Posted 6:07 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Just for once let me be your alleged bouncing Czech parliamentary spy (warning long sentence ahead): I gather that the alleged powerful troika which is supposedly on the path to heading parliamentary departments, (consisting of ex parliamentary library and current library staffers, Greig Tillotson, Rhonda Miller (this is not the stuntwoman of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Fame,) and Warren Cahill,) (Last century LC parliamentary attendants used to assume that Warren rather than Lauren was on the phone for me, and had a crash on the Bohemian poet :=) is likely to add another secret report on their CVs. This time even the auction houses around the world might find the content of the minutes of meetings and the report of interest...However, it is unlikely that even the ultimate insiders, such as the first Maltese Speaker, John Aquilina, will read the report before the Mardi Grass of 2004.
· Move over, God, it's time to make room for a real power

Telstra leaks, just like a government
When Telstra's Bob Mansfield sat down on his sofa on Tuesday night, turned on the TV and was confronted with the 6 o'clock news that The Bulletin magazine had uncovered a plan hatched by him and chief executive Ziggy Switkowski to take over John Fairfax his otherwise routine day was turned on its head.
The Prime Minister is, of course, correct. A partially privatised Telstra is an "absurdity" ("Telstra board knocks back takeover bid for Fairfax", Herald, February 18), like being partially pregnant. (Letter by H.E. Hayward, Turramurra, February 18.)
· Decorum doesn't allow me to quote Mansfield's self-admitted description of his initial response [ See Also Sexed Up? I was source: intelligence chief]
· If this alleged report ever sees the light of the public day, Google will add the wisdom into its archives

Posted 5:02 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Trends: Seven Year Itch
Australian dollar burst through the landmark US80c level last night for the first time in seven years and there are predictions it could surge to US90c and even towards parity with the American greenback.
· Dollar punches through US80c [See Also Black Moroccan halter-neck to the sequinned and beaded silk georgette]
Mouthing off at the office can be good for your health - and disastrous for your career

Are you a challenger?
Move over yuppies a new tribe is born -- they are the Challengers, and they're not going to take it any more...
· New Tribe: Antipodian Trendsetters
· How happiness can be bought: Doing things, not buying stuff, has proved to be a superior pathway to pleasure in life

Posted 7:39 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Man of Steel gave green light to Telstra-Fairfax deal: Ministry of Misinformation

The PM’s pork-barrelling protectionism
John Howard is neither a free-trader nor an ‘economic rationalist’ and rational industry policy is suffering as a result
· Coping with chaos
· Is it our constitution, grounded as it was on fear and Empire dependency and the interests of the home country, that is a millstone around our neck, or is it simply that we lack the confidence and the courage to live up to the opportunities offered by this magnificent land?
· Can’t buy me love? This is the first exploration of Australian children’s attitudes to work, parental guilt and consumption...
[ via Social and economic aspects of the Australian constituents
· APO

Posted 7:33 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Purity?
I'm not sure how that happened. Perhaps because a good percentage of us thing knowledge is power? And knowledge to a crazed Religious Right person is a very dangerous thing? I don't know. Personally, I say good on them to these kids having a Purity Day . Good for you, don't rush into sex, promote abstinence...it's all good. Just understand that because you've chosen to wait until you're married doesn't make you morally superior to someone who has chosen not to.
· Young gents who are themselves a promotion for abstinence
[ via What Are You So Afraid Of? Sex? Gays? Terrorists? God? In BushCo's fear-drunk world, only one question really matters] [ See Also When Trying Again Makes the Difference]
[ See Also Selling Sleaze: A User's Guide -- Ten ways to rationalize the publication of infidelity rumors ]
· Editors insist H Bomb is a literary arts mag, not porn (Crimson)
· A lot of interest in H Bomb: a literary arts magazine about sex and sexual issues at Harvard. It will contain fiction, features, poetry, and art

Posted 7:26 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Cory Doctorow's conference speech (in .txt format) includes the following insights:
Ebooks compliment paper books
Ebooks demand a different attention span (but not a shorter one)...
More people are reading more words off more screens every day Ebooks are a better deal for writers ...

Publicity: An Author's Gotta Have It
Publicity is the key to making you and your work known to the world. Without publicity, you might as well be dogpaddling up Niagara Falls. Columnist Kathy Sanborn tells how an author can get the word out about his or her new book, and land that long-awaited book deal.
· eGalleys; Book Deal: Big Deal [link first seen at eBookweb ]
· Digital and Printal
· Distribution: A Wide Net Reels in Book Sales
· The only difference is the way we have a climbed the mountains of challenge that has been placed in front of us
· eBooks Alive

Posted 8:23 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Public servants speaking publicly: the Bennett case
What should a public servant be able to say publicly about government matters? In August 2001, both civilian and military arms of Defence issued new instructions severely restricting staff contact with the media. Even tighter restrictions were imposed on Operation Relex, which interdicted people-smuggling operations on Australia’s northern borders. Concern was expressed at the time that the new restrictions were not appropriate in a liberal democracy.They were relaxed in February 2002, to the apparent relief of some within the defence forces, as well as more broadly.
· Operation Relex
· To death and taxes, add lies
· The Australian Senate [ courtesy of Information and Research Services, Department of the Parliamentary Library ]

Posted 8:11 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Take-Out Chinese Hello? This is PakiStan. I'll take an order of General Tao's Chicken, and the some spicy nuclear sauce. Investigators have identified China as the origin of nuclear weapons designs found in Libya last year, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that passed nuclear secrets through Pakistan to other countries in Asia and the Middle East...

New York Police Training for Catastrophic Terrorism
The New York Police Department, working with city health officials, federal authorities and other agencies, has been preparing for a possible attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, perhaps the most daunting threat facing municipalities in a post-9/11 world.
· Preparing for the worst

The big thieves hang the little ones. -- Czech Proverb

Sydney Police Practicing for Catastrophic Rampage
Notice if you will, how Thomas "TJ" Hickey believed the police were after him...
I hope it does make a better Redfern. They've got to stop chasing our kids, and hurting our kids.
· Chased or not, TJ had reasons to run: Caught on camera [See Also Alcohol, heat, grief triggered the riot: The Premier, Bob Carr, and the Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney ]
· Repairing Redfern and race relations
· Police claim to be experienced in the area, but locals say they acted like stormtroopers

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped lead his country out of apartheid and the Nobel Peace Prize winner has been a strong opponent of the Iraq War. He’s to give an important speech today in which he will demand apologies... Weak and insecure people hardly ever say 'sorry'. It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: 'I made a mistake'.

Posted 8:00 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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An article in the Guardian about authors writing glowing anonymous reviews for their own books at Amazon.com. This only further confirms my feeling one shouldn't evaluate books on reader reviews alone.First of all, we have Harriet Klausner who typically rates books no less than One Star Reviews :=) Just one star thrills Jozef Imrich His Star, Lucy, is a diamond in the sky
Apparently I'm only a second-rate cynic. How about you? A cynic is someone who habitually questions the motives of others, believing them to be selfish by nature.

The law of diminishing monopoly: Amazon reviewers brought to book
The five-star review on Amazon, one of the world's biggest online booksellers, was attributed only to 'a reader from Chicago'.
· Star Wars [link first seen at Google ]
· Another long look at life in the age of Google.

Shorter Washington Post editorial page
Senate Democrats are bad people who have strategies and constituencies and stuff, but the Republicans shouldnt have stolen a really lot of their files like that (just a few would have been OK), although the people the bad thief lawyer guy worked for clearly knew nothing about it at the time and really the Republicans are the heroes of this story for not stonewalling after they were publicly busted by the Sergeant at Arms.
[ via Thief Memo]

Posted 7:58 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Military Service by the coalition of the willing, the Brittish and Australian, politicians is barely mentioned, if at all. The bureaucrats in the National Guard have not kept very good records...

The Super Bowl of Political Hypocrisy
White House spokesman Scott McClellan went ballistic on Friday after Helen Thomas asked a question about President Bush's National Guard days.
Helen was asking about trashy rumors. There’s a difference between trashy rumors and journalism. I will not dignify them from the podium. The veteran newswoman says of the AWOL issue: I think they are getting pretty nervous about this.
THE BOSTON GLOBE REPORTS that the Bush AWOL story is collapsing, as a key witness turns out to have lied. Capt. Ed observes: The Globe, which has been at the forefront of the media pushing this story, now reveals that the entire series of accusations had no basis in reality...
· part of the Bush Crime Family Conspiracy
· Bush Acts Against Critics on Guard Records and 9/11
· Still the Question: What Did You Do in the War?
· Those on the far left say, ‘Why didn't you punch him,' and on the far right, they said, 'Why didn’t you hug him.' But the vast majority said they learned a lot by watching it.

Posted 7:53 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Inflating circulation figures to support higher ad rates...

The Truth About the Fact: Everything changes. Nothing changes
Apply the Hutchins Commission quote to your local newspaper. Do its stories about the city or school district budget go beyond a recitation of numbers and a comparison to them being greater or lesser than the year before? Does it seem as if the reporter who wrote the story understands financial principles? Did he or she even get the math right?
How is this reporter supposed to write an informative story on a company’s earnings if he can’t read a balance sheet? How can he have a substantive interview with a CEO, or even a city manager about a local budget.
· Journalism [ via First Draft]
· No one gets rich writing book reviews, but the psychic rewards are immense
· Ann Marie Lipinski
· I'm probably trying harder to get items than get laid at the moment
· New blog-like political feature
· Six reasons why sources should see stories before publication
· Writer spanks Missouri j-school for secrecy surrounding gift
· Vanity Fair's catty Fuller profile breaks the mean-o-meter [ courtesy of Romenesko ]

Posted 7:52 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Search Beyond Google
It's very easy to move from one search engine to a better one [Google's Director of Technology Craig Silverstein] says. Google pays hundreds of researchers and software developers, including more than 60 PhDs, to man the front lines in this technology war, explains Silverstein, who is himself on extended leave from his doctoral studies in computer science at Stanford University. But he acknowledges that?s no guarantee of victory. We hope the next breakthrough comes from Google, but who knows.
When Google first launched, they had some new tricks that nobody else had thought about before," says Doug Cutting, an independent software consultant who wrote some of the core technology behind search engine Excite and has designed search tools for Apple Macintosh computers. Other search engines now offer intriguing alternatives to Google techniques:
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine" paper.
For example, there's Teoma, which ranks results according to their standing among recognized authorities on a topic, and Australian startup Mooter, which studies the behavior of users to better intuit exactly what they're looking for.
· Source: Technology Review (Registration Required, Free) [ courtesy of BusinessWire ]
Librarians
· TechReview Index
· dipsie [link first seen at Blogrolling]
· Agencies' information technology plans neglect performance measurements
· eBay Searches

Posted 7:40 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Tennaged Blogger
She Was a Teenaged Blogger NRO looks at the movement behind Cecile DuBois, and since we've posted on Glenn Reynolds once today, how the Blogfather can make or break a blogger
My 14-year-old blogger daughter got Instalanched last week, after she wrote about how her English teacher had ridiculed her in front of the class for writing an un-p.c. paper. I've heard what happens when the mighty Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds links you but never seen it up close, and it really is amazing: From 100 hits a day (typical for a teenager's blog) to 100 an hour, with links to dozens of other blogs and almost 200 posted comments from Prague to Sydney.
· She Was a Teenaged Blogger

Posted 12:17 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Keeping track of Carr family
Bob Carr is the son and grandson of train drivers. Last week he invited some drivers' delegates to his office to talk privately.
Less than a year after winning a third term, Premier Bob Carr and his senior ministers are on the nose.
In August last year I wrote: Some experts say that infrastructure is in such a parlous state that water shortages, power cuts, longer train delays and more clogged up roads will soon become the norm of daily life in Australia's richest and most populous state.(Rebuilding the rundown state, The Sun-Herald, August 10, 2003)
· Acting Premier [link first seen at After runaway failures Carr may be moving on ]

Clover Moore, the inner-city independent MP who is feared and loathed by the Labor Party and referred to as "the Witch of Oxford Street", is set to spoil the ALP's Sydney Council power grab.
· More Mega Power Grab Means Moore (Charter 1992 signatory)
· Charlie Thompson saw a big mess and decided to clean it up

Posted 12:08 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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NAO to investigate whisky fraud claims, Accountancy Age, 6 February 2004.
The National Audit Office is to take a close look at whisky fraud after the chancellor said the Treasury misses out on duty on one in every six bottles.

A Tax Office review is hunting for gaps between declared income and the prices paid for antiques and fine art. Peter Fish reports. Bought or sold any art work lately? If so you could be in for a shock.
Sydney Morning Herald 14/02/2004 (hard copy only)

Fine That Dare Not Speed Its Name
Police gave a record $216,900 speeding ticket to a millionaire under a system in which traffic fines are linked to an offender's income. The Iltalehti tabloid reported that millionaire Jussi Salonoja zoomed through the city center last weekend in a 25 mph zone and police handed him a ticket of $216,900. It didn't say what his speed was...
· Finnish Police Give Record Speeding Fine [link first seen at Skoda: Harm]
· The US legislature is spending a great deal of time scrutinizing the tax revenues and the state budget proposals.

In an interview with the businessman sought after for his views on the economy, he stressed that democracy doesn't mean very much, in real terms, if "the bottom group," meaning the most impoverished, is hungry...
· Economic freedom first, then political freedom
· Charlie Thompson saw a big mess and decided to clean it up
· 2003 Comparative Tax Study
· The British Dream: Why I am an Angry Young Man

Posted 2:39 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Without any doubt Crowds and Power is one of the most powerful stories I have ever read! To boot, you can borrow a copy via inter library loans via NSW Parliamentary Library...
Dr Cope is guilty of acquiring a copy if this monograph which is rather dangerous in the hands of thoughtful readers. Wisdom of my Canetti more memorable than Shakespeare...even Kerrie Packer!

Never think yourself better than anybody else; Always think of yourself as just as good
Elias Canetti was a remarkable writer, but he was recently vilified for his treatment of his former lover Iris Murdoch. Now, his newly published diaries may restore his reputation.
· Powerless [ See Also Literary Wogs]
reputation.
· Granta 84: Over There: How Amerika Sees the World
· Writers' Trust of Canada announced the finalists for the third annual Great Literary Awards
· Lambda Literary Awards [ courtesy of Saloon ]

Posted 2:34 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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But beyond the sheer entertainment value of a dust-up among the literati, these gatherings take the form of literary carnivals, luring eager and paying students with tales of The Da Vinci Code, The Christmas Box or The Horse Whisperer, suggesting that publishing is a crapshoot, rather than a craft that demands talent and work.

Damned Mob of Scribbling Women: Making Love & Books
Every generation has its writers who rail about the collapse of literature.
By giving the public what it supposedly wants, has the modern-day publisher jettisoned literature, abandoning a commitment to transcendent works in favor of celebrity memoirs, celebrity novels and celebrity children's books, most of them ghost-written in the first place? And given the needs of these corporations, whose often-foreign overseers demand high returns-on-investment to pay off loans, has the the editor been superseded by the marketing manager and the publicist, desperate to place an author on "Oprah" or "The Today Show" to ensure a book's mass success?
If Maxwell Perkins, the most venerated editor of the 20th century, were to appear from the dead, he would fail to recognize an industry that once allowed him to sign up budding geniuses such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe and the young Henry Roth. A large advance, at least six figures, is required for a book to be taken seriously.
As publishers increasingly prefer to pay big advances to an anointed few, editors quickly learn that the only way that their books will command attention is through large advances.
· Indeed, a trend has emerged in which proposals are "gussied up" -- repolished and rewritten -- often by people other than the actual author

Admit it. You haven't picked up a book for weeks or even months. With work, children, parties, sport, who's got time? But perhaps you can be wooed back with a bargain.
· Bookshops' loss leaders tempt lost readers [link first seen at Books Alive: Delivering characters that I hope will live in your heart. That way I leave a piece of me and my drowned friemds with each of you....]

Posted 2:32 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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As we moved along in the police wagon, I had the slightly unclean feeling of the man who keeps company with those much younger than himself.
Jack Richardson’s Memoir of a Gambler

Something to remember, 40 is the old age of youth. 50 is the youth of old age.

Mixed Metaphors Notwithstanding
Johnny Depp leads the I-hate-Hollywood pack but he still steals the cinematic moment - and maybe, this year, the Oscar
· I'm not swimming in the soup bowl. I'm not getting overcooked in that big stewpot

Posted 10:20 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

· SusSex Street Average: confirmed by Jim Maher

Cash-strapped ministerial minders are using crisp packets as condoms because they cannot afford the real thing, say experts. My ignorance is showing again.
· The crisp packet I have to hand has a diameter of 3 1/3rd inches

Posted 7:43 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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What is a terrorist anyway
It may be unreasonable in someone's opinion to use physical force. It might be right in someone's opinion. Margaret Thatcher once described Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Do you think he's a terrorist?
· Man Dela
· Truth Invasion

Posted 7:41 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Unstoppable Sartor adds sound to his graphic Brogden portrait
The Minister for Energy, Frank Sartor, yesterday neither recanted nor apologised for calling the Opposition Leader, John Brogden, a wanker on Sunday. Instead, he added that Mr Brogden was screeching and hysterical.
· Parliamentary Language: When the bottom is the bottom line
· Language of Anger
[ via Contract Opinion]

Posted 7:40 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Late for work, and probably late home too
Sydney's hapless rail commuters faced more problems yesterday with abrupt train cancellations, crowded platforms and the sinking realisation that things will only get worse.
Emily Liddicoat, a legal secretary from Waterfall, said she had intended to travel from Waterfall to the city on the 7.41am service, but the cancellation meant she had to drive to Sutherland Station to catch another train.
· Rail Fall

Posted 7:33 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Contract Killings: Antipodian Style
A study of contract killings in Australia has found most are not ordered by criminals, but by angry spouses and jilted political lovers.
· Cut-price Love
[link first seen at Myths ]
· Press Power

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Did David Hasselhoff help bring an end to the Cold War? No, I think this is just a joke."
· Gollaja (sic)

Posted 8:29 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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We stood for the dignity of the working man
We were, of course, of the left. We were socialist. We stood for the dignity of the working man. We stood for the dignity of distress. We stood for the dignity of our island, the dignity of our indignity. Borrowed phrases! Left-wing, right-wing: did it matter? Did we believe in the abolition of private property? Was it relevant to the violation which was our subject? We spoke as honest men. But we used borrowed phrases which were part of the escape from thought, from that reality we wanted people to see but could ourselves now scarcely face. We enthroned indignity and distress. We went no further.
I am not sure that the wild men of our party did not speak more honestly than we did. They promised to abolish poverty in twelve months. They promised to abolish bicycle licences. They promised to discipline the police. They promised intermarriage. They promised farmers higher prices for sugar and copra and cocoa. They promised to renegotiate the bauxite royalties and to nationalize every foreign-owned estate. They promised to kick the whites into the sea and send the Asiatics back to Asia. They promised; they promised; and they generated the frenzy of the street-corner preacher who thrills his hearers with a vision of the unattainable rich world going up in a ball of fire. We disapproved, of course. But what could we do?"
V.S. Naipaul, The Mimic Men
· Troppoarmadillo [link first seen at An absence of months and Ken Parish still can't tell the difference between left and right, or perhaps simply prefers not to bother: Roadtosurfdom ]

Posted 8:25 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Ironically, Les Luck is the Counter-Terrorism Ambassador

CZECH AGAINST DELIVERY: Are Your Initials JI?: If They Are Your File could be off Limits to the Public
Neither the Government nor a bureaucrat should be responsible for deciding which Freedom of Information requests should be denied by reason of national security. That is best left to a court and a judge.
Unfortunately, security has become a convenient label the Government can slap on information to stop it from becoming public.
· Terrorism to End Terrorism: Under cover of anti-terrorism ... fabrications of words could never ever take place

Premier Carr has said that we must use our intelligence resources – from raids and questioning to phone and Internet taps and all the rest – to ensure we have the jump on any planned terrorist action here.
· News from the SusSex Street: Operation Bouncing Czech
· Seismic listening devices and snake eye search cameras: surveillance of politically active (minds) suspects (smile)

If there was a time in living memory when here in NSW we faced comparable days of fear and uncertainty, it was during the darkest days of World War Two.
In 1942 Australia was under external threat and Australians were being killed in the battle for our security to our near north in South East Asia but also here in Sydney.
My mother tells me of the winter dark nights in May and June 1942 when shells from the submarines that launched the mini subs into Sydney Harbour whistled over her house in the Eastern suburbs.
Nineteen Australians were killed here in Sydney Harbour on the evening of May 31 as they slept on the HMAS Kuttabul.
But that was over 60 years ago, an event of history, and hard for us to fathom or understand or relate to the threat that we currently face.
· 10 November 2003: John Watkins MP [ via Google]

Posted 7:34 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The great thing about Chicago is that by the time advanced ideas get here, they're worn so thin you can see right though them.
Saul Bellow

Middle of Life
There may be those that say we are an uncivilized people, that humanity tinkers on the brink of something just awful -- but those people don't get good Thai food by delivery often enough. Good Thai food delivery even in Cronulla, Sydney. That is civilization.
Trust me on this; It is not possible to be unhappy while reading about lakes:
The earth hangs down
to the lake, full of yellow
pears and wild roses.
Lovely swans, drunk with
kisses you dip your heads
into the holy, sobering waters.
But when winter comes,
where will I find
the flowers, the sunshine,
the shadows of the earth?
The walls stand
speechless and cold,
the weathervanes
rattle in the wind.
Friedrich Hölderlin, "The Middle of Life" (trans. James Mitchell)
· Little-known poem: And from this nothing seen, tells news of devils, Which but expressions be of inward evils [ via Civilization]

Posted 10:00 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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· NicMoc links to Korea

Posted 9:47 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Extraordinary how potent cheap transcript is.
Noël Coward, Private Lives
You are lying to me, you are being cute, you have rubbed my nose in the dirt, I will have no credibility, I cannot save the city. This Government is very powerful. They will destroy you, they will destroy the city and it will be on your head.

Helping out a Friend: Australian Italian Way
Right now (pun intended) Sydney too is going through an Orwellian moment. Trying to rewrite boundaries, to explain away greed and embarrassments...90% of Sydneysiders are more concerned about their own survival so why also worry about politics?
· Five-minute tirade but Sartor says he was just helping out a friend
· Transcript
· It's about political donations from developers

Posted 9:46 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Whistleblower nurse slams Carr
Her colleagues have christened her Erin Brockovich after the legal rights activist made famous by Hollywood - and now Bob Carr knows why.
Whistleblower nurse Nola Fraser has written a scathing eight-page letter to the Premier, demanding a private meeting and a royal commission into the NSW health system.
Ms Fraser described the Government's response to the hospitals crisis as inadequate and ineffective.
NSW has never had so many administrators, independent boards, independent commissions and independent investigative bodies and yet the health system has never been so purulent and terminally diseased. You have taken a good, competent health system, which I was proud to be part of, and in just seven years managed to turn it into something that horror movies are made of.
Ms Fraser described in graphic detail the death of three patients at Campbelltown Hospital. She provides a first-hand account of the treatment the women received, the subject of damning investigations by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC).
· Sydney Erin Brockovich

Posted 9:12 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Politicians and celebrities rarely make good bloggers.
They’re not interested enough in what other people are thinking The blogosphere is a pure market—but one in which no money changes hands. If you can afford the bandwidth and your ego is strong enough, it doesn’t matter whether anybody wants to read what you have to say. Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Politicians & Press Corps?

Get Me Rewrite!
Right now Amerika is going through an Orwellian moment. On both the foreign policy and the fiscal fronts, the Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.
· One of Krugman's best and most hard-hitting columns

It's a cardinal rule of journalism: do not disclose the identity of someone who gives you information in confidence. As a staunch believer in this rule for decades, I have surprised myself lately by concluding that journalists' proud absolutism on this issue — particularly in a case involving the syndicated columnist Robert Novak — is neither as wise nor as ethical as it has seemed.
[ courtesy of Never burn a source: The Journalist and the Whistle-Blower]
· Participatory journalism [ courtesy of About Last Night]
· GWB MBA
· WMD
· Australia's most respected real estate writer's kidnap cover-up: Sunday Tele's editor, Jeni Cooper
· I had no outlet for the hate and venom that consumed me. Now I am able to spew to a national audience

Posted 9:04 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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My four years of sun, sand, and Scaborough Swimming ended! How unfair... PayCzech dragon wins!
While everyone else may have started 2004 a bit sooner, the official starting time for the courts was on Monday, which allowed the system to build up a good head of steam.

Now it's Generation T for time
Time or money? It is always a big issue for working parents. But now Australia's children have had their say on this dilemma of modern life.
[See Also Imrichs 2000 2004: Four Years in Subtropical Lands: Time with Children]
· Now it's Generation ID: Everywhere, it seems, someone is checking IDs

Posted 8:58 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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New luxury that's driving a consumer revolution dubbed trading up

Pitching their ideas
Here's one tent that's no pup. Gary Lewtschenko has staked his claim on innovation, even though his invention, the Anywhere Tent, requires neither a peg, nor a stake.
· New generation of inventors thinks big [ via Scooters ]

Look@MEdia has developed a concept to reach the maximum number of daily effective circulation (DEC) in each metropolitan area it plans to operate in. The design incorporates three motor scooters pulling a billboard trailer in a motorcade format.
· Look@MEdia: And You Thought the Kama Sutra Had Great Trading Up Positions
· Vroom@MEdia Dragon: Scooters Trading Up Life

Posted 6:33 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Spy witness
The StB gathered comments on 62-year-old former dissident Petr Uhl, some of which have been destroyed.
Radek Schovanek put in a request with the Interior Ministry Sept. 16, 2002, to view the files of Czechoslovak secret police (StB) collaborators.
He is still waiting for a reply.
Schovanek should have received a response within 90 days under a 2002 law that covers public access to the files. He said there are hundreds of people who have made such requests in the last two years. "Not a single one of them was answered within 90 days," he said. Schovanek and others are pushing for a nongovernmental organization or newly created state institution to oversee the StB files that embody the faceless terror of totalitarian rule. They say the Interior Ministry's inadequate handling of the files prevents Czechs from fully comprehending -- and thus coming to terms with -- the past half-century.
· Czechs from Coming to Terms with Past: It is unbelievable. These requests are from victims of the regime, and now they are being victimized all over again [ courtesy of Irresolute Rule: There is a complete Lack of Political Leadership in the developed world today ]
· Meciar amateur boxer; Shameless Professional: Corruption remains rampant, according to a Transparency International Slovakia report released Feb. 3. 2004

Posted 5:52 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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We shake our heads self-righteously, certain that if we'd been there, liberation would have come earlier -- all the while failing to see that the present is no different. Quite a lot has changed in 60 years, but the ways in which information about crimes against humanity can simultaneously be known and not known hasn't changed at all. Nor have other interests and other priorities ceased to distract people from the feelings of shame and guilt they would certainly feel, if only they focused on them.

All the While Failing to see that the Present is No Different
Nearly 60 years ago last week, Auschwitz was liberated. On Jan. 27, 1945, four Russian soldiers rode into the camp. They seemed wonderfully concrete and real, remembered Primo Levi, one of the prisoners, perched on their enormous horses, between the gray of the snow and the gray of the sky. But they did not smile, nor did they greet the starving men and women. Levi thought he knew why: They felt the shame that a just man experiences at another man's crime, the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist.
· The Shame [ via Google]

Sydney Politics at a price
Big companies are still giving big donations to political parties. So do we need to worry about what they get for their money?
· I just think the public interest is not served by such large donations

Congratulations, Mr Carr, on sacking the city councils. That's the democratic process sorted. What's next?
Peter Spencer
In sacking the South Sydney Council, the NSW Government has shown its disregard for community involvement, democratic process, and the truth...
Dan Galazowski, President, ALP South Sydney Local Government Committee, Chippendale, SMH Letter February 6.
· We'll destroy you, sacked mayor told
· It's a power grab
· Merger mystery ends with blood on the carpet

Had our fill
The Australian Hotels Association says it's "irresponsible" to sell alcohol at a petrol station. Its president, John Thorpe, says people will "fill up the car and then themselves" ("Petrol stations in push to sell liquor", Herald, February 5).
Perhaps Mr Thorpe is nailed to the desk because the last time I went to a drive-through bottle shop they put a slab on my backseat. I didn't even have to get out of the car. I'm no fan of soulless convenience stores or expensive petrol stations, but I am sick of the AHA's hypocrisy.
Timothy Latham, Clovelly, SMH Letter February 6
· Parliamentary Bowlers received free beer from Carlton United Breweries

An interview with Costa these days goes something like this:
So CityRail is a shambles, Minister?
Worse than a shambles. I'd say a disaster.
A disaster!
Well, worse than a disaster. A catastrophe. Heads must roll.
So people are entitled to be angry, Minister.
Furious, I would say.
· No Minister

Posted 1:33 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Small esoteric note that probably isn't worth reading:
The thing that tears people apart is money. The reason they are unhappy is money. The boss is so important in people's lives. He's more important than your spouse because he's the one who provides your PayCzech. Compared to that, love is just about procreation... How can you complain about things when you know that the life span in Botswana is 32 years old? Life can be really hard, and almost anyone's life in America is pretty easy.

The End of Happy Endings: Cold Reality
Happy endings are presumed to belong to the realm of fantasy. In real life, after all, even a thumping electoral victory is generally more a first act than a last; what ensues, much too often, is disappointment, broken promises and even murmurs of a recall. When the believer, in any faith, tells us that the reward for bloody sacrifice is eternal joy, the nonbeliever is often tempted to think that the believer is merely trying to justify the ways of God to man. On earth at least, the end of life is death.
America, though, is the spiritual home of new beginnings, which may be why it has always had a soft spot, a special gift, for happy endings. We speak brightly of ''closure,'' as if the most difficult things in life could be wrapped up as neatly as a gift package; we speak of people ''passing on,'' as if the end of life were just a passing phase. America, in fact, could almost be defined as the place that chose not to root itself in the tragic cycles of the Greeks and others from the Old World (even Shakespeare, after all, in his early comedy Love's Labour's Lost, ensures that we leave the theater with the memory of a sudden death uppermost in our minds, and the central courting couples failing to pair off as comic convention decrees).
· Love's Labour's Lost [Cool Exile Cold River]

Posted 12:58 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Why your Movable Type blog must die
In the past, blogging was an interesting pastime. Now, with the advent of the ridiculously popular weblog package Movable Type, the Web is in risk of drowning under a tidal wave of morons who throttle search engines with writing that has no purpose and such PageRank-destroying features as TrackBack.
You are all pretentious twats:
Every last one of you. You're all latte-sipping, iMac-using, suburban-living tertiary-industry-working WASPs who offer absolutely no new insights on anything whatsoever apart from maybe one specialist field if we're lucky.
· You are all pretentious twats ]
· What Google Guide Teaches You
· Magic words that will allow spam to slip through Bayesian filters
[ via Doktorov: Hot eBook]
· Jozef's a street-smart fish-out-of-water in a world he never made!
· I have an axe to grind and plenty of fury to turn the wheel

Posted 1:50 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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One thing I think I think about the coincidences in life: Geez, let's read it again:
My grandmother had a name for moments such as this. She called them bashert. Like most Yiddish expressions, bashert is a tough word to translate. It means intended, pre-ordained, destined. Things that happen for the best, good things, strange things that aren't supposed to happen but do, things that so easily might not have happened but did, these are bashert.
Rabbi Whiman

Always the Mob
JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.
Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.
The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan. 5
Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now...
The mob … kills or builds … the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.
I am born in the mob—I die in the mob—the same goes for you—I don’t care who you are.
I cross the sheets of fire in No Man’s land for you, my brother—I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother—I die for you and I kill you—It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
One more arch of stars,
In the night of our mist,
In the night of our tears.
· I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother
· Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, [ courtesy of Steel Curtain: Hammers and wagons have them now ]

Posted 1:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The Australian and American senates: a comparison
Notwithstanding the differences, the Australian and American Senates are comparable in being among the very strongest upper houses in the world, and in demonstrating the value of bicameralism in democratic governance. US political scientist Stanley Bach analyses the major differences between the Australian and US upper houses.
· Upper Houses (PDF file) [ via APO ]
· Australia–US Free Trade Agreement: overview of potential legal issues (PDF file)

Posted 1:38 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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It started with a whiff of gas at Town Hall station, and spread through the tunnels under the city in minutes

Who was to blame?
At last, we have the inquiry we need: a full, independent inquiry into the Paris bombing of 2009. As we all know, in that appalling attack, a large area between the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the River Seine was devastated by a small nuclear bomb, detonated by suicide bombers linked to the Algerian-based Islamic Armed Group (GIA). Some 100,000 people were killed or wounded. The supremely cultured heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world was reduced to smouldering ruins. None of us will ever forget the photograph of Rodin's statue of Balzac, looming as if in tortured grief above the half-dismembered but recognisable corpses of a young couple on the Boulevard Raspail.
· Timothy Garton Ash welcomes an independent inquiry into the Paris bombing of 2009 ]
· It's scandalous that a city like Sydney can effectively be shut down because of its decaying, neglected rail network
· Former head of Pakistan's atomic weapons programme confesses on television that he traded nuclear secrets

Posted 1:34 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Chelo
The Bachelor reveals more truths about sexual politics than you think.
· Sexual Politics

Has Sydney peaked? Is it overpriced, overrated and overrun with ridiculous people who live absurd lives, as Triple J broadcaster Steve Cannane claimed?
· Sticking it to Sydney
· Fleeing the lucky country

Posted 7:24 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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RailCorp's radio advertisements about the dangers of crossing the railway tracks and copping a $5500 fine are making my blood boil.
What is the fine for the absolute shambles that is our rail system? The number of fatal incidents in the recent past? The constant breakdowns, delays and general haphazard effort put in by RailCorp?
Surely the money spent on these ads could be better spent on repairs, staff and numerous other items.
It is management, and not the staff, who need a big wake-up call, to realise that people are watching them, and waiting for action after the Premier's pledge to improve RailCorp.
Mitchell Kane, Enfield, January 28 (SMH letter)

So unreliable as to be nearly worthless.
There has been a huge blowout in the number of train delays, with 19 out of 20 commuters on the worst affected line getting home late in recent weeks, RailCorp figures reveall
· Horror run of delays on trains
· Waterfall
[ See Also Do-Nothing Trucks ]

Posted 7:21 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Chilling stuff
Remote-operated cameras hidden in hollowed-out logs, school satchels and watering cans. Glass jars containing personal-ID body swabs, to be used by groin-sniffer dogs. Kombi-style Barkas B1000 prisoner transport vehicles with net curtains over the windows. Letter-opening machines. Wire-tapping devices. Bulky "microbugs". More hidden cameras
All five floors of Ruschestrasse 103 are filled with spooky surveillance equipment. Until 14 years ago, this austere, archetypically modernist building, hidden among similar anonymous boxes in the eastern suburb of Lichtenberg, was one of the most feared in Berlin. Which is really saying something.
It was the headquarters of the Ministry for State Security, otherwise known as the Stasi, the secret police force, which during its 40-year existence amassed files on some six million people, imprisoned more than 250,000 and arranged for the disappearance of countless others.
· Ministry for State Security [ courtesy of NicMoc: What remains true, as the region embarks on it present transition, is that it is still an endlessly fascinating place, caught bristling in its own tensions between the possibilities of the future and the shackles of the past]

Posted 7:05 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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3077 Amazon Ranking Reasons to Actually Read Virtual COLD RIVER: Literature of Silence

To Get Literary, Lay Low
The literary world is agog. Joanna Trollope has refused to do any press for her new novel, Brother and Sister. She wants the writing to speak for itself. Can this really be the same woman who posed upside down in a feather boa in the Daily Mail?
A guest columnist in the Sunday Observer says the new key to literary cache is laying low: If you want to be taken seriously by the critics, secrecy is everything. Out goes Richard and Judy and Hay-on-Wye. In comes enforced literary purdah." A primary case in point is Joanna Trollope. By taking a vow of silence, Trollope has elevated herself to the pantheon of authors who never do interviews. Welcome to the recluse club.
· The recluse club

The blogging community is terribly incestuous
This site exists to point out the hypocrisy of people taking out drama on the Internet and then whining when people notice:
Last night I cheated on my boyfriend, don't tell!
· Randomly Ever After

The threat to modern journalism is real, but it comes not just from without but also from within. It comes not just from the manipulations, favouritism and half-truths of the discredited, and partially abandoned, Labour spin culture, but also from the media's disrespect for facts, the avoidable failure to be fair, the want of explanation and the persistent desire for melodrama that are spin's flip side!
· We are paid to be cynical

Posted 6:51 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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A Brazilian football referee is facing divorce proceedings after he pulled a pair of knickers out of his pocket instead of a red card during a match

Brothel raid nets Police Chief
Police in the US were shocked when they raided a brothel only to discover that their force chief was one of its alleged customers.
· Tech chief names his son Version 2.0
[ Ah Porn Pollitician: Bohemian Style] [ See Also Security, the FBI, trojans, viruses, Eastern European hackers, Media Dragons, and the Royal Mounted Police ]
· Judges had been effectively ordered to do the bidding of the Government known for its the roots in the SusSex Street
· More SusSex Street Stories

Posted 2:23 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Column 8 has survived, of course, and will survive, even buried on page 22, despite the best efforts of some over the years
George Richards left the Herald for the last time last Friday. He thought he could just walk away after 45 years. Not so. When the lift doors opened on the ground floor at Sydney head office that afternoon, his colleagues were waiting.
· Nothing ever stays the same

Posted 1:29 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Claude Cockburn dictum applies today as much to citizens as it does journalists: "Never believe anything until it is officially denied."
· Aborigines rorted of millions of dollars

Shadow Wants Answers
Revelations about secret police reports warning of organised crime again confirm a crisis in management of policing in this state.
The public have a right to know the truth, (says Shadow Police Minister Peter Debnam.)
Ken Moroney and Clive Small both work for Bob Carr and we need the Premier, Commissioner and Commander Small to front the media today together to answer these questions:
* Did Commissioners Ryan and Moroney see the reports five years ago?
* Were the Police Minister and Premier aware of the reports ?
* Which senior police were given a copy of the reports and which ones actually read the reports ?
* Given Commander Clive Small worked for the Premier for the
last two years, has he discussed the secret reports with Premier Carr ?
* If not, why hasn't Commander Small discussed the reports with the Premier ?
· One Horse Race in One Party State [ See Also Horses For Courses]
· Carr, Maroney deny gang report cover-up

Posted 1:11 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Australia's superannuation system is in need of reform, according to survey results from Hawker Britton and UMR Research. Their joint survey indicates that 57% of Australians believe that they are being "ripped off" by their super fund, and that 42% do not understand how super works.
In AUSTRIA superannuation funds provide long term leases to families at a reasonable prices. As a result, whether you own or rent in Austria is not such a big deal. In Australia if you rent you are forever the one at the end of the food chain.
Economists suggest that Australian fund managers are harming the economy by investing funds overseas. Figures estimate that $A94bn out of a total superannuation pool of $A534bn is being invested outside Australia.
· Super Stealing the Show

THE MARKET AND ITS ENEMIES
Although I wrote a book on the subject, I never cease to be amazed at how predictably certain political views lead to others. If, say, you're a pro-growth free-market economist who is creepily nostalgic for the good old days of Jim Crow, you will inevitably abandon your free market ideas in favor of economic nationalism and protectionist trade policy, using half-baked arguments that amount to "but they're foreigners." And, just as predictably, you will be embraced--at least temporarily--by supposed liberals, who will happily ignore your less savory views in exchange for the cover of a conservative ally in favor of protectionism.
· Even Pat Buchanan had a brief honeymoon with the left when he started bashing corporations and international trade [link first seen at Corante ]
· Our fiscal gap is too great to grow our way out of this problem: David Walker, the Comptroller General and head of Congress's nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO)

Posted 1:02 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business
Fourth annual review of the most shameful, dishonest, and just plain stupid moments of the past year. Richard the First In August, the board of the New York Stock Exchange decides to give CEO Dick Grasso his $139.5 million pension up front, ostensibly to save the estimated $10 million it would cost to deliver the payout at retirement.
· Richards II [ See Also It seems many people, including myself, have an irrational fear of Bloggers]

Pop star Janet Jackson -- who is almost as pretty as Pats MVP quarterback Tom Brady -- finished a typically bombastic halftime extravaganza by popping out of her top. It was gratifying, in a way, to note plastic surgery has been good to at least one member of the Jackson family.
Miami Herald writer Greg Cote.
· Janet Jackson: The elements are there to cover (pardon the pun) the story in unique ways.
· Buying AdWords keywords can be smart. It avoids hoping that Google ranks your coverage high enough that it's seen by Google searchers [link first seen at Scooter clone takes on the Segway ]
[ via Scooterlife ]

Posted 12:59 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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I am one conflicted political animal...

Heartless Labor made me suicidal, says Hanson
Pauline Hanson has attacked the Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, blaming him for two of her children's near breakdowns while she was in jail and accusing Queensland Labor of hounding her so heartlessly that she contemplated suicide when she was first sent to prison.
They made sure they got me and they did.
But my state of mind meant they got my daughter too, and what it did to her Mr Beattie should never be allowed to forget and made to pay the penalty.
My oldest sons got through, but my youngest, Adam, has been changed for ever.
The former One Nation leader also accused the Beattie Government of appointing Labor hacks to the Queensland justice system, who, she said, carried out its bidding. Some recommended that charges should be laid against her and her fellow One Nation founder, David Ettridge, despite police advice against the pair being brought to trial on electoral fraud.
· Labor hacks: The lesson is if you step on the major parties' toes, they step on you
[ Poison Early tests show deadly ricin in Senate mailroom]

Posted 8:41 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Givers and Takers
Each of the Democratic candidates vying to replace George W. Bush has a serious electability problem. The problem has nothing to do with their biographies or temperaments — and everything to do with a significant, but unnoticed, structural divide in American presidential politics.
· Pointing out some underrecognized facts about Federal tax burden and Federal spending [ See Also Election boxes easy to mess with: In Annapolis, tales of trickery, vote rigging ]
· Oil, OIl, OIL
[link first seen at The Company They Kept (US)]
Mr. Juppé, 58, one of Mr. Chirac's closest confidants, was disqualified from public office for 10 years

Posted 8:35 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Was I wrong about the Hi Tech Yes, I was.

High Tech, Low Think
I suspect the problem is that political editors are former political reporters who don't really trust their reporters to be as good as they imagine they used to be, so they match their reporters' work against everybody else's to judge how well their folks are 'covering' the story.
· Digitization of the political press corps [ See Also Acting Locally]
· Why should society reward the kind of work that I do with status and certain privileges?
· The Third Wave of Online Journalism
Underlying these three phases are the two driving laws of infomatics: Moore's Law, the doubling of transistors on an integrated circuit roughly every couple of years; and Metcalf's Law, the power or value of a network increasing in proportion to the square of the number of nodes on the network.
From the earliest days, librarians have been tasked with storing, indexing and making available information to users and readers. In this context librarians are not simply mechanics, for they are responsible for ensuring the quality of the information that is ultimately retrieved. [ courtesy of Librarians ]

Posted 8:32 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Wild Bike Ride
Don’t try to pee and ride a bicycle at the same time, even if Warren can do it. Not that you were watching or anything.
Try not to get too depressed. There’s always something to look forward to. Keep alert, and sooner or later you’ll see someone slip and hurt themselves.
Here’s a helpful tip for job interviews: try not to stab your future boss in the arm with a freshly sharpened pencil. If you must stab someone with a pencil, have the common sense to dull the point to a state where you can be sure it won’t easily break the skin.
[See Also Good advice, presumably learned from the School of Hard Knocks]

Posted 8:30 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Young Tom Shales must have been (Speaker's) teacher's little angel ...and there was a woman's you-know-what! You could see it and everything! And the horsey made a farty and there was a talking monkey and it said bad things! I'M TELLING!!!

Fallout over that boob goes on
30second ads on Amerikan CBC during Super Bowl stimulated sex drive...The only thing the mags care about this week is the dress Our Nicole wore to the Golden Globes .
· $3 Million for 30 Seconds

So long, George
George Richards, The Sydney Morning Herald's Column 8 editor, is retiring after a (very) long innings.
News reports during last week told of the police Strike Force Arriflex, which apparently is targeting break-and-enters. David Wakeley, of Greenwich, was intrigued. As president of the Australian Cinematographers Society, he knows that Arriflex, in the film industry, is a German proprietary name derived from the names Arnold & Richter. The brand is on the most widely used professional movie cameras worldwide. We wonder what prompted police to use the name - do they have a lot of baddies caught on film?
PS::My spies inform me that for our safety and security and laughter Sydney Rail Staff and Police are capturing Arrifex stuff such as Sydney multicultural nose picking competitions at every stations, but nothing beats Kings Kross variety (worthy grin)
· Arriflex

Posted 8:35 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag
A series of shocking personal testimonies is now shedding light on Camp 22 - one of the country's most horrific secrets ...
The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.
· CAMP 22

Justice at Risk
Manny Garcia and Jason Grotto of the Miami Herald have a four-part series on the judicial practice of setting aside felony convictions in Florida.
· Justice Withheld
· Justice accused of plagiarizing published work of colleagues

Posted 8:28 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

Joe's Wild Ride
The first sign of trouble wasn't Howard Dean telling that poor old man in Iowa to sit down and shut up, or Howard Dean instructing the reporters traveling with him on the day of the caucus to "get a new life," or even Howard Dean growling like a rabid wolverine onstage. It was Trippi. Trippi was too calm. Joe Trippi doesn't do calm.
· GQ - Joe is insanely crazy

Making fun of Passion for our blogging?
I am by no means a Howard Dean fan, but I am offended by how the media and others are making fun of his speech the other night. Shouldn't we all be that excited about our life's work? I mean his job right now is trying to become president. Think about how much work defines us. When you meet a stranger in a bar, on the street, in an airplane and they ask what you do, you answer with your job description. Though you may be a mother, father, lover, poet, you still answer with your work. Let's all answer with passion. Let's get swept up by the idea of 'what we want to be' is exciting. If others make fun, as Gordon MacKenzie said, they are trying to shame us. Shame on them!

Posted 8:21 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The Kerry biography: He's risen without trace
Mark Steyn, the insider's insider, once again. He attacks Kerry for being a weathervane politician who has who's risen without trace, from lieutenant governor to senator and maybe to president, with no accomplishment to show for it other than his own advance in status.
· Unauthorised Biography
Hitler too was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1936... Besides LOL, what else can one say?
· Bush, Blair nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, by Australia Day Council?

Evidence that extreme partisanship didn't begin with blogs or 24/7 cable news:
Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a government as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always carry matters to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or demerit with regard to the public. His enemies are sure to charge him with the greatest enormities, both in domestic and foreign management; and there is no meanness or crime, of which, in their account, he is not capable. Unnecessary wars, scandalous treaties, profusion of public treasure, oppressive taxes, every kind of mal-administration is ascribed to him. To aggravate the charge, his pernicious conduct, it is said, will extend its baleful influence even to posterity, by undermining the best constitution in the world, and disordering that wise system of laws, institutions, and customs, by which our ancestors, during so many centuries, have been so happily governed. He is not only a wicked minister in himself, but has removed every security provided against wicked ministers for the future. [ via SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE, NEVER CHANGE ]

Posted 8:19 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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After the brilliant War of Ideas (six) series, on the first Day of February 2004 AD Thomas Friedman has a column that kisses everything and makes it well. If you read only one column this election year, read his Budget of Mass Destruction...

Budgets of Mass Destruction
It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues. This group believes that what matters in politics and economics are conviction and will — not facts, social science or history.
· Bush

THE MARKET AND ITS ENEMIES
If, say, you're a pro-growth free-market economist who is creepily nostalgic for the good old days of Jim Crow, you will inevitably abandon your free market ideas in favor of economic nationalism and protectionist trade policy, using half-baked arguments that amount to "but they're foreigners." And, just as predictably, you will be embraced--at least temporarily--by supposed liberals, who will happily ignore your less savory views in exchange for the cover of a conservative ally in favor of protectionism.
· Even Pat Buchanan had a brief honeymoon with the left when he started bashing corporations and international trade [link first seen at Corante ]
· Taxes: THE PROBLEM WITH SOAKING THE RICH

Posted 8:02 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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ARTS: Blood Banks Critically Low

Hasta la victoria Art
There's nothing in the world that helps economic development more than arts programs. It was foolish for Congress to choke them and starve them. We should cherish the people who can tell us who we are, where we came from and where we hope to go.
· Right Decisions[ Strange Priorities Bizarre: Schools told there's no money for Cold Rivers]

I think every American journalist, with the possible exception of Bob Woodward, secretly envied Eddie Clontz. I know I did. Here was a man who simply refused, as a matter of principle, to allow truth to get in the way of a great story.
Journalists and their confidential sources have a special relationship, as inviolate as doctor and patient or priest and penitent. Woodward, for example, says he will wait for Deep Throat to die before disclosing his identity. Well, Eddie's death liberates me to reveal the time Dave Barry and I leaked a big story to Weekly World News.
· ELVIS DEAD AT 58

For some, there was the whisper of another question: Were the authors, brought here by a program called Arts and Culture in Davos, merely acting as a diversion as big business schmoozed with big government in this temple of economic globalization? In these uncertain times, when the forum even devoted a session to debating conspiracy theories, who can tell?
[See Also Token Davos] [ via Mildly Malevolent ]

Posted 7:56 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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The Coming Search Wars
JOHN MARKOFF
AT the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, Microsoft, the software heavyweight, and Google, the scrappy Internet search company, eyed each other like wary prizefighters entering the ring.
· I Dream, Therefore I Am: Google is My Dream Engine
· Charming eBay underworld of misspellers
Casanova, you're my type

Posted 3:29 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies has resigned, as has BBC Director General Greg Dyke. Rest assured that this won't be enough for some people. As hard as it may be to believe, there are already people calling for the complete dismantling of the British Broadcasting Corporation because Lord Hutton has ruled that one aspect of it was flawed in one instance...
A simple show of solidarity and support that is also meant to spread valuable information to those who may not know exactly who is behind this attack and what their motives are:
· Simply copy and paste the code from Bloggerheads site to show this button on your website or weblog

Posted 2:44 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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As another car bomb rips through Iraqi city, the world security sinks to a new low with the latest nuclear exercise. Superpowers are showing that they have no intention of going quietly about showing off their amunitions

Secret Russian Weapons: Amerikan - Russian Honeymoon has Soured
The Russian armed forces are about to stage a major transition-to-war exercise simulating a nuclear conflict right up and including test launching several missiles and sending Tu-160 and Tu-22 bombers out on simulated mission profiles over the Arctic.
· Radiant Russia's perceived attempts to assert its authority over ex-Soviet neighbors [ via Google ]
· Worst flu epidemic
· IS THAT A MILLION BARRELS OF OIL IN YOUR POCKET
· Lobbyist Barrel: Disturbing fact about the Kerry campaign
· Ex-BBC head accuses government of bullying

Posted 2:32 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Fat Road Safety Officers Danger in Taxing Regulatory Environment
Fat motorists may be even more dangerous than those who have been drinking, a sleep expert has warned.
They are dangerous on the road. If you put them on a driving simulator they do worse than people who are intoxicated with alcohol.
He said risk factors included being male and having a thick neck - fat there puts extra pressure on the airways ...
· This is a timebomb. If somebody falls asleep at the wheel the consequences are horrendous
· Enforced safety? Spare me

Posted 2:25 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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I told you so! Imrich Beach Party will introduce a bill to Parliament in order to put an end to the current slavery (smile)
Can you believe this - 120 executives have paid $7,500 each to attend the ALP conference and I gather some Antipodean writers and pseudoauthors are considering joining ALP to make their books part of the Big Brother Reading List... To avoid administrative nightmares, my party will put more books in the libraries as a priority!

1984 - 2004 Cradle to Grave Pledges: One day high bandwidth might mean on top of a community relations mountain
Liberating office workers from their desks could make them more productive.
Two-thirds of those questioned in BT's survey said they would be happier and more relaxed if they could choose where they did their work.
The most popular alternative workplace was the beach with 37% of respondents.
· Office workers want to break free [link first seen at BBC ]
· Your Working Enemies Are Behind You...
[link first seen at All parents should know where their children are at night ]

Posted 12:36 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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2004 Australian Blog Awards - The winners are...
The winner in the categories of - Best Overall Australian Blog
Loobylu

Best NSW, Sydney Blog
She Sells Sanctuary
Once again, Tim Blair is forced to play the bridesmaid thanks to is poor showing in the distribution of preferences.
Well done Gianna and best of luck with the baby.
Best Victorian Blog
Loobylu
This time denying John Howard Blog the award.
Best Tasmanian Blog
Dolebludger
Best Queensland Blog
85 George Street
Best West Australian Blog
Yobbo's View
Best South Australian Blog
Ubersportingpundit
Best Northern Territory Blog
Troppo Armadillo
Best Australian Capital Territory Blog
The spin starts here darl

Now to the travellers and expats... The winner in the categories of-
Best Overseas Australian Blog
Road To Surfdom AND Anthony Hicks
Best Humourous Australian Blog
The spin starts here darl
Best Australian Personal Blog
The spin starts here darl; Paperback Writer
Best Australian Political Blog
Some may argue that there is no winner here. Others will argue a case for one or the other... personally, while I have a view, I'm just going to put it in the "too hard" basket, publish the results and let you argue amongst yourselves as to who the winner should be. So, what is the situation we have?
Tim Blair; The spin starts here darl; Road to Surfdom
Best Australian Tech Blog
Anthony Hicks
· Vlado of New Fatherhood Fame & Kekoc Blogosphere

Posted 12:35 PM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Backbencher's Political Weblog Awards
Many interesting media dragons didn't make it on to the shortlist, but deserve at least a link and a mention...(czech them out)
1. Bloggerheads
2. Conservative Commentary
3. Councillor Stuart Bruce
4. The Gay Vote
5. Harry's Place
6. Karmalised
7. Lynne's GLA and Haringey diary
8. Talking Points Memo
9. Tom Watson - Labour MP
10. VoxPolitics
11. What You Can Get Away With
12. The Yorkshire Ranter
· Guardian, Virtual

Posted 9:23 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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Spending to Save
Well, the community centers that will be built as a result of Joan Kroc will not do social services like feeding or housing. Rather, they are for educational and recreational activities, for character building. We provide activities that relate to the holistic person -- body, mind, soul and spirit.
· Feeding Souls
· Save to Hoard

Posted 8:31 AM by Jozef Imrich, Esq.

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When asked about the genesis of The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco famously remarked, I desired to poison a (politician).

My Love Affair With Sydney: Machiavelli meets schadenfreude
Moving to a new place, whether it's to the next town or a whole ocean away, is like starting a new romance. At first everything is wonderful. You only notice the best things about the other person and everyone is on their best behavior. Sure, there are some little quirks about them, but you consider them charming...
It’s all there in Dostoyevsky’s little novel The Gambler: the guy isn’t fully alive until he’s on the verge of falling into the abyss. I was acting out my grief in a way that made me feel alive.
· So glad it brought me out of my cave