Does the music sound better?

Michael Jackson died today. That's just in case you lost use of all your senses today, have only recently recovered them, and you decided to come here before anywhere else on the web.

Now to be honest it doesn't really affect me much. I don't own any of his CDs, and wasn't a big fan of his growing up. I think I once had a dubbed tape of his "Bad"album - quite liked the song "Dirty Diana". But he was such an enigma that he wasn't real in any sense that he impacted on our lives on a daily basis.

Now take say Madonna - she is still recording, putting out some pretty cool songs, and is in the magazines most weeks. She is a real presence in life - even in that peripheral celebrity fixated sense. If she were to die suddenly, whoah! That would hit me (and probably also because I was a huge fan of hers in the 80s and early 90s). In fact I'm betting a lot more people would be looking at each other at work saying "What?? You're kidding me!?" than what happened today.

Jackson was such a recluse that we'll hardly notice his lack of presence.

When I got home from work on the USA itunes store, 18 of the top 100 singles were by Michael Jackson. A couple hours later he now has 20 songs in the Top 100 (6 in the top 25), and 19 of the Top 100 Albums - (6 of the Top 10). On the Australian version, 14 of his tracks in the top 100, and 12 of his albums are in the Top 100 Albums.

Now what I want to know is why because he has now died would someone who up till this point has not bought Thriller, would want to buy Thriller? But forget Thriller, because that's actually a good album, but why on earth would you now want to buy the "We Are the World" EP? And yet that is now Number 49 on the US chart!

Perhaps people want to have a collective remembrance of his songs, and I know this happens when any famous musician dies (certainly did with John Lennon and Elvis), but I have to say, I don't get it. His last album, Invincible, was released in 2001, I'm thinking if you didn't like what you heard 8 years ago when you decided not to buy it, it'll be much the same now.

His Greatest Hits CD, "The Essential Michael Jackson" released in 2005, only sold 420,000 copies in the USA (by comparison Thriller sold 28 million copies in the US). It is now Number 1 on itunes in Australia and the USA, and will no doubt be one of the biggest selling albums of the year.

Perhaps people subconsciously think that now he is dead no more of his CDs will be made, so they better get them before they run out!

Or perhaps, it's just a case of no publicity is bad publicity - and his death is the biggest publicity he'll have ever gotten.

UPDATE: Woke up this morning - Jackson now has 25 singles in the Australian itunes Top 100 (plus 4 by The Jacksons), and 20 Albums. In the US, he now has 40(!!!!) singles in the Top 100 (plus 4 by The Jacksons) - 11 songs in the Top 20. Last night he had 19 Albums in the Top 100, now he has 23 - including the all of the Top 9! Over on Amazon, the top 16 selling albums are all Michael Jackson ones.

Absolutely amazing. The reports yesterday were that his estate was in debt. I doubt that'll be the case now.

UPDATE #2. Well he now has 42 singles in the US Top 40 (plus 5 by The Jacksons). That's almost 50% of the entire top 100. Truly amazing (though there are a few of double ups - eg 3 versions of "Beat It"). He now has 29 singles in the Australian Top 100.

Whatever you can say, you can't say people didn't like his music.

The general consensus across the world is that "Man in the Mirror" is his most popular track.

I was also thinking that he really is the first major pop singer to die unexpectedly in the itunes era. In the past, record stores would sell out of his records (no doubt JB HiFi have almost been stripped bare). But there is no selling out of stock on itunes. It will be very interesting to see just how many albums/singles he sells this week. I'd say without any trouble he will sell more music this week than anyone ever has.

It is a weird effect - I have to admit almost considering downloading some of his songs - but I found my time much better served by watching a few videos on youtube.

It’s easy to be cynical of people who are feeling absolutely shattered at the moment. But I’d say most of us have musicians with whom for whatever illogical reason we feel a connection with. As I said above, were it Madonna who had died, I'd be feeling a lot more emotional about it all. When someone who you put posters of on your wall when you were a teenager dies, it's hard not to feel a part of your memory has as well.

Music is an amazing thing.

Oscars admit growing irrelevance;

A very interesting announcement today from the Academy Awards.

From next year, the field for Best Picture will consist of 10 films instead of 5.

The Oscars' people say

“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.”

Don't be fooled. This is all about the studios and TV Networks being annoyed that the five nominated films in recent years have for the most part been poor box office performers.

By having 10 nominations, that means 5 more films can slap "Nominated for Best Picture" on their adverts and movie posters, and it also means there will be a much greater likelihood that films like The Dark Knight will get nominated, and thus more people might actually tune in to watch the Award ceremony.

Had there been 10 nominations last year, The Dark Knight, Wall-E and Grand Torino would likely have been nominated. And who knows, maybe Mamma Mia as well. I think what will likely happen is the field will consist of pretty much all the films that get nominated for Best Drama and Best Comedy/Musical for the Golden Globes. So if it does lead to more comedies getting a chance to win, then I'm all for it.

But hey, at the end of the day, the Oscars have always been about money. No matter how many films get nominated, we'll still all disagree with the final choice!

On the QT: The Man Who Wasn't There

All you need to know about Question Time today is that the first two questions asked by the opposition were about Rudd's dealings with John Grant - and they were asked by Tony Abbott not Malcolm Turnbull. They were about a fund raising event John Grant went to to raise money for Rudd's legal fees incurred in his defence action against the building of a parallel runway at Brisbane airport back in 2002-3. Abbott was in full Uriah Heep mode - 'umbly wanted just to know some information; not suggesting anything at all.

Pathetic. The story - which got a run in The Age - is the dumbest beat up we've had this week (and that says something). If buying a table at a fundraising dinner for Rudd while he was in opposition 5 years before he became PM is now wrong, then 95% of business people from Sydney will be stuffed should Turnbull ever get into power.

Malcolm Turnbull, you see, has a fundraising group known as the "Wentworth Forum" - Who is on it? Well for starters, how about: Frank Lowy, Ros Packer, John Simons, and Matt Handbury?

I'm sure Lowy, Packer, or Simons would want nothing from a Turnbull PM. How much does it cost to be part of this "forum"? Try $5,500 to $55,000. And that's just to get in the door. Back in 2007 it was expected that at the launch of the forum 150 would turn up. Even at the minimum $5,500 a head, that's $825,000... (though it is unlikely all 150 paid that 'little').

Now this launch was put on at Turnbull's home at Point Piper in August 2007. Here's what happened 3 months later...

Matt Hanbury (the fourth of those names above) was chairman and part-owner of the so-called Australian Rain Corporation. I tell you what - I'll let Tony Burke tell the rest (he told it in Parliament on Monday - and Turnbull has not refuted it):

There is an interesting organisation involved in what is described as ‘rainfall enhancement technology’—a company named the Australian Rain Corporation. Apparently they have decided to corporatise rain! The Australian Rain Corporation sought money and the National Water Commission commissioned an independent review of the technology that they were putting forward by a former senior CSIRO officer and professor of physical sciences and engineering from the ANU.

The National Water Commission insisted that the Australian Rain Corporation give a presentation of this technology to a panel of physicists. They then provided it with the research papers and made the presentation in Russian. The independent review concluded: ‘There is no convincing evidence that the Atlant technology operates as believed by its proponents.’

But in the end the department recommended that the member for Wentworth provide them with $2 million for a trial, which was arguably a generous offering, given what had been said about the technology. What did the Leader of the Opposition, as a minister, do with a recommendation to give them $2 million? He wrote to the Prime Minister seeking a lazy $10 million for the Australian Rain Corporation. You have to ask: what would be the circumstances of taking a departmental recommendation for $2 million and turning it into $10 million? Why would the Leader of the Opposition have done that as a minister?

This is where we discover that an executive of the Australian Rain Corporation happened to be a nextdoor neighbour of the Leader of the Opposition. The same person, the same neighbour, was a member of his electorate fundraising committee, the Wentworth Forum, with membership costing a cool $5,000 to get yourself into the room. If you want to find deals for mates, there are stories of deals for mates and there are stories that rest very squarely with the Leader of the Opposition.

Here's Turnbull on the 7:30 Report last night:

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Kerry, I am not going to talk about Mr Grech. I understand your interest in it, but this is a distraction from the real issue, which is cronyism and the way the Labor Party looks after its mates, rather than managing the economy and managing our finances in the interests of everybody.

Yep looking after mates....The worst the opposition can come up with is that Rudd may have raised on one of his trip to China the interests of an importation company that Grant is a co-owner of. No one has suggested he has done this since becoming PM. When Rudd starts giving a company owned by Grant $8 million more of Government funds than recommended by the relevant Department, get back to me. Until then, the ALP will love the issue of probity being raised, because it gives virtual permission for them to go through every bit of Turnbull's business career...

Turnbull himself didn't ask a question until Hockey had also asked two. It had taken so long for Turnbull to get around to asking one, that the Government benches cheered when he finally stood up.

It was a dumb question about the fake email. He then asked for a Royal Commission into OzCar. Which is rather stupid, given the program hasn't even been set up yet. There is also currently an Auditor's General inquiry underway into the whole process - surely if that reveals anything there will be time for a Royal Commission after that? But can you imagine the Royal Commission:

Commissioner: "Mr Grant have did you receive any money or credit from OzCar?"
Grant: "No".
Commissioner: "Well...errr OK then. I guess that wraps it all up. Thanks Mr Turnbull for wasting everyone's time and money."

Call me crazy, but I actually like my corruption scandals to involve actual money. If the big perk of being a mate of Rudd's is that Wayne Swan will ring you up and chat for 5 minutes, then call me silly, but I think I'll pass.

And if the Libs are so desperate for a Royal Commission, why didn't they agree to the Senate Inquiry into last Friday's Senate hearings? Guess they don't want to look at everything...

Julie Bishop then asked how Lindsay Tanner knew the email was fake before the AFP had announced it. He was a tad bemused by her line of questioning (and I guess it shows she hasn't heard of the internet). He pointed out that Joe Hockey had actually announced that the AFP had found the email in the house on Monday before anyone else. Bishop then asked the Attorney General if he had given Tanner a heads up. His response? "No"

It was a pretty dire affair for the Lib. They ran out of questions, and couldn't even muster the strength to launch a suspension of standing orders, which is often the go on the last day of a sitting period.

Turnbull obviously won't be dumped yet (though a bad Newspoll next week may hurry things up), but the entire Liberal Party know he's a dead duck and is only there because there's no one else.

Two weeks ago Turnbull came 94th in a poll of the 100 famous Australian people most trust (Rudd came 64th). On the basis of this week's effort, I somehow doubt he would have improved his position.

But that's it for winter. No more QT till Spring. It will be interesting to see what the topic of import will be then (not to mention the participants on either side of the dispatches box).

On the QT: The Ghost Who Walks

Today the Liberal Party reached its nadir.

Revealed to be utterly bereft of policy or position on anything of weight, Turbull tried to censure Swan twice during Question Time. He had essentially run out of questions, because in answer to every single one the Government was making merry at Turnbull's complete lack of credibility. The Government were so confident they didn't even bother with the Censure motion and just snuffed it out. The fact is Turnbull had nothing new that they needed to defend, and so they wanted nothing more than to keep on answering questions. The Opposition, by contrast, didn't want to ask them.

And yet, so incompetent were the Liberals, that the second motion of censure was the same as the first which had already been defeated - and you're not actually allowed to try and move the same defeated motion. So it was ruled out of order.

A shambles. A rabble. Call it whatever you want. But it wasn't an alternative Government.

Albanese was having so much fun that he compared Turnbull to Mark Latham (something many have been doing privately for sometime):

"Watching the Leader of the Opposition I could have sworn I was witnessing the ghost of Mark Latham. It was all there Mr Speaker - the jaw jutting out, all the fake aggression, all the machismo, all the 'we're going well'. We used to hear it Mr Speaker."

That Albo, and old Beazely supporter, was able to do this no doubt gave him great joy. And it also demonstrates just how confident the ALP are with respect to Turnbull's position.

The fact is, the ALP don't care now whether Turnbull remains, because he is a dead carcass swinging in the breeze. If no one in the Liberal Party cares to cut him down, then he'll just continue to gather flies and a bad smell by the time of the next election.

As Dennis Atkins of the Courier Mail points out:

The second green shoot [of political insight] is the first outline of the next election campaign. Turnbull's personal attacks on Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan mean anything will be fair game.

For anyone interested in just how this will go, check out the speeches of Leader of the House Anthony Albanese and Agriculture Minister Tony Burke from Monday afternoon. They sliced and diced Turnbull's business dealings, from Packer to Tourang to Channel 10 and beyond. None of it was pretty.

You see, while the public mostly has an impression of Turnbull, they don't really know what he has actually done in public and private life apart from maybe the Spycatcher trial and the Republic referendum. The ALP will be more than happy to enlighten voters.

The only things saving Turnbull at the moment is that the Liberal Party has no one else. So dire are things, that Tony Abbott's name is even being thrown around; an absolutley amazing point to reach. But if next week's Newspoll shows a significant shift, the Libs may just be desperate enough to try him. He has one more day of parliament before the winter recess. Perhaps the Liberal Party will hope everyone forgets over the next two months. Anyone here think the ALP will let them?

This time last week Turnbull was in raptures. Costello was gone, he had gotten a blip in the polls (if you can call 53-47 a blip). Now look at things...

You know things are terrible when one week after the entire media writing article after article about how Turnbull now has "clean air", the Liberal Party are desperately hoping the entire voting population of Australia has been in a fog.

The worst seven days had by any opposition leader in Australian political history.

On the QT: All the Opposition Leader's Men??

The big scoop by Chris Uhlmann (perhaps he has found a Deep Throat?) came out tonight that Godwin Grech, he of the fake email, had in fact been Turnbull's mole in the Treasury Department.

Geez.

I mean, geez!!!!

I can't see how Turnbull can survive this. From the story it sounds very much like members of the Liberal Party are not only putting distance between themselves and the email and Grech, but between themselves and Turnbull:

Several Liberals have told the ABC they believe Mr Grech has been supplying information to Mr Turnbull, and one says he knows it to be the case. However, the nature of that information is not known.

Note -supplying information to "Mr Turnbull" not "to the Liberals". Will the Liberal Partty give Turnbull till the newspoll to see how the mood of the public shifts? Perhaps if the polls don't move, they will hope that the voters haven't been paying attention. But given every newspaper in the country had variation on the theme of "Utegate Runs Over Turnbull". I seriously doubt too many people have missed what has happened.

Turnbull in Question Time today displayed a lot of hide, not much sense. He asked Rudd if he stood by his statement of June 4 regarding what he said about a Bennelong car dealer. This is what Rudd said at the time:

MR RUDD - Can I also say to the honourable member that, if he is leaping from one thing to another, the one recollection I have of a member of the public approaching me about their possible access to the car dealership finance arrangement was in fact a car dealership in the seat of Bennelong. It was at a small business function that I attended with the member for Bennelong.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr RUDD—No, the honourable member asked for an answer and I am giving him an answer. This representative said to me that they were experiencing difficulties in their car dealership and asked if the program was up and running. Upon my return to my office I mentioned that fact to my office. What subsequently occurred in relation to that individual car dealer I have no idea, but I actually said that this is what representation had been made to me. My recollection is that this is the only car dealer who has made such a representation to me; that is the occasion that I recall. If representations were subsequently made by my office concerning that particular dealership, it would be consistent with the representations that were made to me at that time. That is the sum total of my knowledge of it. If there were further to add to it, I would provide it to the honourable member rather than simply having the honourable member stand at the dispatch box and make insinuations.

Now probably Turnbull has an email or something from Grech that shows Rudd got a follow up about this car dealer.

Big deal. Unless Turnbull can show that this dealer is Rudd's long lost love-child from a liaison between he and Julia Gillard in the 1960s, no one will give a damn - because there's no hint of corruption, only perhaps the suggestion that Rudd didn't remember everything about the communication between his office and this nobody dealer. In fact, any communication will just show that John Grant didn't receive any special treatment - because he didn't even get a phone call from Rudd.

Annabel Crabb in today's SMH nailed it in one:

But the case against Swan is procedural, rather than literal.

After all, when you strip away the sizzle from this sausage, when you get to the matters which are - as the Prime Minister actually put it yesterday - "core and foundational", the real-world corruption equation against the Government is kind of thin.

Prime Minister receives rusty ute from Queensland car dealer, who in return gets diddly-squat.

The Government loved Question Time today, and must be sad that this is the last week before the Winter recess. I wouldn't be surprised if Rudd is trying to think up a reason to recall Parliament for next week. Maybe they need to work through this ETS legislation?? After all next week Gillard would be back, and so too would Peter Costello - two people who would not help Turnbull in any possible way.

On the QT: Parliament goes Blockbuster Novel

Well what a day in parliament. With AFP searches of Grech's house, links to former advisors of Turnbull; new news it seemed every other minute. It was like a John Grisham novel. I half expected Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington to come running into the House screaming "We've got the email!!!"

I'm not even going to try and bother recap everything that happened. But essentially this is it - the Opposition tried to sort of censure Wayne Swan (but not really), and the Government responded by moving a censure motion against Turnbull. Then followed about 3 hours of debate.

My comment is only this - Rudd and the entire Government were in a great mood and were lining up to speak (I'm betting Julia Gillard must be cursing herself for being in Israel this week of all weeks). The Liberals on the other hand ran out of speakers - Turnbull had to speak twice! In fact things got so bad they let Bronwyn Bishop speak! That says more than anything about how they were travelling. The funniest thing was Joe Hockey repeating the news from the ABC that an email had been found by the AFP, and suggesting that the news destroyed Rudd's case. Hockey however failed to realise the AFP had found the email was a fake, which actually destroyed his own case.

Turnbull and the Liberals are now running a million miles an hours away from the email on which they have based their entire attack on Rudd and Swan since 4 June. Turnbull at one point made the sarcastic point towards the Government being so in shock that he had called for Rudd's resignation, saying "I must be the first opposition leader ever to call for the PM to resign!"

Well Malcolm, I think you may be the first to do so on the basis of a fraudulent document....

How confident were the Government? At one point Anthony Albanese put out a call to Peter Costello (who is also in Israel) saying "the nominations for the seat of Higgins close on June 30 - it's not too late to reconsider!"

Turnbull can bluster all he likes, but there is no walking away from the fact everything he has said about Grant, Ozcar and Rudd and Swan rests on the email. It is now proved to be completely fake - the source is still to be discovered. Turnbull's case is in tatters. He can't now pretend the email was of no importance. And if (a big if, admittedly) the source of the email is found to have any connection to the Liberal Party, Turnbull will have to resign, and the Liberal Party will be out of power for a decade.

Today was one of the biggest days in parliament for many, many a year. It was won by the ALP; but it remains to be seen just what the reward will be.

Power List: Round 12 (or damn, I hate the split round)

A few changes – the big one being I have decided to put the Saints at the top. Their win over the Blues was much more impressive than the Cats win in Perth over Fremantle. Who will win in Round 14 though? I wouldn’t put money on either.

Port and the Hawks join Essendon and the Swans in the “need some wins” category. The way the Hawks got steam rolled by the Lions in Tasmania does not bode well.

I’ve changed the “still fighting” category to “looking good” as the Blues, Pies, Lions and Crows are fighting for 5 spots, which isn’t much of a fight!

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
Safe
	1	2↑	St Kilda	12-0	A great match against the Blues, and they shone through in the end.
	2	1 ↓	Geelong	12-0	They really had to struggle to beat Freo, and the best team in the comp shouldn’t need to struggle against Freo, so they drop a place.
	3	3↔	Bulldogs	8-4	The Dogs slaughtered Port. And with a percentage of 123, they’re effectively 2 games ahead of the pack of teams on 7 wins.
Looking	good
	4	4↔	Carlton	6-6	They lost, but geez, they looked good. A win against the Blues is a big win. With Essendon, Freo, Richmond and Sydney up next, they look good to be 10-6.
	5	5↔	Collingwood	7-5	A tough win in Sydney. Their run gets’ tougher after the next two easy ones of Freo and Essendon.
	6	6↔	Brisbane	7-5	12 minutes mark 3rd quarter. Lions down 48-36. They then kicked the next 9 goals; Hawks kicked 2 pints and a rushed behind.
	7	7↔	Adelaide	7-5	In wet, horrible conditions the Crows took a while to get going; but when they did it was over very quickly. Sydney, Richmond and Freo up next – need to win all 3. Because then comes the Saints, Port Geelong and Collingwood.
Need	some	wins
	8	8↔	Hawthorn	6-6	The Hawks will not win the flag. They won’t even make the preliminary final.
	9	11↑	Essendon	6-6	A win over Melbourne doesn't count. You want respect? Beat the Blues, Collingwood and Sydney, because they’re your next 3.
	10	10↔	Sydney	5-7	If the Swans don’t beat the Crows this week they won’t make the finals.
	11	9↓	Port Adelaide	6-6	Port were pathetic. I love it. Geelong and Brisbane up next. Will Williams survive this week?
No	chance
	12	12↔	North Melbourne	4-8	Cheer up North fans, the last North coach to be sacked after a loss to the Crows was Wayne Schimmelbusch, and he was replaced by Denis Pagan…
	13	13↔	Fremantle	3-9	You see, this is why you never should tip Freo – they tease, but never deliver.
	14	15↑	Richmond	3-9	A first up win for the new coach. If they beat the Saints this week, Jade Rawlings will be the Tigers’ coach in 2010.
	15	14↓	West Coast	3-9	The West Coast might almost start favourite this week against the Hawks at Subiaco, and are a chance to start underdogs the following week against Melbourne at the MCG – that says it all really.
	16	16↔	Melbourne	1-11	The pain is half way to being over.