Posted 6:20 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Welcome the new Bulletin writer of the virtual residence
Hot off the presses
· Best NSW Blog (SYDNEY) [ courtesy of Gianna ]

Posted 5:41 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Soros, a Hungarian emigre to the US, concedes that he is open to such accusations. "I can be seen as a traitor to my class and my adopted country, but I am proud to take that role. I think there are values which transcend class and country. I think my country can be wrong and that's the value of an open society and that is the value which has made America great.

A Sense of Possibility, a Blast of Fresh Air
Within minutes of meeting the Herald at his plush west London abode, he complains about George Bush's "Orwellian truth machine" and its use of "doublespeak".
In the United States today you do have a pluralistic, free media. Neverthe-less, the truth machine is capable of manufacturing truth, so that the majority of people in America continue to believe that Saddam was somehow connected to September 11, when all the evidence points to the opposite...
The less faith we have in authority, the more trust we place in our own judgement.
The Nobel Prize-winning writer Gunter Grass said the German Weimar Republic collapsed and the Nazis took over in 1933 because there were not enough citizens. This was the lesson he had learnt: Citizens cannot leave politics just to politicians.
· Victim-turned-perpetrator [ See Also Life is a struggle for survival ]

Empowering events were almost without exception described as joyous occasions. Participants experienced a deep sense of happiness and even euphoria in being involved in protest events.
· Life should get better - healthier, wealthier, happier, more satisfying and interesting. Is this the case?

Posted 5:33 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Sleep, baby, sleep
Now that the night is over
And the sun comes like a god (DEUS)
Into our room
All perfect light and promises.
Like medicine or pornography, Labor Party Machine is a subject in which a person is either deeply versed or utterly ignorant. Labor History, according to a tired saying of many parliamentary historians, is merely the propaganda of the victors.
Everybody Loves to Hate the NSW Labor Right

New Sensation, the rock anthem chosen by some crafty Labor spinmeister to introduce Mark Latham
Public attitudes to politics and politicians, Mackay says, reflect a level of cynicism bordering on contempt and despair bordering on disgust...
Pragmatism, Mark Latham and the Labor machine were the winners, and conscience, the rank and file and John Howard the losers in the closest thing to a real debate. Cherrypicking evidence to support the case of the 53 most wanted Members.
· Real Debate: Tumor-ridden body politic of Conscience? Let's not be wise now [ via I wouldn't have thought anybody's ever had me rattled in politics? ]
Victim-turned-perpetrator

Posted 5:24 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Seeing how the other half lives
Parliamentarians' of experiment of living on minimum wage raises questions about intent.
Deputy Petr Bratsky and three other politicians have been living on the minimum wage that single mothers such as Monika Jelinkova struggle with.
It's either a sincere attempt to see how the other half lives or a cheap ploy for self-promotion that insults the poor.
These are typical responses to a radio and newspaper challenge taken up by four parliamentarians who agreed to live on the minimum monthly wage -- 6,700 Kc ($257) -- for one month beginning Jan. 1.
The members of Parliament -- Senator Zdenek Barta (unaffiliated, part of the Christian Democratic caucus), Deputy Petr Bratsky (Civic Democrat), Deputy Stanislav Krecek (Social Democrat) and Deputy Michaela Sojdrova (Christian Democrat) -- normally are paid 46,000-64,000 Kc monthly, not including a stipend of 5,000 Kc for mobile telephone calls. This month they budgeted for only 3,900 Kc, what the average family of four living on a single minimum wage has after paying rent.
· Experiment: Prague
· Poor in line for hard Labor

Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas -- stale and unprofitable. The consumer forgets that the corn tastes different where it grows.
[ See Also Reality: The Louisianans, like Levantines, think it naive. When I was a young man, fresh out of Tulane. I was full of civic consciousness. I joined with a number of like-minded reformers to raise a fund to bribe the Legislature to impeach Huey [Long] ]
· Danger lurks for corporate perks

Posted 5:22 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Philosophy's like medicine: lots of drugs, few remedies, and hardly any complete cures...
If you are happy and balanced, why would you be a writer? Theroux

Looking for Freedom
I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Check-Point Charlie.
· Hasselhoff claims he had hand in Berlin Wall falling [ via Cold Hands]
· Millionaire's den: first post-1989 business club still plays host to prominent entrepreneurs, politicians

Posted 5:16 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Do the Americans get irony?
UK sitcom The Office caused an upset at the Golden Globes, when it received two top awards. Do we still believe that Americans just don't get irony?
· Just don't do irony
Isn't it ironic?
· Doing Business With The Enemy: Halliburton sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian Government [See Also As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths ]

Posted 5:12 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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It was said of one politician that he'd been created to show how far the human skin can stretch
Tragedies suffer from the moral defect of attaching too great an importance to life and death.
Changes in fashion are the tax levied by the poor on the rich.

Life of Janet Frame: blighted by the deaths by drowning of two of her sisters
I inhabited a territory of loneliness which resembles the place where the dying spend their time before death and from where those who do return living to the world bring inevitably a unique point of view that is a nightmare, a treasure, and a lifelong possession [It is] equal in its rapture and chilling exposure [to] the neighbourhood of the ancient gods and goddesses
· Wrestling with the Angel
·An Angel At My The Carpathians Mountains
[See Also The Least Likely Bestseller ]

Posted 8:01 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Fear of untruths being revealed:' Law lord hits wrong target on evidence over Iraq war
Why does it come as no surprise that Lord Hutton took the stick to the BBC and its reporter Andrew Gilligan and in the process exonerated the Blair Government over the dossier justifying the war against Iraq? Because in the view of judges, and most other long-in-the-tooth lawyers, the media invariably is out of line, and if it makes a mistake, as Gilligan did, then the crucifixion is so much easier.
· Hutton report excerpts [link first seen at Something's fishy: One-sided verdict is not the final word]

Posted 7:56 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The US is Now in the Hands of a Group of Extremists
Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations, he's talking about your money -- and every other American's money?
· The US must examine its global role and adopt a more constructive vision-George Soros MUST READ [ courtesy of Googlish webdiarist alive]

Posted 7:53 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Most Media Dragon readers will be saddened to learn that legendary Scottish comedian Rikki Fulton has died at the age of 79.
Fulton will be best remembered for his iconic character, the Reverend IM Jolly, a parody of the miserable religious ministers that often appeared on STV's Late Call in the 1970s and 80s, a figure that eventually became the cornerstone of his traditional Hogmanay television show Scotch and Wry.

It's a tradition in Scotland on Hogmanay to go first-footing, a wonderful excuse to go out visiting friends and partying all night:
The first person to cross the threshold at Hogmanay brings all the luck, good or bad, for the year ahead. And, to follow in tradition they have to fulfil certain criteria. They have to be male, tall, dark and handsome. They cannot be doctors, ministers or grave-diggers (!) - oh, and your first footer cannot have eyebrows that meet in the middle! If you do find a first footer that fits the bill (for remember, we Scots might be handsome but, as a race, we're not renowned for our height) then hang on to them - you could make a packet!
· First-footin: little folks bursting with talent and suddenly able to dominate when allowed to play

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field...
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw on mistakes [ courtesy of Fist-footing ]

Posted 7:49 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Bugs biting the dust
Blogging About Blogging LXXI
File under: You know blogging is so over when...
Publishers Lunch reports that Judy Goldschmidt has sold her debut middle-grade novel The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez to Penguin's new YA imprint Razorbill. The book is written as a blog "by a larger-than-life seventh grader, chronicling the ups and downs of puberty during her tumultuous first year at a new school."
Larger than life? I always thought seventh graders were, well, smaller than me.
· OzLIT for Kids
Chasing the rascal dragon ]
· sleek two-headed dragon

Posted 7:49 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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A full house: Campaign Poker
The metaphors of horse races and sporting to describe the run for the White House are so tired as to make one want to puke. A far more useful analogy of the current campaign is poker. The best campaign cardgame is Texas No Limit Hold-em. It takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to master....
The players are the candidates, the chips are the dollars available. The cards are the voters.
There are two tables. George's and the Democrats. The finest example of this point is the current administration, who bluffed their way into the White House. In Campaign poker the cards are important, but the size of your stack, how well you can bet and bluff is a far more important factor in determining if you can go the distance and win all the chips at the last table. One of the things that you can do is raise the other players past the chips they have causing them to fold and loosing the game. This is the current Bush Strategy. George Bush has the most chips on his table and is waiting for the winner of the Democrat's table.
Right now, the first hand is over. Kerry won this hand, Dean came in third, Gephart had the loosing hand and is out of the game. Among the Democrats Dean has the big stack. He has the most money, but the people behind him do not understand how to use this power. Having the most chips is no guarantee of winning the game. To be able to win one must have good cards and play them well.
Remember I said that the cards were the voters. The Deaniacs carpeted Iowa, but like a lot of other things they missed the the voters. Running around with www.deanforamerica.com T-Shirts and telling folks without an internet connection about all the wonderful stuff on the website is as useful as explaining Fucsia to the Blind.
· Read the whole thing: we’re even saddened to learn of the deaths of old enemies
[ Source Press is a political player ]

Posted 7:48 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Tied up in double knots, many reporters are sprawling all over New Hampshire.... Howard Kurtz asks Shapiro what's changed since he starting coming to the state in 1980?
A lot fewer Olivetti typewriters and a lot less drinking in the morning.
The Bear Pit and its Press Gallery have always been a mystery to outsiders like me. So much power, and so little sex appeal. Hollywood for ugly people, as they say. But there's gossip, there just has to be. What BP & PG lack in sexiness, they make up for in pomposity and hypocrisy. There's nothing like losing your political virginity with Man Mountain & Bob Carr at the tender age of 37. In fear we should trust

BOSTON: Bush
The people have spoken. They said they want change. They said it's time to clean up Washington. They're tired of politics as usual. They're tired of the pursuit of self-interest that has gripped Washington. They want to see an end to partisan bickering and closed-door decision-making. If I'm elected, I'll make sure that the American people can once again place their trust in the White House.

DAVO: Wisdom
Meanwhile, I submit this wisdom delivered last week in Davos by Jay Rosen:
Beginning in the mid 19th century, and all through the 20th, seeing people as masses could be industrially sustained. There were only so many channels, so many ways or reaching people en masse, and this convinced the message senders that there was an audience out there. But now being a bulk message sender via the media is like the guy in the street trying to get you to take a handbill. He may have motivation for delivering the message, you have none to take it.
· Doc Searl: They are the people formerly known as the audience. And they do not want your message

Posted 7:41 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Mexico City's subway city plans to lend out 7 million paperback books over the next two years in a new program aimed at reducing crime and fostering a more hospitable atmosphere for millions of commuters. Director Javier Gonzalez Garza says, We are convinced that when people read, people change. (The city suffers from a high crime rate.) Most of the cost will be underwritten by the company that control's advertising space in the subway.


Random Reviews
Dickinson's fame has always been fed by myth. She was the virgin poetess dressed in white, the tremulous daughter who never left her father's house, the maiden who turned to art because she was thwarted in love. Hard-working biographers notwithstanding, myth often wins out. National Book Critics Circle anounce their finalists for this year's awards. "Ninety-one-year-old Studs Terkel, the oral historian and self-described champion of the "uncelebrated," will receive a lifetime achievement prize.
· Reviews of Consistency [ courtesy of Pageturner]
[Book Beancounters Baking Black Bread: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ]
[ via The Reading Experience: New Blog]

Posted 7:35 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Apple's core: The Mac turns 20: 1984-2004...
Life grows more equable as one grows older; not less interesting, but I hope a little more impersonal. An old man ought to be sad. I don’t know whether I shall be when the wind is west and the sky clear.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., letter to Frederick Pollock, March 22, 1892

The Importance of Being There
Yiddish word for funeral, levaya, means to accompany.
· Exceeding All Expectations

Posted 7:34 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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I rather think it was because a story wasn't a story until it was written down.
Barbara Jefferis, Author 1917-2004: I'm in this for the long haul.
· Baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
Czechout The Best Dragon Stories of Freedom in the Universe... Comfort may be good but freedom and getting published is more rewarding:

Posted 8:24 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The Year of the Mon(k)ey
The Motor Traders' Association is about to launch the most serious competitor yet to NRMA road service...
If it’s not true, it ought to be!
· Cardoor action

Posted 8:07 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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COLD RIVER: Allow to simmer, then bring to Amazon boiling point
No Foreigners sign hangs on the door of the Canadian publishing
COLD RIVER's somewhat of a mistake that really worked and somehow Quenches the Thirsty Mind of ordinary low brow reader...
Undeterred by publishing jungle, crocodile reviews and floods of rejections, at Amazon Cold River comes face to face with many literary multinationals...
We hear it all the time, and it's the source of much patriotic chest-thumping: Canada is the most multicultural country in the world. So it may seem odd to hear complaints about the insularity of our publishing industry.
I don't believe they see room for the incoming foreigner...
This is not so in the case of Canadian writers who have built literary reputations elsewhere (the one obvious exception being Josef Skvorecky, who won the Governor General's award in 1984 for a novel written in Czech and translated into English)
The complaint seems all the odder when one considers that my publisher is Canadian as no large Australian publisher would touch me with a political pole.
Different Cold Rivers have something for everyone:
· COLD RIVER: Story of Escape
· Canada Publishing
· Cold River 1 [ via
Walking a Cold River ]
The Best Cold River in the Universe

Posted 7:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Reworking of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying"?
The Sea, The Sea
When you've looked out the window for so many hours knowing that you are too afraid to step out the door and actually face the life you tried to stop from hurtling so terribly close to ruin, but could not stop, then take refuge in the truths that Murdoch carries like laudanum in her prose.
· Oh, god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say any of that. It's just sometimes I feel so wounded I need to lash out
[link first seen at Tobias Seamon lists what literature has taught him ]
Sea

Posted 7:46 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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2003 Koufax Award Finalists Best Blog: Magnificent
The seven finalists for the 2003 Koufax Award for Best Blog:
CalPundit;
Daily Kos;
Eschaton;
Orcinus;
Talking Points Memo;
Talk Left;
Whiskey Bar!
· Many Antipodian Nominated, but Not Even One Finalist: Wampum Conspiracy (smile)

Most of the above blogs seem to enjoy linking to political stories such as how the press is a political player and how campaign reporters create - and then dash - their own expectations of candidate performance.
[ See Also Politics, "The Press" and Servant Journalism ]
What can the press do differently to help us get the real story

Posted 8:42 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Oprah announced that the next title to be read by Oprah's Book Club is HarperPerennial's One Hundred Years of Solitude by Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

One of Melbourne's biggest bookstores is closing, and it's hard not to feel nostalgic. Do I protest too much? Metropolis was just another place of consumption, much like a cafe or a bar or a chemist. Let's not get sanctimonious about a bookstore. Maybe my mother is right; maybe I am a literary snob. Maybe I should watch more TV, drink more Coke, get in touch with the mainstream. Who am I to say Acland Street, post-Metropolis, has gone to the dogs?
[See Also Ode To A Closing Bookstore ][See Also Ode To A Opening Bookstore ]
[ via What the gossip bookdividers at work say]

Posted 8:26 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Reporter says raid of home "felt like slow-motion robbery"
Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill, whose home was raided on Wednesday, writes: I will remember what happened to me as part of how the post 9/11 world works. Some Canadians of Muslim faith and Middle Eastern origin have told of the early morning knock on the door from the RCMP. Because of my everyday work as a journalist, I've now experienced myself something that I realize would be more difficult to endure without a lawyer, without knowing my rights, and being confident of media attention.
· I woke up and thought I was in some totalitarian state

Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein tried to get New York Post reporter Keith J. Kelly to stop writing about Talk magazine by offering him a book deal to write a history of Irish Americans

Codes of conduct in Australian and some overseas parliaments
The conduct of ministers and members of parliament is often in the news. In Australia some parliaments have adopted codes of conduct for members while others have a code governing ministerial behaviour. Only three parliaments have codes relating to both ministers and members. All Australian parliaments have adopted registers of pecuniary interests.
· Interested Interesting [ See Also Discrimination in electoral law: using technology to extend the secret ballot to disabled and illiterate voters (PDFormat)]

Posted 12:24 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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· The first show of American Idol where they make fun of all the losers who are awful singers, is by far my favorite ...
The ideal poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent...
David Mamet on poker

Amazon Roulette: Cold River author scores review with Dr. Siever's editor
William Frucht (see more about me) from New York, NY USA I object to the author's using Amazon to spam me about his book. If I was ever inclined to read it, I certainly won't do so now...

Bill is teaching me in every practical way how every negative has a positive, You just have to look for it...
Dear Bill: I wish everyone in the whole world was exactly like you--charming, candid, informative. Phew. Stevie Smith had a poem where she kept talking about a breath of fresh air...
(Real me: I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore. Has Bill gone off his meds? I know I'm taking my life in my own hands with the kryptic sentiment of this post, but if you'll hang in there with me, you might see where I'm coming from. (risk taking smile)

Bill has edited a great book New View of Self: How Genes and Neurotransmitters Shape Your Mind, Your Personality, and Your Mental Health (Great Book)
This is a book for anyone who has ever been depressed and wondered about taking medication, for anyone who has ever worried about his own mental health or had concerns about friends and family. Dr. Siever gives us a comprehensive introduction to all the major psychiatric diseases and disorders, illustrated with numerous case studies--of the narcissistic or histrionic personality, of dpression (sic), of obsessive compulsive disorder. His stories are illuminating and compassionate.
· Once Upon a Imaginary Negative Number
· Positive Numbers ( She Sells Sanctuary)
· Boing Blowing Bohemian Blogs

Posted 11:36 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The critical ingredient is getting off your czech butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
Robert Browning on the true entrepreneur

There's a freedom for me a value to the independence
I'll be giving readers a sense of what's happening that they don't get in conventional journalism.
Marshall is bypassing the editorial labyrinth of "conventional journalism," eliminating layers of editors, constrictions of newshole and limitations of deadline, to report directly to a public who values his work enough to pay for it in advance.
Significantly, tradition-bound newspaper editors and reporter who disparage blogging as hormonal therapy for teen-age girls cannot dismiss Marshall for lack of reporting credentials.
· Blogging: hormonal therapy? [ courtesy of Tim Porter]

Posted 11:22 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Though it is important to stay focused, an occasional distraction can sometimes be a good thing. There is much value to be found in the unexpected. The people you didn't expect to meet, the places you didn't expect to go, the things you didn't expect to learn can often lead you in new and positive directions.
Ralph Marston on the unexpected

Blogo Slovo by Kaiser
So melancholy, and yet so hopeful.
We must support people like Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian woman who won the Nobel Prize for her work on behalf of human rights and rule of law. We must empower moderate Arabs who just want to have a nice job and some control over their own lives.
· This was the approach we took during the cold war, and now many of our best friends are countries like Poland and Lithuania, who are grateful for our opposition to Soviet tyranny. [link first seen at What to do with the drunken sailor ]
Blogo Slogan in 30 seconds!

Posted 7:54 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Periodically passing on copies to the media
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
· Hundreds of memos [ courtesy of Matrix Database]

Posted 7:49 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Unhappy with Our Short-comings?
The World Social Forum, a global movement seeking alternatives to globalization other than those discussed at the World Economic Forum at Davos, is wrapping up its fourth annual meeting in Mumbai, India, this week. The event site features news links, resources, and press releases in English, French, and Spanish.
· World Social Forum: 'Another World Is Possible' [link first seen at VOW: We challenge the orthodoxy, so you don't have to]

Posted 7:47 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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· Ample support in the Bible for true believers to get down to the bare essentials

Life is a Dome of Surfing
The Sutherland shire of Sydney Fame is blessed with a wide variety of beaches such as The Alley which has consistently great surfers' waves, while the Shark Island provides many experienced surfers with many challenging breaks. North Cronulla, Elouera, Wanda and Greenhills like to parade the local folks on breaks too.
Body surfers draw together around Cronulla Pavillion, but keep your arms and legs between the yellow and red flags. Blackwood and Shelley beach are each splashing spots for young families and the young at heart. If you are from Central Europe czech out Gunnamatta as the kiosk has the coldest icecream in Australia. For snorkellers the Cronulla penninsular created Darook Park. Be a royalty for a day and catch a ferry to a fairytalish Bundeena, which is part of the virgin Royal National Park. If rip takes a fancy to you whatever you do never fight it as they say if you cannot beat it join it. Never ever panic! Garie Beach Youth Hostel is according to the local rag the best kept secret. A mix of international and local surfers and bushwalkers tend to book the remote retreat at a cost of $11 per night for YHA members or entire hut for $120 as part of the Rent YHA scheme. Almost as good a deal as the Scarborough Moroton Club provides to its members at the Morton Island. Book virtually at yha.com.au or call 9261 1111
· Elsewhere, Gianna could hear kids screaming and laughing down by the water for weeks. Now it's gone quiet [link first seen at Australia Day Long Weekend]
Sydney derives from Saint Denis, the saint who converted the pagan Gauls to Christianity

Posted 6:34 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Clay
I have this wonderful image - mantra - way of thinking - we are clay, if we are brittle we dry up and crack into a million pieces - dust - but if we stay maleable and fluid we can always reshape or be reshaped
· River as a metaphor is powerful - as a symbol for the flow of life, its continuity, and its ability to hold myriads of things while still representing unity and oneness

Weblogs are more than the sum of its parts: more than vibrant public forums and frequently updated streams-of-consciousness, alternative forms of publishing and online outbursts of gonzo journalism, and personal diaries. They are ...
Cross-fertilisation among individual thoughts and ideas unfolds
[See also Spinning Yarns around the Digital Fire - Storytelling and Dialogue among Youth on the Internet ]

Posted 9:59 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The lure of the unknown writer proved absolutely irresistible for many virtual readers. Thank you one and all readers at Amazon for challenging the orthodoxy of the publishing world, so the next generation of writers don't have to! Imagine... Phew, how tough it has been for ordinary storytellers of my calibre running on literary water. Today you put me in the three figure current. Cold River is ranked as 710 as at 9 am Sydney time...
· Now, Ice cold beer, anyone?

Posted 8:51 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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If you're in a hurry in the Year of the Monkey Shorter State of the Union Address, Fiscal Policy
A boy leaves home for his first semester at college.
The Matriarch of the family gives him some money for books and incidental expenses. The money is intended to last the entire semester. Within a month, the son calls the mother, informs his Mom that he is broke and asks for additional money.
“What did you do with all the money I gave you last month?” asks Mom?
“Well,” the son replies, “ninety percent of it I spent chasing women and drinking beer. The rest I just wasted.”
· courtesy of Wampum
If you have heaps of time...

Posted 8:41 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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[Memo to San Francisco Chronicle staffers]
I am delighted to announce that John Koopman, who has been a metro reporter or editor in San Francisco since 1997, is joining the Datebook staff as a special assignment writer. His beat is sex...

Nothing New Under the Sun: Drown the Messengers and Witches!
Teams of RCMP officers armed with search warrants today raided the home and office of Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill, searching for evidence of leaks in the Maher Arar case.
The simultaneous raids were conducted early this morning on Ms. O'Neill's lowertown home and her office in the the Citizen bureau at City Hall.
· Be Prepared
· > Still Stonewalling After All These Years: Deadly Nerve Agents [ via Ageless Aga]

Posted 8:31 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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2004 AD & the Story of Our Teeth: A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class Witches
Caroline's is the face of the working poor, marked by a poverty-generated handicap more obvious than most deficiencies but no different, really, from the less visible deficits that reflect and reinforce destitution. If she were not poor, she would not have lost her teeth, and if she had not lost her teeth, perhaps she would not have remained poor.
· Not just bureaucrats who cheat the poor but also the poor who cheat themselves
· Citizen impotence, our specifically modern experience of poverty [link first seen at Rebeccablood]
· Electronic Elections: a new electronic voting system based on open-source software created in Australia
· Interactive Voting Map

Posted 8:27 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Well, if you write non-fiction, review non-fiction, or prefer to read non-fiction, break out the champagne. The most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world. Because we are a newspaper, we should be more skewed toward non-fiction.

The Plot Thickens at The New York Times Book Review
With a new Sunday book editor on the horizon, The New York Times takes a hard look at its literary coverage paper-wide.
· Which way are the winds blowing?

First, the American tradition of free speech and free press gives us a nearly unbounded right to cover the banal, the bizarre, and the shamelessly self-promoting.
· Why Do We Cover Celebrities? [ courtesy of Romenesko ]

Posted 7:45 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Readers are often surprised to hear that Cold River is a representation of reality. Those in the corridors of power with generous imagination and a gift for milling rumours know too well that I did not drown because I am a witch rather than rich (smile):
Indeed, the witch of Morava River kissed me with her tongue until the leaves on the trees, the soles of my shoes, and even my thoughts, felt like leaden tongues.

Have a Thick Skin: Put something new into the world
(Please help spread the rumour... I am not just a bouncing czech; I am a wicked witch; burning kryptikal grin)
Amateurs are writing as they’ve always written. Self-consciousness, self-doubt, awkwardness, and overcompensation are perennial hallmarks of the beginning writer. The reason today’s amateurs seem more profoundly un–profound could be a simple matter of exposure...
Sharing great discoveries is largely why weblogging got so hot and sultry in the first place. Big, heavily funded sites weren’t acknowledging the grace notes and hidden talents of the web, so it was up to webloggers. For some webloggers, it still is. Wired doesn’t need your help as much as undiscovered sites, which may be offering equally good (or better) material.
· When the kidnapper called the blind woman, he told her that she’d never see her son again

Posted 10:21 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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January, 1848: THOREAU delivers a lecture on -- the relation of the individual to the State -- later retitled CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Strange Freedoms
Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.
· Dimensions
· Carnival Of The Capitalists: Winds Of Change.NET

Reality blogging with Road to Surfdom and Cast Iron Balcony
As a parent, the government's mantra of "choice" is meaningless to me. School fees of around $10,000 per child per year (in Melbourne) for two children? Not possible for us. I know the pundits always say there are legions of taxi drivers out there who manage to "sacrifice" to send their kids to private schools, and if the rest of us would cease our wickedly spending ways we could too, but take it from me-- as a non-smoking moderate social drinker who who sees approximately two live plays a year and whose work clothes hover between chainstore tragic and sheer embarassment, and who is relying on her 1991 Nova to last at least 7 more years, there is not $10000-20000 worth of fat to trim in this family. And the fees are only the beginning-- then you'd start on the uniform, the ski trips, the China excursions, etc. so that little Tarquin isn't socially ostracised.
Some choice. And then we get the pleasure of seeing the little Tarquins beat my child for a place at University with an ENTER score of 87.55 to her 96.5. Oh, and our taxes are helping to pay for it!
I'm having a Marge Simpson moment. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Posted 9:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Attack on the editor of Respekt
De javu, I remember reading about a similar type of attack taking place in Brissie last year...
Early in the morning on Saturday 18 January, two men attacked the editor of Respekt, Tomas Nemecek, as he was returning home with the shopping. They sprayed teargas into his face, knocked him to the ground and kicked him. He ended up in hospital with concussion and a suspected ruptured spleen...
Zeman was a cute teddybear, yes, but he was also a dangerous bully and as Respekt hints, he's partially responsible for creating an atmosphere of anti-journalism.
· Zeman liked to call journalists scum and other names. Klaus called them stupid, but that's not quite as bad [link first seen at Not Much]

Posted 9:29 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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About Last Night brings to us today the Bogart-Rains scene from my favourite movie Casablanca:
There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff, 45 miles an hour.
How fast was I going, Officer?
I'd say around 90.
Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Suppose it doesn't take.
Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.

Cash Lifeline for Crumbling Roads
As I drove last year from (Moonlight) Sunshine State to Sinful Sydney we stopped counting the number of potholes after Balinna. We counted over 200. (According to my daughters, one can spy around 100 potholes from Egadine to Sutherland and back) This initiative will no doubt lessen the number of orphaned families...
Lets also hope that Antipodean, or Bohemian, investors and inventors put their cash and ideas where pedestrian dangers exist. Speed might kill, but slowness puts many drivers to sleep in a state of complaicency as it makes many drivers to keep an eye on speedometer rather than what is happening around them. If someone, anyone, can come up with a practical solution to keep the driver and pedestrian at the same eye level, Holden or Tatra will reward them generously for this road safety formula. To be able to see the speedometer as one is travelling around schools and through urban areas unobtrusively on the front window of the car would do the trick. This could be an international hot seller just like Cold River (smile).
The Howard Government will spend an extra $340 million improving local NSW roads and is considering more funding for upgrading of the Pacific Highway as part of a $2 billion regional roads plan.
· Carrs and Roads Run Over by Lack of Creativity

Posted 9:24 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

· Judging an Antipodean creative man by his beer

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What matters after 50 are hits to the heart
The capability is real. The arts must dare to take their place in Australian society
· The push goes on - towards an artistic top end
[ via Creative Destruction]

Posted 9:13 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Self-Publish And Be Damned?
I had been warned against self-publishing. You can't get reviews, you can't get shelf space, and you can't get respect. One hundred thousand books are published every year, so you need an imprint to stand out from the noise. Being naive, and used to being treated like Rodney Dangerfield, I decided to publish my book anyway.
I found a printer near Boston that could turn out thousands of copies in two weeks. A printer in Michigan took four weeks but, for two bucks each, produced tens of thousands of stitched-binding, store-quality copies. Ready or not, I was now in the publishing business. I opened an Advantage account on Amazon.com and had "Wall Street Meat" for sale on March 17. Not even spring of '03. Ha.
· I brought out my own book and beat the odds
· Where To Read About Reading [ via Book Slut]
· Literary Blogs]
[Adult Link Booble v Google]

Posted 7:30 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Tim Porter & Religion Are Born Again
There's nothing like a long time in Mexico to make you forget about quality journalism ...
Journalism selects those who cannot but be writers and journalists. It means you get a level of commitment and dedication that is quite unusual in many other professions. But you can only abuse people so much. They have families, children and student loans and lives to lead. We are not monks.
· Catching Up, Getting Religion [ via Tip toeing into these digital rivers: to ignore change is to be consumed by it ]

Posted 7:29 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Jan Masaryk death theory draws fire
His Father: Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia
Investigator claims he's proven murder; critics reject conclusion
Many assumed Jan Masaryk committed suicide, but a detective, Ilja Pravda, says it was murder...
· Dirty Tricks: Pravda means truth ... [ courtesy of Prague Post]

Posted 7:25 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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High housing prices not just Antipodean problem
The topic dominates dinner-party conversations: braggarts boast of the killing they've made on their houses, while the timid or the young worry about how they'll ever afford anything bigger than a shoebox to live in.
Now the French, the Spanish, the Irish and soon maybe even the Germans will be able to play the same game.
· Not any more. Europe is fast catching the housing bug

Rising homelessness in the capital challenges shelters; no solution in sight.
· Mean streets: Salvation Army's homeless shelter [ via Prague Post ]
[link first seen at Gentlemen: A staggering array of porcelain plumbing ]

Posted 7:15 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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It comes as no surprise that nearly a third of our young people who want to get into a university have missed out ("Degrees of separation: thousands rejected", Herald, January 19) when our Government spends its resources on the military and not education... Letters, SMH 20/1/04 Denis Doherty, Glebe

Broken Earth of Good & Evil
Joan Kroc, the late widow of the McDonald's founder, has left almost $2 billion to the Salvation Army.
The religious charity said today it was "humbled" by the generosity of one of the biggest bequests ever made.
The money will be used to develop community centres across the United States which will be named after Ray and Joan Kroc.
· Salvation Army [ courtesy of Google ]

Die Broke
You are not a corporation - you are a human being. Your money shouldn't outlive you. You should exit life as you came into it: penniless. Your assets are resources to be used, for your own benefit and for the benefit of those you love. Every dollar that's left in your bank account after you die is a dollar you wasted. Use your resources to help people now when you know they need it, when it will do the most good, rather than hoping they'll be helped when you're dead. The last czech you write should be to your undertaker… and it should bounce.

Posted 7:10 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Double Dragons don't just exhale fire, cause maidens distress, and make life tough for silver-clad knights...they also have hearts as big as castles.

Literacy Matters: Cats & Dragons
If you learn anything in your life, you will find yourself roughly where I am now. Lying in a pile of drunk (dragons).
I have fifteen (dragons) in all, named after various notable poets: Hölderlin, Rilke, Celan, Cohen, Layton, Rimbaud, Evans, Shelley, Hughes, Maxwell, Alfau, Eliot, Mandelshtam, Lawrence and Dunthorne. I have trained them by writing and speaking continuously in service of the ultimate, and of mankind. Whenever one of my articles was printed in the Sunday papers, I forced my (dragons) to read and reread it, and whenever I was interviewed on the radio, I turned the volume up, so that all fifteen of them could hear what I was saying. I taught them to smoke - cigarettes at first, but then pipes. Their favourite tobacco is Gambler Full Flavour.
· We order from rollyourown.com [ via Abctales.com]
· Puppy Love[link first seen at Tim Dunlop]
· A Politician's Wardrobe [ courtesy of DotLit]

Posted 7:08 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Jacko Irwin: Crocs and Dragons
For a real life photograph of Steve and Jackson
· Cartoons of 2004 newsmaking: What a crock business...worth a grin [link first seen at Barista]
· Other Peoples Stories

Posted 4:55 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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A Dragon, the World, and the strong urge to hibernate: active articles from across the gamut
One of the operating political assumptions of the Bush administration is that the checks and balances have essentially been checked.
· Beacuse freedom cannot protect itself. [ see also Moral pork-barrelling: sucking up to hog farmers and singing the praises ...]
· Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty by Randy Barnett [link first seen at Interplay between the freedom of speech and election law ]
· Modern regulation of corporate political donations [ via Displacement of Bloggs ]

Evil, Law, and the State
Political pressures complicate the behavioral analysis of police & legal institutions.
· Janko Votkinz Creating Stations of Evil [ courtesy of Conference ]

Posted 4:44 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

In a nation without aristocracy, Hookes was one of those rarities, a prince among men; honest man who spoke his mind...
· A celebration, then a senseless tragedy: David Hookes

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As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion – but not their own facts.

Dishonest Socialisation of Loses: Are there parallels to be drawn or not?
Our goal here can’t be to find truth – that’s a job for philosophers and theologians. What we can do here is sort through the factual claims being made between now and election day, using the best techniques of journalism and scholarship.
And I can think of no better job for a journalist than holding politicians accountable for getting the facts right, regardless of their party or political philosophy.
Like the anarchists, Roosevelt diagnosed a growing awareness among Americans of genuine injustice. He believed, as few other politicians did, that the comforts of middle-class life blinded many of his fellow countrymen to the hardships endured by the majority of humankind - hardships whose effects might be lessened by political action.
And so, although Roosevelt opened his first address to Congress by pledging himself to fight the 'evil' of anarchism, he moved immediately into a much longer section of his speech titled 'Regulation of Corporations.' He proposed to address the great 'social problems' and the 'antagonism' of the day - the radicalism that threatened Americans' safety by trimming the excesses of unfettered capitalism.
· Corporate Welfare reaching new heights: (Kosciusko, Australia)
· The most evil corporate entity ever... (US)
[ via Political Fact Czech ]
[ courtesy of Is this a great job, or what?]
· Is Mina Naguib, the hackiest double dragon living in Montreal, or what?

Posted 4:23 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)

The Dual Commandments: Act Like Nothing's Wrong
The coldest current to swallow Amazon up in years:
(1) If you like Cold River, give it to your friends.
(2) If you have an allergy to Cold River, send it to the bullies at school, work or parliament...
Just because I write about horrors of absurd communism doesn’t mean I always identify myself with other forms of barbarism such as ruthless capitalism.
· COLD RIVER: The Hunt for the Book That Is Best to Give to Bullies of this World [ My Virtual Middle Earth Digital Exposure: May the Ghost of the Morava River Protect the Powerless]
· Digital Silver Foxes: What is the son of Barbara Bush reading in 2004?

Posted 8:29 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Blogging Idly
Living impressions of the decade that rocked my world
· 1980s Theme
· Don't Know Much About History?
Metrosexuals are better dressed. Homosexuals are so last season. Slowly, eat your heart out Kylie...(smile)
[ courtesy of Googling yourself metrosexually]

Where-are-they-now
The film, The Blair Witch Project, formerly the biggest-grossing indie flick of all time—it has since been surpassed by My Big Fat Greek Wedding—brought in $248.3 million worldwide. The five producing partners of Blair Witch netted $5 million each, the actors $1 million.
· To you, that’s serious money, but in Hollywood, it’s chump change. Is that depressing, or what? [link first seen at About last night]

Posted 9:18 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Farce to tragedy in one act of US folly
In the structure of a classical play, a problem is presented in Act 1, complications arise in Act 2, and all is resolved in Act 3. In Iraq this northern spring, while much of Europe was still enmeshed in Act 2, George Bush plunged directly into Act 3, without acknowledging the complications or fully considering the consequences...
Their choice will be historic, and will go a long way towards determining, once the curtain falls, whether or not Bush's Act 3 ends up as a tragedy.
· The Iraq war has already alienated Europe [ via Dream democracy falls over for Czechs everywhere]

Posted 9:14 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Media of Oz and Wizzards of Brittain
Aussie Letters: Crikey continually rubs elite the wrong way...
· Media 1 [link first seen at Crikey.com Media 2]
· The Guardian website has a Great Brittain list of MPs

Posted 9:07 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Did you hear the rumour? In my adopted country, I Owe Parliamentary Clerks everything... even how to make rumours and sausages (smile)
Whispered words over a coffee, a hint of intrigue, a conspiratorial giggle at a particularly juicy piece of information are all essential parts of workplace gossip, and good for you...
Gossip could be good for worker morale, reduce stress, boost creativity and, therefore, help business.
Gossiping could be seen as trivial but was often therapeutic...
It lubricates relationships at work.
· 'What's going on there? Wink wink, nudge nudge', is all right
· Get Parliamentary Culture Talking: Our Glorious Deaths by Thousand Cuts

How do you say in parliamentary language, "Potential colossal benefit of public money"?
IMHO, World wide travel is fine for our polliticians, in fact it should be a must as travel widens the horizon and the sharing of best practices eventually benefits everyone. Every new MP should be forced to visit each continent early in their careers, not too long after the maiden speech is delivered in the Chambers of Ideas, Hopes and Dreams; not so parliamentary staffers as some are better known around Parliament Houses by their travel bug type nicknames rather than their real names...MP Travel: Making the old new again

Posted 8:59 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Novo Niche Blogs
Literary Blogs: Kitabkhana and Sanskrit
· Best Blogs [link first seen at Wampum]

The Fountain of Youth exists
Thanks for taking my ribbing well, Dave. Now -- enuff about you, let's get to some serious topics. In the past few presidential elections, the candidate selection has been, well, rather limited. This go-round, I've found caucuses. A form of!
[ courtesy of 'Anti-aging' Beer entitled - COLD RIVER]

Posted 1:58 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Thanks blogesphere!
Poems of Dreamers Win a mention inside the Olympic newsletters (Greek edition: archived by my Google mates). A newsletter that seems to get delivered on desks of every political leader, bar Saddam Hussein.
However, my book cannot be considered Olympic material even if it has the ability to cultivate the strange truths of human condition...
Never before has Amazon moved so slowly, so ackwardly towards a four figure current. Could it be more slower? (smile) Amazon.com Sales Rank: 5,226 The River Nobody Wanted to Swim in 1980 is now winning more and more eSalers...
Speaking of speed, it appears that 29.04 seconds for 50 meters freestyle is good enough time for certain teenagers to invade the national swimming competition in Perth... (So back to my second home in the urban Bush)

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The best of us reach our highest heights when we are making recommendations for what to read next:
Speaking of Pages and Rivers...
I’m seven months’ pregnant and standing on the banks of an angry, flooding river, feeling incapable of anything except awe . . . This is the day I decide to tell you about our river. The Pages, as in the pages of a book. Most of the time it isn’t a mighty torrent but a creek you can wade through.
· Pregnant River [ via PHILLIP ADAMS: I’m even saddened to learn of the deaths of old enemies]

Shalinka, the Wampum Keeper
The author Pat Montague, a former librarian, who comes from my Double Dragon Publishing stable, reveals an in-depth anthropological review of the Native Americans’ world view.
Emphasis is placed on rites of ritual cannibalism designed to appease and support the sun god, which in turn empowered the high chief.
This concept of devouring a victim as a religious act carries over into an evaluation of the Christian communion with an analysis of the Roman Catholic Eucharist presented as a type of "eating" of the divine person by the worshipers.
· Double Dragon Pick Speaks the Language of Booklovers [ I also like a blog Wampum Troublemakers (smile)]

Posted 1:42 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Fear in the tank, hope on the horizon
MIKE MOORE’S recent Oscar-winning documentary, Bowling for Columbine, depicted an America in the thrall of fear, largely of itself. Recently, North American ‘privatopias’ have arrived in Australia. The opening of Australia’s first gated community, the Gold Coast’s Sanctuary Cove in 1985, marked the start of a new residential development form that has become common across the nation. Although the outright gated community remains relatively rare, exclusive (ie. exclusionary) residential communities are now mainstream suburban products.
· Gated Estates [link first seen at Few Australian politicians in living memory possess the Queensland premier's sensitivity to voters’ wants and fears]
· Concept of Evil

Posted 1:27 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Web Design Tips
When it comes to website usability, the leading authority in the world is Jakob Nielsen, whose Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., has influenced tens of thousands of site designers. Nielsen's useit.com is a must-visit site for anyone in the web business and I think more non-techie journalists should know about it.
· Things webmasters need to fix [link first seen at Sree Sreenivasan ]

Posted 12:31 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

My family is off again to Homebush Aquatic Centre where the NSW age swimming championships are being held covering ages 13-19 years/Over Age; covering the long, long, period from 13-19 January...
Swimming in our family emerged out of summer days splashing at Andrew (Boy) Charton and Bondi Iceberg pools, but the love of swimming came from the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef...
While many swimmers fall into the shooting star category, it is the healthiest sport on earth and almost as tough as ballet where extremely intensive dedication and love are a must. But, unlike ballet, swimming is objective. It is the ego, H2O and the clock...

True Passion Motivates Most Swimmers
The Middle Earth Europeans seem to be everywhere even at Homebush Aquatic Center and some even work for the IOI Scientific Committee (ISC) which in its maiden newsletter for the Athen Olympics poetically noted:
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
Are the ones who do!
The Olympics are still young and full of promises, for those who believe in them. I hope James Cumes might one day blog more about the true Olympic Spirit.
Meanwhile Dr. Tom Verhoeff, ISC Chair, writes that until IOI'99, the preparation and execution process suffered from a scaling problem...
The GA had very limited time to assess the tasks for approval and translation. This gave rise to long, intense, emotional discussions (a few well-informed persons versus a large group with little information), taking place under severe time constraints...
The ISC acts as an intermediary between GA and the HSC in the preparation and execution process. In all of this, it is important to remember that the ISC is intended to represent the GA. In fact, most ISC members have been GA members and they often return to the GA after serving on the ISC.
Now, we turn our attention to IOI 2004 in Athens, Greece. If the contact person has changed for your country from the one used in 2003, please send an email to Mr. Spyros Bakoyiannis, Greece, sbakogia@epy.gr so he will have an up-to-date list of the country contacts. The contact person is necessary for sending out country invitations to IOI 2004...
· Olympiad Newsletter (PDF format) [ courtesy of Turning Dreams to Realities]
· Thorpedo in Swimming to Athens mode [link first seen at NSW Swimming Championships ]
· Bidders begin 2012 Olympics race

True Blue Olympic Colours & Spirits: People over 60 in Wales will be given free access to swimming pools in the first move of its kind in Europe. The move follows a scheme which gave schoolchildren free swimming during last year's summer holidays... (Politicians of all colours take note)
Sadly, Gray - who first found fame delivering confessional, humorous stage monologues such as Swimming to Cambodia man is missing

Posted 12:00 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Bush Has Neglected the Balkans For Too Long
OSI Senior Policy Advisor Laura Silber argues in an op-ed that the U.S. should pay closer attention to the southeast Balkans or risk economic and political deterioration in the region.
· A ticking time bomb
· Government by time bomb
· More Conflicts of Chinese Walls on the 9/11 Commission: This is beginning to look like a whitewash
· An abrupt southerly wind change: Choose Freedom or Else

Posted 11:53 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Last Mile: Dreams Come Alive
Computerised lamp posts look like being the basis of the biggest data network ever, as the world's traffic monitors set about controlling cars with wireless.
· If Last Mile is right, then the WiFi revolution could happen much, much faster than anybody has dreamed.

City by city, neighborhood to neighborhood, our politics are becoming more concentrated and polarized. America must not only stop making dumb mistakes, like starting trade wars with Europe and China; it must also put in place new policies that enhance our creative economy.
It is a sad irony: America's creative economy sparked a demographic shift and a political polarization that now threaten to choke that economy off. What America desperately needs now is political leadership savvy enough to bridge that gap.
[ Creative Edge Creative Class War: How anti-elitism could ruin America's economy]

Posted 11:46 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Two angry middle-aged men, Veni Vedi Vinci, are in a Tatra Mountain resort and one of them says, 'Boy, the food in this place is really terrible.' The other one says, 'Yeah, I know, and such small portions.'

Having the last laugh: Our Public Hanging
If you're reading this right now, I guess I'm dead. I've got some bad news for you (besides the fact that I am dead). Every time I blogged, I thought I was putting my life on the line...
You are more restricted by being alive. Just as I had always suspected, God is a Underground Maker...(smile)
It stops all that speculation about how I managed four marriages and three divorces, the names of my 25 cats, and the real reason I missed 15 airplanes getting from Saigon to Da Nang.
· I am no longer Rich... The endless closing credits [ via Down Under: WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND ]

Which one of the five choices makes the best comparison? LIVED is to DEVIL as 6323 is to:
2336; 6232; 3236; 3326; 6332

Posted 11:32 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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So What is your score? ...Get it here: Score for Imrich is: 13 Jozef: 24; Cold River: 15; Survivor Story: 22

NOT TONIGHT, JOZEFINE!
I decided to test one of my most treasured theses: that France is the America of Europe?
· Testing...
· The King and Di: Polish Institute of Gerontological Science Travels From Paris to Bratislava[link first seen at Wendy James]

Weblogs, Weather: COLD ENOUGH?
500 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
People in Maine start saying...Cold 'nuff fer ya?
· Maine [link first seen at Vrbov ]
· Expert Bloggers [ via John Quiggin for expertise in economics ]

Posted 11:59 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Bizarrrre Bush: I-don't-read-newspapers boast...
According to the latest Media Audit, Internet's officially mainstream (as if you hadn't figured that out already).
But regarding newspaper comparisons, this strikes me a bit as apples vs. oranges. Newspapers have specific uses: disseminating news and advertising. The Internet is used for so many things, news being only one small component. It's not a fair comparison. More interesting, in my mind, is Media Audit's finding that there are more heavy Internet users than heavy TV viewers. That's remarkable, and truly significant. The best way to stay on top of deal news and trends all the time as it happens is by checking out Google.com and Amazon.com ...

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A rainish day and a visit to Lilly's vet meets a slow day ( newswise), but once again there are plenty of substantive new blog entries:
Webloggers Adopting Political Reporters
A proposal to have bloggers adopt individual campaign reporters to track and critique their work is gathering some momentum on the web. It's generated a lot of back and forth between bloggers and journalists over whether this will improve campaign coverage and media accountability or just set off another round of mindless media bashing. New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen has collected the postings on the adopt-a-journalist campaign on his PressThink weblog, and added his take on the idea.
· Press Think [ courtesy of Romenesko]

Are Arabs, in a sense, the Irish of the world?
· Journalistic analogy: Ireland plays the part of the Arab world, perhaps of the larger Muslim world, while Britain plays the part of the West

Posted 11:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

I eat, drink, live, sleep, dream of less soccer, sweatshops & station restructuring ... But, greed almost always trumps ideology.

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McWorld
What could be more global than soccer? The world’s leading professional players and owners pay no mind to national borders, with major teams banking revenues in every currency available on the foreign exchange and billions of fans cheering for their champions in too many languages to count. But in many ways, the beautiful game reveals much more about globalization’s limits than its possibilities.
· Foreign Policy magazines are exploring the absurdity of Football
· Not Sparing the Sweatshop Rod
· Australia: Waterfall disaster [ via Back Pages]

Posted 11:48 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Human Characters
We have undertaken space travel because the desire to explore and understand is part of our character. This is how President George W. Bush announced his visions for new space programs.
SMH undertakes a historical exploration of puzzling characters such as GGs...
· the daughters of convict sluts - were able to look down on Governor Lachlan Macquarie's home from the top storey of the orphanage

Paul O'Neill continues to try and explain why he was so involved in Ron Suskind's new book. He says he wanted to participate in a book that reveals the inner workings of the Bush administration because he believes the current political system badly stifles meaningful debate on public issues and needs to be fixed. And in his own words:
I hope people will read it because I think it makes a contribution to illuminating, especially for young people, what I consider to be a bipartisan, broken political process.
PS: Winners of this year's John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals, Kate DiCamillo and Mordicai Gerstein, respectively, were announced today at the 2004 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in San Diego...
WH Smith REVENGE

Posted 6:10 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

· The Blogathon is On

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Scottish Kennedy
A. L. Kennedy responds to Alexander McCall Smith's attack on Irvine Welsh. It has made us fall in love with her all over again.
And, of course, Scotland today is justly renowned as a land entirely without poverty and crime. No one who lives here is ever lonely, or upset, ill, or worried, no one loses their job, raises their voice, swears, dislikes the weather or has a mild headache for a while. Our local and national government are not inefficient and corrupt and our executive's Holyrood premises won't eventually cost more than building a Scottish embassy on Mars. In short, we have no reason whatsoever to write anything other than lovely, slightly dusty histories, or fables involving Africa and Nice Ladies.
· Dusty Stories [ courtesy of Bookslut]

Posted 10:04 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Timeless Trends?
In the immortal words and nightmares of the bon vivant, I don't finish throwing up until 10 at the earliest.
· I'm sexy [ courtesy of Travel Times][See also Objects impart not only memories but lessons]
· Marriages embraced by the state ...

Posted 9:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Neophobia: Fear and Loathing
Despite old-fashioned wisdom about looking before you leap and fools rushing in, new research shows that caution can actually kill you.
· New experiences: being risk-averse may shorten your life.

No greater joy in this world than to watch a young child that you love grow: to contemplate each new step, rudimentary word, each fresh understanding; that unique combination of the faintly comical and the seemingly miraculous.
Opinions differ, but my family has embraced anti-boy products, such as the throw rocks; slogan, pajamas that read Boys are smelly and the latest my daughter wears a T-shirts emblazoned with Boy Basher.
Scary...(smile)
· There's too much boy-bashing going on [link first seen at Normblog]

Posted 9:51 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Linguistic Ecology: Preventing a Great Loss
The acquisition of a second tongue destroys the 'naturalness' of the first. From then on, nothing can be self-evident in any tongue; nothing belongs to you wholly and irrefutably; nothing will ever 'go without saying' again.
Living in two languages, between two languages, or in the overlap of two languages? What is it like to write in a language that is not the language in which you were raised? To create in words other than those of your earliest memories, so far from the sounds of home and childhood and origin?
I laughed at things others considered serious and . . . they spoke at length of matters I would not think of divulging in public.
· I am Reaching out in more than one language [ via On The Trail Of An Elusive Translation: The Voynich manuscript]
· Other women: Gianna's started seeing them as characters in a coming-of-age story [See Also Those three or four words on the cover can make all the difference to a book's chances of success ]

Posted 9:32 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

If you have to choose between explaining something as a cock-up or a conspiracy, choose cock-up every time...

---

Czech out Eurovants blogging about Poles and US Visa Regime.
Tim Dunlop keeps this blogging thing and Desire to control information in perspective.

Human Nature
Dr Fischer is a multi-millionaire, his fortune founded on human hygiene. Fischer has a Most Unusual hobby: to expose human greed.
· Only Human [link first seen at GG]
· Soros Interview: Second Half

Thanks to Barista for his kind mention.
I don't pay heartstarters for the hungry mind for these kind mentions, so the only logical conclusion is that Bog father helps to drive blogging further...(smile)
· Blog Further [ via Barista ]

Posted 11:03 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Is anger really so bad? Isn't it better to sort of let out anger than bottle it up? This week is the 400 year anniversary of the King James Bible.

---

Black's wife
Barbara Amiel, whose fourth hubby is Conrad Black, took home a salary and bonus of $276,000 in 2002, all of it coming from the Chicago Sun-Times - even though she reportedly hasn't set foot in the Sun-Times building in over four years.
The dollars involved may be small compared with the millions her husband was pulling out of Hollinger International, but Amiel's behavior fits the same disturbing pattern, according to disgruntled shareholders: treating a publicly held company like a personal bank account.
· If this was a cow, there wouldn't be an udder that wasn't sore [ courtesy of Romenesko]

Posted 10:55 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The pundits are whispering that Bob Carr is likely to run over Amerika

Verbal shrines: Red Flags or Grinding Axes
Veteran journalists are coming to some grim conclusions about their industry. Are they raising red flags or merely grinding axes?
Much recent criticism of the media falls along conventional political fault lines - that the press is either too 'liberal' or too 'conservative.' In the years since Sept. 11 the criticism also has been politically polarized: We're not patriotic enough. We're not skeptical enough. We're anti-American traitors. We're flunkys for the White House and the Pentagon.
· We're not patriotic enough. We're not skeptical enough... [ via Romenesko ]
· It's not our job to be sources. The taxpayers don't pay us to leak! Our job is not to make your job easy... [ via Dismissive nature of some remarks in piece are striking ]

Posted 9:15 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Broad World
Andrew Meier warns that we need to pay closer attention to what is happening in the former Soviet Union. He feels that devoting American energies and assets exclusively to Iraq will increase the likelihood that the long struggle to democratize the former Soviet Union will turn out badly for the good guys.
Mr. Brodsky basically said, Europe may have its high culture and its Enlightenment and its Renaissance, but Russians and Americans, we have guts.
· A country both damaged and vital
· REREADING SOROS [ via ATLANTIC ]

Posted 9:14 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Two for the Table: Tatra Mountain Dairy
If, as a food-world truism has it, people use cookbooks again and again for just one recipe, that tuna pate, incredibly easy but fancy-seeming, is it for me. But the book's wealth of simple, satisfying recipes will become staples year in and year out.
· It's like sexy comfort food

Posted 8:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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New Year, New You, New Australian DIARY OF CIRCLES is here
Wendy James gets a response from Susan Hill in relation to the art and practice of diary keeping.
Speaking of diaries, I received a short note from Darren about his latest initiative called Blogger Idol.
So showcase your digital diary over the next month by posting 1 entry per week on a common theme.
· Darren Rowse [link first seen at Livingroom ]
· True Diary of Tim Dunlop: Rich and Succint [ via Surfdom ]

After the Velvet Revolution, I Count Myself Lucky to be Living in the Age of Digital Revolution.
If at first you don't succeed and if you feel on the Net like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people make Blog Father the First Blog of the Rest of Your Life:
· My So-Called Blog Father [ via Searching God Father]

Posted 12:25 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The playwright Tom Stoppard once wrote that, when people asked about the deep existential themes in his play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, he felt like a smuggler's dupe standing before a Customs officer: He had to admit those things were in there, but had no idea how they got there. Something similar happens every year at the Sydney Festival. The Sydney Festival began in earnest 4 months after I arrived in Australia. The Family Friendly Festival's ability to blend high-brow art and popular culture is the reason why so many vodka and barkadi (sic) loving locals are so passionate about exploring Sydney during Mid Summer Musical Evenings. What would the internationally recognised summer party scene be without mango dakeries (sic) at the Barracks or my very own Antipodean Club 77 (Klub, Charter, 77 is now closed)?
Without any doubt Leo Schofield, the son of a country publican with passion for telling stories, is the most artistic character the Emerald City ever created. Leo even painted the Sity of exiles in deep milticultural colours and now new talents continue the graceful tradition of lifting our hearts and making us think differently. Sydney somehow becomes kinder just like my childhood Vrbov used to manage to metamorphose during St Servac celebrations.

The Days of the Digital Sitis are Numbered: Stopczecher
We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
THE cream of Australia's theatrical crowd gathered at Walsh Bay for the opening of the $42-million Sydney Theatre.
Usual suspects included Jackie Weaver, Barry Otto, Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr. However, playwrights David Williamson and Sir Tom Stoppard also attended the marathon nine-hour performance and party.
· Tom Stoppard: Who's that? ...Nobody, sir. He's the author [Website about Tom Stoppard was born "Tom Straussler" in Zlin, Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1937]

On front page of the Sunny Morning Herald, Geraldine O'Brien, at her brilliant best, describes heartily the city of my exile...
They have been called Sydney's incidental magic but they are not the million-dollar harbour vistas from the plate-glass of Point Piper. Rather, they are glimpses and views that, piece by lovely piece, are disappearing from our city.
Yet these, even more than the postcard vistas, have been what anchor us - geographically and psychologically - that give us our sense and spirit of place; that are, if you like, our dreaming.
Sydney has always had an immediate, sensuous, physical impact: for two centuries, from the first recorded European responses, visitors and locals alike, painters, writers and Everyman have celebrated its moods and ever-changing moments.
· Everyday magic of a beloved city
[ next generation of exiles Pushed to go Bush]

Posted 12:09 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Papers Peppered with Provokative Opinions (sic)
PADRAIC P. MCGUINNESS:
Something funny and sad about that nostalgia for Stasiland
Of all the numerous good new films appearing in the holiday period the most important has been not a blockbuster like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King but a much smaller and less pretentious film which has been an unexpected success all over the world. This is Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye Lenin, a German film - in itself something of a rarity.
TONY VINSON:
First lesson is to restore parents' trust
MATT McDONALD:
Kyoto scorn paints a bleak future
GERARD HENDERSON:
The truth is out there - but many prefer a good conspiracy
HECKLER:
Smoking for the love of reproach: Smokers like me just won't be told

Posted 12:08 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Pay to Play
Shannon D. Harrington, Clint Riley and Jeff Pillets of the Bergen Record have a two-part series on "pay to play" in New Jersey, "a system that encourages politicians to reward their big contributors with juicy - and perfectly legal - no-bid contracts financed by the taxpayers." One story focuses on the lucrative law practice of M. Robert DeCotiis, finding that the "DeCotiis firm billed at least 128 government entities nearly $26.6 million during the 2½-year period.
· Why attempts to curb the pay to play phenomenon have failed. [ courtesy of The Scoop]
[blatantly pinched from ABCNews: mathematical truth]

Posted 12:02 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The Cardinal Sins of Blogging

Online addicts abandon the real world
Gabriele Farke celebrated her 40th birthday in a chat room. Her real-life friends had long since given up on her.
· The blonde in Bus Stop: Caught in the Net
· Blogging of Happiness

What is Happiness?
To laugh often and much,
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of childen,
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,
To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition,
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
· Politics of Happiness
[ via Mathematics of Happiness = P + 5E + 3H
· Bullies in the China Shop of Humanity

Posted 11:33 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

LOVE AFFAIR: Booked solid
So call us nerds. But we just can't help getting excited about East Bay libraries.
Yeah, we know that compared to their counterparts around the nation, they're rather underfunded, understocked and short-staffed, and at least one local branch is downright moldy.
But to dwell on those sorts of details is to miss an essential point: Libraries are free! Walk in with only a library card, and walk out with armloads of books, music and movies -- yours to enjoy for the next several weeks.
· L...Love Letters Librarians! [ via Librarians Showing off Bookplates ... ]
· Fewer books ?

Googling about Goggles
These underwater goggles are allowed to flood with water instead of air, which relieves swimmers of the discomfort caused by ordinary air-filled masks in deep dives. Being fluid, they equalize with the surrounding water pressure.
· My Wishlist [blatantly pinched from Google ]

Posted 6:19 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Keeping Andrew McNaughtan's underground spirit alive...
· Australian Heroic Champion: Doctor, activist, 1954-2003
· Irony of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba: Britain Taking a Road Less Travelled

Posted 11:44 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Something can exist which is much more powerful, and which we cannot imagine at all. In 1889, the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, having published one article by Rudyard Kipling, declined to accept any more of the author's work. The reason? 'I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling,' he explained, 'but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers.' Eighteen years later, Kipling (who had already written 'The Man Who Would Be King'), was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Double Dragon Pick Speaks the Language of Booklovers
Veteran singer-songwriter, John Hiatt, sings the language of music lovers in his newly penned lyrics for the unreleased song Cold River exclusively with Amazon.com customers.
Mothers teach us not to blow our own horn, but I recently received an email from a librarian who has recommeded my Cold River to other libraries and also included a link to this article:
I find the gestalt of the book world oppressive; it gives me a pain and it makes me grumpy. I find the movie-person's view of the arts much more congenial, whatever quarrels I may have with it. And I'm often left wondering: how can books people say of themselves that they love books when they look down their noses at 90% of the books that get published? They disdain not just Stephen King but also self-help books, visual books, and trash biographies; they relish little more than an intense discussion about what's a real book and what's not. (My staggeringly original response to this tiresome issue: They're all books, for god's sake.) IMHO, what books people love isn't books; what they love is their own standards, and their fantasies about what literature should be.
At times, it looked like my story would not be published. Then, the publishing stable of Double Dragon tried my Real Tail and the rest is history. So my gratitude goes to all librarians for keeping the ghosts of Morava River alive!
· Dreams and death shine a light on literally truth

Klima's simple style cloaked a fascination with moral uncertainties, divided loyalties, small betrayals and, above all, tortuous relationships between men and women. His books may well contain a higher incidence of adultery and infidelity than those of any other serious modern writer.
I have never been divorced. I love my wife. Like everybody else we have been through a period of problems. But not all my novels are based on my personal experience. Or, better to say: one experience helps you to invent more stories.
[ Bohemian writing My Beloved Prague ]
· Amazon's not-really-sekrit 800 number: 800 201 7575
In literary Amazon, the richest surname in the 21st century may be Jozef Imrich. (smile)[ courtesy of Boing]

Posted 11:18 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

What Is World Reading Today
This interview seems to be the hottest link on the web today.
Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's policy on tax cuts.
Now, O'Neill - who is known for speaking his mind - talks for the first time about his two years inside the Bush administration.
· The Blame Game: The Price of Loyaltyhe Price of Loyalty

War of Ideas, Part 1 of 5
What you are witnessing is why Sept. 11 amounts to World War III — the third great totalitarian challenge to open societies in the last 100 years. As the longtime Middle East analyst Abdullah Schleiffer once put it to me: World War II was the Nazis, using the engine of Germany to try to impose the reign of the perfect race, the Aryan race. The cold war was the Marxists, using the engine of the Soviet Union to try to impose the reign of the perfect class, the working class. And 9/11 was about religious totalitarians, Islamists, using suicide bombing to try to impose the reign of the perfect faith, political Islam.
· Removing cherished civil liberties [first read on Google ]
Sadly, in abbreviated world of Google, the most dangerous initials in the 21st century seem to be JI ...

Posted 10:59 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Dead-end job memoir
This is the first of a two-part Salon piece on working at a dead-end customer service job. This genre of memoir is really compelling to me, maybe because I'm so thankful to not have a job like that, but also because it's the 21st Century equivalent of Orwell's labor-condition memoirs like Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.
This was the awakening, the realization that I had officially and for all time put my head in a noose and the hangman was taking his sweet time. And that's the day I officially stopped caring. Never stay late. Never work overtime. Never offer opinions. Do not go the extra mile. At one time, I offered to train new employees, without a raise in my salary, just so that I could take the time to train them more thoroughly (training was fast becoming an afterthought, as people were needed immediately to answer phones. It didn't matter what they knew how to do). The problem was that the people who were training me told me as much, and I refused to believe them. But the equation was simple: Management is entrenched. They're not going anywhere. The department is too unwieldy from turnover to create another position. So why would management struggle to improve the call-taker's lot?
· Salon 1 of 2 [blatantly pinched from Orwell Library
· We've come quite a long way:: Year in Review
· Modern Dating Manifesto [via Boing]

Posted 10:56 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Ten Million
Ten, 10, million blogs by the end of 2004? It isn't news to observers of revolutions like me that blogging has woven itself deeply into the fabric of neometrosexual society ...
For a brilliantly informed and non-academic approach to culture, Terry Teachout is the guy. He's the drama critic for the Wall Street Journal and the music critic for Commentary, but no, he is not what you might expect from someone who regularly contributes to both those magazines. He is tremendously well-informed, and tremendously interested in the world. In the course of a week, his subjects will range from recent architecture to obscure plays and ballets to classic cartoons to how high tech changes Middle America's experience of culture, and then on beyond that. In his range of interests and enjoyments, he keeps goading me (in a good-natured way) to broaden my own horizons.
· Elk Grove

Posted 10:45 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

What Would We Do Without Experts?
Experts Remind Staying Warm Important After Cold Contributes to 5 Deaths--headline, Canadian Press, Jan. 6

Barista of RICH Life

When I think of Tamara, I remember George Bernard Shaw's bitter joke: The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.
· Rich People Are Different From Us... [ via Barista ]
· I have closed more companies than anyone in the world, so no one knows better about all the things that can go wrong in a business

Posted 11:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.
1 Corinthians 7:23 -

LOL: Please look at me! I'm important! Listen to me!
Who reads these weblogs? Nobody! Maybe fellow weblog authors read each others weblogs out of a sense of desperation...the feeling that if they read someone else's weblog, someone will read theirs. It's kindof like cooperative advertising too, people will cross-post, linking weblog entries to each other's weblogs
· Mama.indstate.edu
· The Unluckiest Man [ courtesy of Dishonoured Hacking]

Posted 11:47 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

In America's first political mass media stunt, they constructed a 10-foot-high ball of twine, wood and tin, covered it with Whig political slogans, and rolled it first from Cleveland to Columbus and then from town to town across the country (hence the expression "Keep the ball rolling").

Keeping the Ball Rolling: The Sport of Empire
Football, like many games, involves penetrating an opponents territory. But unlike chess or basketball, violence is integral to football. To like football, you have to enjoy seeing large men hit each other. You have to enjoy a clash of small armies and the drama of combat.
· The war metaphor fit in other ways [ Real Game I want to like Howard, I really Do ]

Posted 11:35 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Cheap information has allowed firms to shrink. Size is now less of an advantage in organizations, and that means more competition in the global marketplace. For epublishers, it's either reorganize or die. That's what Coase, who won the 1991 Nobel Prize in economics, was talking about.

What will happen when an entire organisation can fit on a laptop?
Back in 1937, an economist named Ronald Coase realized something that helped explain the rise of modern corporations -- and which just might explain the coming decline of the American two-party political system.
Coase's insight was this:
· The cost of gathering information determines the size of organizations: Larry Page and Sergey Brin know all about it...
There's no doubting Google's power and popularity. Yet few of us use the search engine effectively. Take leaf out of this article as Larry Page and Sergey Brin & Jeff Bezos took a note of a scientist from Stanford Research Institute stood who at Christmas time of 1968 stood before a hushed San Francisco crowd and blew every mind in the room.

Posted 11:34 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Reading and Driving at the Same Time
FACING a two-day car trip solo from Cleburne, Tex., to Los Angeles, Rex McGee decided he needed a soundtrack other than music. Before he embarked on the 1,500-mile drive in September, he used his computer to download four audiobooks and burn them to CD's - his aural driving companions.
· Swimming [ via Neoromancer]

Posted 10:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Today the tempestuous sea
lifted us in a kiss
so high that we trembled
in the flash of lightning
and, tied together, descended
and submerged without unraveling.
Today our bodies became immense,
they grew up to the edge of the world
and rolled melting themselves
into one single drop
of wax or meteor.
A new door opened between you and me
and someone, still without a face,
was waiting for us there.
(From "September 8" in The Captain's Verses)

Yesterday, first time for ages, the Sydney Morning Herald, in its quickie cossword, travels 3 down in 14 letters to former country in central Europe. (I no longer can manage the cryptic one... (I never really could)
My virgin, maiden, manuscript rejection and best feedback came from a publisher who is no longer with us, but Marrickville Councillor, Rebecca Kaiser is keeping Allen & Unwin alive and well. If you are an Editor who is able to juggle many balls at one time and still stay calm, have an engaged and flexible mind and sense of humour contact RebeccaK@allenandunwin.com...

The choice of jobs in the Herald is amazing: from giving birth to books to giving birth to colourful ads: Make Babies courtesy of www.goodcause.com.au

My light weekend reading also included job related articles such as these:
Anger at colleagues and incompetent managers is affecting productivity, causing people to threaten to resign or take time off for stress and is spilling over into workers' private lives.
· hotbeds of anger [ see also Pulling a sickie ]

Posted 3:05 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

My competitive edge exposed!
Stop Those Presses
· Finally, My Fiefdom Came; I Won: ... CARNIVAL OF THE WORST WEB WRITING OF 2003 [blatantly Won at Bloggies ]

Posted 9:31 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Public Enemies Number One
The business of uncovering corruption is not for the faint-hearted. In France, Eva Joly, the country's best known magistrate, lived under 24-hour police protection for six years: six years spent in the knowledge that someone out there was being paid to track her and, given the opportunity, kill her. Joly didn't investigate Colombian drug barons or mafia networks - her work took place in a country which is one of the world's most civilised. She was investigating corruption among French politicians, lawyers and company directors. Corruption is usually a crime of the elite, of those with access to money and power.
· Businessmen, some of whom had already been fingered for corruption, moved their money into the media, knowing that no editor will publish defamatory material about one of the group's major shareholders
· Capone Dead At 48; Dry Era Gang Chief [ via L. Dennis Kozlowski ]

He was a man of high intelligence and innovative concepts whose talents, especially in international affairs, were widely respected by both friend and foe. Yet he was so motivated by hatreds and fears that he abused his powers and resorted to lies and cover-ups.
· Nixon: His Story

Rowland apologized
Rowland on Wednesday again apologized for accepting gifts at his summer cottage and lying about it, but he insisted he never provided any favors or took any actions in exchange for the gifts:
Tonight, I humbly ask for a renewed opportunity to earn back your trust, to redeem myself in your eyes and to continue to lead this state. As you can imagine, I've had many sleepless nights over the past few weeks.
· Trust

Posted 8:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The best of us reach our highest heights when we are making recommendations for what to read next.

The Good Word: A Recurring Reflection
It didn't happen again this year, either. Susan Stamberg didn't call me from National Public Radio to solicit my opinion about great new holiday titles. Every year about this time I'll depart on occasional reveries, imaginary conversations with NPR hosts. Occasionally, I'll even jot down a list of the books I'd mention were such a windfall to come my way.
I imagine the selection process isn't dissimilar from that of an elementary teacher in a forest of upraised hands. Certain teachers will call on the child who appears most eager, while others might target the one trying to blend in with the surroundings. Are the booksellers who are in the good graces of Ms. Stamberg the ones who left messages at her NPR office, "Hi, Susan. You don't know me, but I'm from a New England bookstore with a quaint name. Give me a call this holiday season, and I'll rock your literary world with my list!... Please?" Or does she cold-call the humble bookseller who labors diligently with no expectation of NPR recognition?
· Scott's currently tugging wayward glue bits from the spines of our backstock. [ courtesy of Put in a good word for mmmmmwwwwaaaa.... Please?]

Baghdad's Mutanabi Street has, for centuries, been one of the centers of Iraqi intellectual life, as reflected in the avenue's bookshops. In the 1970s, Saddam Hussein crushed intellectual life, forcing Mutanabi Street's alternative ideas and books underground. Secret police informants infested the cafe tables, ready to overhear whispers of dissent.
· But six months after the U.S. occupation, Mutanabi is again in ferment (Newsday)

Posted 7:53 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Blogging Society

· Dutch Political Blogs: It's Not Only Zalm! [ via Eurosavant]
Con Society
· Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo in Antipodean context of neoconservatism [via Backpages ]
· Open Society

Posted 7:51 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Wealth, health among top goals for new year
A lot of people hope to get a better job or become a better writer this year.
· Nothing Makes You Freeee...
· What Does Alcohol Do to You? [ via To be or not To Be...]

Posted 5:09 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

· Vote Early & Vote Often for Double Dragon
Double Dragon Publishing is showing strongly in the recent Preditors and Editors Readers' Choice Poll. Deron is ranked in the top ten e-publishers. (Voting continues until Jan. 14 2004) So if you care for me just tiny weeny (sic) bit vote for Deron or else! There are cash prizes for the highest popular vote!

Within the past year, the world has successfully moved Online! from a sales rank of two-million to a tri-digit 777. I don't know how you did it, or how this new math works, but thanks. By the end of the year, my palm hopes to be somewhere in between Living History and Bin Ladin's Berate Your Way To Oblivion.
Every book that has sold at least one copy at Amazon is automatically assigned a sales rank. Don't argue that statistics aren't perfect, they're much better than nothing. Still, are too many books falling off the log and drowning in a crowded river?

Surfing the Amazon on a Log
This article is based on my six years of experience surfing the Amazon, and if I never caught the perfect wave, at least the piranhas didn't eat me. The Amazon, Tropical River for some, Cold River for others, renews itself hour by hour, day by day, a rich, nearly inexhaustible flow of the stuff we can't live without. Yet the Amazon is unknowable, at least to those of us who exist outside the corporate headwaters, and we can only guess at her secrets based on clues wrested from her by patient observation. The Amazon showers millions with her bounty and provides employment for countless teamsters, however our interest as writers is in what those damn sales ranks and bestseller lists really mean.
The Hottest Thing In Downloads - Books Download fever sweeps the nation, audio stores are the hottest thing on the Internet, and this week's hottest track is ... 'Hegemony or Survival,' by Noam Chomsky? That's right. The killa, must-have MP3 is thrown down by an MIT linguistics professor, at least if you spend time in the expanding universe of downloaded audiobooks.
· What Amazon Sales Ranks Mean: Siberia cometh? [ via Amazon Wishlist]
· Sales Rank and/or price: this Service is intended only for personal use [ courtesy of Double Dragon: Canadian Stalking on Amazon.com ]
· Scotland: Land Of Publishing Opportunity [ courtesy of Marx Brothers: Sensing opportunity & Fun]

NB: The Amazon.com Sales Rank is a bestseller list much like the Media Dragon bestseller list, except instead of listing just the top 50 or so titles, it lists more than two million. The lower the number, the lower the sales for that particular title? (smile)
A war is being waged between Cold (War) River and literary fiction. In this increasingly aliterate society - acrawl with people who can read but don't - the battle for readers is a high-stakes campaign. Publishers - and writers - are caught up in definitions of literary success...

Posted 1:30 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Sanctuary of Surfing Summer
Struggles are a part of life. There is no pain we cannot overcome. No mountain without a path. No darkness without light. No laughter without tears. No life without love...
· Body Surfing [ courtesy of Road to Great Body Surfing]

Posted 1:55 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

What We Will Do in 2004
Just the Kind of Guy Whose Finger You Want on the Button
Freedom, prosperity and peace are not separate principles, or separable policy goals. Each reinforces the other, so serving any one requires an integrated policy that serves all three. The challenges are many, for the world is full of trouble. But it is also full of opportunities, and we are resolved to seize every one of them. If some of us drop a few pounds in the process, that's O.K., too.
· Pounds Powells

Cynicism is so 2003. Let's make the new year the beginning of a better world.
The role of money in politics feeds the disconnect between citizens and representative government.
· New Year's Resolve: Hope requires that one believe in a better future
[ via 2003 Best of The MMIII]
· Bush: Back to Hearty Future? [blatantly pinched from Tim Dunlop]

Posted 1:52 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

If a country hears the siren song of paranoia, regulation, and carrier control, other nations that don’t listen will grow much faster, deliver much better Internet connections to their businesses for much lower costs, and hence take the future...

Dangerous Ideas
Dispelling some myths about technology: Technology neither asks nor answers political questions. In a democracy, the people do. Technology merely generates and reports information.
· Moore's Lore: Blaming RFID for privacy violations is like blaming the U.S. Postal Service nine-digit zip code for letter bombs [blatantly pinched from Apple A Day: 24x7]

There may be uses for the links created within these artificial social networks... but if you want to get at the real social networks, you’re going to have to figure them out from the paths that actual feet have worn into the actual social carpet....
The market, with enough choice, has always decided policy. What’s new is users as developers are increasingly forming policy. What’s new is falling search costs and switching costs as low as click allow rapid abandonment of bad policy. What’s new is the cost of feedback, expressing demand, group forming and networking is dramatically falling to drive powerful emergent patterns."
· Many-to-Many

Posted 1:51 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Big List of Blog Search Engines
My new theory on blogging is that whenever I can't find a particular piece of information on Google I should just create it myself. What's the point of all this easy-to-use publishing technology if you don't publish stuff, right?
Following are all the blog search engines, directories, and web-based RSS aggregators I could find, along with brief instructions on getting your site listed. I'm sure I missed something so use the 'comments' for any updates.
· I'm sure I missed something so use the 'comments' for any updates
· MyLabIsOnFire.com
[blatantly pinched from Hit-or-miss: Integrated Quicklinks Tutorial ]
[ courtesy of Better search results than Google? Net ]
· Daily Top Dust [ via Dusting Daily News ]

Posted 12:32 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Afternoon on the Amazon: Take Two; In Association with Amazon.com base price: $5.95
Shock! Horror!... How ANY Book Can Become An Amazon Bestseller.
Daredevil Blogger Drudge published a 2003 Bestselling List without approval from the Lords inside Bookscan. Unauthorisation nonfiction sale data and the nonfiction chart from BookScan, reproduced below, mixes together hardcovers and paperbacks. (The asterisks, which were added by us and are not part of the official literary chart, denote paperback editions.)
1 The South Beach Diet 2,305,000
2 The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? 1,508,000
*3 Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution: Completely Updated! 1,301,000
*4 Seabiscuit: An American Legend 1,140,000
5 Living History 1,085,000
6 Atkins for Life 1,055,000
7 Cold River 000,000 ($5 smile)
Unlike Amerika and Australia, in the Brittain sales figures are treated less like state secrets; they even print them in the newspaper. The Guardian presented, and analyzed, sales of the top 100 paperbacks for 2003.
Hardback
50 Paperback

Posted 10:56 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Simple choices can boost nutrition in 2004
Swimming families will love this article, as these are foods we all love.
· DJ of Food Glorious Food [ via Radley Balko chooses the Libertarian Heros of 2003 ]
[blatantly pinched from The 34 Best Movies of 2003 ]

Beer scooters - myth or reality?
How many times have you woken up in the morning after a hard night of drinking and thought 'How did I get home?' The Easiest And Most Economical Way ...
· The beer scooter is a mythical form of transport, owned and leased out to the drunk by Bacchus [ courtesy of Wheels in my Life: Magical devices]

Posted 6:08 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Hobbit is it! as predicted by Vladimir [ via Living Room]

World Idol: Sheer Listening Pleasure (:=})
The real winner of World Idol may turn out to be the viewer
No matter what the result, it says this is a worldwide event ...Kurt Nilsen
· Norway's 'Hobbit' via Google [blatantly pinched from A hard-earned singing needs a big cold river ]

Posted 4:19 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Books are back, and their pages are filled with politics, biography, and history
Like a battleship, book publishing doesn't turn on a dime, so the old year's trends don't usually determine a new year's books. However, conversations with literary agents, who are always trying to sniff out what publishers want, turn up a few trends in publishing that may affect our reading in 2004 and beyond.
· The readers are back [ courtesy of http://www.boston.com/ae/books 1/1/04]
· TOP TROIKA: AMAZON, BLOGGER & GOOGLE
[ via Graceful Amazon: Thanks Jeff Bezos ]

Posted 12:25 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done—so I feel for you. 1st. Live as well as you dare. 2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold a slight sensation of cold, 75 degrees or 80 degrees. 3rd. Amusing books. 4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea. 5th. Be as busy as you can. 6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you. 8. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment. 9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you. 10th. Compare your lot with that of other people. 11th. Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best. 12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence. 13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree. 14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue. 15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant. 16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness. 17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice. 18th. Keep good blazing fires. 19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
Sydney Smith, letter to Lady Georgiana Morpeth (1820)
101 Things to do in 2004: Say Thank you to worst enemies for spreading stories

The "Me" in Media: Me and My Story
Since we are embarking on a New Year, a New Years resolution is in order if you have not already broken it...
The rise of mass media in the last half of the 20th Century turned us all into consumers and took away much of the natural human inclination to be creators, performers, singers, musicians and storytellers.
Today, the rapid proliferation of inexpensive professional-quality media-making tools, paired with the drastic decrease in the cost of content distribution is leading to a quiet, but quite real revolution in the quantity and quality of " amateur" content. It's the democratization of media, the "Big Flip" as Clay Shirky calls it, and we think it's going to play an increasingly important role in how unknown writers make, share and consume media.

I don’t think that I’m a natural writer by any stretch of the imagination...
Attempts to produce the Great Australian Story remain, on the evidence of the latest catalogues. Here is love, death, history and memory, childhood, adolescence and old age. Here is some beauty, some truth and a certain amount of ambition. The business of writing is to fail every day, anyway...An incredibly well written story, which is heavily marketed, has a much greater chance of getting made than a script sitting on a writer's shelf which has been read by one or two producers. And following that: The writer who heavily markets his well written script has a much greater chance of getting hired to write other stories and/or sell his/her other scripts.' And probably even more accurate is: 'An excellent incredibly talented writer will never become successful (outside of some freak stroke of luck), unless he/she markets him/herself aggressively.
I hope writers who haven't achieved their full
potential will look at the last year and make the resolution to double or triple their efforts this year in marketing their talents. So Writers czech out these articles:
· Why Mass Media Is Failing Writers: Brilliant! Dazzling! Extraordinary! [via Idea Flow]

Move Over St. Francis de Sales
Many booksellers serve as patron saints of favorite authors, but Susan Wasson of Bookworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico, went beyond typical high-volume handselling with Kris Radish's Elegant Gathering of White Snows. Bookworks sold nearly a third of the entire first printing of the title, which was originally published by Spinsters Ink. Wasson also (with Spinsters' permission and blessing) sent a copy to Bantam, which bought the rights. Bookworks went on to sell nearly 400 copies of the Bantam edition. To date, the bookstore has sold over 1,100 copies of Radish's novel.
It was wonderful to see the women bonding, Kris [Radish] was nearly in tears. Susan gave the book its initial push, but now it's taken off on its own merits.
· Radish Novel [via BookWeb ]

Posted 12:10 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Something strange and important has happened to the system of picking presidential candidates. Influence that was supposed to move from political insiders to the broad public has been captured by activists, pollsters, pundits and fundraisers -- not exactly the people the reformers had in mind. The new system removes the useful peer-group screening that once operated but fails in its promise to give power to the people.
· A terrible way for America to pick a president
Toward the end of the Weimar era, the German center collapsed, and politics degenerated into a battle between Communists and Nazis. It was literally a street fight, with beatings overtaking ballot boxes.
On the Internet, too, the center is relatively weak. Instead, the political Web sites that draw enthusiastic crowds include the left's MoveOn, whose name derives from the Clinton-era anti-impeachment mantra; and the right's Free Republic, once described by Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online as "knuckle-scrapers," suggesting a picture of ape-like creatures walking with one hand brushing the ground and the other holding up a political placard.
· The Great Surrender [ via Mobocracy ]

Congress thinks it knows the optimal fraction of the television market that can be owned by one media firm. Reed Hundt thinks he knows better than consumers themselves how much they want to pay for fiber to their homes. Michael Copps thinks he knows how to manage phone lines and how to allocate spectrum.
Unlike his detractors, Michael Powell thinks he knows less than the market. And in my view, that makes Michael Powell a man of rare and precious wisdom.
· Hayek
Clerics who will not toe the line have a necessary role in an effective democracy

Posted 12:01 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, An Almanac Reader?
It has come to this: the FBI has warned law enforcement organizations across the country to beware of anyone carrying almanacs, particularly if the books have been annotated in suspicious ways. They did at least acknowledge that some almanac toting may simply be the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities.
The same Washington team that urged (successfully) a pre-emptive war on Iraq is now urging strikes on Iran and Syria. Welcome to the Brave New World. And God help us all. The USA PATRIOT Act is as despotic as anything Hitler came up with – even using much of the same language... how their rights were going to be suspended only for a brief time – was precisely the language used by Hitler after the Reichstag fire.
· Bizzare: Killer was hired as Air France guard [ via Guns-and-Butter-and-Almanac: Military surplus sale ]
You stare at the photos and see the cost of the war
· Fallen soldiers' photos [ courtesy of Romenesko ]

Posted 11:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Yesterday and Tomorrow: Rich and larger than life look to the High Court for lifelines
Abe Saffron complained that the SMH had dubbed him Mr Sin and suggested he had an unsavoury reputation. Clive Evatt, for Saffron, presented an interesting analogy by drawing on Alexander Pushkin's novel Eugene Onegin, in which a humorous remark by Onegin led to a duel in which Mr Lenski dies. The jury looked puzzled.
The defamation industry has never looked more protracted, technical and therefore buoyant.
· Defamation driven megalomaniacs
It's the kind of thing that makes your stomach sink. CBS once was the gold standard among network news divisions and '60 Minutes' was the gold standard among television news programs. I am stunned that they've done this.
[via To lose your reputation, as CBS now has done]
Jozef, I am in no position to preach, coming from an Australia that positively slavers to do its American master's bidding. Nevertheless, bear it in mind that you are inviting me to leave the country where I was born to take up residence in the belly of the Great Satan, and that I might have reservations about doing so...
Let us not make ourselves miserable talking about politics. i>
· NY Books [ via Chosen One]