$14m: now that's a good score: Shane Warne thanks the crowd at the MCG for helping the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal match raise more than $14 million for the relief effort. Ponting delivers for the world
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Red state, Blue state, Purple state
Tod Lindberg is thinking as Media Dragon is thinking
Would-be tyrants and freedom fighters alike take note: The essence of democracy is not simply an election. It's an election held in the expectation that there will be a subsequent election.
In a mature democracy during election season, each side campaigns as hard as it can. But each side does so in the knowledge that, win or lose, victory or defeat is subject to reversal at the polls in the next election. You win some, you lose some.
• Great Iraqi expectations [By Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Thoughts on government propaganda ... Who Can You Trust? Sometimes I get up feelin' good, but greed gets me down Trust But Verify ]
• · Democracy is the most humane and desirable form of government yet devised by humankind. From Afghanistan to Ukraine, democracy's recent successes have exceeded expectations. It deserves American support wherever it has a chance of taking hold. When and If Democracy fails; [Afganistan by Polish Australian blogger ]
• · · A roundup of the sea of stories and resources available for assisting the victims of the earthquake/tsunami that occured Sunday in Asia: The Tsunami Disaster in Asia, 2004; [Search Engine/Blogosphere Response to the Earthquake/Tsunami ]
• · · · United Nations: All documents from 1993 available; [The indictment of Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign-finance director, David Rosen, may pose a threat to the senator's presidential bid Hillary Scandal; Top phrase of '04: A panel of linguists has deemed - red state, blue state, purple state - the phrase that most colored the nation's lexicon in 2004 ]
• · · · · Forget Elvis sightings. Latham too sick to make statement: Carr ; [Missing, in action - He looked fine to me: Federal Labor's leadership black hole during the tsunami crisis has attracted critical attention, but what of this state's own media-savvy leader, Bob Carr, and his disappearance over the past month? Carr did a bunk in mid-December (just before an ICAC inquiry into the controversial Orange Grove affair resumed) and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Every query - the Herald's asked eight times - has been met with a stony "the Premier's on private leave". Word on the street is that he's been in Gay Paree, and naughty Opposition types have suggested the green Premier's been trying out for a UN environmental agency job in Geneva. He's on deck today, according to his office, after private leave.]
• · · · · · Espionage is not a sentimental business. It was enough to make the CIA salivate. At the height of the Cold War, the CIA swooped in and offered a deal: stay in place, spy for us, and when the time comes we will set you up for life in the US. A cold-war operative asks Supreme Court to restore his pay, raising questions about court's role in intelligence matters. Can a secret agent sue to enforce a contract he agreed to keep secret? Spy vs. CIA: It's a shot in the dark ; [An ex-CIA agent talks about the real life of a spy and why she left the agency. Lindsay Moran, 35, wrote about her experiences with the CIA In Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy Little cloak, less dagger ]