taliban, it was claimed tonight after news broke that the organisation's top military commander, Mullah Baradar, had been arrested in a dramatic operation in Karachi.

The shift in Pakistani policy could help nudge western countries towards a peace deal in Afghanistan, analysts and diplomats said, even if the idea of talks with the Taliban is in its infancy, with British and American policy still focused on fighting and splitting the movement.

The Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) and the CIA arrested Baradar, 42, in a joint operation on the edge of the teeming port city on 8 February, security sources in Karachi said. His capture is a major coup for the US, which is currently leading a sweeping anti-Taliban operation across the border in Helmand.

Baradar is a leading light of the Quetta shura, the Taliban governing council that directs the insurgency from the western Pakistani city of the same name. He is considered second only to the insurgents' one-eyed fugitive leader, Mullah Omar.



Sample computer pictures. Laptop stolen.

We Dream Of A City At The End Of Time

*



He was reading a marvellous science fiction book called The City At The End Of Time and in a way that's how he felt in his own life, he had woken up in the future. He found himself crushed in the carriages of the Sky Train high above the Bangkok traffic. He found himself talking to old Asian hands while the neon lights flashed outside, while the bars called, while middle aged, sometimes even elderly white men walked the streets with Thai prostitutes on their arms. They were all so gorgeous and the world was irradiated with glee. The muggy heat closed in. The traffic snarled. He spoke to no one and he spoke to every one.

Something was calling, perhaps it really was the city at the end of time. Old souls, old souls. There was no way to be free. I've always busted coming off the bupe before, why would this time be any different, he thought, and recognised all the sick rationalisations that had bedevilled his life. It's inevitable, get it over with. How cruel the torments, and yet the world was before him. He showed kindness, because it was the right thing to do. The man sitting next to him had been sober for 60 years, since he was 21. He had never met anyone like that before.

The heat closed in. The early birds made their piping noises. Everything would be fine. All is well. He didn't believe it because calamity had been a motivating force, driving him through each bleak day. What's wrong mate, what's wrong, I've never known anyone so unhappy over such a long period of time. He shrugged. It was who he was. The sky lightened and already the heat was almost unbearable. These are the times, these are the times for you, for peace, for the children to become their own people, for the days to be his own, for clever hands and pampered desperation. Already he could hear the traffic on nearby Sukhumvit beginning to build.

We dream of a city at the end of time. Of course we do. The fragile remnants of what were once humans. Everything swirled. The heat closed in. Bangkok in itself was a city of the future, the crushing crowds. The tourists. The impossible traffic. The pollution. The Sky Train. The way pieces of comfort had been carved out from the surrounding poverty; money making everything easy for a certain grand few. The advertisements for things they did not need blaring from the videos on the sides of the crowded carriages, ludicrously pale - white - faced Asians flogging everything from donuts to skin treatments. While in the crushed carriages Thais of all colours sat or stood patiently.
h
For such a crowded place there was an amazing level of social order. But the man with one leg still slid himself ostentatiously along the ground in the Nana district; and at Om Nit the stumpy handed stumpy legged Buddha figure beamed at him, although he gave him nothing. Ian released two finches outside the bar for good Kharma, the act appealing to his many senses. The chant to self destruct was in his head, but at least he recognised it now. He gravitated to a particular type. Old souls. He saw a sign: The Miami Hotel. How many years, 40, had it been since he ad stayed there? In the seventies as a young man. When all was future. When all was great. When he was embarked on the greatest adventure in human history.

We dream of a city at the end of time.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/voters-starting-to-realise-pm-all-talk-20100216-o374.html

Kevin Rudd's latest poll slump shows voters are starting to realise the prime minister is all talk and no action, a coalition frontbencher says.

But a Labor government minister says opinion polls were always going to tighten up in an election year.

The latest Newspoll, published in The Australian on Tuesday, shows Labor's primary vote has dipped to below 40 per cent for the first time since 2007.

Nevertheless, it holds an election-winning lead of 53-47 per cent after preferences are distributed.

Mr Rudd's personal approval rating remains unchanged at 50 per cent and he remains preferred prime minister by a big distance - 55-27 per cent - over Tony Abbott.

However, some of the gloss has vanished. Over the last five poll periods, Mr Rudd's approval rating has steadily slumped from 65 in late November (14 per cent for then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull) to 55 per cent.

From a low of 14, approval of the opposition leader has steadily risen to 27.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis said the overall trend across various polls showed a very distinct collapse in support for Mr Rudd.

"It's something a lot of us felt over the Christmas break and that is that there is a change in community sentiment towards Kevin Rudd in particular because people are becoming cynical about the big promises that don't turn into action," he told Sky News.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2820254.htm

MARK COLVIN: There are serious questions tonight about one of the companies involved in the Federal Government's home insulation scheme, and the training the business gave its workers.

The ABC has been told that one company the Federal Government accredited last year, had a previous history as a telemarketing business, and no prior qualifications in home insulation.

Within weeks of the company gaining accreditation, one of its workers was electrocuted while putting foil insulation into a home in Queensland.

Industry groups and unions met Commonwealth department officials in Canberra today about the future of the scheme.

From Canberra, Sabra Lane reports.

SABRA LANE: The unions and long-time installation companies have complained the Federal Government's home insulation scheme attracted "cowboys" into the industry.

The ABC's been given documents that raise serious questions about one business registered in Queensland. We were given the documents by a whistleblower who wants to remain anonymous.

The papers relate to the company Vision and Network Australia. Prior to July last year, it operated as a telemarketing business, selling phone deals, energy and Pay TV options.

But in September last year, it also had the business names Countrywide Insulation and Queensland Home Insulation registered. The company had also applied to the Federal Government to become accredited under its home insulation program.


Computer Sample Pictures. Travelling. Laptop stolen.

Come To Me Daaahhlling

*



Every day was crueller than the last. More confused, more sweaty, his head doing handstands. Why was it? Every other time had been a disaster, why would this time be any different? He couldn't sleep. Not now, not ever. Sticky, uncomfortable, uncomfortable in his own skin. Ian found himself a cute Thai girl. They view prostitution differently here, went the motto of the Western male. He saw them everywhere, the middle aged men with the gorgeous girls hanging off them.

Ordinary looking men from ordinary towns. Oh how was it possible? Why did nothing stay still? The true mask was coming; the day following day, already the sound of traffic on nearby Sukhumvit building up. The chirp of the birds. Everybody else with their life. Everyone else accompanied. Sometimes, maybe you are one of them, I think it is like a meeting of old souls. Old souls from another time, old souls who had lived before; and now were trapped in these fragile frames, these fragile lives. If everything was coming clear, he would survive.

But he didn't know if that was the case. He didn't know whether to head north or south. He had a bad feeling about Pattaya. He needed to be quiet, and yet solitude could drive him just as crazy. How weak you are, how terribly sad. And yet triumph was just around the corner. Tiny lives in tiny places. Hands stinging, he didn't know why. Alcoholics love a bit of free luxury, he said of his heavily compromised situation, as he sat by the pool, as the city pollution built up, as day followed day.

Come to me darling, the devil's heads had said, while all around he could feel the pointlessness of everything, drained by everything, drained by life. This is not hte way to go, a voice said, and the mosquitoes buzzed around his exposed feet. There was always something stinging him. Oh how much longer, how much longer, can this terrible state of mind last?

And yet the rooms were full of old Asian hands, elegant some of them, knowing their way around. He was a stranger in a strange land, as always. He wanted to belong, but didn't. The boss is coming, they said, and that would change the dynamic, change everything. He would walk the streets and find a morning coffee. He would remember how it was last time; the discomfort, the terrible sadness, then the release. He walked into the male brothel and the boys paraded on high, numbers around their necks. Pick and choose, pick and choose.

Forty years ago he had gone barefoot to the Bunny Club in Chaing Mai, and the girls had been in cages and he had been asked to pick. He couldn't pick anything out of that sad mess. And so he drank, as he always drank, and day followed day and the cringing disregard he had for his own life multiplied and became denser over the years. It was like living in a science fiction movie, living in the future of his own life.

Sydney was an increasingly Asian city; and here, in the crowded Bangkok Sky Train, the BTS, it felt as if he had landed in the future of the human race, the bodies crowded into the modern carriages which swept above the crowded traffic below. The Sky Train. The future. Everyone comes in with expectation and regret. Everyone needs to live in the moment. Everyone needs learn to take it a day at a time.

He smiled. Charm could get you everywhere.

I'm not sure whether I'm here as an anthropological study, or really here, the man said, and for that he could relate. There are some genuinely interesting people involved.

The egos, they were clashed and driven. He was tired of it all; and tired of them. And yet hands were extended; and life could be easy. Let it be, let it be.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1012371/pauline-hanson-set-to-leave-australia

Pauline Hanson has told of her plans to sell her Queensland home and relocate to Britain.

Just days after announcing that she was finished with politics, the former One Nation leader now says she is saying "goodbye" to Australia.

Will you miss Pauline? Or are you happy she's going? Have your say below.

"I'm going to be away indefinitely," Ms Hanson said.

"It's pretty much goodbye forever."

The former federal MP has revealed in an interview with Woman's Day, published today, that she plans to sell her property at Coleyville, southwest of Brisbane, before taking a cruise to New Zealand's South Island — and then resettling in Britain.

Ms Hanson sparked national debate in Australia when she entered Parliament in 1996 espousing hard-line views on immigration policy and Aboriginal disadvantage.

In her maiden speech she said she believed that "we are in danger of being swamped by Asians".

But the 55-year-old now says she is disappointed with the way Australia has changed.

"I've really had enough," she is quoted by Woman's Day as saying.

"I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that's what I'm aiming for."

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/02/15/voters-plan-to-punish-premier/
Anna Bligh.

THE Sunshine Coast’s LNP MPs have cautiously welcomed a new poll which shows Premier Anna Bligh is on the electoral ropes.

The Sunday Mail/Galaxy poll shows if an election was held yesterday the Liberal National Party would have romped home by 59-41% on two-party preferred figures.

Ms Bligh’s personal approval rating as premier also showed a further drop to 28% while LNP leader John-Paul Langbroek has passed her for the first time, coming in at 32% satisfaction.

But the poll also shows a large majority of voters want to punish the ALP more than they want to credit the LNP’s improvement since last year’s election, where Labor beat the conservatives 51-49% on two party-preferred figures.

Asked whether they thought if the LNP improved its vote share at the next election it was down to their own work or a desire to punish Labor, 63% wanted to hand out the punishing while only 25% were prepared to credit the conservatives; another 12% were uncommitted.


Sample picture. Travelling.

Ebbing Away

*



He could feel himself ebbing away, whatever resolve, whatever person he may have been, about to be consumed by the chaos of the city outside. It was so close. He could see the alcohol in every one's glass. He could smell the maluka honey vodka Ian was drinking; and the double shot of bourbon and coke he consumed with glee and he watched with envy. Nothing was right. He was tired of being in withdrawals, as he had been for the past month coming off the bupe, and he was sick of having temptation thrust in front of him at every turn. There were days passing by and yet all he could think of was his traditional post: oblivion seeker.

The gate swung open and he looked across the neat Thai garden. The gate swung open and he could see the devil's heads on posts: all neatly marked out, all leering at him, come to me darling, me, me, come to me, they chanted in a sickening chaos. He shut the gate and entered the house, walking past them, hoping they would disappear, hoping they were not real. Asian demons, they were different to the ones at home. Perhaps its time to stop, a kindly voice said. Time to stop. Time to stop. He tried to laugh. Everything was falling away. His resolve, his self, whatever he had been.

There was grave chaos waiting at the gates. He didn't know if he could claw his way back. I need help, he thought clearly, perhaps one of the last clear thoughts he would ever have. And yet another day dawned and he was still sane. The bars were everywhere but it didn't mean he had to be inside them. He might be old but it didn't have to mean he was dead. In all the times he had thought of escape, this had not been it. They sat in the Zanzibar near the old Miami Hotel he had once stayed in during the 1970s, when everything was in front and the Byronesque adventure was just fermenting.

How it fermented; into sad days and wasted lives, wasted opportunities, into another future and another past. He was very pleased; had been very pleased; to be away from it all. But now he was not so sure. He listened to other people's stories, struggles, sometimes with amusement, disingenuous charm. Firecrackers went off as the Chinese New Year approached. Ian finally found himself a Thai girl, small, petite, gorgeous looking, a clever tattoo adorning the top of her breast.

Are they real tattoos, he asked in the bar. She covered herself when Ian relayed the question to her, whispering in her ear. They are beautiful, he told her. She's shy, he said to him. She won't be so shy when it comes to asking for money, Paul said. Next he will be in love. Next he will be sending her money from Australia. I know one Thai girl has four blokes sending her money. She say, if you no send me money I must go to work. If you no want that, you send me money. She still works in the Go Go Bar every night of the week. She is a friend of mine. He laughed.

I offered her 20,000 Baht, $700, to sleep with me. She wouldn't. She's a good girl.

Good girls, of course, know how to work the system; and he watched as some very plain men sat in the cafes and bars with good looking Thai girls hanging off their arms. He watched, if not with disenchantment at least with a sense of distance. It's what you need, Ian said. Perhaps he was right. At least there was a certain faith in happy endings; unlike his own faith, of which there was none.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/14/2818982.htm?section=justin

Mr Rudd says the issue of climate change will be front and centre at the next election. (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)

Related Story: Coalition overtakes Labor in Newspoll Related Story: MP says climate change debate not delivering Related Story: Turnbull crosses floor on ETS vote Related Story: Cyber attack hits Parliament websites again Related Story: Garrett 'must go' over insulation program Related Story: Abbott to revive Howard-era work laws Related Story: Imported insulation batts 'reeked of formaldehyde' Related Link: Tag page: Federal Government Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has acknowledged the Federal Government has not delivered everything it promised at the last election.

The Opposition has been attacking the Prime Minister for failing to meet his 2007 election promises in areas like health and superannuation.

But Mr Rudd has told Channel Ten that when the election is held this year, the Government will stand by its achievements.

"In dealing with the challenges of this global recession obviously some changes had to be made because of the impact on government finances," he said.

"I accept that and take full responsibility for it. At the same time the Government, through its actions in the economy, kept this economy out of recession."

Mr Rudd says the issue of climate change will be front and centre at the next election.

He has indicated the Government is still considering calling a double dissolution election if it cannot get its emissions trading scheme (ETS) through Parliament.

The latest opinion polls show public support for the Government's ETS plan has fallen since the 2007 election.

But Mr Rudd says people still want the Government to act on climate change.

"Whenever the next election is held and whatever form that election takes, both emissions trading and action on climate change will be front and centre in that election," he said.

http://www.easybourse.com/bourse/actualite/thai-bourse-warns-of-volatility-when-thaksin-asset-GB0007188757-797525

BANGKOK -(Dow Jones)- The Stock Exchange of Thailand warned Thursday that trading volatility could intensify later this month when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the fate of THB76 billion ($2.3 billion) in assets belonging to ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin's assets have been frozen since he fled Thailand in 2008 just before a court convicted and sentenced him to two years in jail for abuse of power. The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on Feb. 26 on whether the assets should be seized by the state or handed back to the former premier.
The money is the proceeds from the 2006 sale of Thaksin family shares in telecommunications company Shin Corp. to Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.
Stock exchange President Patareeya Benjapolchai told reporters that the volatility, however, is unlikely to be enough to trigger a circuit breaker - when the market surges or falls by 10%.
Under Thai bourse rules, in the case of a circuit breaker, trading will be halted for 30 minutes. If the index rises or falls by another 10%, trading is suspended for one hour.
The circuit breaker has been applied only three times in the market's history--in December 2006 when the Bank of Thailand imposed capital controls, and twice in October 2008, when worries over the global economic recession triggered panic selling.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/32678/surakiart-to-govt-just-get-over-thaksin

The government needs to get over its obsession with Thaksin Shinawatra or it will lose what remains of its withered credibility overseas, says former foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai.

Thailand's post-coup standing in the international arena was deteriorating and it had lost the confidence of its neighbours, Mr Surakiart told a Chulalongkorn University forum yesterday.

Thailand had also lost its unique role as a regional coordinator and venue provider for sensitive issues, said the foreign minister who served under Thaksin.

"We've dropped off the radar as a positive influence on the international community, and joined the negative radar for our ongoing domestic political rifts that destroyed several international meetings hosted here last year," he said.

Thailand could reverse the harm it had done to itself if domestic politics, especially its obsession with self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin, were detached from foreign affairs.

"Thailand needs to make friends with its neighbours again," he said.

"Informal meetings, phone calls, short visits or quick lunches must be reintroduced at both ministerial and leader levels with key countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and China."