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The real reason democracy cannot end terrorism is that terrorism is ideally suited for influencing democratic results. Terrorism is violence by and for the people, which is to say, it is expressly designed to speak through the mass media in order to influence the masses. As every successful politician knows, fear is an excellent means of manipulating the minds of the voting populace, and so terrorism has a utility in democratic societies that it does not have in autocracies. By Vox Day How democracy feeds terror

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Mark Latham's Webdiary interview
I suppose I'm getting to this thing that you did, that Internet Democracy experiment, and I'm just looking for what - can you imagine possibilities utilising the net as a means for Australians to rescue the system so that they have got a real alternative again, to get the debate moving?

Oh well you get different attempts at this. Someone was telling me about (inaudible) which is some sort of Internet Democracy Movement and so forth but in the end you're dealing with a limited audience, you know. I reach the conclusion that maybe 15% of the electorate is well informed, progressive, interested in politics and otherwise you've got a lot of conservatism and a lot of apathy. So you can mobilise some people but in a democracy you need to mobilise the majority and I don't see that happening.

• e-Democracy experiment [ Let's not turn our judges into politicians ; The Australians are Mocking Us ; Mr Brogden resigned today from his northern Sydney seat of Pittwater ]
• · Analysts have long been writing obituaries for Poland’s left. They should soon have a chance to print them. Two poles – a clerical tradition and the communist legacy Poland: Turn Right for Poland ; A Fourth Republic? The end of Poland’s post-communist era? Maybe, maybe not – but something has begun Poland: Lo, a New Republic
• · · Scott Ritter was the former US marine captain tasked with finding Saddam Hussein's weapons. Now, in this first detailed account, he reveals how the CIA plotted to use a UN weapons inspection to overthrow the Iraqi regime - and how fiasco turned to tragedy when it failed. The Coup That Wasn't ; No one knows how much is left, but humankind can't wait any longer before coming up with alternatives It's Better to Cry Wolf Now Than to Wait Until the Oil Has Run Out
• · · · The rumors are true this time. I was arrested in front of the White House today. It was my first time ever being arrested. My First Time ; Widening Abramoff Scandal Exposes GOP Cronyism Corrupt Connections
• · · · · Stephen Lewis Jr. It's Immoral to Think Taxes Can't Be Raised On Folks Like Me ; Kafka Does Iraq: The Disturbing Case of Abdul Amir Younes Hussein
• · · · · · 'You Can't Wash Your Hands When They're Covered in Blood' ; Pork Busters

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The real reason democracy cannot end terrorism is that terrorism is ideally suited for influencing democratic results. Terrorism is violence by and for the people, which is to say, it is expressly designed to speak through the mass media in order to influence the masses. As every successful politician knows, fear is an excellent means of manipulating the minds of the voting populace, and so terrorism has a utility in democratic societies that it does not have in autocracies. By Vox Day How democracy feeds terror

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Mark Latham's Webdiary interview
I suppose I'm getting to this thing that you did, that Internet Democracy experiment, and I'm just looking for what - can you imagine possibilities utilising the net as a means for Australians to rescue the system so that they have got a real alternative again, to get the debate moving?

Oh well you get different attempts at this. Someone was telling me about (inaudible) which is some sort of Internet Democracy Movement and so forth but in the end you're dealing with a limited audience, you know. I reach the conclusion that maybe 15% of the electorate is well informed, progressive, interested in politics and otherwise you've got a lot of conservatism and a lot of apathy. So you can mobilise some people but in a democracy you need to mobilise the majority and I don't see that happening.

• e-Democracy experiment [ Let's not turn our judges into politicians ; The Australians are Mocking Us ; Mr Brogden resigned today from his northern Sydney seat of Pittwater ]
• · Analysts have long been writing obituaries for Poland’s left. They should soon have a chance to print them. Two poles – a clerical tradition and the communist legacy Poland: Turn Right for Poland ; A Fourth Republic? The end of Poland’s post-communist era? Maybe, maybe not – but something has begun Poland: Lo, a New Republic
• · · Scott Ritter was the former US marine captain tasked with finding Saddam Hussein's weapons. Now, in this first detailed account, he reveals how the CIA plotted to use a UN weapons inspection to overthrow the Iraqi regime - and how fiasco turned to tragedy when it failed. The Coup That Wasn't ; No one knows how much is left, but humankind can't wait any longer before coming up with alternatives It's Better to Cry Wolf Now Than to Wait Until the Oil Has Run Out
• · · · The rumors are true this time. I was arrested in front of the White House today. It was my first time ever being arrested. My First Time ; Widening Abramoff Scandal Exposes GOP Cronyism Corrupt Connections
• · · · · Stephen Lewis Jr. It's Immoral to Think Taxes Can't Be Raised On Folks Like Me ; Kafka Does Iraq: The Disturbing Case of Abdul Amir Younes Hussein
• · · · · · 'You Can't Wash Your Hands When They're Covered in Blood' ; Pork Busters

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Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have anything to say and take to performing instead of stating. This is how they first become accessible to broad taste, which is lazy taste, and by the same token to the processes of publicity and consecration. As long as they were trammeled up in the urgency of getting things said they were too difficult, too 'controversial.'
-Clement Greenberg, Hofmann

Sometimes we discover seemingly surprising chains of connections, like finding out that your next-door neighbour is your brother's housekeeper's cousin. When should we be surprised and when shouldn't we? The six degrees of separation between you and everyone else

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Future must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!
Not poems about politics. Poems about a father thinking about his child or a mother worrying about her daughters. And kids were saying things like, 'Gee, I never thought about there being children in Iraq.'

As long as one pain is considered better or more real than someone else's pain, as long as people think, 'Your son is not equal to my son,' there can be no peace. We must remind ourselves that fanaticism of any kind is dangerous. We must work every way we can toward wider expression and dialogue. We must keep reading poetry with renewed vigor, for courage and hope. Poetry, the most intimate form of expression, gives us a deeper sense of reality than headlines and news stories ever could

• Naomi Shihab Nye Poet builds bridges, line by line [Correction Appended ; One of these simple,
brilliant ideas got built Catalog your books online ]
• · Risk A Photographer who Takes Risks; How could one resist after reading Lesley Kartali Pick-up lines for feminists
• · · Crowe vs. Crowe ; Britain is terra comis for the United States Is Brand America In Trouble?; High Water How Presidents and citizens react to disaster
• · · · That love was meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired Coming to terms with the truth at 17 ; The bestseller lists of the past fifty years are mostly a somber graveyard of dead books In praise of the novel; Everyone Is Dancing To The Same Song Day! There is some good news to report. After three plus years on the web and well over 1,000 consecutive calendar days scandalized, Girls Are Pretty is going to be a book Girls are pretty
• · · · · Gus Lee mined his isolated boyhood for a novel about the city he loves -- now it's a book club pick One City One Book: China Boy ; Ashley Smith frank about her flaws in new book Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero ; A progressive Christian organization embraces a comedian's unorthodox take on their liturgy Bigger Than Jesus
• · · · · · When Sharni Montgomery came to us with an innovative idea for meeting Sydney's men, we sent her to test it out Classified information ; Sometimes we discover seemingly surprising chains of connections, like finding out that your next-door neighbour is your brother's housekeeper's cousin. When should we be surprised and when shouldn't we? The six degrees of separation between you and everyone else ; To the outside observer, these individuals appear to be remarkably accomplished; The Imposter Jozef Imrich

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Adam Michnik, co-founder of the Polish trade union Solidarnosc, looks back on its founding 25 years ago, and forward to today's turmoiled times In search of lost sense: Dad, please don't beat me

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Why the states matter in industrial relations
Since the federal election of 2004, and particularly since the Coalition gained outright control of the Senate from July this year, industrial relations policy has been centre stage.

The key shift is the transition of ideology and practice from traditional liberalism—where the competing objectives of employers and employees, manifested through trade unions and other third parties, are both legitimate—to ‘neo-liberalism’—where, in the name of market efficiency, the objectives of management are paramount, with little or no room for other interests.

• The States: Difference And Fragmentation [Webdiary: Mark just like Darren Rowse is well aware that lists are popular O’nya Mark ;-) Ten reasons why young idealistic people should forget about organised politics ; Mark Latham followed his controversial book with a provocative lecture Organised politics is bad for your ideals, Latham tells students ; Slavoj Zizek: Against Human Rights (New Left Review 34, July-Augus ]
• · What makes people more democratic, anyway? ; Police could lock down an entire suburb and carry out unfettered searches on homes, vehicles and individual Labor terrorism laws give police free hand
• · · It is a highly addictive drug, but governments everywhere encourage its use Gerin oil (or Geriniol to give it its scientific name) is a powerful drug which acts directly on the central nervous system to produce a range of characteristic symptoms, often of an antisocial or self- damaging nature Opiate of the masses ; In the Heart of Europe: Social Models and Geopolitics
• · · · Those who live in their own homes emerge as winners from the tangled web of taxes and concessions imposed on properties, a study says. Such people have an overall subsidy of $2000 a year. There's an inequality or tax concession here: on exactly the same property, one landlord's paying tax and one isn't Home owners net $2000 a year bonus ; Cash transfers, with strings attached, are a better way of helping the poor than many previous social programmes New thinking about an old problem
• · · · · Social programmes that are good for democracy as well as for the fight against poverty Not always with us ; Mike Berry summarises the housing affordability picture and the forces driving the recent housing boom Show me the money: financing more affordable housing
• · · · · · Rachel Gibson from the ACSPRI Centre for Social Research and Ian McAllister frm the Political Science Program show that web campaigning is associated primarily with the political attitudes and outlook of candidates (being left-wing and young) rather than the amount of campaign resources available. Does cyber campaigning win votes? Online communication in the 2004 Australian election ; It was a collision of cultures made for a novel by Tom Wolfe, who as it happened was there. On Saturday, if you got out of the Washington Metro at the Smithsonian stop, cheery volunteers pointed the crowd in opposite directions. "The book festival is to your left and the march is to your right," the volunteers chanted. Coverage in the NYT focuses on which authors attended a White House breakfast and which ones declined for political reasons On the Mall, 2 Events Speak Volumes

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Curiouser and curiouser . . .
And when she uses a word, it means
precisely what she intends it to mean
Nothing less and nothing more.
-While Liz uses the above tag inside her risque emails ;-) Ellen Parr is fond of the following: The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity

I am
a. delighted that you found my blog worth reading.
b. ecstatic that you got Scot two links for his fabulous writing
c. that you understand where I'm coming from and that you know a bit of Latin.
The sense of humor doesn't hurt either.
I have a new masthead now--you won't be able to miss the name of the page next time. BIG CHESHIRE CAT GRIN.
I know you'll find a way to sneak the appropriate links in next time.
PS. if you're looking for content, "all of the stuff on my site is original and worth crediting," she said with an impish grin.
You can call me Liz,
Smiles, Liz
Elizabeth Strauss

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Up, Up & Away in My Beautiful Balloon…
A nation of sheep will beget a media of wolves ... A leading member of one of Australia's most exclusive and secretive clubs has ratted on his co-members. His name is Kerry Stokes,and thi week in the Federal Court in Sydney he lifted the veil on what he says really goes on behind the closed doors at the Media Proprietor's Private Member's Club. In a statement released in the court, Stokes tells of a meeting with club member James Packer five years ago when, according to Stokes, the son of Australia's richest man told him: "I've come to tell you that we're going to take the AFL rights off you. We're all going to get together to take those rights. We don't really want to do it, but News are making us. That's what goes on inside the club all the time, but normally it stays inside the club. Not anymore. The court action by Stokes's Seven Network against the other key club members – chiefly Packer's PBL, Murdoch's News Limited and Telstra – is trotting out the dirty linen

Frank Morgan responds to a recent speech by Senator Helen Coonan, Federal Minister for Communications, on proposals to change Australia’s media ownership laws. He discusses how new technology has changed the way we receive and digest news and information.

• Some questions of media policy [Murdoch, Packer 'ganged up' Stakes are high for Stokes ; Australian media mogul takes billion dollar court battle ...; Seven Network: Chronology ]
• · · The Water Cooler ; According to White House sources, President Bush is bracing for intensified criticism following Monday's report that the body of Tyler Sheehan, son of outspoken anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, was recovered from the receding floodwaters in New Orleans Bush Braces As Cindy Sheehan's Other Son Drowns In New Orleans
• · · · Despite all that has happened, I still think that The New York Times has a stature and a position of journalistic authority that is greater than any news organization in the world. Could that be destroyed? I believe that it could be Charging for Columnists: Notes and Comment on the Launch of TimesSelect ; If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else: Rebecca Blood - Thanks Shel and Rebecca at al for lifting me up ;-) Naked Conversations
• · · · · It deserves to be in contextuality. It deserves to explode, let it do so MSN jumps in with talk about their new contextual ad program ; A list of the most consistently influential sites that publish feeds The PubSub LinkRanks 1000 ; A Collection for 40+ GMail Tips
• · · · · · Darren Rowse: Gawker Adds Comments to Three Blogs ; Bucky Turco, first to be banned from Gawker's comment club

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Under cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle, and the binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!
-E.M. Forster

As you've surely heard, a summer of Faulkner was enough to drive Oprah back to contemporary books and live authors she can bring on her show. Oprah's Book Club to Add Contemporary Writers
Somewhere near you, someone is signing a flyleaf. An insider’s guide to a literary phenomenon. No longer is it just rock stars who go on tour, attract groupies and perform live. Britain has gone crazy over writers and readings at literary festivals And now, live on stage, the superstar author

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Last Day in September: Machiavellian Morality
When Ronald Reagan said the only thing on earth enjoying eternal life is a government program, he forgot about Deep Throat.

The late-spring exposure of former FBI deputy director Mark Felt as the long-secret Watergate source revived this unending political drama: movies were being produced, books published, and Watergate revisited on talk shows...
I now realize that we humans have an infinite capacity for self-justification

• One reason teenagers, among others, are jammed in our prisons [Could this list in fact mark the end of the age of the great public intellectual? Not that there's anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld might say. Who are the world’s leading public intellectuals? ; On the brink of turning 80, Gore Vidal - aristocrat, intellectual and prolific novelist, playwright, and essayist - is as outspoken as ever. Age cannot wither him ]
• · Ten years ago, the Russian futurologist Leo Nefiodov predicted that the health industry would take over from information technology as a motor for growth The end of the miserable quest for the self ; Americans work harder than any other industrialized nation. Labor on the Screen
• · · Human beings are self-absorbed creatures, so the response to Hurricane Katrina has naturally included some hand-wringing over the question: "Could this happen to my hometown?" Wyoming? Nope. West Virginia? Think again Where To Hide From Mother Nature; Don't Blink. You'll Miss the 258th-Richest American ; 'Fortune's Formula': Wanna Bet?
• · · · The words themselves outweigh moral and ideological arguments The case for the classics is read within ; Wise Hedgehogs and Clever Foxes
• · · · · These WSJ links likely dissappear in short term Knowledge Deficit ; Better Information Isn't Always Beneficial
• · · · · · Bernard Lagan on Mark Latham’s first marriage I had more success with women than her; Where words fail, music speaks ... Too picky? Too shy? Addicted to ``hamster love''? Confessions of a speed dater

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There is a saying that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

Left and Right simultaneously will not solve any problems, says Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht on the eve of the German election Indulging a penchant for paradox

Given the fact that the Bush administration is a criminal organization, it is naïve and ignorant to expect it to behave in a humanitarian fashion. For any reason. Ever. On the other hand, it is predictable that it would seize every opportunity, and take advantage of every moment of chaos, vulnerability and inattention, to sink its poisonous fangs deeper into the carcass of American democracy The more you ask, the more you shall receive

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Equal Exchange
So, you have a democratically run coop in the states that partners exclusively with Fair Trade coffee cooperatives around the globe. So… how’s the coffee?

Equal Exchange is an unusual company. It’s not simply an employee-owned business (a growing number of companies are, for a given value of employee owned) but is instead a worker-owned cooperative... which is a very interesting and balanced thing to be when one deals with a great many worker-owned coffee cooperatives. There’s kind of a Zen thing at play there.

• Tasting: Equal Exchange Mind, Body & Soul [ Happy ever after with no effort? Tell 'em they're dreamin' ; How forensic science TV is helping the real crims ]
• · The Flight of the Creative Class - Beacons for the world’s brightest Creative Capital: The Key to Prosperity ; There is perhaps no more popular guessing game for pundits and prognosticators than predicting which nation will threaten the United States as the next great power - Creative diaspora The Greatest Competitive Threat of Our Time
• · · Case Against Inheritance Tax Is Bogus ; The best laid plans usually go awry
• · · · A sadly entertaining peek at some of the bills Congressmen have proposed this year The circus is back in town ; Simon Zadek, chief executive of AccountAbility, introduces a new debate on openDemocracy that explores a new generation of accountability mechanisms focussed on the horizontal, not the hierarchical Reinventing Accountability for the 21st Century
• · · · · Finnish-born feminist academic Tiina Rosenberg is involved in setting up a new party Tiina Rosenberg wants to shake up Swedish politics; Why politics matters and why British politics matters
• · · · · · Sydneysiders have found a way into the property market - buying houses with friends Through the side door ; The 18-year-old Hurstville man jumped onto the train tracks from platform five at Town Hall station while trying to flee the transit officers Teen loses thumb in Town Hall train drama; Gee, lucky all those cameras were in place. They obviously really helped

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi

The question that I was faced with nearly a year ago as I battled with a serious case of jet lag: To blog or not to blog...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents
Reporters Without Borders has produced an excellent Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents (pdf)

It has been reviewed by Rebecca MacKinnon, at Global Voices Online, who says it "is the first truly useful book I’ve seen aimed at the kinds of bloggers featured here at Global Voices every day: People who have views and information that they want to share with the world beyond their own national borders." Rebecca and her Global Voices colleague Ethan Zuckerman, who is also - full disclosure - President of Worldchanging's Board of Directors, are aggregating content from the growing numbers of bloggers worldwide who will welcome this book as a helpful guide and a support for bringing others into the "second superpower."

• Rebels at Large [Revisiting linking rights ;
Helping hand for bloggers who want to blab but stay out of jail ]
• · The media are actors, active elements, which transform the confusions of reality into a narrative. They are like the play within a play in Hamlet, put on to show the usurping King of Denmark the sin he had committed in killing Hamlet’s father. The corruption of the Canberra media ; Is the ultimate goal of media in a democracy to promote truth and accuracy or a diversity of views? The responsibility of the harlot
• · · Murdoch close to unveiling internet strategy Murdoch's No 1 priority: a net empire ; Like any other form of expression, blogging has not been insulated from infringements on intellectual property or what is commonly called “plagiarism.” Blog-O-Rama: It's basic manners to give credit to whom credit is due
• · · · Dream Date Love Blogs ; Blog Watch Could it put Media Dragon out of a job?
• · · · · For Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents Blog, Podcast Without Censorship ; Blogging Survey - On Bloggers
• · · · · · New York Times meets the Darknet ; Google: the tale that's wagging the blog? ; Yes, Google Does Alert You To New Blog Finds ; There is a power shift going on The power of the blog; Google Print and the Authors Guild

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Dear diary ... This weekend I am again invading Blue Sky , the sanctuary of


Speaking of blue skys of our past, I came across a story about my old club and the way it is swimming in financial irony. Oddly and despite being topped and tailed by one of Sydney's highest-grossing restaurants and best ocean pools, the iconic Bondi Icebergs is in financial difficulties having recorded an operating profit for the year of just $1008. Iceberg member #703 no longer drinks as heavily as he used to. Shame on mmmmwwwaaaa Icebergs at risk of sinking

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Rumsfeld's Wisdom
Rumsfeld's logic may be tongue-twisting, but ...

At a February 12, 2002, news briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained the limitations of intelligence reports: "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."

• Where the known meets the unknown is where science begins [What's wrong with young American men Attack of the listless lads ; Why do we tolerate intolerance? ]
• · Costs and benefits of community involvement ; Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs ; Mark Cuban is a witty guy: If only I was taller. If only I was thinner. If only I was richer: If Only….
• · · Everything I know I Learned from Folk Songs ; There are hundreds of ways of approaching the topic, writing and stress A Plethora of Hats or is it Grumble and Gripe?
• · · · It is difficult enough to get seven internationally known and opinionated business people and journalists in one room at the same time. Getting them to read 17 heavyweight books over a busy summer and then to agree on the best six in a single meeting seemed at best optimistic when the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs launched their business book award in April. How the judges brought the contenders to book (link likely only very short-lived); HR has traditionally struggled to adequately quantify a hard contribution to an organisation. Craig Donaldson speaks with the authors of the report Evaluating Human Capital and the Human Resources Function about the latest trends in the area and outlines the steps HR professionals need to take in order to measure their work. HR’s measurement baggage How effective is your HR function?
• · · · · How taking a Parkinson's disease wonder drug apparently makes some people want to gamble and have sex all the time Overstimulated ; A Final Nomination: Maps for Lost Lovers ; All you need is love
• · · · · · Art of cooking ; Book lovers are shunning the "stack-'em-high, sell-'em-cheap" tactics of supermarkets in favour of the personal touch provided by dedicated bookshops Fairytale result for bookshops

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He is the best speaker who can turn men’s ears into eyes ...

I’m the first person to pooh-pooh bestsellers, especially the ones that everybody falls in love with because they’re so damned heart-warming and life affirming. The Write Book Buzz: Tuesdays with Morrie
Book news is a service that collects news from book news sources Newsportal for the readers and writers in the business

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Other Men's Daughters
Books about failed marriages are as old as the Bible (Adam and Eve, after all, had the shortest honeymoon on record).

Yet most novelists play favorites with their feuding spouses. In Other Men's Daughters (Triquarterly Books/Northwestern, $15.95 paper), one of the truest and saddest portraits of a disintegrating marriage, Richard Stern does not. Granted, the focus remains on Robert Merriwether, a Harvard academic whose specialty--the physiology of thirst--does nothing to improve his desiccated home life. Our sympathies are mostly with him. From time to time, though, we get a glimpse of the household through the embittered eyes of his wife, Sarah, and discover that her grievances are no less raw or real. This balancing act is exquisitely calibrated

• Old and indifferent - what could be worse? You wouldn't get away with that nowadays [Old and indifferent - what could be better? Aesthetics of bewilderment ; I now give up on people Older, and bleaker ; Free societies provide the conditions for happiness: For centuries, philosophers and poets have tried to understand what happiness is, and what might contribute to it. In recent decades, scientists have started to come up with the answers. Happiness is electrical activity in the left front part of the brain, and it comes from getting married, getting friends, getting rich, and avoiding communism The Scientist's Pursuit of Happiness ; What It Costs To Live Well In The U.S. ]
• · Do you let small issues build up inside? Do you simmer? Does it raise your stress levels? It took me about 5 seconds to fall hopelessly in love with Textpander ; If we can begin to infect our environment in a positive way
• · · It's time to start planning your jailbreak. Are you living in a prison of your own design?; Cheers, Not Jeers! The Secret to a Winning Presentation
• · · · Private and cultural life are as passionate as business and politics are cynical Kangaroo Kandinsky ; In this economy, energy is the currency. Artists should stop casting entrepreneurs as criminals
• · · · · A.P. Fashions a News Feed for the Young; Fictional character eBay auction wins over book fans ; Wallace labeled Doctor Zhivago - a little commie
• · · · · · The Career Digest ; from Association of Talent Agents Actors' Agent Search ; Collection of online books, research materials online Bookrags

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US journalist Janet Malcolm put her finger on what journalism is really about when she claimed in her book, The Journalist and the Murder, that every journalist knows that what he does is "morally indefensible" and that in his heart he's a sort of "confidence trickster" who lulls people into a false sense of security and then betrays them mercilessly.

Media Link has been providing free research to journalists since 1987 MEDIA LINK

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Time to Blog?
Just how taxing is it to be one of today’s chief executive officers?

Most are on call, in one form or another, nearly 24 hours a day. According to an article in the Pocket Manager, it’s difficult to determine precisely how many hours the typical CEO works, but research shows that U.S.- and U.K.-based chief executive officers work the longest hours. While Oracle’s Larry Ellison has attempted to cut back on his 80-hour work week, most CEOs ether haven’t mastered the technique or don’t have that luxury. So why in the world would CEOs take on the extra task of blogging—a communication medium with a tentative ROI that remains largely unproven

• Adding Your Voice to the Conversation. Why CEOs Should Blog [Media and democracy ; PDF version Managing Major Media Companies in an Era of Globalization ]
• · The Latham Diaries Pressure on ABC ; Mr Murdoch said Mr Blair told him the BBC's reporting of the aftermath of the August 29 hurricane was full of hatred of America and gloating at our troubles BBC accused of bias
• · · Malcolm Turnbull's doggerel: the former internet entrepreneur has launched a “dog blog Welcome to Jojo, Mellie and Rusty's Dog Blogs! ; Wentworth is definitely a dog friendly electorate
• · · · The more things change, the more they stay the same – or, in fact, go nowhere at all: We reveal some of what vendors are keeping mum 20 Things They Don't Want You to Know ;
• · · · · 4,109 issues. Half a million pages. Yours to search and savor Every issue of the New Yorker ; User feedback drives five principles for multimedia news on the Web Avoiding an information overload (Mmm...)
• · · · · · Blog Networks - A List ; The emergence of poverty and race as a central element in the story

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Beyond Right and Left by David McKnight: The New Capitalism induces families and communities to mimic its values. Thus parents outsource their needs and commodify care; they emotionally downsize, telling themselves they can get by with less intimate personal contact; civic life becomes lean and mean and self-interest displaces a common good. Life resembles a work-spend treadmill which leaves little time for unhurried, non-market relations between people. Yet these kinds of activities create personal and community bonds which are quite different from market relations Ironies of the New Capitalism
Silly me. Here I am thinking that the lesson of Katrina is that - finally - people in politics and government are going to have a "Come to Jesus" moment about infrastructure spending and how putting off for tomorrow what you need to do today is a bad, short-sighted idea that's just beginning to affect this country's economic well-being Pork Barrel Politics

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Agencies are embracing podcasting as a low-cost way to deliver audio content to citizens
It started as a hobbyist technology and recently found a foothold at forward-thinking federal agencies.

The White House uses it to distribute the president’s weekly radio address. The State Department’s Voice of America exploits it for broadcasts. And hold onto your hats, because House Republicans and Democrats agree on something. In this case it’s that podcasting—a popular new method of publishing audio programs online—provides an efficient avenue for expressing their views via the Internet.
Last month, NASA delivered the first-ever podcast from space. On the day before the space shuttle Columbia returned to earth, crewmember Steve Robinson transmitted an audio file explaining how he’d repaired the craft’s damaged tiles and reflecting on his opportunity to “watch the sun come up over the bottom of the space shuttle.”

• Early adopters Not just an Apple thing [Marilou Johanek: New Orleans revealed an elitist-driven culture out of touch with a big slice of America that lives paycheck to paycheck Poor Off the Radar of Rich, Powerful ; David Sirota was the chief spokesman for the U.S. House Appropriations Committee Democrats The Deafening - and Dangerous - Silence on Taxes ; Ralph Nader If Corporations Could Laugh ]
• · Iraq Invasion Radicalized Saudi Fighters: Report ; One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons; As federal agencies fumble, ordinary people rise to the task and carry on
What has Happened to Iraq's Missing $1 Billion?; Falling waters, rising troubles
• · · The growing medicalisation of our lives has become so complete The inevitability of death and taxes ; Female judge appointed to High Court; Experiences of crime in two selected migrant communities
• · · · Do Australians have equal protection against hate speech?; Iemma refuses to sack MP over racial slur; Europeans are among the most sceptical about people in power Europeans 'are biggest sceptics'
• · · · · A Picture of Australia’s Children presents the latest available data on key national indicators of health, development and wellbeing of Australian children aged 0–14 years A Picture of Australia’s Children ; Recent developments in refugee and immigration law 2005
• · · · · · Govt scraps fuel tax plan ; Support the St. Patrick's Day Four ; I'm shocked...shocked to learn of obstruction of justice within this administration. I'm shocked to learn of shading dealings Former GSA Official Charged with Making False Statements, Obstructing Federal Investigation

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But tonight I sat down to write post, to blog a blogger, to thank him for his feedback and his critiques. I stopped cold. I realized I do have a bloggy crush. Not love, respect for the writer and the blog well-written—Scot L. Cunningham and Unburned Pieces of the Mind (I'm beginning to find that having a blog is akin to having a village store ...)

Do you have a Blog Crush? Bloggers are falling all over each other inside the Blogosphere of Crushes and Darren at ProBlogger is documenting the risque tresspasses Blog Crushes ; Blog Crushes Revealed - Round 2
Ooooooh my blog lust is no longer a top secret BookSlut is it!

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Google World
Google is covering all the big apps on the Web. They had search, last year added free email, and now has free chat and voice-over-internet [VoIP] and they keep track of all activity with those services. They even have blogs with Blogger.

As long as you stay logged on (to Gmail – their email), Google can track all of your online activities connected to its services, which include searches run on its search engine. Not only do they have information about all of your emails, they also know what searches you run and what results you choose…

• I Love Keyboards, I Can't Tell You How Much Development of very nice maps of people’s networks [The Daily Telegraph, John Brogden and hyena journalism ; John Brogden - a fundamentally good guy ]
• · Yahoo is going to use an old idea (journalism) done in new form (digital, cross-platform) to attract an old source of revenue (advertising) delivered in a new manner (digital video). Sounds like a good thing to me - a new source of money to pay for journalism ; Good Stuff from the Newsreader ; None of us can create, yet all of us are creative - Still Don't Write Off Old Media Print media will figure out how to make money online
• · · EDS has started a blog to provide a vehicle for their EDS fellows to discuss future trends in technology EDS' Next Big Thing Blog ; EDS spice ; Guidelines
• · · · Why Knowledge Management is So Important ; Knowledge Management Organizations and Sites
• · · · · The Global State of Information Security 2005; Utah and Maine Lead All States in Online Government Services ; STAT-USA/Internet, a service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a single point of access to authoritative business, trade, and economic information from across the Federal Government STAT-USA/Internet
• · · · · · Keeping Journalists Safer: What Can Be Done ; Yahoo Moves Into the Hot Zone ;
Six weeks ago, frustrated and sick of my life revolving around my blog, I decided I would continue to read other blogs

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According to Crikey, Mark Latham's oil slick is spreading. Since it oozed into Australian political waters last week, Latham's murky sludge of allegations and enmities, bile and bastardry has tainted Kim Beazley, Kevin Rudd, Stephen Conroy, Wayne Swan and John Faulkner. And it's spreading still. This morning Pru Goward was forced to refute a slimy rumour – retailed by Latham – that she had an affair with John Howard. Kim Beazley's daughters have waded into the Latham muck to defend their father and Leeanda Wilton, the sister of former MP Greg Wilton, has braved the sludge to support Latham's claim that ALP callousness contributed to his suicide. And as the muck spreads, there's been no word from Melbourne University Press, that venerable academic publishing house, of a clean up operation. Publisher Louise Adler told the ABC this morning she was delighted at all the publicity this goo is getting. The Latham Diaries – a "riveting chronicle of life inside politics" – hits the stores today, and it's going to be a publishing smash hit. Meanwhile the slime is out there, spreading still. Robert C(a)rr has A leaked extract of the Latham Diaries…


Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: The Real Meaning is all about your attitude
Heart surgery, studio apartments and hurricanes: all offer opportunities for self-serving slippage between language and the world.

A young man walks through chest-deep floodwater after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Beneath another near-identical photo, except the people are white, another caption reads: Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store. Note, they're "residents", doing some neighbourly "finding". The youth must be a blow-in.

• We're All in It Together Does it jab or come in waves? [Few in publishing inspire more fear than the head buyer of Waterstone's. War of the words ; Kewl. God only knows why cool didn't suffice. Bing Me: Kewl; How are you going? Busy? is like a relentless spur we use to urge each other on, creating a personal version of the old Cold War promise of "mutually assured destruction": if we all stay busy - if we cling to each other in this desperate, dizzy dance - none of us will notice what's actually happening to us and we'll all be dead before we realise it. Life's busy, then you die ]
• · Filmmakers and actors are turning to the net In the can online ; In the end, emotional alchemy boils down to wisdom and compassion. The meltdown of our habits of clinging and pushing away, and of centering everything on ourselves, reveals a wise compassion. There emerges a sense of interconnectedness and a deep wish for everyone, all of us, to experience that freedom Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
• · · There's a whole world of gadgets designed to refine your aural experience Listen up: Loud and clear; Name that tone
• · · · Murder and mysticism challenge three generations of women Little Oberon: Magic mountain ; Without any doubt Sydney rental market is becoming like the old Soviet bread queues, but without the shared black humour. Sydney is like the frog being slowly boiled in warm water. Cast your mind back 10 years and reflect on how your suburb, your city, has changed ... It's not the children of the elite who are being driven out of their city Applying Soviet breadline policies to their housing markets ; Scenes from Ismail Kadare's novel Broken April (1978), a fable of vendetta in the north Albanian highlands, discloses both a narrative and a psychological bias by the laureate of the 2005 Man Booker International fiction prize Living with ghost
• · · · · Set foot in your local Wal-Mart at own peril ; Watch out girls, these guys have had a gutful and it's payback time
• · · · · · Little Fish, with a stunning performance by Cate Blanchett, might just be the best Australian film in quite a while Nothing fishy in Cabramatta ; Publishers and authors are horrified at Waterstone's proposed takeover of Ottakar's and want it blocked A literary storm; Who will bring the high street to book?

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One winter night during one of the many German air raids on Moscow in World War II, a distinguished Soviet professor of statistics showed up in his local air-raid shelter. He had never appeared there before. 'There are seven million people in Moscow,' he used to say. 'Why should I expect them to hit me?' His friends were astonished to see him and asked what had happened to change his mind. 'Look,' he explained, 'there are seven million people in Moscow and one elephant. Last night they got the elephant.'
This change of mind and heart (and perception of risk) - from Peter L Bernstein's astounding work Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, has many lessons for us ...

Taxing Times: 20 year anniversary of the Reform of the Australian Tax System
The Reform of the Australian Taxation System (RATS) has achieved many of its aims in attempting to make the tax system more equitable and efficient

The biggest ever shake up of Australia’s taxation system announced by the former Treasurer, the Hon. Paul Keating on 19 September 1985, has paid dividends to families 20 years on; however, companies have not faired as well, according to National Managing Partner of KPMG’s Tax Practice, Ross Doherty.

• Grand tax plan pays off for taxpayers [Keating reforms led us from tax wilderness ; Louise McBride: A taxation system that would leave everyone better off ; Let's scrap these Kafkaesque tax laws and start again ]

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I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
-Russell C. Taylor

Labor's worst result was in Macquarie Fields where its candidate, Steven Chaytor, was forced to go to preferences to win the seat which former cabinet minister Craig Knowles held by a thumping 23.5 per cent margin Iemma gets a bloody nose

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: State Greens show their muscle
The New South Wales Greens have shown they are a force to be reckoned with at the polling booths this weekend

The Greens achieved an unprecedented swing in by-elections at Maroubra and Marrickville, and cracked the 30 per cent barrier on primary votes for the first time in Australian electoral history.
Marrickville candidate Sam Byrne got 40 per cent of the primary vote, with a swing of 12 per cent, forcing Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt to rely on preferences to secure the seat.

• Triple MaMaMas [Saturday, September 17, 2005 The Poll Bludger Triple M By-Elections Live ; Gay mum set to liven stuffy upper house ]
• · Questions dog foundation formed to aid local children Betrayal of trust?; JG report on foundation sparks state investigation
• · · Gwinnett County Commission spent $150 million since 2000 Long trail of secret land buys ; Bill Bowman and Paul D’Ambrosio of Gannett New Jersey newspapers navigated the details of school district contracts to show that “in districts around the state, it is not uncommon for boards of education to grant tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay to their chief administrators through complex contract deals that keep the true cost of compensation from the taxpayers Perks pad school superintendents' pay
• · · · ASIO bugged embassies, not MPs: ex-chief ; Mary Beth Tinker looks like an ordinary, middle-aged woman. Nothing about her subdued clothing, hairstyle or mannered demeanor suggests she's an answer on law school exams. Except for the black armband Wearing the Right to Free Speech on Her Sleeve
• · · · · Latham 'rapt' with response to book ; In Houston, Scott Parkin lived a mostly inconspicuous life as a part-time history teacher and peace activist. But in Australia, he has become a media sensation, a symbol of dissent and a topic of fervent Australian senate debate. Houstonian stirs a ruckus in Australia ; Google Presents: Big brother keeps an active watch
• · · · · · Iraq Invasion Radicalized Saudi Fighters: Report ; Tim Collins told his troops this was a war of liberation, not conquest. Now he says that he was naive to believe it This is a Mess of Our Own Making

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When a law enforcement officer looks at a company, one of the first questions he or she asks him or herself will be: Are these people good guys or bad guys?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: We're So Good We'll Be Fine
Can you ever think too much about leadership? Not in my book.

But then, I'm firmly in the camp of people make history rather than history makes people. EBay also did one thing Mr. Omidyar was not thinking about 10 years ago: it proved that even in these daunting times, one person with a good idea can still change the world.
In law-firm-land, think of what Marty Lipton built at Wachtel, the development of the Socratic/case method of instruction by Christopher Columbus Langdell at Harvard Law in the 1800's, or even the invention of the "Cravath model" here in the early 1900's. Do individuals make a difference? You bet

• And Other Fairy Tales [Maybe we are crazy. Maybe we will change the world; Morris Iemma and Peter Debnam face their first electoral test as Premier and Opposition Leader Tripple MaMaMa byelections. It is all about the state of the State economy, stupid - Bread and the Ballot: Byelections test mettle of leaders You cannot go past the poll bludger for a comprehensive coverage of the triple-M by-election seats NSW by-elections ; The annual allowance for senators and members Recent Parliamentary Library papers ;]
• · They might not know it, but the politicians of NSW have some new neighbours... Just near the Parliament building, a small community of homeless men has sprung up, drawn by the protection it offers from swirling winds. Out of Mind ; Mind games: Without shame, we thrash out marriage difficulties before relationship therapists. Parents pack their teenagers off to psychotherapy when exam pressure threatens to overwhelm. Trauma counsellors swarm over crime scenes as naturally as police From the couch to the bedroom
• · · Proposed laws on strikes and lockouts tip the playing field further against employees Secret ballot or secret war? ; Betting & Polls
• · · · Anti-money laundering update ; Scott Parkin Our very own political prisoner ; Murdoch fears Latham gets more than enough rope
• · · · · The eloquence of America's politicians. My uncle, Richard Podrasky. Representing the cousins, my cousin, Jeannie Podrasky Polished Pollies ; Beyond Right and Left
• · · · · · An eastern German report card 16 years after reunification The Price of a Failed Reunification ; Here comes the rent rise, and it may top 30%

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Catholic bishops have decried the nation's culture of waste and busyness, warning that Australians are victims of the disease of affluence Affluenza is wasting us away

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Hollywood Follows the Reader
When Filmmakers Go by the Book, Should Filmgoers Go Buy It Too?

"What! Another of those damned, fat, square, thick books!" an exasperated Duke of Gloucester is supposed to have said to Edward Gibbon upon being presented Volume 2 of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." "Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon!" And all these years later, it's the same thing: Damned, square, thick books, scribbled by little Johnny Writer types, then turned into movies, and this fall appears to feature a shelfful of them. It's not even a trend, it's a simple reality. Just look: "Shopgirl," "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Memoirs of a Geisha," "Pride and Prejudice," "Everything Is Illuminated," "Harry Potter and the Flagon of Iced Gin," all due in the coming months. And there's at least a half-dozen more before Christmas. Good heavens, sirs, will you make a movie of anything ? Have you no pride?

• The deepest truth of the book into the movie There is no God if everyone dies alone [ Why Donnie Darko is a favorite film on college campuses ; World’s literature is diversifying, and a new, bolder generation of readers is taking shape Sink or Swim; Dreams & Words without Borders ]
• · We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings Faith does breed charity ; 8 Principles for Learning 50 Reasons Why We Can't Change
• · · They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it Thieves respect property ; Rabbi Aron Moss Is It Immoral to be Overweight? ; Sydney's underworld of the '80s is getting a fresh airing A life of crime brought to book
• · · · The media were among the first on the scene in New Orleans and often lent a hand, but Network Nine gilded the lily of their "media rescue" to match their rivals at Seven. Media Heros? ; The Angel of Forgetfulness Encouraging Morning ; Australians are finding it harder to get away from it all due to working longer and more erratic hours to pay off ballooning debts Have a good weekend - if you can afford to take the time
• · · · · Chapters Bookstore Celebrates Its 20th, but 21 May Be a Cliffhanger ; Save Kepler's: the Blog
• · · · · · Wisteria? Dividend? Freedom? Sleep? Here's your chance to tell the world about your favorite word ; One sign of a mature, argumentative democracy is that it expects its bright young talents to carp at their own culture. Bedevilled by a lack of detail Trashing own backyards

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My youngest daughter, Gabriella, a.k.a. Gabrielle, Bella, Vella, Wella, began blogging this week A debut worthy of MJ Rose ;-)

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Leaders are people who leave their footprints in their areas of passion.
-Jonathan Byrnes

There should be a continued discussion well beyond the trivialities of parliamentary question time and the revolving news cycles. I hope this book will help concentration on what might really be going wrong with Australia and how, as it turned out after the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies, we might again get the chance to set things right. Looking for Leadership: Have Australians become more conservative over the past decade? Australia in the Howard years

Eye on Politics & Law Lords:
Australia is one of the easiest countries in which to start and run a business, a new World Bank report has found.

The Doing Business report ranks Australia as the sixth most business-friendly country of the 155 studied, based on assessments of a range of regulatory benchmarks related to business operations, including start-up, paying taxes and access to credit.

• World Bank says Australia a top place to run a business [Doing Business ; Mobile phone retailer John Ilhan of Crazy John's still heads Australia's wealthiest young entrepreneurs, entertainers and sports people, with a fortune of $300 million What's it like to be crazy rich? ; Maybe we are crazy. Maybe we will change the world You are Different. So is Jozef Imrich ]
• · In a hot summer's night in December 1964 I was about to write the last chapter of a book on Australia. The opening sentence of this last chapter was: 'Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck.' The great irony: How ironic then that Horne's irony was totally overlooked! ; Horne's irony was lost on Australia
• · · Tim Dunlop: The biggest signal of an extremist government isn't the policies they put forward, it's the way that they try to implement them. Sunrise, sunset ; When John Howard speaks from the Australian heartland - rather than to it - the competition finds it hard to get a word in edgewise Relaxed and comfortable ; Should housing provide a tax haven or a haven for people? The real purpose of housing
• · · · The Premier, Morris Iemma, has refused to rule out raising taxes to help rid the State Government of its growing budget deficit Deficit rings the tax rise alarm ; Do we have the technology to build a better legal system?; John Braithwaite Markets in Vice, Markets in Virtue Sydney: Too much talk about tax reform in Australia focuses on just one small headline-grabbing aspect: the cutting of personal tax rates. What about the on-going and increasingly abusive tax avoidance and evasion that is undermining of the integrity of the tax system Avoiding the issue: countering the termites in the Australian tax system
• · · · · A dirty joke inside the government The Aristobureaucrats ; Just Following the Law ; The organisational culture within Australia’s Department of Immigration appears to have little regard for human rights. Tom Davis, an ex-insider, says it didn't have to be that way Why I quit the department
• · · · · · Former Labor leader Mark Latham says he doesn't plan to ever speak again to his political mentor Gough Whitlam Enough Rope ; Mark Latham's habit of projecting his own bad motives onto others is about to unfold spectacularly Mark Latham: Bitter loser or brave tell-all?; A case for political maturity

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Jay Rosen: Spine is always good, rage is sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there's no substitute for being able to think. What is the difference between a “blame game” and real accountability? If you’ve never really thought it about it, your outrage can easily misfire. Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina ... From Deference to Outrage: Katrina and the Press

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Research Problem
Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet: Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More

Neither Google nor Yahoo searches produced results. Nor did searches of the various subscription databases to which I have access as a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California. After several days of browsing to look for the answer on and off, when I was not working on other matters, I realized the whole search was taking entirely too much time. That is when I had a thought.

• Using Open Source Information [ 10 Reasons for Reading a News Site ; Journalism by Every Means Necessary ]
• · Rupert's in hot pursuit of those migrating ads Murdoch has fresh go at mastering the web ; What Journalism Could Learn from Advertising
• · · eBay to acquire Skype; How Google Got Its Groove On; With a billion users and counting, the Internet hardly seems to need an evangelist. Yet "chief Internet evangelist" is precisely the title chosen by Vinton G. Cerf for his new job at Google; Tasmania powers up 12Mbps broadband
• · · · Journalists' Report Documents Challenges To Obtaining Government Data ; Public Eye's most fundamental mission is to bring unprecedented transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News. Show Me Angry
• · · · · Every citizen is a reporter. Journalists aren't some exotic species, they're everyone who seeks to take new developments, put them into writing, and share them with others OhmyNews and 21st Century Journalism ; Hiding Information from the People Who Paid for It
• · · · · · So, You Wanna Fund a Startup? ; Media ownership and convergence, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Speech by Graeme Samuel, in an address to the Melbourne Press Club Journalism 2005 Conference Media ownership and convergence,

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Literary bloggers have become the new darlings of the publishing industry Book blogs' buzz grows louder

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Little Fish
Little Fish will, quite simply, knock your socks off.

Little Fish may turn out to be the most important film in a year that's looking like a dramatic turnaround for Australian movies. Local film production is still mortally crippled by under-investment, the legacy of years of deliberate political neglect. But films are being made and many are capitalising on the international success of Australian and New Zealand actors.

• Shakespearean story of Tracy Heart [The struggle to get ahead in the suburbs makes for a memorable Australian movie Sink or swim ; September smatterings ; Nancy Drew and the mystery of the mean girls ]
• · A series of article on the seven deadly sins, and why they're not always so bad! ; Cities of the Future Today’s “Mega-cities” are Overcrowded and Environmentally Stressed ; Kurt Vonnegut doesn't want any part of contemporary culture
• · · Men are more likely than women to be authors of journal articles and influential textbooks in political science. Why? Gender Gap in Publishing ; About 90% of all writers are desperate. Especially with the first few books. And no wonder. There are over 10,000 novels published a year and each imprint only anoints three to four books every season The attention game: A crisis of confidence and sets up a neurotic condition
• · · · A dismayingly bad book What irony: reviewer ousts author ; Oxford University Press is one of the first major publishers (that I've seen, at any rate) to blog Blue Background Makes Nifty Visual Pun
• · · · · Manorama Online reports that Literary figures making false forays into performing arts. ; The True Classic of Terrorism
• · · · · · Self-help gurus might be fakes - but why do so many people fall for them? ; In an age of blogging, reflexive ironizing and ceaseless celebrity worship, two small literary-intellectual magazines try to make a different kind of big noise Among the Believers ; Novels can accommodate those subtleties of the human condition that leave us shaking our heads in perplexity Victory parades should be times of mourning

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John Allen Paulos, professor of mathematics at Temple University, argues that life is too complex for evolution to explain, say supporters of intelligent design. Yet they insist market forces will suffice for the economy The mousetrap

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents.

Forewarned that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market. They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.
It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. Thus does the invisible hand work its wonders in mysterious ways.

• Bush is trying to save the world when he can’t even Take care of his own people here at home [Book Relief and a Curious Coincidence ; Remove the elementary staples of organised, civilised life - food, shelter, drinkable water, minimal personal security - and we go back within hours to a Hobbesian state of nature, a war of all against all Decivilisation is not as far away as we like to think ; Tom Engelhardt on the parallels between the Iraq War and the Katrina crisis At the Front of Nowhere at All ]
• · David Rieff on why the ideological battle against Islamists is nothing like the struggle against communism Their Hearts and Minds? ; Why German writers should speak their minds in the current election campaign. Writers! Break free of your routine!
• · · The era of small government is over. Sept. 11 challenged it. Katrina killed it. Small-Government Rhetoric Gets Filed Away; Why judicial philosophies matter The Real World
• · · · The Conservatives toy with a politically risky idea A dip in the middle: The flat tax ; Scrapping tax breaks for company cars, increasing the cost of four-wheel-drives, boosting bicycle use and topping up the first home buyers' grant for people who buy greener homes must be considered to make cities liveable Tax drivers and reward green homes
• · · · · Mr Brogden's staff argue a three-month redundancy package was made available to staff of the previous leader Kerry Chikarovski Liberals to fund Brogden staff payouts ; Iemma and Debnam face off in Parliament
• · · · · · Telecommunications problems, power outages, and slowness to update the department Web site contributed to delays getting aid to people who needed it Homeland Security's CTO Says Katrina Was A 'Failure' Of Incident Response ; Iemma and Debnam both need an impressive start in Parliament A new game of follow the leader but the knives remain sharpened