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Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Pervasive Deception: Tony Fitzgerald
In order to perform our democratic function, we need, and are entitled to, the truth. Nothing is more important to the functioning of democracy than informed discussion and debate. Yet a universal aim of the power-hungry is to stifle dissent. Most of us are easily silenced, through a sense of futility if not personal concern..
· Margo Kingston: Full text of Justice Tony Fitzgerald's speech launching the book'Not happy John! Defending our democracy', at Gleebooks in Sydney on June 22
· · See Also Michelle Grattan reported on the speech today at Fitzgerald berates both sides of politics
· · · See Also The US Supreme Court affirms detainees' right to use courts
· · · · See Also The Ugliness That Blooms in Secret: Nobody has any idea whether the really momentous decisions—the Hamdi, Padilla, and Guantanamo detainee cases

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Ten years after a royal commission exposed the corruption extending to the heart of the NSW Police there has been no change in police culture, and any change would be difficult to bring about

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Let's Hear It for the Handover
It was a smart move to transfer sovereignty to Iraq, two days ahead of schedule. If the Bush administration keeps doing things this smart over the next several months, the transition to self-rule might go more smoothly than anyone has had reason to suspect.
Intelligence analysts expected new torrents of violence to erupt in the days leading up to the handover.
The distinction is not merely symbolic—or, to the extent it is, the symbolism might be sufficiently potent to alter popular attitudes and behavior. On one level, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi could order emergency measures—not on behalf of the occupiers but in the name of the new Iraqi national government. On another, more critical, level, the Iraqi people might view the insurgency in a different way—as a threat not to the occupiers but to themselves. To the extent that the insurgents are nationalists and not jihadists, the accelerated move to self-rule might even deter some from continuing to take up arms.
· Finally, Bush does something right in Iraq
· · Going: Man of Honour: Brian Harradine, the father of the Senate, announcing his retirement
· · · Coming: A massive manhood development day for Eric Roozendaal
· · · · See Also Too Many Secrets
· · · · · See Also Former opposition leader Kim Beazley was the subject of two separate plots by Australian spies to trash his chances of winning the 2001 election[ via Bulletin: Kim Beazley (Google is yet to archive this story)]
· · · · · · See Also Editorial ofInsecurity

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As the late Roger Straus, one of the great postwar publishers, notable for his plain speaking, was fond of observing: Even a blind pig will eventually find his truffle.

Invisible Hands & Markets: The Slovak Dragon
From problematic baby brother in a fringe region to tax haven and industrial centre, the small Slovak republic has come a long way, but at least it's on the right track. It's been called the Detroit of Europe, even though the Hong Kong of Europe might be more appropriate. Recently Deutsche Welle labeled Slovakia A Monaco on the Danube. Even more importantly, it's not out of the question that soon we will hear about the Slovakias of Africa or South America (or Iraq).
Ask anyone who's been traveling in Central Europe to name the first thing that comes to mind when they think about the Slovak Republic. The most likely answer you will get is a baby brother complex. True, a hiker might think of the Tatra Mountains, and anyone with a broader historical perspective might mention the Bratislava cathedral and the fact that for a period the Habsburgs used to be crowned there. But it's still there, this feeling of inferiority. Or is it?
There are more important things than politics, and that government should not mess too much with peoples' lives or the economy.
· The Slavic Tiger [history first seen at Muddy History]
· · See Also Changing mindsets and fortunes in the poorest nations
· · · See Also Sir John Templeton donates $1 million to counter George Soros
· · · · See Also Ach Europa: Questions about a European public space
· · · · · See Also Dialogue of the deaf: Europeans talk a lot about each other but less with each other
· · · · · · See Also Housing eats up 40% of income

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Smooth Move: The early handover of authority (two days) by the Coalition to the new Iraqi government was clearly an intelligent maneuver. It also steals much of the thunder for attacks in the next couple of days. As Tim Dunlop put it: Anything that puts a dint in the plans of car bombers and armed insurgents has to be a good thing. It probably won't stop a single attack, but it does give a slight psychological edge to the provisional government that shouldn't be discounted.

To Dream a Salam Pax Dream of Democratic Iraq: No more occupation
Iraqis retook control of their country in a furtive Baghdad ceremony yesterday intended to wrong-foot any insurgency plans to disrupt a formal handover that was to take place tomorrow
· A handshake, and Iraqis are in charge
· · Paul McGeough: Now for the wrath of the oppressed
· · · Ambassador Bremer handed over sovereignty to the Iraqi people: Surprise handover decision welcomed
· · · · Bush hails transfer of power
· · · · · See Also The war was over but where was the defeated enemy? History repeats itself, though no two historians agree quite how

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84-year-old Bob Bemer, computer pioneer who developed the code that allows computers to understand text as a series of numbers, passed away June 22 in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas. His USA Today obituary says his personal motto was...((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!

Congo word 'most untranslatable'
Ilunga means a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Culture Wars
For years the left has dominated our cultural institutions. Now the right is fighting back. For dispatches from the front line, join The Bulletin's Tim Blair, Fairfax columnist Greg Hywood, and ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine. Are our universities, museums - and even Radio National - diverse enough?
The culture wars are the battle for ideas that's raging in our institutions, such as universities, courts, churches, schools…they involve subjects such as the environment, the right sort of marriage, Aborigines' history. Recently in the New York Times, writer David Brooks said that the university educated class in America has now split into two groups, which he calls professionals and managers. Professionals are teachers, some lawyers, academics, journalists—people who tend to work in the knowledge industry. On the other hand we have managers, who tend to work for business and corporations; often involved in making things. These two groups, he said, have different beliefs and this lies at the basis of many of the culture wars and much public debate in our time.
· Counterpoints [ courtesy of www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/counterpoint/] [[ Who are Britain's top 100 intellectuals?]]> (( Who are Dragon's 50 Coolest Blogs?)) (((Blogging: Bill Gates has a reputation for coming late to the party, then making a big splash when he arrives )))
· · See Also Bullyboy Bolt meets his match in Senator Mackay: Bolt sends dozens of emails a day, however, he probably got more than he bargained for (( LAT editor: We've got to try harder to be heard out here))
· · · See Also Editor fears gangs want him dead ((
Libya called allegations that its leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the assassination of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah mere lies and nonsense))
· · · · See Also A libel allegation [against Seymour Hersh] has been reduced to a request for a correction, which is a little like a demolition artist placing an order for nitroglycerin but settling for nitrous oxide ((Besides choosing the highest security settings for Internet Explorer, Windows users could download an alternate browser, such as Mozilla or Opera. Mac users are not in danger)) (((Search Engine Optimization Submission Placement Ranking )))
· · · · · See Also Kobe case court reporter sends secret transcripts to media ((WT founder Moon has always had a flair for the unusual: The name of the senator who gave permission for Moon to use the Dirksen Building remains a mystery))
· · · · · · See Also We're witnessing "historic" spat between president, press
· · · · · · · See Also Britton: I thought former Sun-Times boss Radler was a snake

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Try not to regret the past too much. Most often, the past drops away from you because it’s ripe.
Colette, letter to Germaine Patat (undated)

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: You didn't care if you were brave or weak. You just became nothing
One of the great things about life is that it can always get worse, just when you think it can't. Some kinds of storytelling are built on this grim joke, and Touching the Void is a very pure and powerful illustration of it.
Indeed, it's full of the most acute moral dilemmas, terrible physical suffering and unbelievable endurance. Several earlier attempts to turn Joe Simpson's best-selling book into a feature film have failed. When life is stranger than fiction, fiction often fails. It shirks the void, trying to tame it. Non-fiction can leap over the edge, shouting: Shut up! This really happened.
Yates has been vilified, even assaulted by a fellow climber, but Simpson says Yates saved both their lives. Simpson wrote the book, while recuperating from his injuries, in order to defend his friend's actions.
Yates is no less candid and it's clear that surviving has had its own toll. Simpson has grown stronger; Yates appears to live with a terrible doubt about his own character.
Much of the writing on the film bangs on about the triumph of the human spirit. There is that, but it's just as much a great film about human frailty and regret.
· Touching the Void [link first seen at Simpson's website ]
· · Barista: The Day After Tomorrow: This movie was awful. Everything was absurdly amplified and accelerated: centuries of gradual change isn't fast enough, it had to be compressed into weeks
· · · See Also Critic: Coverage of best-sellers is like absurd comic theater (( Love in the Time of Cold War))
/· · · · See Also Transcript of The Poor Editors' regular Saturday-night poker game with Dick Cheney
· · · · · The production of souls is more important than the production of tanks…. And therefore I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul Summer reading suggestions with Cold War River ((Clinton Book Sets Non-Fiction Sales Record: Clinton's My Cold River sold more than 400,000 copies in the United States in its first day of release))
· · · · · · See Also What you should know about jobs in publishing ((Who'd have thought that the biggest reviewing-controversy of the year would be Cold River and the Pillar of Storge @ Amazonia))
· · · · · See Also How the terrorists' own words can help us stop them: Making two fundamental errors. The first is imagining that the enemies can be beaten back, largely unilaterally, with Cold War tools

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Vaclav Havel comments on the country's struggles for democracy

Just let me say to each of you who have worked so hard and taken such risks to cover this story, I extend a heartfelt apology and hope you will accept it,
writes Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Congressional Language
Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice
#@%* !!!!, said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.
· Yay! One of us! One of us! One of us! [ Parliamentary language If you can't say something dillish ... ] [[Jack Ryan and the politics of meta-sins Politician's private life is sacrosanct
· · See Also Carr's gift to Howard: Labor Party's fractured policy over US relations [ via Axis of Deceit]
· · · The state controls everything, even ridicules people for suspicion of blogging Big-Time Egan: Life after debt (( Where The New Right is Going Wrong )) ((( 2004 AD Socialism)))
· · · · See Also New head gives ALP factions ceasefire hopes
· · · · · See Also Not happy, Tony, say Britons
· · · · · · Alan Ramsey: Not only flags flying in a lot of hot wind
· · · · · · · David Hanson: Year Three Again, 9/11, summing up our current position in this disorienting war: the pulse of the strategic, tactical, and ideological theaters (( On the parallels between Russia's Chechnya and America's Iraq))

Greece upset defending champion France 1-0 today to produce one of the biggest shocks in soccer and reach the semi-final of Euro 2004, a tournament getting used to saying goodbye to the powerhouse teams

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Down Under you feel like you're watching ''The Sopranos'' on a bear pit scale when you watch the Stiff; (t)electorising the lives of the minders of likely suspects such as the former leader of the House, Paul Whelan or the former Speaker, John Murray...

Invisible Hands & Markets: Singleton bets on all-Australian TV stiffis
Concerned about the erosion of Australian culture, ad man John Singleton is prepared to write a very big czech for a fourth commercial TV network which would show only local programs.
· How Magician John Makes Rupert Dissapear from Antipodean Tube [link first seen at Back Pages & MEdia Dragon Prayers Answered] (((More people are rejecting traditional sales messages, presenting the ad industry with big challenges & Ocker John knows that
· · See Also Paul Krugman a wicked economist? [worth czeching The wickedly honest Antipodean]
· · · See Also Many Minorities Prove They're Unfit For Home Ownership
· · · · See Also So the Iranians seized some British warships ....Crazy action turns out to be not so crazy at all (( Economy that never sleeps))
· · · · · See Also Swedenization of Europe ((Willing Slaves: how the overwork culture is ruling our lives ))
· · · · · · See Also CBS News Confirms Amazon.com Partnership, Profiting from Clinton Book Sales

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[The last time the Czechs beat the Germans in a competitive match was in 1934, four years before France and England sold us to Hitler. Who gathered the most points during the group stage? No, not France. The Czech Republic, who won all three matches (against Latvia, Holland, and Germany) Jesus saves...but Baros gets the rebound and scores. GOOOOAAALL! How the mighty have fallen. Ha ha. Falling to the Czech reservists 2-1 ]

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of dissenting bravery
Of Special Interest to Moravian Freudians
Page 14: Hillary says the first time she ever saw me, I was in the Yale Law School lounge bragging to skeptical fellow students about the size of Hope watermelons.
Clinton Goes to Jail
Page 175: In 1971, Clinton hits a Volkswagen and discovers he doesn't have his driver's license. They stripped me of my belongings and took my belt so that I couldn't strangle myself, gave me a cup of coffee, and put me in a cell with a hard metal bed, a blanket, a smelly stopped-up toilet, and a light that stayed on.
· Slatish Dragon reads all 957 pages of Clinton’s memoir, My Life, so you don’t have to [Larry McMurtry waxes elegantly on Clinton’s My File]
· · See Also Want to attract single voters? Drop the dragon underpants...[Do Not Mention the genetics and political correctness ]
· · · See Also Why do politicians lie?
· · · · See Also US war crimes immunity bid fails
· · · · · See Also All I ever needed to know about China I learned at BBC
· · · · · · See Also The Democratic integration of Europe

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Will we ever know the whys of evil parliamentary behavior?

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Hard Labor 1995-2007: Nothing New Under the Old Girls' Network
The state's health system was plagued by medical mistakes and cover-ups and was run by an old girls' network of administrators protected by their political affiliations.
The report found there were undoubtedly serious cultural and system-related problems concerning complaints handling in south-west Sydney.
Dr Moyes described a political network of senior female administrators running the NSW health system, including the former chief of Macarthur Health, Jennifer Collins, the administrator of the South Western Sydney Area Health Service, Deborah Picone, and chief executive officer of Central Sydney Area Health Service, Diana Horvath
· New South Worries: Midwives of Labor [Do Not Mention the Parliamentary Midwives Health Care Complaints (Joint Statutory Committee) ]
· · See Also Peter Locke remembers the birth of his twin boys as the day he lost all faith in the health system and his confidence in his abilities as a doctor
· · · See Also Sartor denies receiving $100,000 discount for Melbourne unit
· · · · See Also E(l)ection of Tertiary Privacy
· · · · · See Also Judge, Jerrold Cripps, QC, given wide brief to look into ICAC, the Adoring Thorng (sic)
· · · · · · See Also How local contractors are winning no-bid government jobs by funneling millions of dollars to the campaigns of elected officials
· · · · · · · See Also Bouncing Czech: Christopher Hammond continues to get government contracts despite his habit of writing bad checks to Los Angeles politicians

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Everybody needs good budgets ...Egan rides through the turbulence of his last budget; surfing the waves Ego Inc.

Time to ponder on The Perspective of Wealth & Freedom by Amartya Sen

Invisible Hands & Markets: Poverty and income gaps
I've been alerted to this story by Miranda Devine saying that the tragic house fire in Sydney a couple of days happened because the family couldn't afford blankets. It's often been asserted that poverty is an out-of-date concept, but there is still plenty of absolute deprivation in modern societies.
Devine's article focuses on the need for more charitable effort on the part of those of us who are doing well, and this is an important point. Most of us could give more than we do without suffering too much as a result. We should all think about it and try to make more of an effort. But it's equally important to look at the economic structures and government policies that have led to growing (or, depending on how you measure it) unimproved poverty rates over a long period of reasonably good economic growth.
· Quiggin on Poverty [link first seen at John Quiggin]
· · See Also What is the secret of Ikea's success?
· · · See Also Jim Holt on the idea that happiness can harm a person's character[link first seen at The Perspective of Freedom ]
· · · · See Also Surge in claims for workplace stress (( Altruism in evil ))
· · · · · See Also A look at the New Geeks, people who are technically trained but also work in other disciplines
· · · · · · See Also Long and close look at Air America's financial troubles

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Top 10 eBooks Library Patrons Are Reading

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Google is Enough: Surf the net while surfing waves
A surfboard has now been developed that lets surfers surf while surfing. The prototype board has been built by Devon, shaper, Jools Matthews
· Surfing has come to mean browsing the net rather than riding ocean waves on a plank [ courtesy of Road to Surfdom...]
· · See Also Blogging With The Boss's Blessing[Link Poached from MEdia Dragon Under Surveillance : Roundup for 2004]
· · · See Also Robert Samuelson calls blogs the fast food of the news business
· · · · See Also See me in post-communist court... Let's see what you're made of
· · · · · By Antony Loewenstein The promise that democracy would spread from a liberated Iraq was as poorly scrutinised as the notion advanced by the administration that the Geneva conventions did not apply to the war on terror
· · · · · · See Also Google reveals its caring side: Giving away code, planning a billion-dollar float and eyeing an Antipodean office

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Last night Tony Fitzgerald launched the book Not Happy, John that soulful and caring Margo wrote @ Gleebooks. It was also great to hear Antony Loewenstein speak. Indeed, it is not every day that you hear people describing Antipodean events as almost a religious experience...Even Jack Robertson had hallo around his head (smile). Fearless Fitzgerald gave his deepest blessings to this politically charged book in which the Independent Senator Brian Harradine is described in the warmest of terms...

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Nuremberg Tribunals: Noam Chomsky
If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter.
· America's Quest for Global Dominance [ via Noam Chomsky ]
· · See Also 1968: The year that changed everything: 'The Dreamers' taps into the myth of a time of thrilling sex and violence
· · · See Also Attempt to address asylum myths [link first seen at New Abuse Charges: a class action filed in California on behalf of former detainees raises the specter of brutal physical abuse ]
· · · · See Also Top 10 spy terms: Going grey - learning to become invisible
· · · · · See Also The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced [follower], but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (standards of thought) no longer exist
· · · · · · See Also Federal judge Guido Calabresi: President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler

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A review of Cold War Triumphalism: The Misuse of History after the Fall of Communism.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Powerful Global Social Movement
A growing network of international institutions - economic, social, and political - constitute a nascent global state, whose current task is to realize the interests of an emerging transnational capitalist class in the international system to the disadvantage of subaltern classes in the third and first worlds. The evolving global state formation can therefore be described as having an imperial character. Underpinning the emerging imperial global state is a web of sub-national authorities and spaces that represent, along with non-governmental organizations, its decentralized face.
· International Institutions Today: An Imperial Global State in the Making
· · See Also Why this election isn't all it's cracked up to be (Expert Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election)
· · · See Also A review of books on Bush, from his spiritual life to his approach to war
· · · · See Also A senior US intelligence official warned Bush he is playing into Bin Laden's hand
· · · · · See Also Report Says U.S. Has 'Secret' Detention Centers
· · · · · · Germaine Greer: We can dream too: The day white Australians can look in the mirror and say 'I am Aboriginal' is the day their tormented country will start to healss

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G'day Webdiarists. No Webdiary this week - I'm travelling and chatting on radio to launch my book, "Not happy John! Defending our democracy". Here's my itinerary. I hope I can meet some of you at the launches and that you can tune in to an interview. The book is the result of four years of conversations we've had on Webdiary. Thank you to all those who've read and contributed to Webdiary ...Not happy John!

The Blog, The Press, The Media: The Web of Power & Sources
Whether information is cited from anonymous sources or stated on the authority of the news organization, it is politically useless without trust, accuracy, and an understanding of its origin, context and purpose. To be good, journalism, whether it relies on anonymous sources or not, must meet these needs...
A few days ago, Jeff Jarvis related an exchange between Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org and an anonymous reporter from a self-described "professional publication" who accused Ali of breaking the embargo on a news story.
· Relationship between reporters and source [ courtesy of Tim Porter]
· · See Also Anxiety Attacks Pay Off
· · · See Also Banking on a blockbuster
· · · · See Also Cosgrove a leading Speaker
· · · · · See Also Read any good blogs lately?
· · · · · · See Also Amazing...since Tim Dunlop of Road to Surfdom fame linked to this link last week over 100 readers came, saw and dozen gave feedback by email
· · · · · · · See Also Online News: 7 Lessons for the Future

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In the struggle for more freedom of expression, activists' new worry is being labelled 'political' The guessing games of civil society

Stiff Political Spirit of wide screen TV and electoral bear pits:
It sounds a bit too good to be true: John Clarke writing and directing a telemovie from one of Shane Maloney's comic detective stories, starring David Wenham as the deadpan catastrophe Murray Whelan, a Labor Party hack who becomes a reluctant sleuth.
The Murray Whelan series began about 10 years ago when writer Shane Maloney - a one-time manager of the Comedy Festival who had also worked on Melbourne's doomed bid for the Olympics - decided to invent a shambling character who ends up on the trail of murder. Stiff, which introduces Murray Whelan, is mainly set in Sydney Road, Brunswick, and is replete with Turkish characters, including the beautiful Ayisha (Tamara Searle).
Maloney is not insensitive to his luck in being adapted by his friend John Clarke. John is a man who reinvents everything he touches. He sends up politicians without ever impersonating them. He presents the organisation of the Games and makes it worse than we could ever have expected. He's not someone who'll settle for the relentlessly plot-driven puzzle.
Clarke is as equipped as anyone possibly could be to make comedy drama out of those woebegone Murray Whelan stories that soothe the mind like a drug even as they insinuate that politics is a nightmare and family life can be a sad thing. He's a man who likes to contemplate the cusp between the realistic and the fanciful. He also has the greatest respect for the common person's sophistication in the face of artistic work.
· Winter of our discontent: Comedy doesn't have have a better friend than drama... the work of Kafka is funny [SEEN @ SE7EN ]
· See Also Clever dicks of Antipodean telemovies [ via Isobel Kerr]
· See Also Free Whelans Murrays, Pauls, Johns...
· See Also Wenham back to slay
· See Also Small screen, big ambitions
· See Also The Political Games
· See Also Who dun it?

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Muqrin's group had claimed responsibility for the gruesome murder of US hostage Paul Johnson who was executed after the Saudi government failed to meet its demands to release jailed militants

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Terror fears spark plan to seal off Parliament
Intelligence chiefs are calling for the most sweeping security shake-up in the history of Westminster to prevent terrorists striking at the heart of central London.
Amid fears that government departments and tourist landmarks such as Big Ben are under threat, intelligence experts want to set up a 'sterile security zone' around a large swath of London, blocking off key roads and sealing off the Commons debating chamber with bomb-proof screens.
· London Fears [Drug barons Melbourne: Ganglands... intended victim under arrest ]
· · See Also The secrets and confidentiality surrounding his financial dealings may come back to bite Roger Cowan
· · · Paul McGeough: Planting the seeds of terror
· · · · Spies and lies: Andrew Wilkie's job was to find links between Iraq and terrorism. What he found was that the truth counted for little
· · · · · See Also His harbour view: The battlelines are being drawn over the future of Sydney Harbour
· · · · · · See Also We're here, get used to it: students give refugees younger voice

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War and peace and fire in her blood as well as the redemption of love

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Hazzard county
In the Great Fire, one of the leading characters speaks of his joy in escaping from Mosman to embark on the great journey, the pilgrimage, to Europe. Only when the equator had been passed did he feel safe. Hazzard points out that she is not bashing Australia, but attempting to portray the boredom of the late 1940s, when the only way to leave was on a ship that took six months.
World War I was called the great adventure. The young men must have had the feeling of so little to lose. They were destined to toil, as their fathers had toiled. There must have been the feeling that 'I could just go on having the life that everyone was having around me ... I would have gone, [but] not the second time to the Second World War.
In conversation, and in The Great Fire, Hazzard stresses the word trapped when talking of those times. Trapped, you were trapped. You couldn't leave ... This idea that there was no future.
· Shirley Hazzard: Characters who can't wait to escape [Elsewhere A diplomat's daughter ]
[Elsewhere with Jana Wendt The Great Fire I nearly died there. I died spiritually there]
· · See Also Cold River cools @ Amazon, but there's no iceberg ahead...
· · · See Also Brilliant debuts: Artistsque Bloggers
· · · · See Also The best book club
· · · · · See Also It was seventh time lucky for Australian author Anna Funder, whose book Stasiland won Britain's richest award for non-fiction
· · · · · · See Also Sydney Film Festival 2004
· · · · · · · See Also The scent of horror that can't be washed away

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How James Hardie's spin turned to mud

Invisible Hands & Markets: AN EYE FOR AN EYE And eventually all will be blind
A Monitor article this week looks at the proposed construction project of two bridges in Alaska, in addition to other transportation improvement measures, totaling $2 billion. The project is testing lawmakers and voters' sensibilities
· Peering over a Pork Barrel: Alaska's 'bridges to nowhere' [link first seen at CS Monitor]
· · See Also Northern Lights Internet Solutions, Ltd: Darlene Fichter
· · · See Also The Working Poor: Invisible in America
· · · · See Also New Invisible Age culture
· · · · · See Also Merhan Karimi Nasseri has lived in a Paris airport for 15 years, and now Hollywood is knocking: the inspiration for a Spielberg film, The Termina, starring Tom Hanks!
· · · · · · See Also Here’s a way to get young people registered to vote: Give them free beer & Cold River

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'The tragedy of the modern man,' Havel wrote to his wife in -In the Letters to Olga-, 'is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of life but that it bothers him less and less.'
Classic Big Brother watchers: their values are based on self, fame, novelty, the experience of me, now, and their social values are incredibly poorly developed

Tracking Trends Great & Small: Innovation city
NO OTHER CITY in America can compare to Boston as a wellspring of innovation. For more than 300 years, people have come here to learn what has been done in their field so far, stake a claim to an acre of the as-yet-undone, and begin tilling the hard ground.
· Why good ideas are born in Boston -- but don't always stay [link first seen at In an age of e-mail and Amazon, literature still needs the city ]
· · See Also Myth of the rebel consumer (( Laughing - With Tears In My Eyes: Voter apathy))
· · · See Also On how random copying explains why some cars, dogs and pop singers are fashionable
· · · · See Also A Global Business Forum conference revives the old debate on global inequality
· · · · · See Also Life Lessons From Football
· · · · · · See Also Like Saudi princes, elected officials in the Bay State regard innovation as a divine right

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There are uncanny parallels between the Government's handling of the prisoner abuse scandal and the 'children overboard' affair: the same obstinate refusal on the part of the Prime Minister and other Ministers to seek out the truth; the same reluctance on the part of senior officials and advisers to pass on unwelcome or inconvenient advice to their political masters; the same Nixonian culture of plausible deniability

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: If people don't say where they're going after choir practice, this country is at risk
What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else - such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice - then it is not torture.
· This won't hurt much: Terry Jones is a writer, film director, actor and Python [ via Censorship's Trial Balloons - What happens when wartime news gets censored? By Liam Callanan ]
· · See Also Vote for Me (and I approve this blogging)
· · · See Also Bush's Political Thorn Grows More Stubborn: ...dishonesty about the war rationale [ via Being abused when nobody else knows you even exist ]
· · · · See Also Contractors in Iraq: the view from the lobby, Part I.
· · · · · See Also Bill Clinton's Very Personal Reflections
· · · · · · See Also A case study in Right Wing thought patterns: the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak

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Olympic poetry By this very Bohemian

Repeating History Classes: Winning at Olympia
With the lighting of the torch at Olympia on March 25, the final countdown to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens began. While the torch is carried around the world and the finishing touches are put on the competition venues in and around Athens, why not catch up on the ancient Olympics with Archaeology.org?
· Archaeology's Ancient Olympics Guide.
· · See Also Around The Rings (ATR)
· · · See Also Athens News: This newspaper covers the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens
· · · · See Also International Olympic Committee 2004 Marketing Fact File (PDF)
· · · · · See Also Multimedia Gallery [Olympic Games]
· · · · · · See Also Olympic Women: Antipodean Bohemian Swimmers Gabriella & Alexandra Imrich (smile)

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It is Friday and Blogjam #13 is being laced with bad apples & turbulent thoughts on the fastest-surfing blog in Washington...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: A Cold Medium: Political Disillusionment with the Internet
He doesn't understand, most people don't understand, the full power of the Internet. You can't use it exclusively. But the power is much more than fund-raising. There's a real community out there.
· Business Week interviews Howard Dean [ courtesy of Operation Shoe Fly: Shoes for the kids in Afghanistan]
· · See Also Trying to Motivate Young Voters, Hip-Hop Goes Political
· · · See Also Barista: But can they make their blogs wag their tails?
· · · · See Also Numerous bloggers hosted by Weblogs.com are offline and scrambling to find new hosting after blogging pioneer Dave Winer abruptly closed the free service last weekend
· · · · · See Also Turning the Tables on E-Mail Swindlers: Everyone online, it seems, has received an offer to share a fortune. For some dedicated pranksters, it's an invitation to strike back [ courtesy of On the face of it, everyone on the Internet should be rich by now just as I am! Scamorama www.scamorama.com ] (Is there an axe in your global head)
· · · · · · See Also Ancient Imrich Family Secrets, Unlocked: Every family has a mystery, and ours is Rich

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No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history ...

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Facing up to conflicts of interest
Lies, postage stamps and stationery brought a sad end to Richard Face's political career, but his demise has a sting in the tail for politicians.
The issue of a cooling-off period for ministers before they take up lucrative positions in the private sector not a million miles from their portfolio has been around for years.
The Greiner Government tried to introduce a two-year cooling-off period, but it was largely ignored by its own departing ministers.
IN ITS report, ICAC has recommended new rules for departing ministers. It says they should include a process for approving or advising ministers about offers of employment before or after they leave office, a specified cooling-off period before they can accept work in their former area of responsibility and, most importantly, some way of "appropriately enforcing the rules".
· Three other states have codes of conduct [ Elsewhere The Independent Commission Against Corruption: Face should be charged ] [ Which is worse:... Tough choice. ICAC report (PDF Format)
· · See Also Wild Factional Fists at Punchbowl: Liberals may sack brawling recruits
· · · See Also The political elites of Australia: France's most profound contribution to the post-Cold War order was made by doctors, not armies [ Malcolm's seen Labor's enemy - and it's Peter Garrett: Raising the spectre of the former rock singer being under the dictat of a shadowy central committee
· · · · See Also An American officer referred to the Abu Ghraib scandal as a moral Chernobyl [Link Elsewhere 50-page PDF version of the memo: We may have to start using blunt words like murder and rape to describe what we see]
· · · · · See Also Morality lost, as Australia refuses to acknowledge its implication in torture
· · · · · · See Also Failing to take into account alternative transport solutions or land-use potential
· · · · · · See Also A new independent watchdog body with royal commission powers will be established to oversee the nation's federal crime agencies

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From ZNet, a response to Stanley Fish's recent op-ed in The New York Times

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Revisiting the Hanan Ashrawi affair
G'day.
I'm getting pretty tense because my (second) book 'Not happy John! Defending our democracy' will be launched on Monday in Canberra, Tuesday in Sydney, Thursday in Melbourne and Friday in Brisbane. Webdiary columnists Harry Heidelberg, Jack Robertson and Antony Loewenstein have each written a chapter. Antony dissected the Hanan Ashrawi affair for the book. To refresh your memory, a director of the Sydney Peace Foundation and Prize committtee, Professor Stuart Rees, who also heads Sydney University's Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies, reflects on the scandal and the politics of media derision.
· Beyond Good And Evil [link to Second Book] [link to First Book: Off the Rails: The Pauline Hanson trip ] [Czechout Margo Kingston] [visit Antony Loewenstein ]
· · See Also Democracy's Children: Pain-in-the-ass Democracy
· · See Also Killing the Big Other: Concept of Irony and Either / Or
· · See Also Medieval Jewish Philosophy
· · · See Also First-Time Author Wins BBC Book Prize: Debut author Anna Funder, Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall[ courtesy of The Little Literary Magazine That Could: Border Crossings ]
· · · · See Also Doctors of Preaching or the Practicing: People with the Spirit and people with Ph.D.'s
· · · · · See Also Barista:So you thought the internet was free...
· · · · · · See Also Yann Martel: Life After The Booker

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Justice(s) Served by Royalties
The Supreme Court justices recently disclosed their 2003 income. Clarence Thomas reported $500,000 worth of his advance from Harper, as William H. Rehnquist showed more than $35,000 in book-related earnings and Sandra Day O'Connor disclosed $9,950 from publishing, according to the Washington Post.

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Mix and match
The melting pot has been bubbling away as more Australians marry outside their ethnic background. So has 30 years of multiculturalism been a success?
· Culture Vultures [link first seen at Szirine: Dare to Become the 10,000th surreal reader]
· · See Also Nice Irish boy settles down [ Ugly irony lost on the marketing men at Denny's How do modern Irish walk with those cultural sausages? ]
· · · See Also UK: Best, worst police forces named
· · · · See Also Plame Case Looming: The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA
· · · · · See Also Love really is blind...why we can't see faults in our partners or children
· · · · · · See Also Big Brother...Free Th (sic) Refugees: I wasn't trying to destroy the show. If people want reality television then this is reality
· · · · · · · Rather than stretching, experts encourage people to warm up by jogging slowly...

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John Ruskin, the 19th century essayist, called illth. The tragedy—the Tragedy of the Market, one might say—is that it has to create problems and needs, or the gears will grind to a halt...
But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know the Truth?

Tragedy & Market Across Frontiers: George Orwell… meet Franz Kafka: Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes
These are, in fact, documents of shame, symbolic of a kind of bureaucratic lawlessness let loose at the heart of our government. They are intent on creating a pseudo-legal basis for replacing the rule of law with the rule of a commander-in-chief. As Robert Kuttner put it in the Boston Globe, For nearly three years, the Bush administration has resorted to the most preposterous fictions to define either locales or categories of people to whom the law does not apply. If you connect the dots, the torture at Abu Ghraib is part of a larger slide toward tyranny as the Bush administration tries to exempt itself from the rule of law.
As justifications for torture, these are the sorts of documents one can imagine finding in the files of some grim third world dictatorship or maybe the former Apartheid regime of South Africa
· Good law is in a new drug: Lawlessness [ via All knowledge is either physics or stamp collecting]
· · See Also What is the good Luxury Fever? Rising materialism[ via But Money can buy happiness after all]
· · · See Also Land of private affluence and public poverty: When schools and libraries are begging for funds in the richest nation in the world, only a confirmed ideologue could deny that something is out of whack
· · · · See Also I hope Bush steals another election...This is America, not Denmark. In this country, tens of millions of people choose to watch FoxNews not simply because Americans are credulous idiots or at the behest of some right-wing corporate cabal, but because average Americans respect viciousness
· · · · · See Also MAKING A KILLING: New war profiteers
· · · · · · See Also How philosophy makes job of 'selling' Standard Life easier

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German, French and British voters dealt swift kicks to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair this weekend by electing anti-European Union candidates to the European Parliament.
Even in European countries that are new to democracy, voters find things to do other than voting for a new European Parliament. Apathy and scepticism mark first EU vote in "New Europe"
A breakdown of the 732-seat European Parliament after historic elections that saw some 150 million Europeans cast ballots across 25 member nations of the expanded European DisUnion.
Official Site of European Parliament provides raw data

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Poor Version of Democracy
While the United States wages war to expand democracy around the world, how is our own democracy doing? Not very well, says a group of distinguished scholars.
The voices of American citizens are raised and heard unequally. The privileged participate more than others and are increasingly well organized to press their demands on government. Public officials, in turn, are much more responsive to the privileged than to average citizens and the least affluent.
· Disparities in political participation, the report says, ensure that ordinary Americans speak in a whisper while the most advantaged roar. [right liberals versus false ones The Importance of Norberto Bobbio ]
· · See Also Which presidential style is best? [ via Imagined Communities: Not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings]
· · · See Also The return of Boilermaker Bill's Macquarie St musings: Pouring Oils onto troubled waters; Ta ta Totaro
· · · · See Also Carr king-maker in Garrett coup
· · · · · See Also Brereton's last revenge
· · · · · · See Also The ABC and fearless political reporting
· · · · · · · See Also Campaigns Drawn to Political Labels: e(l)ectionconnoisairs , pollsters, political scientists and media pundits create catching-phrases to coin swing voters

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All that I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three, I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety, I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at 100, I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am 110, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive.
Hokusai, A Hundred Views of Fuji (Tatra Mountains)

Invisible Hands & Markets: No More Escapes Across Iron Curtains As The Next Velvet Revolution will be Bogged: Between hither and yon
Most of the youth of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are not optimistic -- social services have collapsed and life expectancy is down.
The young largely brought about the collapse of communist regimes. They were the ones who went to demonstrations and meetings, and led the strike actions.
Now their children are disappointed and mistrustful of politics. Average youth unemployment is twice the general level. Many feel they have been failed by the adults who promised beautiful living and freedom that for many has turned into poverty, fear and loneliness.
· We expected better [link first seen at Prague Post]
· · See Also America is the land of the sex-discrimination lawsuit: the world's biggest award, of $10.6m, was made by an American jury in 2002 to a former employee of Hoffman LaRoche
· · · See Also William Powers on how it pays to be wrong in the news business
· · · · See Also I find BMW's with number plates like "IMRICH" really a bit rich: How to treat corporate criminals
· · · · · See Also U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell “was trying to steer a no-bid contract to a software company called Thinkstream Inc.
· · · · · · See Also Bio-terror is the name of the dream that post-modern societies dream in their self-appointed state of war, and "anthrax" the fulfilment of that wish [Extract from Cold River State of communist economy]
· · · · · · · See Also Getting pollies & crats to care about any future other than its own: Rail bureaucrats cash in as service crisis mounts [linked with ICAC: Senior ministers believe that a single command would overcome jurisdictional clashes and streamline operational activities ]

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I will be straight about it: politics is an imperfect game... And yet it is the best game we have for making the country work better.
Petter Garrett

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Meet Joe Blog: MEdia Dragon
Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased
· Blog Fathering [ courtesy of IHT: The Blog father of 'www' finally gets his due ]
· · See Also I Believe the National Enquirer: Why don't you?
· · · See Also How Google Took the Work Out of Selling Advertising
· · · · See Also Website Analysis Isn't a Game: VisitorVille, a website-traffic analysis package that essentially crosses the DNA of SimCity with that of the traditional chart- and graph-centric tools businesses
· · · · · See Also What purpose, apart from the blood sport that it affords readers, does savage reviewing serve?
· · · · · · See Also CRAP & WEE (WAR & PEACE) : Look within the self-organizing anagrams, double meanings, homophones, charades, containers, and hidden kabalahs...

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David Chalmers has very good list of philosophy blogs.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The High Cost of...Everything
· Mr Howard did know the price of bread milk and eggs. The average shelf price of a loaf of bread at $2.80 is around three times the Prime Minister’s suggested 90c ...
There's a stealth issue in this presidential campaign that could go far in determining the election results. I'm talking about the rising gas, phone, electricity, milk and cable prices that are damaging millions of hard-working families struggling to live in George W. Bush's America. In addition to paying $2-plus per gallon prices at the pump, consumers are getting squeezed at the supermarket—shelling out as much as $4 per gallon for milk.
· Staples are going through the roof [ via Powerful And Polarized ]
· · See Also Is US like Germany of the '30s?
· · · See Also Corruption Inc, rooting out rotten cops: For decades, revelations of police corruption and links to organised crime leapfrogged from state to state
· · · · See Also Cancer, birth defects, stillbirths and more soared out of control: Rock & Radiation, not Ronald Reagan, Brought down the Soviet Union [Link Poached from Remembering Tiananmen ]
· · · · · See Also Rev. Jesse Jackson gives Democrats a to-do list for victory in November [ via The next Democratic president must recognize the obvious: that means are as important as ends]
· · · · · · See Also The Outsourcing Bogeyman

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No bossy blogs? I shudder at the thought

The Blog, The Press, The Media: John Quiggin: A Real Bargain
For those of you who like end-of-financial year bargains, here's one that's hard to beat. The Australian government has a scheme under which it matches donations to certain aid projects on a $3 for $1 basis1.So if you give $500, the matching funds can bring the grant up to $2000 which is enough to buy books for an entire school in a poor country. In addition, the donations themselves are tax deductible, so if you're one of those groaning under our top marginal tax rate, the effective cost is only $250.
· $$$ WOW [ courtesy of VictoryOverWant ]
· · See Also BBC 'will not ask for more cash' [ We all have a crush on Bookslut]
· · · See Also Is PBS Finding New Politics? US PBS is supposed to be neutral politically. But now some critics wonder if PBS is adopting more of a political slant...
· · · · See Also Amazon Gets Into The Hollywood Movie Business (Los Angeles Times 06/05/04) [ PR Bloggers and the Evolving View of Marketing ]
· · · · · See Also Newsroom management: It should be invisible to readers
· · · · · · See Also This White House and administration are far more secretive than the Nixon crowd

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Goodwill, mutual respect, transparency... what's fuelling the blogosphere will soon fuel all markets. Bloggers are learning this faster than other people. This is the main reason we read and write them. This is the main reason people like you, me and Brad have decided to join the conversation.

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: For Budding Authors, a Rapid-Fire Publisher
Hot off the presses has taken on a newly literal meaning with the installation of the first instant book-printing machine in an American bookstore.
Take a floppy disk or CD-ROM to Bookends in Ridgewood, N.J., or e-mail the store a file, and pow! - in as little as 17 minutes a perfect-bound paperback version of your novel, family memoir, or favorite Bulgarian desserts can be printed.
Best-selling books are so outside the norm that they're an anomaly.
· The more books we print, the more salespeople we have out there [link first seen at Why the SMH is the best newspaper in the world ]
· · See Also W h a t i a c t u a l l y M e a n w h e n i s a y I l o v e y o u: T h i r t y s c e n a r i os
· · · See Also Canadians are less willing to make the imaginative leap necessary to enjoy a movie about domestic politics
· · · · See Also In Love with Sound
· · · · · See Also Never On Sunday: NewTown would have loved blogging, because he was forthright in his condemnation of his enemies
· · · · · · See Also Turning memories of a lighthouse job into a bestseller

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So the international blogging surfdom, Tim Dunlop, has finally decided to put the devillish details about the Antipodean federal election 2004 AD on the virtual waves. The e(l)ection boils down to a race between John Howard and Mark Latham.
I just can’t wait for the debates to start. They will be quite interesting judging by the passionate maiden speeches:
The Hon John Howard MP, Member for Bennelong First Speech To Parliament - 26/9/1974
Mr Mark Latham MP, Member for Werriwa First Speech To Parliament - 22/2/1994

BTW, LOL, Unlike genealogically poor Australia, whoever wins the race to the White House this year, the president of the United States is sure to be a direct descendant of the ancient rulers of Bohemia, Premyslid dynasty

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Roll up your sleeves. Let the blogging begin

For those of you who have not prospered academically, let me give you a bit of good news - you are being addressed by someone who was in the bottom half of his class at Harvard. Or, in fact, if you want to be a didactic about it, the bottom third of his class. So there is life after college; I'm proof of it.
· David Halberstam: Pulitzer-Prize winning author and social and political commentator [Let me jump to my favourite review (sic)]
· · See Also Former energy and tobacco lobbyist Haley Barbour
· · · See Also Gulf War Syndrome All 50,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war might have been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents during the fighting and its aftermath
· · · · See Also Halliburton Under Investigation for Nigeria $180 million Bribery
· · · · · See Also Corruption let gang war explode, says investigator
· · · · · · See Also Fat MacBank and hungrier than ever
· · · · · · · See Also Firms turn to e-tectives to combat computer crime
· · · · · · · · See Also The spectre of Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984 watching our every move has been steadily realised
· · · · · · · · · See Also Chickens launched by former immigration minister Philip Ruddock are coming home to roost

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Morry Schwartz, Australian Developer of Black Inc, adds another story Schwartz, meaning black, has a knack for rising from the near-dead. This Antipodean publisher specialises in building circulation for literary nonfiction as well as literal office blocks

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Quest for Good and Fight against Evil.
As popular fiction, Rowling's novels perform a feat that's a bit like what John Le Carre did when he made the world of Cold War.espionage into an endlessly fascinating game of chess.
It's also the point where the vision and the encircling atmosphere of the Harry Potter world gets distinctly darker and creepier. It's not only Voldemort and his followers who are dark and malignant. This is a world where the Ministry of Magic can let loose its Dementors on those it deems to be outside the law and allow them to suck any identity or happiness out of them.
It's potent, imaginative stuff, and these hooded, faceless ghouls who swirl through the Azkaban world are symptomatic of the way Rowling sees the wizarding world as existing on a knife edge between impulses towards good and evil; and the way the legal, official world can be very black indeed, and there is no just society for anyone to take shelter in.
· It sometimes seems that Potty Harry Potter is going to take over the world rowlingova [Are They Out to Get him? What, exactly, makes the richest author so universally unpopular? ]
· · See Also After 23 publishers' rejections silent fury for author who lifted stones of Germany's scared senseless past - Stasiland [Link Poached from In Search Of Book Buzz: political books have been gold for more than a year, and more are on the way]
· · · See Also Should we care who the next Pope is? For millions of Catholics in the developing world, it’s a matter of life and death
· · · · See Also Hegel hits the beach & Royal George pub: Basking in the blinding Antipodean light

Communism is neither an ec[onomic] or a pol[itical] system—it is a form of insanity—a temporary aberration which will one day disappear from the earth because it is contrary to human nature. I wonder how much more misery it will cause before it disappears.
Ronald Reagan, Reagan, In His Own Hand (written 1975, collected 2001)
· · · · · See Also Put aside for a moment your opinion of Reagan (either way) and think instead about the implications of these Amerikan letters
· · · · · See Also Reagan's impact on culture: mixed bag of a controversial figure with legions of detractors as well as admirers
· · · · · · See Also Lost In Translation [Link Poached from But one thing I can't live with, which I would criticize, is to be in competition with my book. A writer should allow the work to speak for itself ]
· · · · · · · · See Also Literary giants in the running for Franklin award[Link Poached from Judging A Lit Prize - Exhausting: Alpha literary transparency?]

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Text of the eulogies to freedom-loving Ronald Reagan who won America's respect with his greatness. And won its love with his goodness. The most compelling was Mulroney's Tribute to Reagan even the Iron, Curtain, Lady made soulful contribution at Reagan's last farewell

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Bestia: Neither a Fox nor a Hedgehog: a Belgian Shepherd
The use of unmuzzled dogs to terrify prisoners was approved military practice in Abu Ghraib: Smith said military intelligence personnel asked him to instill fear in detainees. He said that he would bring his dog, a black Belgian shepherd named Marco, to the tier specifically to scare prisoners ...
· Marco Ghraib [ via Andrew Sullivan]
· · See Also A badly mauled Tony Blair: Labour takes a beating [Link Poached from Newcastle upon Tyne had fallen: Losing the city which boasts Tony Blair's favourite football team]
· · · See Also US President Can Order Torture (Will Someone Send Them The Geneva Convention?)
· · · · See Also Globalisation: the dangers and the answers [link first seen at Liberal vs. illiberal democracy ]
· · · · · See Also How does capitalism as a system reproduce itself? [Link Poached from On-line fantasy games have booming economies and citizens who love their political systems ]
· · · · · · See Also Are we inherently good?