from the drum …..

Last week, Prime Minister Julia Gillard pondered what the "character and conduct" of the Anzac legend "did to shape our nation", and how "a worthy foe [Turkey] has proved to be an even greater friend".

Mr Pyne confirms the meeting took place but says he can "not remember" ever having requested Mr Ashby's mobile number.

"I don't remember ever having asked for Mr Ashby's number," he said. "I have met Mr Ashby on three occasions, and I have never had any need to phone him."

The Liberal Party powerbroker continues to deny he had any prior knowledge of the claims Mr Ashby made in the Federal Court documents or that he had ever had a discussion with the staffer over his concerns about Mr Slipper.

About the same time the mining magnate Clive Palmer announced he wanted to run against the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, at the next election - just as soon as he had finished building a life-size replica of the Titanic - the satirists of Australia received a memo. Their services would no longer be needed.

Humorists, wry commentators and the schooner-nursing jokester at your local pub would also be made redundant.

The reality of the political landscape has become so bonkers, it is better than anything even the most gifted wit could invent.

Consider, as merely one example, the Palmer candidacy.

The Vatican is facing a deepening controversy over the burial 22 years ago of a notorious crime boss, with reports emerging that the church accepted a one billion lire (£407,000) payment from the mobster's widow to allow his interment in a basilica.

If you believe the polls, the opposition and some of the media commentary over the past 24 hours, Julia Gillard's government is not just hanging by a thread on the rocks. It's a disaster of historic proportions. In all of this is the underlying question of the Prime Minister's judgement.

But as government ministers are at pains to keep pointing out, the Gillard government is not planning to go anywhere anytime soon. Ms Gillard is a "gutsy" leader with the numbers in the caucus. Indeed, as Trade Minister Craig Emerson said in the wake of the Slipper/Thomson dual sidelining, "life goes on."

from Crikey .....

The Prime Minister reverses her position on Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper because "a line has been crossed", and gets angry at journalists when they ask why. We half expected a Nixonian line about former statements being "inoperative".

Tony Abbott gives a media conference at which he demands the government "disown" the vote of Craig Thomson. Of the assembled journalists, none bother asking him about his double standard, given he has readily accepted the votes of Coalition figures charged with civil and criminal wrongdoing.

Sadly, there is more information floating about the "hoax" of global warming than there is about real sciences... 

Last Thursday, before flying from Istanbul to Ankara, and then home, Julia Gillard held the final press conference of her trip abroad. Given all that was happening at home, there was plenty to ask the Prime Minister.

The government had called in the administrators to clean out the Health Services Union, the Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, had gone harder than Gillard regarding the gravity of Peter Slipper's alleged sexual harassment, and tongues were flapping again about the leadership.

Britain's border control was under fire Saturday as lawmakers and passengers alike voiced frustration about lengthy queues at London's main airport three months out from the Olympics.

Huge queues at passport control were reported on Thursday and Friday at London Heathrow, the world's busiest international passenger airport, which will be the main gateway for the 2012 Games that get under way on July 27.

Passengers waited for up to an hour on Friday to go through the checks at Terminal 5, while there were two-hour queues on Thursday for passport holders from outside the 30-country European Economic Area (EEA).

There is a lot of crap being pushed by climate change denialists, including Jo Nova — an intellectual pigmy trying to be as dicky as Alan Jones and as idiotic as Andrew Bolt. But she tries supporting Minchin's complete and utter mind-blowing cloddy mind by asking one of the scientists on the panel of Q&A (last Monday night) to apologise to Minchin for a so-called error: apparently this is what happened (I won't take you to her horrible website) :

ABC Biased. Scientist Matthew England, outrageous error or dishonest? Nick Minchin owed an apology

Rupert Murdoch called his News of the World tabloid an "aberration" overnight, accusing journalists of hiding phone-hacking from himself, his son James and his protegee Rebekah Brooks, and said he wished he had shut it down sooner.