Sunday, December 19, 2004



Bill Moyers has always taken the high road, but it got a little lonely up there. In a country where political discourse grows ever more shrill, his voice was more and more easily drowned out. Last night, at the age of 70 and on the eve of his 50th wedding anniversary, Bill Moyers took the high road home. Bill Moyers Gets In the Last Word

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Road to Freedom via Unfriendly fire
Quote of the year for Tim Dunlop’s money:

This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community….
[S]uch a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.


Australia will survive al-Qa'ida as well. But we need to stop empowering the terrorists by abridging our liberties [Chemical Ali appears before Iraqi judge ]
• · Did Stanislav Petrov Save the World? Mark Mcdonald of Knight Ridder says, maybe so Petrov Affair 1983
• · · Duncan Campbell, a former Australian ambassador to Rome and Vienna and once a deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Department, says targeting and eliminating known terrorist operatives is more efficient and costs fewer lives than waging conventional war. Kill terror chiefs: ex-envoy ; [Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear ]
• · · · Golkar selects Yudhoyono ally as new leader
• · · · · Freedom of Cold War and Dissent
• · · · · · Here's my plan to end the red-blue rift ; [The Orange Grove Revolutions 2004 AD Ukrainian Orange Revolution; This is the Age of I, I am rich revolution of iPods ]