Bigotry does not mean believing that people who differ from you are wrong, it means assuming that they are either knaves or fools. To think them so is an immediate convenience, since it saves us the trouble of analyzing either their views or our own. ‘Christians are right, pagans are wrong,’ says the Song of Roland. If we have to answer the other people and find that we can’t, then our bigotry grows more intense. It can turn to hatred: and one can reach the lowest point of all—measuring our loyalty to our own cause by our hatred of theirs. -Frank Sheed, The Church and I
It is a good habit now and then to question
things that one has taken for granted for years.
-German proverb
Cronulla, Kronulla and Cronulla dominates the newspapers this week Txting hate: Racist messages spread from Sydney International reaction to Cronulla ... Many Europeans are asking whether they can ever emulate the American melting pot The only thing that melted was the pot
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Tragedy of the commons: Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles
There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is
there is very little about which one can be certain.
Somerset Maugham
• Crickey’s verdict - Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac so czech out Kate Ellis The sexiest pollie is – by far – John Faulkner! [ ; High brow French develop a taste for kiss-and-tell celebrity gossip ] • · Advertiser (Adelaide), 14/12/2005, Page 14 The Australian Taxation Office has won a global gobbledygook award for a particularly confusing section of GST legislation. The tax office collected the Gold Bull award for a section of the Act which said the tax commissioner may treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened and treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened Our tax men talk prize load of Bull ; Did you know? That the productivity commissioner has predicted that at its current rate of growth Australia’s Tax Act will be 3.2 billion pages long and would take 2.3 million years to read by the end of the 21st century Tax Act • · · You don't have to wade far into the Australian Taxation Office's guide, Part IV A For Dummies, to understand why it took 24 years to produce. The guide is scarcely more comprehensible than Part IVA of the Income Tax Act itself, and serves as yet another admission by the Tax Office that the act is incomprehensible ATO guide reveals the real dummies ; The Australian Financial Review 14-Dec-2005 The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued guidelines on tax avoidance. Released in late 2005, the guidelines document is called "Part IVA for Dummies". This document is even harder to understand than the incomprehensible Income Tax Act itself. Part IVA is the section devoted to anti-avoidance measures. The Tax Act runs to 10,000 pages and is very wordy and complex. The problem is that tax laws are complex when they should be simple, and difficult where they should be easy to understand. They are written in jargon and convoluted sentences. The new law allowing tradespeople to split their incomes with spouses is unfair. It gives an advantage that a normal wage and salary earner could never have. Australia's tax laws are both punitive and complex ATO guide reveals the real dummies • · · · Gordon Brown on liberty and the role of the state ; Separation of sex and state • · · · · A Global Exchange Report The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers; Getting Smart at Being Good ... ... Are Companies Better Off for It? • · · · · · Youth is wasted on the young Your Guess Is as Good as Mine ; Capitalism as if the World MattersMachiavelli says: Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration