Senior opposition leaders have called for the resignation of Police President Jiri Kolar [Party Affiliation: Member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 1982-89] so many times in the last three years that most political observers have lost count. Bugging is not the problem of the Czech police alone but of the police forces in all post-communist countries including NSW (smile) So now you understand that the average person would object to being wiretapped? In this country, the order to wiretap a person is issued by a judge, and only in the most serious of criminal cases...
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: How to win at Politics
Jonathan Jones has written a book on art and politics entitled: In Machiavelli's Florence. For 500 years his name has been synonymous with ruthlessness, manipulation and backstabbing. But could the much-maligned Machiavelli tell us the truth about politics in our time? Jonathan Jones on why Brown and Blair have much to learn from a 16th-century thinker
The 16th-century political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli knew how to get rid of a troublesome minister, even a chancellor. Modern leaders fret and fuss and fall out. They make promises and break them and time their speeches to upstage one another. Really, it's all so lily-livered. In Machiavelli's Florence, Tony Blair would have had Gordon Brown quietly poisoned by now, and if not, he himself would be food for eels in the river Arno.
When you say Yes in some Slavic languages it does sound like the river Ano! While Arno is rather dangerous, Machiavelli's Restaurant in Sydney is more familiar with political assasinations than is the river Morava. Media Dragon have survived Morava River, but will we (royal we) survive the pure bipartisan poison pouring from the Macquarie and the SusSex streets? Only time will tell ... (smile)
For Machiavelli, the feud between Blair and Brown would not have been a thing of shame and embarrassment. It would satisfy him like a bleeding slab of Tuscan steak. This is it, he might tell the Labour MPs frightened for their futures; this is the life you chose. Try to relish it, washed down with a nice glass of chianti. As for what Brown said to Blair - what a prude it exposes Brown to be. The chancellor is reported to have told the prime minister that there is nothing Blair could ever say now he will believe. Is this supposed to be criticism, Machiavelli might ask? Because a true politician would savour it as praise.
• Classic political manual The Prince ; [Anthony Sampson's second survey of the British establishment, Who Runs This Place?, finds little that has changed for the better Down the corridors of power ... Who Runs This Place?]
• · Och, Yech: Out of ancient disasters, forebears may have colonised new lands Tsunami survival tales hint how our ancestors crossed the sea
• · · Tony Mauro, USA Today SCOTUS: Serving 25 Years or More is Too Long; [Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: After the Dan Rather scandal, American journalism will never be the same. MSM Requiem - ]
• · · · The U.N. needs a good smack in the face, says New York City Councilmember Simcha Felder. Relationship between the UN and New York City; [Root Causes: An Interview with Wangari Maathai The recent Nobel Peace Prize winner talks about sowing the seeds of democracy in Kenya]
• · · · · Nazi Germany established its collaboration government in Vichy France and recruited French politicians, soldiers and police to administer a truncated and compliant state... When plasma is in short supply, the opportunist buys and sells blood. When food is scarce, he hordes food and gouges the hungry ... the journalists who sell their professionalism for prestige, access to power and job security; the academics and scientists who prostitute themselves for large corporations so that polluters may pollute or that neighborhoods may be paved and people and animals may have the last dime of profit squeezed out of them. But the gladiator collaborator is still not the foundation of empire. That distinction belongs to the sixth degree of collaboration, the merely compliant. Us. All of us. No empire can exist without collaborators: Six Degrees of Collaboration; [In the latest of a string of gaffes, dysfunctional Harry, 20, wore a red and black swastika armband and an army shirt with Nazi regalia at the party at a friend's house on Saturday. He has been allowed to get away with murder. Prince Harry wears Nazi swastika ; Google links to Potty Harry stories in the Nazi Uniform ]
• · · · · · Shock at the Asia disaster. Tears shed in grief and joy. Relief for the survivors. When the tsunamis hit, around 800 Czech citizens reportedly were staying in Sri Lanka, 300 were staying in Thailand and a handful, including legendary singer Karel Gott Tsunami and Bohemian Gott