He has visions of taking his late son’s children on tour as The Jackson Three in 2010.  Details of The Jackson Three tour came after Jackson, 79, told Good Morning America that he believed Michael’s three children had talent that could be developed.  He says:

"I keep watching Paris, she maybe wants to do something, you know,"

"And Blanket, he can really dance, that’s what they’re saying. He can really dance."

Not only a tour next year, but there are rumours the young Jacksons are preparing to star on stage in London next month for a celebration of what would have been their father’s 51st birthday and that Prince Michael may record a "virtual" duet with his father.

However, the rest of the Jackson family is violently opposed to Joe’s plans.  Said one confidant of the family:

"One of the family members is livid. He is saying Joe seems intent to do this no matter what … he wants to exploit the kids the same way he did Michael."

For the sake of Michael Jackson’s children, keep their grandfather away from them, or its likely there’ll be another generation of screwed up freaks in the family.  Oh, and get some normal names for them, too.  Who calls their kids Prince and Blanket?  Paris is OK I suppose.

Adelaide University women’s football club hired a security guard to crack down on unruly behaviour on and off field, when their team faced Elizabeth Downs today.  The rivalry between the two clubs has become so fierce that Adelaide University division one players fear for their safety.  Some have chosen not to play because of past experiences.  The club also notified the university’s security to be on standby for the game.

Adelaide University coach Kevin Holohan said:

"Players are being punched and physically and verbally intimidated,"

"The spectators are just as abusive - making physical taunts towards other spectators and players."

He also claimed that during a game he was chased by a relative of one of the Elizabeth Downs players, who threatened to physically assault him. 

Elizabeth Downs club chairman Bill Duncan said he did not know of any specific issue with Adelaide University and was surprised to hear the club had called on security to monitor the game.  He said Elizabeth Downs players behaved well and held "no animosity" towards Adelaide University.

So what does this say about the two teams?  Are the University players overly sensitive and unable to deal with what the Elizabeth bogans throw at them?  Are the Elizabeth people saying nothing is wrong because violence and abuse is par for the course where they come from?

Meanwhile in mainstream sport here in Australia, professional footballers are getting on with the business, getting pissed and shitting in hotel corridors.

For some joint Australian – US war games being conducted in Queensland, our soldiers lives are being put on the line, with:

• Breakfast consists of bacon, eggs, french toast, pancakes, pasta, mushrooms, tomato, cereal, porridge, Milo or hot chocolate.
• Lunch is burgers, tacos, chicken parmigiana and an Asian stir fry
• Dinner is beef stroganoff or chicken in black bean sauce, followed by bread and butter pudding, chocolate mousse or cake.

But thats not all.  On top of these hardships, they get treats such as cream buns to snack on.

Dietitian Julie Gilbert said the diet was no good for "anyone’s long term health".

"While these guys might be getting plenty of exercise to burn it off, it is not a nutritious diet because it lacks fruit and vegetables - they are filling up on high fat, proteins and carbohydrates,"

she said.

Ms Gilbert said the soldiers would suffer serious sugar withdrawals on the diet.

Apparently, one in seven Australian soldiers was classified as obese. The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, has confirmed to a Senate estimates hearing he was concerned about obesity in the armed forces.

I can see pros and cons with fat soldiers.  Bigger target sure, but also more padding in the event of an explosion.

Good riddance, Robert “Dolly” Dunn.

But a horrible way to go for Vincent Smith II, who died after falling into a vat of molten chocolate at a chocolate factory in Camden, New Jersey.  He was on top of the vat adding chunks of chocolate when he somehow slipped and fell in.  Inside the vat, he was hit by a piece of equipment called the agitator that’s used to stir, and that killed him.

Buderim mother Alison Sheldon complained to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council after witnessing an elderly man watching hardcore pornography on a  computer at Maroochydoore library last month, but said she was "fobbed off" by senior council staff who told her internet filtering was not possible.

Watching porn at the library seems to be somewhat popular up in Queensland.  In March, Brisbane man and former library assistant David Harold Wegert, 55, was sentenced to two year’s probation after using a library computer to scour the internet for child pornography, and in December, a man was sentenced to two years jail for possessing child abuse material he had obtained from the Maroochydore library computers.

What was not reported in this story was whether the old fellow watching the porn had his old fella out at the time, and was he typing one-handed.

Not to be outdone by the Americans, our own Navy has some sailors doing their best to uphold the worst sexist bogan traditions of the service.

Some members of the crew of HMAS Success apparently had a competition going to have sex with as many of the female crew members as possible.  The sailors allegedly detailed their plot in a document called "The Ledger" where dollar values were placed on each woman’s head, during an overseas deployment in May.  Larger amounts were offered if the sailors could sleep with a female officer or a lesbian and sailors challenged each other to have sex in various locations, including on top of a pool table.

When the competition was discovered, the ship’s captain ordered a number of the sailors to leave the ship and return to base.  The Department of Defence has launched a formal inquiry into the claims.

The local sex industry expects their fair share of this boost.  One Perth brothel madam says she has put on 5 extra girls, including some from the eastern states, to cope with the expected demand.

When a similar number of sailors appeared in Perth in 2002, the brothel was overwhelmed with the demand and was forced to shut its doors. The brothel madam said her staff and workers at other brothels had become exhausted and that she would rather stop business than offer customers an inferior service.

Among the key issues noted in the report:

• the gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous people is 12 years for men and 10 years for women. Two years ago those numbers were 18 and 17 years respectively
• substantiated child abuse cases in the indigenous community more than doubled from 16 per 1000 children in 19990-2000 to 35 per 1000 children in 2007-08. Indigenous children are six times more likely to be abused or neglected than non-indigenous children
• no significant improvement over the past two years in reading, writing and numeracy standards among indigenous children, who remain well behind non-indigenous children in all year levels.
• Half as many indigenous students finish Year 12 as non-indigenous students
• while 48 per cent in indigenous people were employed in 2006, this was 24 percentage points behind the rate for non-indigenous people.
• Indigenous people are 13 times more likely to be in jail than non-indigenous people
• Indigenous people earn less, are sicker and are born lighter than non-indigenous people.
• immunisation rates were also lower and suicide and obesity rates higher.
• In 2006, 29 per cent of indigenous people owned or were buying their own homes _ up three percentage points over five years but far lower that the rate of non-indigenous people,  72 per cent.

This is extremely tragic and a sad comment on the treatment of indigenous people in this country over a long period.

However, I thought some of the reporting of these statistics was very misleading.  For example “Billions ‘wasted on close the gap projects” which is suggesting that billions of dollars spent on the indigenous intervention by the Australian government has been wasted and most indicators show the gap is not changing and even widening.  This is an interesting leap of logic, especially considering that the intervention didn’t commence until mid 2007, and most of the data in the current report is for the period up to 2007.  Somehow, data from before the intervention even started is meant to support a claim that money is being wasted on it.  Interesting?

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (sensibly) says the gains made from the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into initiatives like the Northern Territory intervention may not be clear for some time.  Maybe lets wait till we have, say, 2009 data before jumping to conclusions.   In a step forward, COAG has agreed to reporting even more regularly on the success of programs nationally and in the states and provided greater accountability. Some shortfalls in the data collected by the Productivity Commission have been noted, with over $40 million being allocated to improve the process.

Despite the ongoing poor data, Mr Rudd is confident programs like the intervention and the $642 million housing program for Indigenous communities will eventually see statistical improvements.

"We’re committed to this because everything we’ve tried in the past hasn’t worked,"

That is a very pertinent comment.  Everyone knows shitloads of money have been thrown at indigenous problems, generally with little success.  I doubt its a question of not enough money, but more likely poorly targeted, and poorly managed, so its been squandered on useless crap.  Hopefully if the current policy is producing no discernible results in a year or two, governments will be willing to accept failure and try other approaches.

Opposition spokesman Tony Abbott is also pretty much on the money with his comments today.  He says ultimately today’s results are a blight on all governments from all sides of politics in their efforts to quickly redress Indigenous disadvantage.

"This is a very disappointing report and it does reflect ill on all governments of both political persuasion. But the essential problem here is the doctrine of exceptionalism, which has been far too prevalent for far too long,"

Mr Abbott says governments have had many reports detailing the extent of the problems over the years and more action on the ground is needed.

"Rather than having more partnerships and endless consultations, I think what we really need to do is to try and ensure that the same reasonable expectations are adhered to in respect of Aboriginal communities as applied to the general Australian population, and we could start by trying to ensure that 100 per cent of Aboriginal kids are enrolled at school."

While undoubtedly some of Abbott’s remarks are deflections intended to share the blame for indigenous policy failures of the previous government he was part of for over a decade, there is much truth in them.

His mistake.  Apart from being a thieving, almost certainly drug fucked loser?

He broke into the house of 71 year old Frank Corti, in Oxford, in the UK, armed with a knife.  Mr Corti said he was woken in the middle of the night by noises in his house and was confronted by the knife-wielding McCalium when he went to investigate. McCalium took a swipe at him with his knife, but Mr Corti ducked and threw two big right hooks at him, almost knocking him out.  Mr Corti was then able to make a citizen’s arrest on him, and hand him over to the police.

McCalium’s lawyer told the court his client “looked like a car accident”.  He didn’t get any sympathy from the judge, who sentenced him to 4 1/2 years jail.

His big mistake?  Not knowing his victim was a former boxer in the British army.