Monday, July 31, 2006



MICHAEL D'ASCENZO: I think people misunderstand what compliance is all about. People talk about collection being the amount of money we go out and collect from people.
The whole art of tax administration is trying to create an environment where people voluntarily comply. So the fact that you are out there providing a real deterrence is all about trying to ensure that you don't have to catch anybody out. It's all about trying to get people to pay up. What those collection figures don't disclose is the higher level of voluntary compliance by that segment.
Transcript of Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo interviewed by Alan Kohler on ABC’s Inside Business program – Sunday 2 July 2006      

Take the legislative map out of the politicians' hands and give it to an independent panel. Draw the line on redistricting mischief

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Our Federal Future
Is there a new political breeze wafting across this nation with the federalism remarks from Treasurer Peter Costello? He is the first high-profile politician to speak against the present three-tiered governance system we have had for more than a century. 

Let's cut to the chase: Peter Costello wants to abolish the states. Taken to its logical conclusion, that's what the federal Treasurer is really suggesting when he says the national Government should control taxation and that the states are turning inevitably into service deliverers for Canberra


The states as Commonwealth branch offices? It's a debate we have to have [Wealthy and wise: Jacob Weisberg on Warren Buffett's lesson to the rich. Warren Buffett gave his fortune to Bill Gates; Note to the New Treasury Secretary: It's Time to Raise Taxes]
• · "Culture of corruption" is real: Norman Ornstein on how much of Congress's behavior these days is unethical and repugnant. "Culture of Corruption" Is Real ; Diminutive, charisma-free liberal billionaire Michael Bloomberg plots his path to the White House. Michael Bloomberg
• · · The best management theory might simply be to take your own advice. Is It All Hooey?; ECONOMISTS are in almost universal agreement that Americans save too little, and several policies have been proposed with the goal of encouraging them to save more. Looking for the Incentives That Will Prompt Americans to Save More
• · · · A look at why high earners work longer hours. Expanding Workweek? ; Hampered by His Own Irony,
Bing Misses a Fat Target Resume Writers 100 Bullshit Jobs...And How to Get Them
• · · · · James Hardie Industries chief executive Louis Gries has scored a $US1.89 million ($2.54 million) bonus while victims of the company's asbestos products continue to sweat over a longdelayed compensation deal. The annual report for the building materials company, released yesterday, reveals Mr Gries took home a total salary package of $U53.51 million for the year to March 31. Hardies chief's $2.5m pay win ; Presumed innocent politically motivated, retaliatory charges    The important, the ironic and, sometimes, the idiotic from around ...  

Sunday, July 30, 2006



Another summer day at Iceberg ... This is a weekend to die for ;-) When the last World Cup whistle blew in Berlin this month, on July 9, it was a signal of the end of the biggest, richest and most watched competition in the history of soccer. It will also, more controversially, go down as the world's biggest-ever betting event... Football. Ltd. the ugly face of modern football: business

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Blogging Souls on Ice:
Mother Jones - An article on America's human embryo glut and the unbearable lightness of almost being.

Aanis Elspas is a mother of four. Unlike most parents, she had three of her children simultaneously. The nine-year-old triplets were born in 1997 after Elspas underwent a series of in vitro fertilization treatments for infertility


I don’t have the heart to thaw them [The Internet is rapidly becoming the world’s library: academics should be ensuring their book is on the shelf. Academia online ; Traditional media still the one]
• · Virginia Postrel on how massage went from the strip club to the strip mall PDF version Transform the health care system; The Next Starbucks? ; It's easy to make futurists look silly. For every prediction that comes true (or that sort of comes true—Nostradamus predicted that someone named "Hister" would do something terrible one day), about 20,000 more do not. Down with the techno-utopians! Up with the techno-realists!
• · · New spokesman Tony Snow has brought a more playful style to White House public relations, but secrecy is still a concern The good humor man

Friday, July 28, 2006



Arthur Miller wrote, Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

This week has seen a full dose of poetry of the taste from kitchen of June's to Dial's, Five Ways Thai, Watson's Bay Doyles, Digi.Caf, Glebe pubs and much more ;-)

Everything Changes Yet Everything Stays the Same Under the Sun: Life Banc
Investment banks have innovated at a furious pace and changed the mix of their businesses. While banks like to say that they still rely on traditional investment banking, their profits increasingly come from other activities such as trading and principal investment. As The Economist rather cheekily noted ‘the sharp suited investment bankers act as a sales force for less well dressed colleagues who work out how to make money from swaps, operations and direct investments’.      

I live in Alexandria Virginia. Near the Supreme Court Chambers is a toll bridge across the Potomac. When in a rush, I pay the dollar toll and get home early. However, I usually drive outside the downtown section of the city and cross the Potomac on a free bridge. This bridge was placed outside the downtown Washington, DC area to serve a useful social service, getting drivers to drive the extra mile and to help alleviate congestion during the rush hour.
If I went over the toll bridge and through the barrier without paying the toll, I would be committing tax evasion. If, however, I drive the extra mile and drive outside the city of Washington to the free bridge, I am using a legitimate, logical, and suitable method of tax avoidance, and I am performing a useful social service by doing so.
For my tax evasion, I should be punished. For my tax avoidance, I should be commended. The tragedy of life today is that so few people know that the free bridge even exists."
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis


• A 39-year-old man fighting for his life after BASE jumping off the Harbour Bridge could face charges if he survives. (The first time I jumped) was for a Mission Impossible film. I was doubling for the hero who fell off the Bridge and miraculously opened the parachute just before hitting the water. The other time was for my own adventure documentary film production - The barbed wire used to stop people leaping off the Bridge was no deterrent. Simply Skydive website ; Mel Gibson - The preponderance of the evidence indicates that the religion claim is merely a tax-evasion ruse and a fig leaf for a hugely profitable enterprise  George Bush, Alcoholic - Part 1
• · Every day, experts bombard us with prognostications on Iraq, bird flu, Bolivian coca, global warming, and the fate of the Euro. Who checks their predictions? How Accurate Are Your Pet Pundits? ; 'This is not detention, this is hell'

Saturday, July 22, 2006



It was nice to spy again the familiar shapes of the bohemian Sydney from the sky last night after a two-week Mexican absence ... and to be in a company of Mal's mates made it even more magical! The Darling Harbour was surrounded by a strange golden misty, dewish, veil and somehow the Little Snail looked bigger from the first level than usual. The same Little Snail used to be up the road from Christopher's place in the 1980s at Bondi where so many wild wild Polish parties took place.

This time it was not a coincidence to bump into Kerrie and Fiona or Nigel and Joe or John and Bernard. What a small world too as some of the people at the table knew some people I used to work with. The world is getting smaller and smaller just like the Little Snail is getting bigger and bigger ;-) The French Bernard is like me always amazed by the fluency and the number of European languages John and Patricia Azarias speak ...

Speaking of languages and stories, the turn of the page has met the turn of the times. No, the book is not dead, but more than ever it is backlit, portable and reduced to the size of a mobile phone screen.

The thousand-year-old Japanese classic The Tale of Genji, recognised as one of the oldest novels in the world, is now available as an online download. So is The Pillow Book, the 11th-century memoir of a shogun courtierFor more and more readers, the printed page is losing out to a new way of reading in the dark of Cold River

CODA: Ach, and the world is getting more and more dangerous Who Can We Trust?

Monday, July 17, 2006



Pacific International hotel chain rocks as do the noisy bunch of Asian kids next door who keep working class people awake in the middle of the night ;-(

And another thing ... Is anyone who is serious about the literary scene in Australia surprised ;-)
AS Australia's sole Nobel laureate for literature, the late Patrick White should occupy a place of honour in our nation. Instead, as The Australian's Jennifer Sexton reported on Saturday, many of the nation's publishers do not recognise his prose or even consider it suitable to print. Sexton submitted a chapter from White's novel The Eye of the Storm to 12 Australian publishers and agents. Not one would have published it. How embarrassing. The only conclusion to draw is that Australians do not honour their literary legacy. Two decades ago, White was a fixture on the secondary-school syllabus. It says much about Australia that students are made to study movie posters and book covers but White's timeless literary genius is not accorded a place.
Jayne Denshire and Helen Bateman of Limelight Press and Rebecca Kaiser of Allen & Unwin are yet to respond ...
Whatever you do do not mention the literary ignorance

Antipodean bohemian published in Canada Now blessed with amazing American and European distribution

Saturday, July 15, 2006



Just like the river, always in love with the moon ...
-Source my space ;-)

Blasts from parliamentary past, John and Rebecca, shared a few stories over coffee with me. I was late, but it is better to be later than never especially after tasting all kinds of Wirra Wirras ;-) Adelaideans are very forgiving lot especially when it comes to relaxing Saturday morning - Honourable mention to great bakery and Providore Paul and Irene Noakes of Gourmet to Go fame and also Atlas Continental whose barista has never ever left Adelaide yet makes the best coffee and squeezes the freshest juices on earth - the place also attracts laughter ;-)

Margaret enjoyed her Salmon, Peter had half of the organic chicken and my eye fillet was cooked to rare perfection last night. Much damage was done to our liver ... Six more days and another set of Sydney based wine lovers will suffer my company at Pyrmont.

While I do not miss the Sydney smog, I certainly have spicy food withdrawl as Dial's Kitchen is one of the best cuchina in the world and Mal attracts only the best quality of taste buds and and eyes for exotic details around her ;-)

I am coffied out, newspapered out, ( SMH, the Australian AFR even Adelaide Advertiser) and now even walked out as the River Torren is such a twisty mass of H2O. Luckily, it is peppered with cozy cafes all within stone throw distances be it at Hindley or Rundle or whatever streets ... I gather that the headlines in Sydney today mention Adelaide Cornelia Rau

BUT guess who I saw as I walked across the Adelaide's Shy Botanic Gardens? Here and there labour was planted in love with Italy, actors and politics ... Labor stalwart and author Bob Ellis penned a poem for the pair: No greater love was known by maid or man than by this tardy coupling -- Sasha and Mike Rann Strictly Sasha and Ballroom

Indeed, many bohemian characters would be worried if they were not booed by taxing lorraways and barranquerros of these world or similar death coaches and green avocados ... Like Cold River Barri Kosky is different

Friday, July 14, 2006


It is Friday night at Rundle Street and the highest temperature today was 10 degrees Celsium. Almost Central European standard. The pubs are filled with worn out characters: mmmwwwwaaaa Paul, Donna, Brett who could not resist the smell of the pub. Others like Mary and Jess made sure their routine did not suffer ;-) Peter and his wife are invading the famous Argentinian for the best eye fillet steak in the world at Gouger place. We both wonder, me and Peter, why - why does not Sydney have Gouger Street Markets - the best Kaiser, Cabai, bread rolls from Jess's Mount Barker bakeries, cheese from Kangaroo Island, honey from all kinds of hilly spots: The Mediterean (sic) soups are to die for at the markets. I am informed that even Melbourne does not reach the level of variety in terms of freshest produce and the quality is beyond reproach ... Wonderful World Czech this out Adelaide is surrounded by fresh produce
PS: This must be the friendliest city on earth - it is also a place where cities compete with pubs on every corner - just amazing how many priests and publicans there are! I stayed in Adelaide for a few months in 1996 and nothing has changed there still is no such thing as smog in Adelaide ... Cross my heart! So get your act together Sydney you cannot give all your business to poor quality places like Macro or some other organically challenged places ...

Tuesday, July 11, 2006



Iceberg was peppered with swimmers from south part of Sydney and other wider parts of this small wonderful world. Gabbie found herself listening to many intoxicated voicesand that was only noon on Sunday. As Iceberg is a drinking club with a swimming problem ;-(

Perhaps I might get together friends like John, Davina, Gina, Richard Mark and Mal's wide circle of friends more often ;-) Icebergers - Mick and Ted and Terry appreciated the Parliament House Red ...

My blogging suffered due to football in the last few weeks and now I am in Adelaide where the intenet access at Rundle Street is of Eastern European quality. Amazing, how slow some of the South Mexican are. It is a mixed trip filled with Gouger Street Argentinian restaurant and Rundle Street wine bars and brainstorming during the day where the focus is on sharing of information and ideas. Variety is spice of life ... At Coogee tasting Italian food with some of the best legal minds on Saturday night to Sunday night dining at Astor Hotel with new potential filmmakers and bohemian characters ...

Friday, July 07, 2006



When I lay down I thought and said

Perhaps tomorrow I may be dead

Yes, I shall stand with all my might

And for sweet liberty will fight.
- Lt. James McMichael 

Iceberg Survives Cold River Crossing: marking rusty barb wires over a quater of century old IT'S A BOOK! Resuscitating the Storyteller: 7 July 2006 AD
Biography allows us in the best case to see a human being in exactly the grandiose way that Tomas Tranströmer described in his poem “Romanesque arches”:
Inside the vast Romanesque church the tourists thronged
in the half-dark.
Arch after arch yawned, no view of the whole.
A few candle flames flickered.
An angel with no face embraced me
and whispered through my whole body:
“Don’t be ashamed of being human, be proud!
Inside you arch after arch opens without end.
You will never finish, that’s how its meant to be.”
Blinded with tears
I was thrust out onto the simmering piazza
along with Mr and Mrs Jones, Mr Tanaka and
Signora Sabatini
and inside them all arch after arch opened without end.
(For the living and the dead, 1989)

As Gordon Bowker points out in his life of Orwell, it is interesting to note that the central character in 1984 works as a kind of anti-biographer. Winston Smith’s profession is, of course, to falsify the past, to eradicate individuals from history
Biography keeps the idea of the author alive, and does do with a mixture of history and fiction.

BOOK LAUNCH INVITATION: Iceberg Survives, Cold River

Coming soon to one of the coolest bars in Sydney: The Iron Curtain escape: The Stuff of Dreams

IT'S A BOOK!

Born in the USA in 2005 (after a 25-year gestation!)
Weight: 800.0 grams
Length: 244 pages
Baby Dimensions: 9.0 x 6.0 x 0.6 inches

Iceberg's is throwing the Proud Father a party ... Selected Friends are invited to join Icebergs for the Antipodean Paperback Launch of - Cold River - by Jozef Imrich. This is an escape story with frostbite ...

SUNDAY, July 9 - Noon (til late)
@ Sydney’s hottest literary venue, Bondi Iceberg Spy Bar
(between ocean pool and roof)

Cold River @ Sydney’s hottest literary venue, Bondi Iceberg Spy Bar

Thursday, July 06, 2006



From the time the plane touched down in Sydney on 8 September 1980 , I sensed my world was about to change forever.  Political enemy of the state one day, political refugee at Traiskirchen the second and Antipodean free man at Villawood the third. Boundaries are erased when political escapees are active in assigned different roles ... Women today expect more help around the home and more emotional engagement from their husbands. But they still want their husbands to be providers who give them financial security and freedom ...

In his book So Help Me God former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore, the “Ten Commandments judge,” State Acknowledgement of God

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: The stories of a life: intellectual Father Christmas
A special issue of The End of Biography, including an editorial on the stories of a life. As Gordon Bowker points out in his life of Orwell, it is interesting to note that the central character in 1984 works as a kind of anti-biographer. Winston Smith’s profession is, of course, to falsify the past, to eradicate individuals from history:

Freud focused too closely on an individual’s past. Today a personal biography is more like a collection of short stories than a novel. It can be difficult to find a theme running through it.


• He approaches Marx rather as an enthusiastic naturalist might view a virile alligator; the beast is magnificent, but some of its habits are frankly disappointing Hysteria of ideas: See you later, alligator [Biography keeps the idea of the author alive, and does do with a mixture of history and fiction. Resuscitating the author ; In order to be able to create a life-narrative the individual needs a collective social backdrop Plotless individualism]
• · PDF version: Joseph Epstein on Friendship Among the Intellectuals ; Amitai Etzioni who kindly links to Media Dragon writes about the rights and responsibilities of immigrants The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Vetting Services
• · · Peter Coleman who used to be the regular visitor at the NSW Parliamentary Library notes Why Anglos Run the World ; Statistics indicate it is Is church too feminine for men? ; My kids want me to stay home tonight so that they can play Hop on Pop. But I'm hoping that my wife and I will somehow manage to hop on a plane to Finland instead. She Ain't Heavy, She's My Wife
• · · · BROKEN GENIUS: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age Madness in the method; A review of The Bloodless Revolution: Radical Vegetarians and the Discovery of India How to be Lank, Fleet and Nimble ; Management guides claim that anyone can make it, if they work hard enough. By promoting this false dream, such books threaten to turn us into slaves
• · · · · Today people do not believe in objectivity but in a variety of perspectives. Post-modernism has provided biography with scholarly legitimacy. The individual against theory ; The exotic, benign image of the Himalayan kingdom cannot conceal the battle between authoritarian politics and democratic dissent that is shaping its future. Bhutan’s democratic puzzle
• · · · · · Conservative hypocrisy puts college out of the reach of working-class Americans Divesting From Our Future ; Why is it that you can't recall a single instance when Thoreau described shitting in the woods or a time when he discussed the romantic shortcomings of hermitage? As long as I can remember, I have romanticized the notion of becoming a hermit. Kauai Diarist: Jungle Boy

Wednesday, July 05, 2006



What’s wrong with that exclamation? You hear it uttered everywhere, by friends and family, on television, radio, the internet…Happy Fourth of July! Not so independent.

July fourth is Independence Day in the United States, a day when Americans commemorate the signing, in 1776, of the Declaration of Independence, a document that formally severed political ties with Britain, then America's colonial ruler.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Those words, written by a 33 year-old activist named Thomas Jefferson and published by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776, are but a few the significant phrases in America's Declaration of Independence ...

Similar the words were included by Vaclav Havel in Charter 77 - Three boys three days after July celebration in 1980 escaped across the Iron Curtain took place - A day I shall always remember 7 of 7 1980.

26 years later some of my friends gather at Iceberg this weekend to mark the day potential Iceberg Survived Cold River crossing ...

Tuesday, July 04, 2006



Google sends me many of my readers ...
Like medicine, blogging is learned through practice and experience. Yet bloggers (like doctors) can practice their craft more effectively if they relentlessly seek new knowledge and insight, from both inside and outside their websitess, so they can keep updating their assumptions, skills, and knowledge.     

The funny thing about blogs, whether we realize it or not, is that who we are and what we're made of  shines through. Over time the reader really does get to know the blogger and form opinions which do lead to book buying decisions. There are authors whose books I will never read after reading their blogs and conversely authors who I never would have read otherwise who I go out of my way to support their fiction because of what I've discovered about them through their blogging. When Blogs Are Worth It

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Columnists at Confab Hail Blogging: The Media should stop pretending it knows nothing
The BRW Rich 200 list met with some interesting guerrilla marketing in May. The Big Issue, a street magazine sold by the homeless and long-term unemployed, had a cover story on the Poor 20 that mimicked the Rich 200.

In terms of blogs, we're in the 'Wild West' days. But many of them will be edited in the future, I'm sure," said Kansas City Star columnist Bill Tammeus, who does a blog on faith-related issues -- and likes "the freedom of not submitting stuff to editor


You don't have to write about everything ... You can just link to something instea [Another Way to Get at Thousands of Deals Blog of practicing note ; A conversation at Readerville on writing to “the market” has brought up some issues I’d like to use to start a diaglog here. To market, to market to buy a... ]
• · In the Old Parliament House, everyone used to mix: politicians, journalists, staffers. Notable press gallery grump Alan Ramsey is adamant it is filling that a new exhibition exploring the history of the press gallery at Old Parliament House features dummies. Leaks, Scoops and Scandals: The Press Gallery 1927-1988 has granted two journalists the dubious honour of being immortalised as mannequins. Gallery on display; Bloggers - Quote of the year ;-)
• · · This is a much-anticipated session at Gnomedex - everyone is looking forward to hearing what a potential president of the USA has to say Live-blogging Senator John Edwards at Gnomedex ; Women’s Voices Boom in the Blogosphere
• · · · The increasing tendency for governments to create a legal "meta-level" where spatial and physical humiliation becomes everyday practice. Made in Washington; When do The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times publish a secret? Editors Dean Baquet and Bill Keller respond. SINCE Sept. 11, 2001, newspaper editors have faced excruciating choices in covering the government's efforts to protect the country from terrorist agents ; The administration's protests that the press revelations about a financial monitoring program may tip off the terrorists are overblown. A Secret the Terrorists Already Knew
• · · · · Tuangou, or team buying, aims to drive unprecedented bargains by combining the reach of the internet with the power of the mob Shop affronts ; Why is The New York Times so wicked? Rabbi Aryeh Spero wants to know. The people’s right to know
• · · · · · The GOP's media bashing is a response to journalists' attempts to hold the administration accountable—a job Congress won't do. Political Theater ; James Fallows on how broadband sent over power lines offers Internet access everywhere in your house, and could also offer the country a way to save energy; E-mail Out of Every Plug

Monday, July 03, 2006

Two cultures embrace

_ALE6008

Beyond Symbolism: Melting pot embraced with passion: Asian and Slavic cultures smile at the differences ...

Iwona and Anthony sailing in unconditional waters - For better or for worse ahead




Like love real roses are deep symbolic red ...

Father of the Bride


_ALE6223
Originally uploaded by jozefimrich.
The white and golden colours of silk make life so much more earthy ...



Polished appeareances - Ana, Lidia, Chris ... poetry of slavic smiles

Godsons at Iwona's Wedding


At the wedding - Soprano influenced pose ;-)
Vacek and Christopher the paparazis



_ALE6054
Originally uploaded by jozefimrich.
In the colourful reflection we have what is life.
- J.W. v. Goethe

My best mate and my godsons shared many precious moments of the wedding of the year at Elizabeth Bay. Iwona and Anthony Lau make a soulful couple, indeed ...

This year is a year peppered with many exotic reflections ;-)

Saturday, July 01, 2006



Bondi and Iceberg performed a few miracles for me and Mal's family as we dined under the misty moon tonight ...
As they say in the good old Bohemia - To Love is to receive a glimpse of Heaven ...



A Link dedicated to my lowest year 2005 AD: Many of human solution have unintended and unexpected consequences - of which most of us seem totally, blissfully unaware. There is no beast as cruel as mankind

Stephenie Meyer is the debut author of Twilight (Little Brown, 2005). From the catalog copy: "Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. Interview by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Sometimes even the stars refuse to shine, BUT ...
No one is more curious than characters in Nippon club ;-). 

Dark Materials film gets green light - An unknown British schoolgirl will play Lyra Belacqua in the movie adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Harper Lee breaks her silence in letter to Oprah - The veteran author of To Kill a Mockingbird has made a rare contribution to contemporary letters, publishing an autobiographical article in the chatshow host's magazine O. The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say I was wrong


• Who knows where ideas and thoughts and links for blogs come from?...  Modern love [ A Dutch photographer finds revelations in the commonplace Ordinary people ; Our problems are complex, we are more than just stories...  Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books We're really excited about it]
• · The curtain rises on a shrine to housewife heartthrob Karel Gott Like Mattoni mineral water or Karlovy Vary wafers, the name of legendary Czech crooner Karel Gott has become one of this country's most readily recognizable brands. In the land of the Czech pop god ; We judge others by their acts, but ourselves by our intentions Electric Shadows
• · · There's something about the thrill of creativity-- seeing something through from idea to execution A Guide to Laptops for Writers ; We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity
• · · · On a chilly summer's night in Switzerland in the year 1816, a nineteen-year-old girl named Mary Shelly sat up screaming in bed. Her sleep had been interrupted by a terrifying nightmare that had jolted her awake. Writing: The Stuff of Dreams ; In Search of the Lost Heart: Karen Armstrong’s The Great ... Somewhere over the rainbow...
• · · · · Spare a thought for God as the world moves into the second round. Soccer, sin and supplication ; Grief shared is half grief. Joy shared is double joy: If the happiness experts are to be trusted, we should take time every day to count our blessings. What better way to spend a holiday, then, than wallowing in the misery of others? Lives and Times
• · · · · · Culturally transmitted identity ; Jim Baen, publisher of the extraordinary science fiction line Baen Books, has passed away. Jim Baen, sf publisher ; Cold River alert: The deaths keep piling up on: Boing Boing and Media Dragon post