Tragic, Dear, Tragic

*

There were shifts in the pattern of distinction. There were ways forward; and a battalion of new beginnings. Doors, like those lined up along an old fashioned beach, painted different colours, rusty in the sun, cursory in their intensity, superficial in their beckoning desires. Doorways to another place, other places. To laughing, frolicking and dancing in the shallow water's edge; far from the deep where scientists kept discovering new creatures hidden in the depths. He stood in the glinting glare. He watched with envy as the boy kicked a soccer ball along the edge of the beach. His body ached from the last appalling binge. Everything was clouded. The glare was just a knife through a sodden heart. And then it all changed; by dint of change of landscape; and they were in other hotels, in other circumstances, in other bars, surrounded by other new found friends. These catastrophes were minuscule in answer. They fathomed from a random place. And when he landed in a new found place: and could truthfully declare, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been there, none of it made much sense. Jack the appalling old queen from Washington continued to offend everybody, thinking aloud in that strange syndrome the elderly get, where they are immune to the embarrassment they cause everybody, where they lose the social graces and talk of things better kept to oneself. "Well you're all at sixes and sevens dear," he told one of the most together people in Bangkok AA.

Nate was continuing to mop up resources and sympathy; I've only got 25 baht to my name changed to I've only got 50 baht, the story kept changing. That beautiful lap top they had bought for him was long gone. Everything was gone. The woman who was looking after him had tossed him out. The embassy was about to repatriate him. Jack managed to tell him pretty bluntly, well there isn't much hope, dear, you can't stay here, too much temptation, too many bars, you don't have any resources, go home to your family. I've burnt every last bridge, Nate said, I can't ask them for any more. They don't want to know me. I've been through 16 rehab centres in the past few years and no one wants to help me any more. Surprise surprise. All the good intentions, the world famous stories he broke, the years in the jungles of Cambodia, were as nought now as he tried to get into Safe Haven for free; when they weren't too keen. It would normally cost 600,000 baht they told him. Lord let me be a channel of thy peace, went the prayer; and he bought him lunch and bought him coffee and at the end of the day, when Nate said: thanks for looking after me, he doubted if any of it was genuinely appreciated. These days were shallow and passing, and the crisis that everyone had conspired to help bring about, by turning off every money faucet, by dialling up the tough love option, by refusing to enable him any more, to live on past glories, to sit at the bar and tell great stories of being a war correspondent across half the world, that crisis was the here and now.

They stayed with him throughout the day, despite their own biting scepticism and the "heart of stone" that Jack claimed to be; ring your parents, mother will always help. I can't do that, he kept insisting. Well dear, write a book, make some money. And at the end of the day, after they left Ruhm Rudi and were walking through the damp streets, Jack declared: "what a sad case dear". He shrugged. He had seen worse. It's hard to get sober when you've got no resources, Nate said, but he had no resources because he pissed them all away. He sponged off everybody and pissed them all away. Tough love was called for, everybody said, and no one was prepared to fork out $20,000 for yet another rehab centre, not after the past failures, not when it was never coming back. Never. Or that was the likelihood. So the once great cut sad figures, and they sat around his apartment in the afternoon, and while Aek reacted to the words super star, a journalistic super star did not hold any of the same fascination as a television super star, not to a Thai, and a foreign journalistic super star even less so. Particularly one on hard times. One who had drunk himself almost to death, certainly into dereliction. Facing repatriation, compulsory government detox, spat out on to the mean streets; nothing to show for all those years, all those stories, all those triumphs. You'll rise again, Phoenix from the ashes, he advised. And once again you'll be sitting on the 34th floor of some stunning upmarket hotel; on your book tour, talking about Pol Pot. And you'll think; life is wonderful, the only thing that could make it better would be whisky and cocaine. And it will all begin again. Life is a wonderful thing. Tragic dear, just tragic, Jack declared. For God sake's don't let him sleep in your spare room. You'll never get rid of him.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/05/2973837.htm

Forget gender and policies, it's all about Gillard

By Barrie Cassidy

Rather than talk about a change in campaigning style,Julia talked about a change to herself. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

At the halfway mark of the election campaign Coalition strategists are convinced that "brand Gillard" has been damaged, maybe not irreparably, but certainly to the point where she cannot mount a sustained or a convincing comeback.

The good news, they say, is that even without the "world of hurt" inflicted by the leaks, Gillard does not have a coherent cut-through message that is coming up in focus groups.

That is important because election 2010 has been characterised by the greatest volatility in voting intentions for decades.

The ALP lost 6 per cent of its primary vote in two weeks. They cling to the hope that what went down, might come back up again, or at least by enough to scrape back in.

But the Coalition strategists are seeing enough in their feedback to encourage them that views formed over the past fortnight are "not cursory or superficial," but suddenly "illuminating and firm".

Undoubtedly the leaks hurt Labor, for two reasons. They came from within, creating a sense of disunity. But more to the point, they went straight to family values; maternity leave and pensions. Whoever leaked the material had a good sense of both Cabinet deliberations and Gillard's vulnerabilities.

That is not to say the Coalition believes the election is won. Far from it. The results are so uneven around the country, the mood so different wherever you look, that this is the toughest result to predict since 1993.

When you average out the three major opinion polls, the two-party preferred vote is split almost 50-50, with the Coalition having a slight edge.

Allowing for a uniform swing, that would give the Coalition 14 seats, enough to cost Labor its majority, and close to delivering the Coalition government without the support of the cross benches.

But it's not as simple as that. It never is. Incumbent governments often defy general swings by exploiting incumbency.

On the face of it, that is not such an advantage this time around because of the 12 seats Labor needs to win to retain its majority, only four have sitting members, Solomon (NT), Corangamite (Vic), Hasluck (WA) and Bennelong (NSW).

But Labor strategists are nevertheless, hopeful that three seats in Queensland could run against what is for them, a hostile environment. They are Dawson, Herbert and Longman.

If a handful of seats in Queensland and New South Wales defy the general swing, then Labor can be re-elected, however narrowly.

Even if that doesn't happen, strong support for Labor in Victoria and South Australia might partially compensate for heavy losses elsewhere.

But that is an indication of just how tight the contest is.

Labor strategists, though a little shell shocked after the past week, insist that Gillard can turn the campaign around, and that is why the Prime Minister started this week with such a dramatic flourish.

The problem was that rather than talk about a change in campaigning style, she talked about a change to "Julia" herself, a confusing concept so effectively exploited by the Opposition.

For Labor, the great unspoken hope is that when voters go into the privacy of the booths on August 21, two things will guide their shaky hand. One, that Tony Abbott is genuinely a risk; and two, that surely it would be a big call to throw out the country's first female prime minister after just a few weeks.

To the first, Abbott has gone yet another day without stuffing up. Time is ticking away. He remains controlled and even at times, prime ministerial.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-combat-rules-20100804,0,5192303.story

The new American commander of Western forces in Afghanistan has issued a directive asserting troops' right to defend themselves but also calling on them to continue efforts to safeguard Afghan civilian lives, military officials said Wednesday.

Gen. David H. Petraeus' tactical directive, his first since assuming command last month, appears aimed at countering some grumbling within the ranks that Western forces' hands are tied in confrontations with insurgents because of battlefield rules handed down last year by his predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

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It is a delicate balance to strike, because civilian casualties are one of the most inflammatory issues between North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The proportion of civilian deaths attributed to Western troops has declined significantly since last summer's directive by McChrystal. In a departure from previous practice, he ordered that airstrikes and artillery not be used if civilians might be present, unless troops are in imminent danger of being overrun.

Petraeus' directive, which supersedes the old one, is classified, but parts of it were made public on Wednesday.

U.S. military officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the new version includes some refinements to guidelines on use of aerial bombardment and artillery fire, and spells out more instances in which such methods should not be used.

However, the directive is also meant to address what those officials described as a "misperception" among some junior field commanders that airstrikes and artillery — two of the international forces' main battlefield advantages against the insurgents — were all but forbidden.

"We believe the most pertinent issue in play is uneven application of the [previous] tactical directive," said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, the operations spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The new guidelines, he said, are "intended to ensure that everyone is on the same page."

In the unclassified portion of the directive, Petraeus writes that "every Afghan civilian death diminishes our cause." But he added that the directive "does not prevent commanders from protecting the lives of their men and women" and included an admonition to subordinates not to put further restrictions on use of force without his explicit approval.

Petraeus was a driving force behind McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy, which holds that winning the war is impossible without also winning over the populace. Petraeus earlier this week issued what he said would be the first of a series of counterinsurgency guidelines telling troops to be friendly and respectful in their dealings with civilians.

Bangkok. Picture: Peter Newman.

Fate Had Already Sealed The Windows And Locked The Doors

*

There was a certain liquid feel to it, as if fate had already sealed the windows and locked the doors. The hauntings of infinite resource, always on the border, always just out of reach. But at the same time moments of hilarity. The funky smell of unwashed boys. The drawling "deeaaar" of the hyper-camp Jack, the retiring lawyer from Washington who would quibble over every little point and tell anybody what they thought of him; or denounce anything he didn't approve of. Complaining that Andrew, who was showing him around apartments, hadn't contributed to the taxi fare, all of about four dollars between two separate incidents, despite his having surrendered hours of his day. Well you two guys are a lot of fun, Andrew said, as they left, thanking them for the afternoon. All was washed away. All was free to be overblown, overgrown. Well, dear. He made as if to assuage a great guilt; and caught another promise like a catcher in a cricket game, out of the air, out of the sky, thunderous applause from the assembled ghosts. All the pasts had come to haunt, but not just the pasts, the crowds that populated the stands had not lived in this century, had not lived for a very long time, and their ghostly clapping chilled him as he waded through the disintegrating matter that had once been the streets. 45 days and climbing, he thought. Getting increasingly organised. Oh please, please, replace my heart with a practical machine; the windswept emotional life of a gargoyle; frozen, while he chatted vacuously on Face-book and welcomed anyone he came across into his life, into his smart apartment and briefly luxurious life.

Andrew, one of the few people he had chosen to like at the Saint Louis Hospital meetings in Bangkok, showed them an entire range of apartments, after they had trundled down the street opposite the hospital to an Indian restaurant Jack particularly liked. Vegetarian. They sat and talked; although as usual he said little. But Jack and Andrew swapped notes about Rome, about apartments, about people they knew from the so-called fellowship, about the astonishing state of real estate, ask your own price, make it up, in particular parts of Rome where only a few of the oldest families, or entrepreneurial taxi drivers from New York in the 1950s, had had the foresight to buy apartments. The day slipped away, as did the opportunity for nefarious adventures. He was shadowed, indeed haunted, and yet his head snapped away as if he was in the ceiling watching the pair of them talk about various characters even they themselves had largely forgotten. Their voices were large, loud, in the tiny restaurant; the food Indian; odd, in a sense, after having lived with the Thais, who very much didn't like Indians and made no pretence about it, for so long. They were the most overtly racist people he had ever met. Falang, falang, they would chant at the sight of a foreign tourist; as if such a sight was indeed astonishing, these visitors from Mars, these infinitely peculiar things. In the West racism had been a crime of conscience for decades now; here no one even bothered to think about it.

He had been shadowed, he had made way for the mark, he stepped out of the fire ring into the cool of the surrounding forest, he knew the eyes of the wolves were on him and he knew the dark was full of danger. Perhaps it was why he chose the heart of a modern metropolis to live out his days, infinitely expensive, the skyscrapers often comfort, a human scale in an inhuman place, everything reversed. His back garden was a pool on a roof, surrounded by construction and sweeping tall buildings, and he loved them and he loved the light and felt safe, as the security cameras monitored everything, including his every move. They had wanted to know where he went at 5am, in the days before he had got sick and the spirits had cast him out; to survive here in a kind of suspended luxury, patiently, ill at ease, undiagnosed, unassisted. Knowing that everything was fleeting. Who's Bambi, his daughter had asked on Skype, catching sight of Aek in the background. He looks about 12. How old is he? 22 he replied. Dad, that's not much older than us. She laughed, she always liked a bit of good gossip. What's Bambi's name, she asked, and he told her. Well that's another reason I'm not coming to Bangkok, she pouted. I can hitch you up with some rich Thai boys, he said. I don't want an Asian boyfriend dad, she declared. Swivel the computer round, I want to see him, she said. He didn't oblige. Alright, introduce me. Finally he did. In a strange way she seemed comforted by the fact that things now made sense; kind of. But they kept calling him Bambi anyway. Maybe Bambi would like to come out to Sydney for a while? Maybe, he replied. Maybe. And maybe I'll take him down to Tasmania, where Steve is living with his appalling boyfriend and five cats in a large house atop a cliff. Anything could happen.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-not-unelectable/story-fn59niix-1225900814866

Paul Kelly

THE most pervasive and perhaps fatal perception in this election is that Tony Abbott is unelectable.

This entrenched idea is killing the Labor campaign; yet Labor has cultivated the notion and it has been an article of faith among progressive political and media elites in Australia for years.

This week's Newspoll testifies to the sheer dogmatism of this belief. Taken last week, the poll showed a 50-50 split (with the preference allocation pointing to an Abbott win) yet Labor voters are sure Abbott is unelectable. Among ALP voters 77 per cent think Julia Gillard will win and only 5 per cent think Abbott will win. In short, Labor voters think the election is a no contest. Somehow, some way, they are convinced Abbott has no hope when the exact same poll shows him winning!

By contrast Coalition voters are more realistic, being split 42-38 per cent in predicting an Abbott victory. And the nation overall is confident that Gillard will win 56-23 per cent.

This testifies to the Abbott phenomenon. He has got under Labor's radar and he keeps doing it. There is only one conclusion: Abbott is repeatedly under-estimated by his opponents.

On last weekend's two main polls, A C Nielsen and Newspoll, Abbott is heading Labor. Gillard has no illusions about the seriousness of the threat. Her correct diagnosis is that Abbott is getting away with a "protest vote" strategy and is not being assessed by voters as an alternative prime minister. Labor is now desperate to puncture the public complacency and disengagement that it believes assists Abbott.

Underestimating Abbott has deep roots in both the Labor and Liberal parties. It is a function of the hostility towards conservatism and Abbott's disarming unpretentiousness, his habit of parading his flaws along with his strengths, an unusual trait for an aspiring PM. Recall the universal sentiment when Abbott won by just one vote in the partyroom over Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey last December. It was a surprise result. The Rudd government was delighted because, yes you've guessed, it knew Abbott was unelectable. Even the Liberals were worried.

At that time the Coalition was ready to declare Abbott a hero if he could reduce its margin of defeat to that of Kevin Rudd's 2007 victory. They would settle for a respectable loss. Nobody saw a Coalition victory as obtainable.

Above all, Abbott was assumed by the pro-Labor progressive culture to have far too much baggage. Even more than John Howard he divides the nation between its cultural opinion-making elites and its mainstream tradition of voting conservatism.

For years, Abbott has been mocked and demonised as a far Right, anti-woman, Catholic zealot, climate-change sceptic and political thug too reactionary for the Australian people. This narrative was supposed to prove, beyond doubt, his unelectability. This branding did Abbott much damage but it had a dividend; it stamped him as a conservative with convictions. In short, as a values politician. Many mainstream voters who elected Howard four times were drawn to Abbott as a values politician.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Insurgents-Attack-Southern-Afghanistan-Military-Base-99824299.html

Taliban Attack Main US Base in Southern Afghanistan
VOA News 03 August 2010

Afghan officials say Taliban militants on Tuesday attacked the main U.S. military base in southern Afghanistan.

Officials say the attackers, wearing suicide vests, first launched rockets on the Kandahar airfield and then tried to storm the base. The assault sparked an hour-long gunbattle, in which one international soldier was wounded and all of the attackers were killed.

Taliban insurgents previously tried to storm the Kandahar base in May.

Also Tuesday, NATO said one of its service members was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan.

Elsewhere, Afghan police said robbers killed six security guards at a branch of the Kabul Bank in the northern province of Balkh.

The robbery took place in the provincial capital, Mazar-i-Sharif, and the robbers got away with at least $275,000.

In other violence Tuesday, NATO said foreign and Afghan forces destroyed a house rigged with wire links to homemade explosives in Kandahar.

And, a NATO statement said international and Afghan forces seized the last Taliban stronghold of Sayedebad in southern Afghanistan.

Picture: Peter Newman.

No Respecter Of Persons

*

Mai dee, no good, he said, as the girls made comment on the shape of his body at the local massage parlour at Om Nut, where he used to go when he first arrived in the country. But even there the same winds of decay and change that had swept through the gangster's lair had also laid havoc to the past good cheer. There appeared to have been a change of management. There was some excited chatter as she automatically took his custom off the girl at the door; because the big girl knew he liked her, was comfortable with her. And she had strong fingers. But the massage lasted barely the hour, unlike previous endeavours, because she knew he always tipped she always delivered. Like some lads he could name. There wasn't any enthusiasm left. Like the empty bowls rolling across a movie set, the tumble weeds on the desert highway, it was obvious the decay had sank and spread, eating up the old time line, eating up his past, so even now he couldn't conjure up the images which had once so entranced him. All that money gone to waste, that's all he could think. And yet there was much more to come. This was the break he had waited for, for so long. They weren't going to entrance and capture him any more, he was his own boss, the prince of his own domain, and the spiralling costs, the adventures of the spirit, the way they all welcomed each other beyond the barrier, it all made sense now.

The little men waving in the smoke, the aliens who had landed so long ago, the crisis that had ripped his psyche apart and left him in the mornings at the Duke of Wellington. The staff there still waved at him as he walked past; although he hadn't stopped there for a Stella Artois in what seemed like centuries. There were mountains of chaos. There were delayed reactions. There were old queens sitting at bar stools and wrists flapping in the breeze, but for all their patience, for all the deeds that had been done, those moments in the bar in the morning were the most valued of all. Like the moment before a hit, they were the only times when he felt most truly himself. There was a psychological explanation. He didn't want to know. This is the one true path, the only path; into degradation, into ultimate despair. He hadn't chosen to take it; not for now. Nate, the journalist who got the last interview with Pol Pot and was once world famous, was being repatriated back to America by the Embassy, broke, crippled by the booze, inarticulate and indeterminate, the black causes and the depths to which he had sunk made him almost impossible to talk to. Nate, he yelled out on the street as they walked along Sathon, from Saint Louis Hospital to the Surasek sky train station, and he turned and briefly talked to them, from the depths of somewhere else, his eyes sunken, his weight down, everything a failure. Going back to America. You better be careful there, too, he said.

How are you dear, Jack the appalling queen from Washington, asked. Nate mumbled something no one else could hear. Well be careful dear, Jack added. Bangkok is not the place to be if you're drinking and have no money. I love it here, he piped up. But you're not drinking, you have an apartment and you have money, Jake said. Well it was too crude to be ordered. Nate didn't say much else and drifted ahead. He probably wouldn't see him again. Do you think he will get well, dear, Jack asked. No, he said, probably not. No respecter of persons. Just as wealth is no respecter of death. He's a highly intelligent man, known the world over, he has accreditation here from the London Times for God's sake, something a lot of people would kill for, and here he is being repatriated. Not a good look. I can see the streets of America in his face. He made a lot of money out of the Pol Pot interview. It's all gone. He had an apparently beautiful property in Chesapeake Bay, wherever that is, and that's all gone. Drinking, dear, Jack asked, and he replied in the affirmative. Well it goes to show... and he dribbled off. Goes to show what, who only knew, that the day was the day and the highs were the highs, but the lows came equally fast and brutally; and swept people down into the streets and down into the gutters with astonishing rapidity; left them friendless, homeless, waiting for the dark lord to take them. And then as always Jack began his prattle about which men he had fancied at the meeting, whether or not he would go to the sauna, Babylon, that afternoon, which day his boyfriend was arriving from Malaysia. Nate had already disappeared from view by the time they reached the sky train; the sweat from the Bangkok heat prickling on their skin, the day beckoning.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/bracket-creep-to-ensure-that-a-million-a-year-pay-higher-tax-rates/story-fn5ko0pw-1225900281312

MORE than one million Australians will have their pay rises eaten up by tax bracket creep over the next three years because neither side of politics is offering a tax cut.

Workers earning $34,000 a year will see their tax rate double from 15c in the dollar to 30c over the next three years as politicians focus on paying off the nation's debt.

And a worker on $73,000 a year will be pushed from the 30c tax bracket to 37c by 2013.

It's called bracket creep and it happens when the tax scales are not indexed to take account of growth in wages.

The age pension and other welfare payments are indexed twice a year but the tax system is not automatically adjusted for inflation or wages growth.

A series of election tax cuts over the past decade has largely protected Australian workers from bracket creep.

On July 1 workers received the last of the scheduled $34 billion tax cuts promised by both major parties at the the 2007 election campaign.

An analysis prepared for the Herald Sun by the Melbourne Institute shows that without tax cuts over the next two years, wage rises will push 735,000 workers into a higher tax bracket.

By the next election in three years' time, 1.14 million Australians will be in a higher tax bracket.

More than half will be pushed out of the 30c bracket into the second-highest bracket where they will pay 37c in the dollar.

A further 460,000 workers will see their tax rate double as wages growth pushes them from the 15c-in-the-dollar tax bracket into the 30c bracket.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7923059/Afghanistan-is-an-unwinnable-war-and-our-leaders-know-it.html

Afghanistan is an unwinnable war, and our leaders know it
The only consequence of long-term conflict in Afghanistan, and anywhere else, is to increase the number of our enemies

By Stephen Vizinczey

In his must-read book, World War One: A Short History, Norman Stone identifies one of the main reasons for Hitler's appeal: the success of the German Right in persuading millions of Germans that they could have won Great War and that they lost it because they were "betrayed". The American Right did a similarly and tragically successful job with public opinion in the United States: millions of voters believe that the war in Vietnam could have been won if it hadn't been for lily-livered liberals and student protesters – and if more soldiers had been sent.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that President Obama, surrounded by super-intelligent advisers from the best universities, continues with the Afghan war because, if America were to withdraw, millions of voters would believe that a wiser and tougher leader could have won, and so the President would lose the next election. Ignorance is the greatest weakness in democracies, because leaders have to go with the majority's views.

But the war in Afghanistan was lost long before President Obama came to power, because of an iron law of human conflict: most people hate foreigners coming to their country and trying to force them to change their way of life for a better and wiser one. This was as true when the Romans invaded Britain as it is today. In the past, though, people were accustomed to being ruled by others. Now, they are not – and conflict situations give the home team, like the Taliban, advantage and likely victory.
There are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between. Napoleon won in the German principalities, Austria, the rest of Central Europe and Italy, because a significant part of the population had absorbed the ideas of the Enlightenment and felt and thought like the French soldiers: they wanted to be equal and wanted to be able to rise in the world, regardless of their low birth. This was the reason for Napoleon's early victories. But what sealed his fate in a few quick years was his fatal blunder of sending his troops into countries where people believed that the idea of equality was satanic. (Napoleon was the first "Great Satan", by the way.) He was beaten not only in Russia, which had greater manpower and resources, but also in Spain, which didn't.

There has to be a shared purpose between the population and foreign armies for an invasion to triumph, such as existed during the liberation of Europe in the Second World War. All the Allies had to do was to fight the German armies. The inhabitants of the continent were sick of the Nazis, even in Germany, and practically everybody rooted for a swift Allied victory.

This is not the case even among the Afghan soldiers who fight alongside us at the moment. The soldier who killed several of our troops before joining the Taliban is far more typical of these young men's true feelings than their impressive turnout for Hamid Karzai's inauguration ceremony.

When President Bush sent US forces to Afghanistan, he was effectively asking them to win a war in the Middle Ages, and therefore doomed his country to ultimate defeat. He would never have started that war except for a deep-seated faith in his country's invincibility. The almost universal belief that the "good guys always win" is the most self-destructive notion both for individuals and nations, as it conditions them to disregard the evidence of their senses – the facts.

Of course, there is the notion, particularly strong in California, home of the US weapons industry, that superior weapons make the lessons of history irrelevant. This fallacy is wrapped up in the belief that, in the end, it is our values which win wars, our assistance to agriculture, education, healthcare, and so on. But winning "hearts and minds" is the policy of mixing killing and maiming with healing, and it doesn't work. Weapons don't "settle" anything, for the reasons I set out in The Rules of Chaos, which I wrote during the Vietnam War, explaining that the longer a conflict lasts, the more people and countries it involves – to the point that no power can control it.

Picture: Peter Newman.

Things Collapsed In A Parallel Ether

*

Every story folded in upon itself a thousand times. They sat in that theatrical soi, Soi 4, Soi sahm, where The Balcony and The Telegraph sat opposite each other and falangs would go with their Thai boyfriends, the oldest, fattest f...ks showing off what they could only pay for, or showing off what good taste they had in the purchase, or maybe, let's be kind, just seeking other company. Except that's not what happened. Everybody stared. Nobody talked. The waiters flurried around. They sat and had something to eat because their local favourite restaurant was shut. All things considered. He waited and he watched. There are some very bad ones, your one seems nice, the American next to him said. Yes, he is, he agreed. The previous one was very bad. Thought nothing of polishing off a bottle of whisky every day. Led me on a very merry dance. Took everything away. Left a quivering stick; a landscape over bright, a cluttered junk yard of futuristic metal. Yes, the same thing happened to me, the American said. He took everything, but I was obsessed. Every body warned me. We would go out and my friends would ring up later saying Tony, what are you doing? You're being ripped off. My Thai friends said the same thing. We booked into a hotel once and the manager, who I didn't even know, said to me: "You can do better". I know, he agreed, everybody warned me too. But I didn't listen. No, I didn't either, the American agreed. I don't know why. No, I don't know why, either, he agreed.

Except of course in some funny way he did know why. Rough trade could be very cute with its clothes off; and exciting in a way that the nice boys just weren't. Even if they ripped you off and led you a merry dance; it was part of the price. At vulnerable times in our lives. On the sois, on the streets, walking past the beggars and the stalls, walking through covered wagons and blasted images from the past, walking away from everything they had ever understood and calling out: hey sweetie, come and get me. I'm yours for the taking. As if anybody wanted. But they did want your money; and what it could buy, the upmarket drugs, the upmarket hotels, the Black Label whisky, the long nights in the karaoke bars, the cheap girls, the full on laughter as if all time stood still. We wanted you. We were wasted on ourselves, on long nights alone, on intemperate longings, on wasted space, wasted time. So when opportunity knocked he took it; just like that. And the money flowed like water. Now he lived to regret it. But the story kept folding over itself none the less, like the final lapping waves on a distant shore, the final last dribble of the tsunami that was, there on the other side of the planet. Did things finally make sense? He doubted it? Had he been repeatedly warned? Of that there was no doubt.

This one OK, Aek mimicked on the way home, having perhaps understood more of the conversation than he should have. But they laughed good naturedly. It was their time together and their time to be happy; and nothing would alter that, no matter what happened in the future. He couldn't be surrounded at this point, and he wasn't going to surrender. I go school, Aek said in the soi, in that funny, sunny voice of his; limited English. We're going to complain and we're going to explain. It's good that he's going to university, the man said, explaining in Thai that he was an applied linguist, that he taught teachers how to teach foreign languages. It was a specialised brand of work. I come here three times a year, he explained. I used to work here. There were all sorts of things that could go wrong. There were times that would never be the same. The disturbance was just out of field. You worry, John? the boy kept asking. Because he knew him well enough now to know. Well he was worried indeed outraged there wasn't the same money there that should be; and those bloody tenants in Bondi Beach were screwing him around again. He was sick of the whole damn situation; and worried it was going to cost him. Time stood outside the notion, the nation, things collapsed in a parallel ether, and yes, he worried, perhaps most of all that his perfect life would end.

THE BIGGER STORY:


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/boost-for-tony-abbott-as-newspoll-puts-election-at-50-50/story-e6frfllr-1225899743709#ixzz0vP6XsDVp

The Prime Minister has claimed the underdog status in the federal election campaign after a Newspoll out today showed a 10-point turnaround that left Labor and the Coalition dead level.
The poll increased the Coalition's lead in the primary vote to 44 per cent and put both parties on 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis. Voter approval for Mr Abbott also improved in the key areas of economic management, national security and the handling of asylum-seeker arrivals, The Australian reported.

At the start of the campaign, Labor led the Coalition by 55-45.
Julia Gillard is blaming the slump on only having shown "glimpses" of herself to voters in a stage-managed campaign so far. But she has promised to take charge from now until August 21.
"I think it's time for me to make sure that the real Julia is well and truly on display," she told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper during a campaign flight from Sydney to Melbourne over the weekend. "I'm going to step up and take personal charge of what we do in the campaign from this point."
The PM said she had no regrets about toppling her predecessor, Kevin Rudd: "I made the right decision in June. I made it, I stand by it, I'll live with it. It was my decision."
But she said she was now sidelining campaign bosses. "I do believe people are right to worry that modern campaigning is too managed and too tightly scripted," she said.
In an interview this morning on the Today show, she has vowed to "throw that rule book out and really get out there".
At the same time, Labor's campaign spokesman was targeting Tony Abbott as a "weather vane" who changes positions on issues to suit the day. As the Coalition's poll numbers firm, Labor will target Mr Abbott personally to make voters consider if they really want him as PM.
But Mr Abbott has said the spotlight is really on Labor now. "What I hope is happening over this election campaign is that the real nature of the government is being exposed," he has said on ABC radio in Cairns.
"I think I'm a pretty known quantity," he said. Mr Abbott is in Cairns for an announcement on tourism. Ms Gillard is in western Sydney talking about education. She is expected to pass through Bennelong, former prime minister John Howard's old seat, later today.
Horror week
Week two of the campaign was a shocker for Labor, with damaging leaks and continuing in-fighting and divisions over the fallout from Mr Rudd's removal. The drama came to a head on Friday afternoon when it emerged Mr Rudd was in hospital for gallbladder surgery.
Labor's primary vote dropped to 37 per cent while its two-party preferred vote fell two percentage points, meaning the party would have to rely on Greens preference votes to stay in power.
A Herald/Nielsen poll published last week put the Coalition ahead on a two-party preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. The gap between Labor and the Coalition is now bigger than it was the weekend before Mr Rudd was removed.
Although Ms Gillard has retained her lead over Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister (50 per cent to 35 per cent), and is seen as more "decisive and strong" and more "likeable", she trails him on the economy, national security and asylum-seekers.
Dissatisfaction with her performance has also risen three points to 40 per cent, her worst rating since becoming leader. Depsite this most voters still think Labor will win the election but more are moving the Coalition's way.
Senior Labor sources, spooked by the party's own polling showing Labor would be defeated in an election if it were held now, have revealed there have been serious concerns raised in the Labor camp over the past week about the party's campaign strategy.
Labor sources admitted they could not remember a worse week for a government. "Not even in 1996 did we have a week that bad. You'd also have to say it was the lamest," a senior Labor insider said. "She's obviously going to make changes, which is highly unusual for a campaign and, I dare say, unprecedented.
Another Labor source said: "Leave the leaks aside, what did they have her announce? A crackdown on knives and gangs. There were no big policy announcements. She hasn't even mentioned Labor's strengths, which are the economy, health and education. I'm gobsmacked they've had her out there doing nothing."
The Newspoll survey was conducted for The Australian between Friday and Sunday evenings.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/pity-the-pm-didnt-hold-broadband-to-the-light-then-oppose-it-20100801-111c5.html#poll

Why did Gillard let through $50 billion to be wasted on the broadband network?

Julia Gillard is right. The story about her cabinet comments on parental leave and age pension increases costing some $50 billion is a beat-up. The real question is why she didn't apply the same critical approach to the cabinet decision to approve the $50 billion (including the government payment to Telstra) rollout of the national broadband network, which went to cabinet the night before it was announced on April 7, 2009.

It was approved without any cost-benefit analysis or even a rudimentary business case to support it.

The plan was based on conversations between Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, over a couple of days flying between Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The proposed rollout is the biggest infrastructure project in Australia's history. Proper process requires written submissions from the initiating department to the Cabinet Office in sufficient time to have the relevant documents circulated to other ministries - especially Finance and Treasury - so their officials can provide cabinet briefings for their ministers on the worth of the proposal.

There was no urgency for the decision, no white paper setting out the pros and cons. Clearly the cabinet was dysfunctional. Even the most superficial understanding of ministerial responsibility shows that the members of cabinet weren't doing their job, especially then deputy prime minister Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner.

All the public - and I suspect all the cabinet - got was an announcement in the form of an 800-word press release after the decision was made. The only reason for haste was that it provided an effective distraction to the announcement on the same day that the so-called expert inquiry into a less ambitious proposal for fibre-to-the-node at the end of the street had ended in farce.

The well-paid experts reached the obvious conclusion that once Telstra had been excluded from the tender process on a specious technicality, there was nobody else capable of undertaking the work.

To add insult to taxpayer injury, cabinet then approved a $25 million study by consulting firm McKinsey to find a rationale for the decision.

McKinsey was not asked to do a cost-benefit analysis. This would have shown that the National Broadband Network Company is likely to be the biggest white elephant in Australia's chequered history of infrastructure development.

To fund it, the government will have to borrow up to $30 billion at 5.5 per cent. The McKinsey study found that in the best case there would be an internal rate of return of 7 per cent. Effectively, the government is getting no return and the high likelihood of multibillion-dollar losses. The private sector would not undertake such a project without at least a 20 per cent internal rate of return because of the massive risk.

Even with Telstra on board, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $14 billion, the economics of the broadband network remain improbable.

Even so, the government is keeping its investment off-budget for the time being. But the likely future losses will have to be brought on to the budget bottom line as part of the deficit and the money owed will become part of the public debt.

Given the opposition's pathological concern about debt, and its quite rational opposition to NBN Co, it is surprising it hasn't attacked the government over its decision to keep the funding off-budget.

The opposition might also ask why boutique investment bank Lazard Carnegie Wylie has been given a $3.4 million contract to provide financial advice. Is it because they had the foresight to employ former Labor prime minister Paul Keating as a lobbyist for the company?

Last week, Gillard said in defence of the broadband network that it was the equivalent of building railways in the 19th and 20th centuries. Bollocks.

The alternative to the railway was the horse and cart. The alternative to broadband based on fibre optics is very fast broadband based on mobile technologies and existing fibre assets. These technologies already provide speeds that more than satisfy customers such as universities and hospitals, and even about 60 per cent of Australian schools that are already connected to high-speed broadband.

Writing in the respected telecommunications newsletter Communications Day, Kevin Morgan reports on a New Zealand study that showed the shift from no broadband to slow broadband yielded productivity gains, but the move from slow broadband to high-speed broadband had no discernible additional effect. According to the newsletter, the government obsession with the rollout of fibre-to-the-home as planned by NBN Co has all the hallmarks of a cargo cult mentality.

The market is already supplying more than adequate high-speed broadband for those who need it. Australia has much higher infrastructure priorities - repairing the damage to public education at all levels by the Howard government, updating and extending rail networks and closing the world's most polluting brown coal power stations for starters.

Kenneth Davidson is an Age senior columnist.

Picture: Peter Newman.

Retribution

*

Consternation, a flood of tears, anguish in the making, nothing would make me happier my dear, the sequence of blustering comments. If all else fails, smile in the face of fear, they say, across cracked porcelain ribs, across aching hearts, across a fetid, overheated atmosphere, with nothing but unresolved issues and contemporaneous pain, a thousand rich Bangkok gay boys squeezed into a single venue, an appalling drag show which they all applauded enthusiastically, as if nothing could be better than a poor version of Mariah Carey, thumped out loud so the speakers vibrated in unison with his ear drums, and over-moisturised, perfect young men crammed together, all eyes, all saying I belong here, this is our place. It wasn't his place. He felt more comfortable with the rent boys down at Hot Male Station. Everyone knew where they stood. They all welcomed him as part of the crew. He watched the other foreigners being stitched up, or hitched up, as you see it; now you don't. The fast and the furious, no doubt. Get it over with, get it done, take the baht and depart. But in the DJ's tunnel the lady boys in their uniforms swept up and down the alley, the high rent bars spilled off on either side, and in the multi-floored disco itself, well, you needed to be drinking. He downed his two free drinks for the price of entry, two bottles of water, in rapid succession, surrendered to a cigarette outside; and thought, oh bugger it, I'll sleep alone, for once. Hey, won't do you any harm. For once. It just seems wrong, man, this rare opportunity; but no, he went home alone.

The boy was off on a university science expedition; and it was a dangerous sign that he immediately felt out of sorts, as if things weren't right, without his loyal soldier and his constant companion; there, looking after him, taking care. He missed him and that was all there was to it. Simple things. He spent an hour talking to his daughter on Skype, this time with video connection; and he noticed the repeated attempts at contact the previous day; when the computer had been away. Oh soldier, come here, nestle with me. Their young frames caught in slow motion on the Sky Train. The girls, delicious, pert, like cartoon characters, some of them were so gorgeous, and gorgeously made up, with large black eyes and perfect make up. Oh come hither, come with me. There were times, ill at ease, when drawn to frightful queens for the fact of the theatre, he went to lunch with Jack the Washington lawyer, who called everyone dear in a pronounced, camp way, as if there was any doubt, and suddenly the boys in the street were thrusting gay porn at him as if there was no doubt, and when he said in the massage parlour "massage, boy", pointing to the best looking one there, Jack exclaimed: "Oh I wanted that one dear." The girls giggled and the boys grinned at him knowingly and all was managed in fine, short style. Oh, such a perfect day, they just keep me hanging on. Thank you Lou Reed.

We were easily surrounded. Australia seemed a long way away. Caught between consonants, laughing in the gaps, the streets were as shadows; the beggars with their plastic legs; the beggars with their well cared for children, looking too good to be genuinely poor. He took account. He didn't give them any money. He wasn't that desperate to earn merit. Enough had been done to help the strangest of creatures. He looked forward to change and he looked forward to things staying the same. He sat in the gangster's lair, probably for the last time, talking to the lawyer who was drawing up a contract for him; there by the pool. The pool had not been cleaned, nothing had been cleaned, that was obvious; and the drifts of browning frangapeni flowers and the dying leaves from the overhanging trees spoke to the fact that nothing had been done; Paul had stayed in his room. He stayed in his room this time around, too; as the lawyer told him of all the complexities of the case. They were winding up the house. There would be nowhere to go. Evil spirits get their comeuppance. Evil spirits cast adrift, if not on the high seas well then on to difficult streets, difficult places. They had looked after him well, too well, and now all of that was coming to an end. He was shadowed by former loves; haunted by strange beasts, by flashes of former lives, by unresolved injustices, not from this era, not from this century, but from thousands of years before. So when he saw the drift of dying leaves, the dying flowers by the pool, he knew retribution was at hand.

That in some strange way justice would out, that all that was fair and right would come to the fore. All those people the gangster had bashed. All those scams he had pulled. Now was the time to pay the piper; and the piper would be paid. Oh how it broke his heart to see the bastard suffer. Well he didn't even know that, but presumed, because the entire time he was there the gangster never emerged from his cell, his room which might as well have been a cell, so rarely did he come out of it. It's because he's depressed, the lawyer ventured, but whether or not that was the case he did not know. All he knew was that the air of decay that had settled over everything, not just in the untidy piles of browning flowers and dying leaves around the pool, but in the garbage that had begun to accumulate in every corner, the state of the house, the air of a bleak English gangster, the scales from his skin, impregnated in the walls, all that room, all that money, wasted, because no one went there, it was barely used. They could have seen this coming, they should have seen this coming. But instead they let the gangster take over their real estate, and destroy it for everyone else. So when he saw the damage done, those browning frangipani flowers, he knew that the day of retribution had come, that by staying faithful to the good, by maintaining a wholesome heart, he had avoided the evil that stalked the world, that swept through upmarket villas just like this one, and destroyed the most arrogant, most self centred, most assured criminals just like that, leaving them not just bereft, separated from their former lives, but destroyed, evicting them from luxury and leaving them as nothing but poisonous slugs feeding on mean streets, darkened asphalt and choking fumes.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/gillard-needs-to-put-abbott-in-the-frame-20100731-110ps.html

THERESE Rein is one sensible and savvy woman. Yesterday she seemed to be suggesting a way to get the ''Rudd factor'' under control in the campaign.

Speaking to journalists, she indicated she'd like to see Kevin confined for a while to get properly better after his gall bladder operation. So would most of those running the ALP's campaign. The idea of Rudd on the loose around Queensland and further afield, even if ostensibly for Julia Gillard, fills most (admittedly not all) with fear.

Rudd's wife pointed to the escape hatch. ''I am encouraging him to take the time that is clinically advised to recover.'' She was sure he'd be ''up on his feet within the next couple of weeks''. He'd be following ''clinical medical advice'' on when to leave hospital and when ''he's allowed to resume normal activities''. Her emphasis was different from Rudd's, who on Friday anticipated hitting the campaign trail this week.

Whether Therese will be able to keep Kevin on the leash we'll have to see. But an enforced rest could be a saver all round, including for him. And the beauty is that it can be put down to ''medical advice''.

Rein's comments came on a day when Gillard performed quite well. It had opened badly, with an Age/Nielsen poll showing Labor facing defeat and The Australian reporting Gillard had sent a ''former bodyguard'' to attend cabinet's national security committee when she couldn't. But this ''leak'' lacked the potency of earlier ones. Gillard said staffer Andrew Stark, a former policeman, didn't represent her but took notes for her. This doesn't seem unreasonable: she was deputy PM and didn't hold a security-related portfolio.

As she wound up campaigning in Perth, bad poll notwithstanding, she looked more in charge than on Friday, when she'd been hounded by Rudd questions. She also seemed more herself: neither regally confected nor over-contrived.

''I'm in the fight of my life,'' she declared. ''I am a fighter.'' She set about highlighting the choice facing Australians on the economy, industrial relations and the like. ''Do you keep the economy strong … Or do you run the risk with Mr Abbott?''

In the next few days, Gillard has to get the focus onto the Opposition Leader. While it stays on her, she'll remain in deep trouble.

Not only is Labor divided but the policy fixes Gillard has put in have unravelled: the smaller miners are continuing the tax war; her plan for East Timor to have a processing centre for asylum seekers remains problematic; and the poll found more than half the voters oppose her citizens' assembly on climate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/01/2970011.htm?section=justin

Heavy flooding has killed at least 800 people and affected one million others in Pakistan.

Officials in Pakistan say they death toll from the flooding in the past week has risen to 800, while 150 others are still listed as missing.

Flash flooding and land slides have destroyed thousands of houses in north-western Pakistan.

The city of Peshawar has been cut off and roads have been washed away.

The United Nations estimates up to one million people have been affected by the floods.

Thirty thousand troops and dozens of helicopters have been deployed, but many districts are yet to receive any help.

Footage shot from helicopters has shown people clinging to walls and rooftops as water gushes through inundated villages.

Rescue teams are struggling to reach many areas where transport and communication have been cut off.

Further rain is expected in south-eastern Pakistan in the next few days.

Flooding has already been reported in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs spokesman Manuel Bessler says they are struggling to access some of the worst affected areas.

"The needs are first of all still search and rescue. Secondly, shelter, to have emergency [shelter] for these affected people, then food," he said.

"There is a major need for health services and then of course drinking water. We have to bring drinking water to these affected people."

Thousands of people have also lost their homes across the border in Afghanistan.

Picture: Peter Newman.

Silent In Intent

*

Well the moon is broken
And the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see
Is all that you lack
Come on up to the house

All your cryin don't do no good
Come on up to the house
Come down off the cross
We can use the wood
Come on up to the house

CHORUS
Come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I'm just a passin' thru
Come on up to the house

There's no light in the tunnel
No irons in the fire
Come on up to the house
And your singin lead soprano
In a junkman's choir
You gotta come on up to the house

Does life seem nasty, brutish and short
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy
And you can't find no port
Come on up to the house
There's nothin in the world

(Chorus)
there's nothin in the world
that you can do
you gotta come on up to the house
and you been whipped by the forces
that are inside you
come on up to the house
well you're high on top
of your mountain of woe
come on up to the house
well you know you should surrender
but you can't let go
you gotta come on up to the house

Tom Waits, Come On Up To The House.

Collapsed, in the sequence of things, he had been to the same meeting every week since he came back from Pnom Penh, and marched each week as a gathering disaster; or as they would put it the road to recovery. Forty days and nights in the desert, he quipped, getting a short laugh before they knew they were appalled when he failed to follow the party line. Sometimes I just go and let it all wash over me, he said. Sometimes I think, my god what a crock of shit, I can't believe the garbage coming out of people's mouths. But whatever the solution, whatever the time, whatever the diatribe, these things marched in unison like demented toy soldiers, up and down the sois, up and down his spine, marching to some infernal tune aimed to destroy in one hysterical laugh. I worry about mortality, each one of them said in turn, and he thought, I don't. I'll slip behind another curtain and that will be that. There were so many solutions. There were so many problems. So many promises. He listened to them, full of themselves, as if they had anything to offer, anything at all. And as always, he was drawn to appalling queens, including Jack the lawyer from Washington, who was as pompous and precise and as long winded as any lawyer could be. It was eight, ten years ago, no nine, I think, he would say. Yes nine. I'm sure it was nine. You clearly need to be taken out, he said.

There was a range of solutions on offer, but not here. He fought for peace, and found a new disturbance in his failing heart. How unfair is this, he thought, stalking his upmarket apartment, everything was free and yet here he was, like everybody else, imprisoned by the flesh, paying for the past. Present sainthood did not always reap immediate rewards. They all talked the same talk: life is short. He tossed and turned fitfully and slept more hours than he had ever slept. And couldn't be sure: what was going wrong? How dare life threaten his perfect presence. Some things were coming home to roost, both good and bad. Work was on offer. He was characterised by plain disaster. There were catastrophes beckoning, all in the future, plane crashes, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis. They would all provide opportunity for someone such as himself. If you see me coming you're having the worst day of your life, he would sometimes quip; and sometimes it was true, the courts, the riots, the funerals, the day of death. He rang the father of that handsome boy the second after the Federal Police had informed him his son had died in the Bali bombing. Everything fell softly to earth. The exigencies of the flesh seemed far away.

When the pleasure dome ceased functioning, when they sat in silence in the restaurant, their mutual English and mutual Thai thoroughly exhausted, he knew it was all a waste of curdled time; "stranger stranger strange how you listen to the river of my curdled song"; "you been whipped by the forces inside you, come on up to the house" quoted the lanky academic; all sensitive and gooey, cloying almost. The academic who was always giving up cigarettes. He was passionately concerned, as if it would make any difference, and he fought, fought to make a difference, fought against the shadows and the flesh and the past and the future, and settled here in an over-heated present, with the time on their side, not his, and he thought: I just want one happy year in Bangkok. Which, incidentally, has just been named the number one city in the world by Travel and Leisure, despite the problems of the red shirts, despite the traffic, despite everything. Because of course in so many ways it is the number one city in the world, it attracts money from everywhere, it is fascinating in all its corners and its ancient spread, and it attracts people from not just around the world but all over Thailand, the poor from Issan come to work in every trade imaginable, and contemptuous little shits asking his boy: are you from Issan? Are you a poor boy? Eff off, he felt like shouting, and instead they jerked monkey like across a frozen landscape; eerie in intensity, silent in intent.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/leaking-labor-is-a-shambles-abbott-20100729-10wix.html

Opposition leader Tony Abbott said today the Gillard government was a "shambles" with a series of damaging leaks showing a party divided.

The coalition's renewed attack came after the Deputy Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, admitted last night Labor was powerless to stop the leaks.

Mr Abbott said the government had deteriorated under Julia Gillard's watch.

''Since Julia Gillard took over, we've gone from incompetence to incompetence, chaos to chaos, shambles to shambles,'' he told reporters.

''It's extraordinary how Kevin Rudd's government looks disciplined compared to Julia Gillard's government.''

Mr Swan rejected the criticism saying the government had ''the runs on the board'', especially on economic management.

''We've got a big story to tell,'' he told ABC radio.

Paid parental leave continues to be part of the election campaign story as both Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott campaign in Melbourne. Both sides are trading blows on the issue with the coalition continuing to question Ms Gillard's belief in paid parental leave.

''What's now been revealed by this series of leaks from within the government is that Julia Gillard is not a true believer in paid parental leave,'' opposition frontbencher Joe Hockey told ABC Radio.

The coalition has flagged it will announce another change to its business-funded scheme in the next few days.

Earlier in the week it announced carer fathers would be paid only the working wage of the child's mother.

Mr Swan said these changes - and a decision to cut the company tax rate to 28.5 per cent from 2013 - were an indication the coalition was in ''policy chaos''.

''They are out of control behind the scenes,'' he said.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Plane-Crash-in-Pakistan-Kills-152-99466739.html

Authorities said the Airblue jet was traveling from the southern port city of Karachi to Islamabad when it crashed into the Margalla Hills while attempting to land in rainy and cloudy conditions.

Rescue teams and army helicopters were sent to the crash site, but search and recovery efforts were hampered by difficult terrain and bad weather.

Pakistan's Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said rescuers had so far recovered 115 bodies and were searching for the plane's flight data recorder to determine the cause of the crash..

Witnesses said the plane was flying very low just before the crash, while an Airblue spokesman (Raheel Ahmad) said the pilots did not send any emergency signals.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani expressed grief over the "tragic incident." The government declared Thursday a national day of mourning.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered condolences to the families of victims including two U.S. citizens. They said the American people stand with the people of Pakistan at this difficult time.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply saddened by the tragic air crash and extended his heartfelt condolences to the people and government of Pakistan. A U.N. statement said Mr. Ban wrote to Prime Minister Gilani to express the sincere sympathy of the United Nations with Pakistan at this painful time.

Promotional picture: Tasmania.

View from the Sky Bar, Bangkok, 27 July, 2010.

Painful It Was So Bright

*

So he knelt down on Patpong before the monk, with the two go go boys by his side, there between Super Girls and Super Pussy, and thought: it doesn't get much more dislocated than this. He had sought strange experiences and ended up in the company of rent boys. Not that they weren't good company. They often were. He fought through the thickening fog, the strange curtains, strange branch like structures beating on his face as he ran; and to think he had paid for this experience. Darkness wasn't here, it was more like a shattering ethereal light, painful it was so bright. So completely abandoned, so completely departed from his old life, he watched with a certain fascination as the falang, the foreigner, sat in the corner of Hot Male Station and made various proffers on the boys; 1,000 baht he began at, Aek, I like, no, sorry, I have boyfriend, Mr Yung, too trisy, Mr Tong, no, I don't take customer, and settling on a butch little boy, well butch by Thai standards but nonetheless pretty, who looked entirely distressed, indeed extremely unhappy at the thought of going off with the old man in the corner. The man offered him 2,000 bath, near enough eighty dollars on the current exchange rates, to which he demanded four, raising four fingers in the air. Three is enough to buy the best looking bodies in town stay till morning; almost no one gets four. The falang agreed instantly. This one he wanted.

He had a belt slung low and all the accoutrements of a teenager, Western or Eastern, and still looking very unhappy about the whole situation, and barely old enough to cope, he went back on the dance floor and embraced his equally young girl friend, whispering in her ear, explaining what was happening, telling her he wouldn't be all that long and he would be 4,000 baht richer and they could eat for the week, pay the rent, live well. She cuddled him affectionately, supportively, and he went back to the foreigner in the corner; and smiled for once at some joke the customer and the mamma sahn made, and shortly after they left. It was just another bit of theatre on another day, well early morning, at Hot Male Station. The club filled rapidly after 2am as the boys without customers came down from X-Boys and Bangkok Boys and the other clubs; and they danced till dawn because that's what they liked to do, nocturnal creatures. They clicked his glass because he had covered the cost of drinks and they all knew him as Aek's friend, the one with the condo who had paid Aek out at the bar, perhaps a dream for many, and the shadows danced and climbed in his bewildered head; sober, so effing sober he bummed a cigarette, only the second time in six weeks, and sat outside and watched the goings on. The security guard embraced him pointedly and the others joked: you have new boyfriend now. The same operator he had met last time said: welcome back and repeated his previous claim, this is Bangkok, you can take home anyone you like, you can take home three boys, you want me?

He finished his cigarette and went back inside, where the party continued. He remembered everything and nothing. The impossibly trissy boys continued to click his glass. Dry away the tears, went the melodramatic disco song. A snatched remix. Aek was dancing, having had a rare whisky. The man, and he was a man, he oddly fancied most in the entire place was getting seriously pissed, and once upon a time, in a different, parallel life, he would have got pissed with him. There in the shortfall, there where the mattresses thudded to the ground, falling from on high on to dusty floors. Once twined in a brief engagement, now everything was committed, or was it trapped. He didn't know. He wasn't used to comfort, a tidy house. Take care, went the saying, and some of these boys took it seriously. They really did take care, in every sense. So it was a brutal thing: you take care of me, I take care of you. He just didn't do happy very well, but was attracted to the theatre of it all most of all. Even that frightful queen Alex from Washington, who had shown up at meetings in recent weeks and where everything was an affectation, a limp wrist, a knowing fall of tone. They swapped rapid notes. Alex had found his way to Babylon, a sauna where he hadn't been and had no intention of going, the world being far from ready for his naked flesh, certainly at his age, although Alex was 70 and seemed to feel no shame. He had had a quadruple bi-pass or something; scars over his chest, and had upset everybody at the gay and lesbian meeting near the Malaysia Hotel when he said: I've seen how Robbie lives and I don't want that.

Robbie was one of the former owners of Studio 54 in New York and apparently much loved by his coterie of friends in Bangkok. Far from snorting coke till dawn, these days he did good works and was passionate about helping Burmese refugees. Education, learning English, was one of the ways these people helped. Whether anyone really appreciated all these westerners dedicated to good causes he sometimes doubted; but they were there, everywhere, and in a Buddhist way of thinking, they could earn merit if they liked; that, in itself, was a good thing. He had thought Robbie was just a generic term for white man; as in, I can see how all the expats are living here, idly, aimlessly, their unfocussed, pleasure seeking lives, and I don't want that. He didn't realise, at first, that he was referring to a real person. But then after the meeting Robbie turned on him and said: I've got a bone to pick with you. What do you mean, I've seen the way Robbie lives, wandering around aimlessly. I walk and jog a lot because I need to keep fit; so you often see me out and about. What do you mean? He thought it best to exit at this point, as did everybody else, but he contineud to watch the drama through the glass; loved a spat, loved the theatre. And yet even though Alex had behaved so badly, and was so obviously such an appalling idiot, he nonetheless kept finding himself talking to him, running into him in the street, sitting next to him in a restaurant, and he was always greeted with a: how are you dear? To which he usually replied, at least in the last few days, I've got a splitting headache, I've given up coffee. And Alex would listen with great fervour to his casually droppped exploits, his long fingers wrapped around a glass in an attempt at elegance. Where is that, where is that? He would ask.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.google.com.au/news/search?aq=0&pz=1&cf=all&ned=au&hl=en&q=gillard+RAT

ANALYSIS - Tony Wright

Julia Gillard did a credible job this morning of trying to limit the damage of continuing leaks.

But the paranoia within her party about who is doing the leaking - and more to the point, why - remains at fever pitch.

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While many suspect an embittered Kevin Rudd or his supporters are somehow behind the leaks, senior Labor MPs and officials privately believe this is far too neat and convenient.

Kevin Rudd would be pulling so much ire on his head that he may as well kiss goodbye to his political career within Labor.

More complicated and Machiavellian motives by others are suspected.

One theory is that enemies of Rudd are working far behind the scenes to place him in the frame - and thus destroy any chance he might have of returning to a senior frontbench position, as promised by Gillard. The theory continues that two or more ambitious Labor MPs are planting leaks that would appear to come from Rudd.

Under this scenario, Ms Gillard and her senior allies would be infuriated by the belief that the former PM was prepared to wreck her campaign and reputation: so infuriated that Rudd would never be considered for the foreign affairs ministry he so desires.

The result of that would be that a desirable frontbench seat would be freed up for an ambitious plotter.

One current minister and one less senior Labor MP are suspected by those who place credence in this theory.

The problem with it is that such plotters would risk blowing their entire party's chances of retaining government.

They would need to believe that Ms Gillard was going to lead Labor to victory whatever damage she might sustain, or to have such a narrow focus on trying to destroy Rudd that they were prepared to ignore the bigger picture.

The other conspiracy theory under quiet inquiry is that a very senior minister wants to expose Ms Gillard as hypocritical, arguing positions behind closed doors that are far from her old leftist views, and then publicly embracing social policies that others fought for.

The strength of this theory is that only a very senior minister would be privy to conversations during high-level decision-making on such issues as paid parental leave and pension increases.

Its weakness is that such a figure would hardly put in jeopardy the government they serve.

It could destroy their own career.

But what if such a figure was so unimpressed by Ms Gillard - and perhaps didn't mind if Kevin Rudd got the blame - that they had decided their political career was no longer worth pursuing, anyway?

The fact that such thinking is occurring among a number of well-placed Labor government figures makes clear that the content of the leaks are not the biggest problem facing Julia Gillard.

Suspicion and Byzantine conspiracy theories swirling within the party itself have the ability to do greater damage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7913088/Wikileaks-Afghanistan-suggestions-US-tried-to-cover-up-civilian-casualties.html

Fresh evidence suggesting that US-led forces attempted to cover up civilian casualties in Afghanistan has emerged through leaked military documents.

They include an internal account of a disastrous operation by US Marines near the city of Jalalabad in March 2007, in which 19 unarmed civilians are said to have died and up to 50 injured.
US commanders later accepted that dozens of Afghan civilians had been killed or injured in the shootings, as the marines extracted themselves from the scene of a suicide bombing in which one of their number received shrapnel wounds.
But the original incident report makes no reference to the carnage, noting only that the servicemen had “returned to JAF (Jalalabad Air Field)”.
The “war logs” also detail how US special forces arranged for six 2,000lb bombs to be dropped on a compound in Helmand Province in August 2007 in an incident in which up to 300 civilians were later claimed to have been killed.
According to extracts, an internal US account of the operation states that efforts had been made to ensure that “there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area”.
It adds that commanders believed that “high value” Taliban targets were meeting in compound.
The records log a total of 144 incidents involving Afghan civilian casualties, in which 195 non-combatants are said to have died and 174 injured.
They include at least 21 cases allegedly involving British forces which are said to have led to the deaths of at least 26 people, among them 16 children.
The disclosures have led to allegations that coalition forces may have committed “war crimes” in Afghanistan.
In London, the British Ministry of Defence said it was examining the leaks.

Picture: Peter Newman, taken from the top of the State Tower, Bangkok.

Pray For Me Brother

*

So somewhere between Super Girls and Super Pussy on Patpong they knelt down before the monk and handed over their offerings, he and the two Thai boys, his sleeping companion and his friend, because no Thai came alone. Everyone know he is too crazy to have a relationship with, drink too much whisky, too many girls. Everyone but him. And even as these stale thoughts ricocheted around his aging head, he was with different company now. I have a new boy now, the words falling on muffled air, despite the phone line. He couldn't help thinking, as they headed towards Surawong, what are the chances of seeing him again. How would they react. This is my new friend. The introductions. As if any of this tired, obsessional thought mattered. They knelt, there in the tattered streets, before the monk, it being a period of Buddhist holidays, and were prayed over. All the time, thoughts disappearing like flocks of pigeons up through the shambolic houses, up past shuttered windows and closed rooms, scenes of a thousand orgasms; of sweat and indignation, cheating and service. Up and away in the morning clouds, already dusky, already damp, already the heat of the day marking a triumphant return to form.

Your health is not normal, you take a lot of pain killers, Mr Jue, their translator in difficult circumstances by dint of being shacked up with a falang, said on the phone. He tried to explain: he had just given up coffee because of high blood pressure; and he missed those mornings at the Anan Cafe with the swishy boys like he missed the morning dealer before work or the boys in Penang with their eternal cry: Hey Johnny, you want something. In other words he missed that morning coffee as if it was heroin, it was the one thing that added sparkle, coherence and meaning to an ordinary morning, made it all worthwhile. There in the footfalls. There in the most delicate shadows. When he stood on Silom and waited for Aek to purchase the offerings. He had thought they were heading towards the Wat, perhaps that was the original plan, but as it turned out they stopped on Patpong; and as the monk approached from the other end, pale, unsmiling, they lined up along the side; every step orchestrated, told what to do at every point. Pray for me brother, he felt like screaming, but in reality the pain of his disoriented head and the muffled confusion of his emotional state meant he might as well have been part of the walls, part of the weather, there between Super Girls and Super Pussy.

Then they went and had breakfast at the corner open air restaurant at Patpong, the owner asking if he spoke Thai - passah Thai - and he having to respond: nik noi, little. Chinese porridge, putting aside the liver. He is there 24/7 to take care of you, Mr Jui said. Sometimes he just forgot how strange they seemed to them. He caught Aek the other day asking one of his friends: what does this mean? And then he mimed him going: "F...ing hell." With all the intonations. They had to explain they were just swear words, an expression of annoyance when everything was not going right, the phone kept dropping out or the internet was wonky, or Skype didn't do what it was meant to do. These were the fortunate times, when everything was blessed. The patients with a pot plant live longer, the movie line went, and it was probably true, those with pets, with lovers, with something in their life, they all lived longer. Did God, that demented, tortured, brutal, authoritarian God he had grown up with, count as a comforting presence? Perhaps for those without sin, those who had sacrificed all in His name. But what was this, as a spiritual experience, when the monk mumbled words he could not understand and their offerings were immediately replaced into a large bucket carried by a helper.

I know why we met, why the Buddha sent you here, the boy said, because you were lonely; and I can help you. Well that's as may be. The boy certainly helped to relieve his wallet; and lead a merry dance. But the same thought kept recurring to him: I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been there. Young Peter has gone and the apartment is quiet without him; always downloading music, his many passionate concerns. Off to the eternal city. The Spanish Steps at sunset, St Peter's Square at dawn, The Sistine Chapter, that fountain, Bertellini, whatever it's called, the Colloseum, walk along the Tiber River, these things you must do. Everything else will fall into place, he told him. Just to look across Rome from the Spanish Steps in those hours, minutes before dawn, was something not easy to forget, the rising clamour, the most beautiful of sights, when he wandered alone as if these were the most profound moments, and found himself, well found himself everywhere, shooting heroin in the back streets of Naples, coursing through the back lanes, lingering in neighbourhoods where the well dressed Italians ran straight up against stylish sleaze, and he could scent every possibility in the air, and could feel the gathering paces of a curdled storm, and knew that behind the fabric of things, the surface gloss, lay a different, more profound, more important world, if only he could break through. And there was only one way to get there. Or only one way he knew.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIkk0CUHMP_fMcrg9CqTa38dJIgwD9H70HC82

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A war crimes tribunal sentenced the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer on Monday to a prison term that will see him serve less than half a day for every person killed at the notorious torture center he commanded.
Survivors expressed anger and disbelief that a key player in the genocide that wiped out a quarter of Cambodia's population could one day walk free — despite being convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"I can't accept this," sobbed Saodi Ouch, 46, shaking so hard she could hardly talk. "My family died ... my older sister, my older brother. I'm the only one left."
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was the first major Khmer Rouge figure to face trial more than three decades after the "killing fields" regime tried to turn the country into a vast agrarian society — leading to the deaths of 1.7 million people.
As commander of the top secret Tuol Sleng prison — code-named S-21 — the 67-year-old Duch admitted to overseeing the torture and deaths of as many as 16,000 people.
He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but will spend only 19 in jail — 11 years were shaved off for time served and another five for illegal detention in a military prison.
"It is just unacceptable to have a man who killed thousands of people serving just 19 years," said Theary Seng, a human rights lawyer, who lost both her parents to the Khmer Rouge and has been working with other victims to find justice.
"It comes down to serving 11 1/2 hours per life that he took," she said, adding that if prosecutors could get only such a lenient sentence in a case where the defendant admitted his guilt, they could expect even less in the upcoming trial of four senior Khmer Rouge figures.
The U.N.-backed tribunal is scheduled to try the group's top ideologist, 84-year-old Nuon Chea, its former head of state, Khieu Samphan, 79, and two other top leaders, both in their 80s, early next year. Unlike Duch, they have denied any guilt.

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Thai-Governing-Partys-Victory-Overshadowed-by-Bomb-Blast-99232824.html

A weekend by-election victory by Thailand's governing Democrat Party has been overshadowed by fresh concerns of political instability after an overnight bombing in central Bangkok. The blast left one person dead and up to 10 wounded at a bus terminal near where anti-government protests were held in April and May.

No group claimed responsibility. Bangkok and more than a dozen provinces have been under a state of emergency since the protests.

The blast overshadowed a crucial by-election victory by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjaiva's governing Democrat Party over the opposition Puea Thai Party.

Analysts saw the by election as a vital test of support for the government, after the army dispersed the anti-government red-shirt protesters in late May. The clashes left 90 people dead and almost 1,900 injured.

Democrat Party spokesman Buranaj Smutharak said the election was a step forward to political normality after the recent turbulence.

"This is a vote of confidence in democracy in Thailand. So I think hopefully this will continue and provide itself in the subsequent national elections will be relatively peaceful," said Buranaj. "But of course the reconciliation process will determine whether that can be achieved and how long it will take."

The by-election winner is a former investment banker. The opposition Puea Thai Party candidate was the leader of the anti-government "Red Shirt" movement and is in prison facing charges linked to the protests

Chulalongkorn University economics professor Sompob Manarangsan said the results of the by-election underscore a sharp divide in Thai society.

"One of the very clear messages is that the opposition group of people to the government, in particular from the 'Red Shirts,' is still very strong and still very united, even with the nominee from the Puea Thai Party is still in jail," Sompob said.

The government had hoped the by-election would mark a major step towards the country stepping away from the political turbulence of April and May.

The bombing, however, has raised more questions about the country's political uncertainties, said Human Rights Watch Thailand representative Sunai Pasuk.

"All in all, having an explosion go off in the evening of an election day would raise concern about political stability in Bangkok," Sunai said. "It would raise concern - it does not matter who did it - but whether the political climate has returned to normalcy or not."

Last week, a government-established committee for political reform and reconciliation called the state of emergency to be lifted. But a government spokesman said the bombing makes the case for keeping the decree in place.

Picture: Bangkok. Peter Newman.