Yes, Virginia, Blitzen is a girl!

Re: Rudolph had to be a girl
Date: 24 December 2002
Sir - In reply to your correspondent who wanted to know if Rudolph was a cross dresser (Dec. 21), according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter.
Female reindeer retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring.
Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.
We should have known. Only women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.
J Evans,
Chichester, W Sussex

It's a sad day when petrol costs less than beer... and contains more alcohol.
Ada Lim
Sydney, NSW
· A Very Corporate Christmas

Perhaps this Christmas....

We have a lot to be humble about, but we also have cause for hope. There is a growing chorus, not just of angels, but of ordinary folk, singing ‘Peace on Earth’, calling for an end to killing, terrorism, torture and war, and trying to change the ways we talk about one another and treat one another.
· Dreams [CommonDreams]

Politics Let's cut to the heart, head and soul of the matter - better opposition

Carmen Lawrence may have taken a back seat, but she is well out in front of her colleagues.
· Sit back and reflect on the year that was [SMH]
· And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? [SMH]

Reclaiming Our Courage

It's hard to maintain hope when greed and fear seem to hold all the cards. Despite Bush's mangled phrases, the political operatives who surround him are as ruthless and cunning as any in recent memory. Some of them believe they're taking orders from God. Others are simply playing the political game. Either way, they'll do whatever they can to maintain and increase their power. With the help of a compliant media and a fearful and distracted populace, they may even temporarily prevail. But ultimately they'll succeed only if those of us who embrace more humane visions give up in despair.
· Imrich comes out out of a Spell Czech as 'Embrace' [WorkingforChange]

Winning the cash dash
I do not regard the Australian or the Tele as in the same business as the Sydney Morning Herald. However, an author of this story used to write for the Herald and some good journalistic habits fail to die easily even under moronship of editors.

Max Moore-Wilton is just the latest in a long series of business-government exchanges where senior bureaucrats or politicians leave the public payroll and take up a corporate salary. Consultancy – particularly in the area where a minister has worked – is the usual path, and the more senior the politician the more likely it is that they will establish their own business. If you shake any major financial institution or business lobby you are likely to end up with a parliamentary handbook of former MPs, staffers and bureaucrats.
· Consulting Insults [The Australian]

THE POLITICS OF POLITESSE

One of the most striking trends in American politics in recent years has been the steady escalation in niceness coming from the White House. The baseline was set by Johnson and Nixon, who were, dispositionally, at the historical norm. Then there was Jimmy Carter, who had a kind of Sunday-school-teacher bonhomie (although one suspects that, on the eve of the White House Christmas party, he spent a little too much time working out who had been naughty and who had been nice).
· White House [New Yorker]

The Book Lives

I' m neither rich nor sure who started the rumor, it may have been Dunny Byrnes or, more probably, Garry Willy (sic), but somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, people came to believe that books were doomed. The future belonged to film and television, it was assumed, the prevailing media in an increasingly visual age: Queen Victoria read books and tax rulings, but we will watch video screens.
· Cold Reality [Weekly Standard]

Internet Thing.net Booted From The Web

As reported in a story in today's New York Times, Thing.net, which hosts a variety of pushing-the-edge artists and activists, was in danger of being shut down for controversial works. Early this morning a release arrived from Thing.net saying it had been booted off the web.
· Booted [Thing.net]