Saturday, July 10, 2004



We talk as if democracy were the natural human condition, as if any deviation from it is a crime to be punished or a disease to be cured...
Citizens seem increasingly unwilling to surrender civil liberties... and keen to celebrate their Independents... Somehow the hard won success of the major political parties doesn't smell as sweet for ordinary voting punters... The Broken Promise of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Dirt diggers: Digging dirt and slinging mud is risky
Writing in The Australian Financial Review yesterday, Hewson asserted, with obvious passion: If they are going to play the dirt game it should be spread fairly. Why not dig into John Howard as much as they dig into Latham? In his 30 years in Parliament nobody has ever done the job on him like it has been done on others.
How is it, they wonder, that Al Gore told small fibs and was branded a liar while George W. Bush told big ones and was elected President?

Say whatever you like about me, but leave them out of it please [ via Moore's Ax Falls on a Derelict Media Too... ]
• · See Also A divided Europe is like a room in which only one half is heated ((It's Not Always About You... Cold War Ideology Doesn't Work: the rich rule and the poor obey ))
• · · See Also In the U.K. and Oz, liberalism means small government, free trade, and self-reliance. For Americans, it means Bill Clinton The mediator, former NSW Court of Appeal judge Tony Fitzgerald: ((Westfield settles Ken Hooper affair with $3.5m cheque to Kirela)) ((Ach, Carr's man in London paid twice the salary
• · · · See Also Historians are either truffle hunters, noses buried in detail, or parachutists, with a view from on high [Imagine you're a federal judge. Life used to be glamorous: the money, the women, the imposing work clothes... But the Incredible Judiciary Is Shrinking: The federal judge starts to be a rubber stamp more often than the gavel]
• · · · · See Also White House Moves to Protect RIGHT to SPY on Readers...
· · · · · · See Also Paul Volcker on getting to the bottom of the UN Oil for Food scandal ((They Behead; We Do It With Smart Bombs... ))