And finally, some newspaper stories we'd have liked to have read Down Under

HANG ME AS
WAR CRIMINAL:
PM HOWARD

Prime Minister John Howard says he should be tried as a war criminal and hanged if weapons of mass destruction are not found in post-war Iraq.
A contrite Mr Howard made the shock admission to his close friend Alan Jones on 2GB.
"I mean really, we've gone in there and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said.
"I know we'll probably never, ever really know how many people we've killed.
"It could be 16,425, it could be 16,426. I guess we'll never really know because know one wants to tell me
"But I've been thinking long and hard about this ever since.
"It's very unAustralian to go in there and fight them like that without UN approval.
"I'm really sorry. I got carried away with things. It's a small-man thing, You'd understand that, Alan?
"And now weeks after the war is finished, they still haven't found any weapons of mass destruction.
"No, if it turns out Saddam was telling the truth all along and he didn't have them, then string me up. I'd deserve nothing less."
When the famous talkbackradio announcer butted straight in with a "I'd swing for you, Mr Prime Minister", a grateful PM replied in a croaky voice: "Yes, I've heard you would."
Mr Howard said he had also called off planned marches in the capital cities to celebrate the return of the nation's fighting forces from Iraq.
"Once again, just another 'little man' thing. Just trying to big note myself. Give me some impetus for a double dissolution, I suppose"
Mr Howard told Jones: "Your audience that all live in those shitty little boxes out on the Parramatta Plain would have soaked that up, just like the Tampa bullshit I fed them last time around.
"Besides, how the bloody hell can you commemorate a war where everyone marches off and every bloody one comes back.
"Who the bloody hell are we supposed to remember? Those we didn't leave behind? Those that shall grow old?
"Who the bloody hell's going to stop playing pool at their local RSL at dusk to hear some silly old bugger mutter 'age shall weary them, nor the years condemn'?
"What about the tomb of the unknown soldier? We can't have one this time around - we know every bloody one of them."
Mr Howard said at such times he missed former ministerial colleague Peter Reith.
"Peter would have had no qualms about telling the Australian public we'd lost a dozen or two good men over board ... I mean there.
"Parades would have been a beaut idea then."

Murdoch tried to
join Aussie forces

American media magnate Rupert Murdoch renewed his Australian citizenship in the lead-up to the Iraq war in a failed bid to serve with Australian forces.
Speaking from Los Angeles yesterday, Mr Murdoch, now 71, said he had tried in vain to join any branch of the Australian Defence Forces.
"I just felt that since I controlled hundreds of media outlets around the world and that on my instruction all of them were backing war with Iraq, then I needed to show my bona fides.
"How could I have my newspapers and TV networks plugging for young men and women to be sent to Iraq and face the prospect of not coming back, while I was sitting here safely in LA?
"Anyone can see that's not fair.
"So I decided to try to join the US military, but was knocked back. I'm told the instruction came from the highest possible level.
"Apparently they thought I was too valuable where I was.
"They tried to blame the decision on my age, even though I've just recently fathered a child with my much younger wife.
"So then I turned my attention to my former homeland, Australia."
Mr Murdoch said he had lobbied Canberra to rush through an application to renew his Australian citizenship which he'd renounced in 1985 when he needed a US passport to buy TV stations there.
"But even after doing that, ther Australian government wouldn't let me join up and fight in Iraq," he said.
"Once again they said I was too valuable where I was.
"My last-ditch efort was to ring my son Lachlan and ask him if he'd join the Australian Army to prove our family was prepared to do what we were telling others to do.
"But that was just before the US invaded, and I haven't heard back from him.
"Now the war's over so it's all academic anyway, I guess," Mr Murdoch said.