Monday, March 21, 2005



There have been times when an individual murder has set forces in motion that have changed history. The most dramatic example was the 1914 shooting death of the Hapsburg heir to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Francis Ferdinand, at the hands of a Serbian assassin in Sarajevo, which triggered World War I. When killers rule

A secret service dossier based on Soviet interrogations of the Führer's staff shows how he swung between humour and hubris What the Butler Saw in a Bear Pit Bunker: Funny Führer

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Russia Today
The old Soviet secret police kept their apartments, dachas, and pensions. Their victims, Anne Applebaum explains, remain poor and marginal ...

The more we are able to understand how various societies have transformed their neighbors and fellow citizens from people into objects, and the more we know of the specific circumstances that led to each episode of mass torture and mass murder, the better we will understand the darker side of our own human nature.


The Gulag: Lest We Forget [Why don’t they listen to us?” Poor and working class America is turning away from the Left’s messages of hope and change. Lillian Rubin on a widening gulf... Speaking to the Working Class: the strange intensity of political polarization ; Representing the disadvantaged in Australian politics: the role of advocacy organisations Democratic Audit of Australia ]
• · Thousands Protest Iraq War Across Europe ; From Casablanca to Kuwait City, it is good to light a fire under their feet From Prague Spring to Arab Spring ; Iraq could be entering its most dangerous phase, argues Aldo Borgu, and that has implications for Australia’s commitment Iraq: A two-way street ; Patrick Barkham, The Guardian: Could Tony Blair Lose The May Election?
• · · Women in politics: destroyed by the media or slowly changing the status quo? Some Like It Cool ; On the use and abuse of power: a snapshot of ‘an extraordinary woman in an extraordinary time’ The Natasha Factor
• · · · If the consequences weren't so serious, Senator Ross Lightfoot would be the biggest joke in Parliament since Bill Heffernan ran away from the media down the stairs during his ill-fated Justice Kirby allegations three years ago Interview: Jenny Macklin; Is Westminster Dead in Westminster (and why should we care)?
• · · · · The estimates committees will become even more important after 1 July, according to Stephen Bartos, but they are already under pressure The trouble with Senate estimates; Five days after telling Congress that the emperor had had no weapons of mass destruction, David Kay, said "We were almost all wrong" in thinking that Saddam Hussein had possessed WMD Intelligence Gap If you want an image that captures what American politics will be like over the next few decades, imagine two waves crashing down upon us simultaneously, each magnifying the damage caused by the other. The Do-Nothing Conspiracy [David Brooks, New York Times]
• · · · · · "Little Eichmanns" and "Digital Brownshirts" Deconstructing the Hitlerian slur ; Thomas Lifson, The American Thinker Judicial Activism's Perfect Storm