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Bloggers are proud of having taken their views public -- well, sort of. We know we often hit the radar and issues get amplified. Often we do have an impact ...
CIA contractor's classified blog ruffles agency - Software testing firm fires woman after posts about torture   
Axsmith, 42, said in an interview this week that she thinks of herself as the Erma Bombeck of the intel world, a "generalist" writing about lunch meat one day, the war on terrorism the next. She said she first posted her classified blog in May and no one said a thing. When she asked, managers even agreed to give her the statistics on how many people were entering the site. Her column on food pulled in 890 readers, and people sent her reviews from other intelligence agency canteens.  Sharing Stories: Poking a Stick Into The 'Hive Mind'

The Blog, The Press, The Media: MySpace, Google Ink $900 Million Search Deal
IN A DEAL THAT WILL vastly expand Google's available ad inventory, Fox Interactive Network has tapped Google to power paid search on all of the company's Web properties, including the hugely popular social networking site MySpace.com, gaming site IGN Entertainment, and movie site Rotten Tomatoes    

• Media Dragons [BLOGS from space? Why not, now that the internet is everywhere, giving even extreme travellers almost instant connection. Extreme blogging takes off ; To misquote Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, some people are born famous, some become famous and other have fame thrust upon them. ... Google are for men - Yahoo for women ]
• · When he's not playing guitar, a ponytailed musician named Charles Johnson likes to sit in his Los Angeles home office, listen to jazz, and make mincemeat of the mainstream media. He's tangled with CBS over the authenticity of documents about President Bush's National Guard service. This time around, he's uncovered doctored war photos distributed by Reuters, forcing the news service to retract them. A blogger shines when news media get it wrong ; ‘Inside PCIJ’ nominated for best Asian group blog
• · · Once upon a time, unhappy customers had little leverage against big companies and their poor customer-service procedures Internet taking gripes: Consumers find more power ; Beating Terrorism: It's the Grievances, Stupid 
• · · · Bloggers want traffic to their blog. One way to get traffic is to write in your blog a list of ways for other bloggers to get traffic to their blog, like "56 ways to get traffic to your blog." The most common piece of advice in these "way to get traffic lists" is to write lists. It's brilliantly self-fulfilling and it works. Five Reasons You Shouldn't Link to Blog Lists ; How to make your blog more useable in 3 steps
• · · · · Blogs Cashing in on Tom Cruise What kind of salary do you need? 50 Common Interview Questions & Answers ; The government in Iran controls the media and censors the internet. But Iran’s President has become the latest high-profile user of the world wide web. Blog by Iranian President
• · · · · · Be the first to leave a comment for this blog! Good, bad and mediocre ; Blog SEO is no different. If you want higher search engine rankings in Google, MSN, and Yahoo Search, it's important to remember your blog themes and topics. Fortunately, it's what you post about on a daily basis. Blog SEO: Higher Search Engine Rankings Tip

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Yet another divine winter weekend in Sydney. The Bondi Beach is peppered with people and the temperature is over 18 degrees celsium. Having brunch at the Iceberg with the Irish Kevin and Jenny as well as Mal Wendy is always memorable and catching up with Christopher after his trip to Europe is like putting icing on the cake of Good Life ;-)

Forests were felled for the literature that explored the mysteries of Google and the next era of advertising. Google is building a new "traffic cop" layer into its search engine to help internet users dodge websites containing spyware and malicious code.     New 'neighbourhood watch' for Google search

Chas Licciardello et al ... The Chaser's "censored" sketch

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Online will just keep getting bigger: Women Prefer Plasma TVs Over Diamonds?
Online advertising is expected to be the third biggest generator of advertising revenue in the Australian media sector.

A plasma television is a girl's new best friend, says a U.S. study that found three out of four women would pick a plasma TV over a solitaire diamond necklace.
According to the Women's Watch: Girls Gone Wired survey, women are increasingly passionate about technology. The modern woman prizes cellphones, iPods and digital cameras over fancy shoes, holidays and even the iconic little black dress.

• How rocky is the digital economy? [Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend, according to a new United States study that found three of four women would prefer a new plasma television to a diamond necklace Women love Media Dragon and Technology: Girls Gone Wired ; Today's rate increase has nothing do with bananas. Women Crave Latest Tech Gadgets as Much as Men Do ]
• · Sydney Morning Herald. 02/08/2006. Careers. page 11. Tax cuts for lower-income earners are more likely to ease the nation's labour shortage than relief for higher earners, says economist Dr Nicholas Gruen. Dr Gruen said the threat of losing welfare benefits as income rises was keeping many out of the workforce. Welfare to work. ; Terry Lane: mea culpa - Club Troppo Nicholas Gruen
• · · How public servants frustrate the FOI process Dead letter office ; Nicholas nicholas at Larvatus Prodeo Cross posted from Troppo
• · · · Rupert Murdoch To Offer Tony Blair Senior Role In Media Empire...

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So Much to experience at Sydney markets ...

Fox Studios Farmers Markets
Wednesday 10am-5pm
Saturday from 10am to 4pm
Fox Studios Lang Moore Park
At Fox Studios Farmer's Market you'll find a Toby's Estate Coffee stall, amoungst the fres produce stalls, flowers and gift stands...and nearby playground for the kids.
Stallholder enquiries: Marilyn Forse on 02 9383 41
marilyn.forse@foxstudios.com.au

Good Living Growers Market
1st Saturday of each month 7am - 11am,
Pyrmont Bay Park, Pyrmont NSW
Good Living Growers Market is a quality based food market. Most of the stall holders are growers who come from all over the state to sell their produce once a month.
Michael Russell (02) 9282 3606

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Sasha these days known no longer as Alex is filled with music rather than swimming

Other girls like Sasaha such as the Arctic Monkeys and fellow singer Sandi Thom are spearheading a new wave of cyperspace superstars. From the garage to cyberspace Last year, even though she had a record deal, Allen uploaded tracks she had written on to community website MySpace. Her fanbase began swapping her songs.

By the time her debut single, Smile was released in the UK, there was such a buzz the record rocketed to No.1. Her album Alright, Still peaked at No.2. In Australia, the album debuted this week at No.7. LILY Allen says that she didn't choose to be a poster girl for the internet generation.

Australia's answer to Gus Van Sant found when you hit rock bottom the only way is up.
In 2003, 18-year-old Murali K. Thalluri received a video suicide note from a friend two days after her death. ... Six months down the track he tried to take his own life. His health was poor. His chronic kidney problems were now compounded by injuries from a vicious gang attack, which left him blind in one eye. He dreaded returning to hospital. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. Also the commerce student wasn't exactly riveted by his job at the Australian Taxation Office. Choose life  

Like Media Dragon - Apple is always different: Hans Canosa’s “Conversations with Other Women” tackles an age-old theme: What would you do if you had a second chance with someone you once loved? To adequately address the question, he had no choice but to split the screen and multiply the angles to show all sides of the conversation. Hans Canosa: Two-Way “Conversations”

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There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
~ Zora Neale Hurston

Public corruption, unfortunately, will never be totally eradicated. But the will of people to fight it, so as to preserve our freedoms and protect our democracy, is strong But the will of people to fight it, so as to preserve our freedoms and protect our democracy, is strong

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Little wonder most of us just give up and let the accountant sort out our tax each year. That's given that a Dutch court ruled witches could deduct the cost of spells, curses and magic potions last year - while knocking back a claim for travel expenses on a broomstick ...

Eye on Politics & Law Lords:     Machiavellian moment: Fingers crossed for the new wave
WHEN showbiz lawyer Michael Brereton travels these days he packs his suitcase thoughtfully in order to help customs officers search him at the airport.
"Everything is laundered and folded so they can take it out and I can put it straight back in," says the man who was fingered by the Australian Crime Commission as Mr X.

Divided we stand: Once upon a time, we shared certain ideals and aspirations. Divided We Stand
With no shortage of ideas for providing affordable housing, it’s only the political will that’s missing, argues John Spoehr Waking up to a great Australian nightmare ; Amid peaceful yearnings and warring impulses emerges a central question: why do we fight? Each generation confronts this issue, and each generation's answer helps define the national character of this country. Why We Fight

• Tax haven suspects may face money laundering charges [It's the ultimate story Celebrity lawyer blames ex for sex, drug and tax claims ; The IRS routinely pursues and shuts down promoters of these scams and is currently investigating high wealth individuals and their associates hoping to boost government coffers by $615 million over the next four years. In fact, the IRS recently announced that it would spend $272.8 million over next four years investigating and prosecuting under Operation Wickenby, which looks into alleged fraud involving the use of offshore entities. Operation Wickenby ; More people stand to be charged with tax offences after three company directors were arrested in Queensland for allegedly dodging tax of $6.6 million. Offshore 'tax scam' charges laid ]
• · A SENIOR judge yesterday expressed dismay at the increasing number of women aged in their 30s and 40s who were coming before the courts on fraud charges. More female frauds ; AUSTRALIA’S first wealth survey in 100 years has found our richest 20 per cent own 60 per cent of all assets, while the poorest 20 per cent own just 1 per cent. The Australian Bureau of Statistics Social Trends survey released this week also found that over the past 20 years, housing has replaced food as the biggest expense for families with young children. Women under 40 warned on super
• · · In his book ‘Thriving on Chaos’, Tom Peters says: “involve everyone in everything – truly involved people can do anything”. Many people now experience major change in their workplace, so that is has almost become a way of life and therefore it is even more important for us to know how best to deal with change, and motivate those who need to change with us. Consultants Emily Lawson and Colin Price have identified that while programs designed to improve organisational performance abound, they are difficult to carry out. Success depends upon the ability to alter the mind-sets of those working in the organisations, before any major change can successfully be adopted. Boiled down to the most basic level, there would seem to be three major elements that need to exist for change to be successful they are - information, support and resources. The problem with psychology ; PDF version: Creating Fantastic Managers…
• · · · By linking scarcity to price, the universal gospel of liberal thought teaches that exploiting scarcity is the fountain of all wealth. Crime, the World's Biggest Free Enterprise ; A new generation of Britain's “super-rich” are moving to the French Riviera to avoid UK taxes Monaco’s Tax Haven Is 'Home' To 650 British Company Directors
• · · · ·  Book of camps Hitler ; Shazad Tanweer wrote the statement below on his university application form. Five years later this optimistic young man blew himself up with seven others. What changed him? The suicide bomber in his own words

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The Poetry of Life: Poetry Over Diamonds?

Torrid tales of wild, drug-fuelled parties. Darkly menacing e-mails couched in verse. Restraining orders taken out against old friends. Threats to sue for defamation. Australia's poetry world is at war, and the vitriol is flying. A "kiss and tell" memoir by an internationally renowned poet, John Kinsella, has enraged two of his peers, who he claims were his partners in crime during a debauched youth.

Robert Adamson and Anthony Lawrence, both highly respected, award-winning poets, were horrified to read Kinsella's lurid accounts of communal drug-taking sessions and pornography-watching. They have accused him of betraying their friendship, and of fabricating some of his stories. The pair counter-attacked in the way they knew best: with words. They fired off a stream of florid e-mails, brimming with metaphors and allusions to blood and gore.

According to Adamson, they were intended to be funny, and a parody of Kinsella's own style. He did not take them that way. Kinsella, the author of 30 volumes of poetry, and a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, said he was "distressed and appalled". Some of the several dozen e-mails amounted to "death threats", he said.

Last weekend he failed to appear at one of Australia's main literary festivals, in Byron Bay, northern New South Wales.
He was supposed to be promoting his new book, Fast, Loose Beginnings - A Memoir of Intoxications, but changed his mind after Adamson and Lawrence said they would disrupt his readings. Instead, he went to court in Perth, and obtained two restraining orders. The festival audience was told he could not attend because he feared for his safety. "I expected critical response to the book, and through normal channels - not personal threats," he saidyesterday.

The e-mails, which began arriving in mid-July, appeared to contain more than a hint of menace. One, written by Lawrence, ran: "It is a death-clicking beetle/ Can you hear it at work inside the fast-tracking of your e-mails/ Inside the cold enamel of your smile?/ Keep your enemies close at hand/ The shroud has no pockets." In another, Lawrence wrote: "The dark humour is a meniscus. Deep Regret is the name of an ocean they've found, five miles under the ice at Antarctica. You're about to enter it. Are you ready?"

He also suggested re-playing a fight they once had, this time "without the niceties". He told Kinsella: "Not too late to have another pair of eyes grafted into the back of your head." Adamson wrote: "How can your enemies love you now that you have taken up meat-eating? I am trying very hard not to imagine the blood dribbling down your chin, the lumps of flesh floating in the bowl of your soup. I know you hate cats but they may be your salvation. Let me know and I will send a case of Siamese killers."

Yesterday Adamson ridiculed the idea that he had threatened Kinsella with physical violence. "He is 40 and 6ft 2in, I am 63 and 5ft 8in," he said. "I don't punch people. What is he talking about? He has interpreted the e-mails in a literal, dim-witted way." He also denied "bombarding" Kinsella. "I sent maybe five e-mails a day, or eight at most. The book is full of lies, and it's hideously written."

Lawrence is considering suing. He claimed Kinsella was using the spat to publicise his book. "It's a classic example of what happens when ambition outweighs talent," he said. The e-mails, featuring allusions and fictional characters only understood by the three poets, had to be taken in the context of their shared history, he said. "We were having fun with language, and our anger came through. We were mightily pissed off with him. We were deeply wounded."

Neither Lawrence nor Adamson denies taking drugs in the past. In fact, Adamson has detailed his exploits in his autobiography, Inside Out. Louise Adler, chief executive of Melbourne University Publishing, defended Kinsella's book as a true version of events. "We stand by our author 100 per cent," she said.

JOHN KINSELLA
"I expected critical response through normal channels - not personal threats."
ROBERT ADAMSON
"I know you hate cats but they may be your salvation. Let me know and I will send a case of Siamese killers."
ANTHONY LAWRENCE
"Deep Regret is the name of an ocean they've found, five miles under the ice at Antarctica. You're about to enter it. Are you ready?"

Torrid tales of wild, drug-fuelled parties. Darkly menacing e-mails couched in verse. Restraining orders taken out against old friends. Threats to sue for defamation.

Australia's poetry world is at war, and the vitriol is flying. A "kiss and tell" memoir by an internationally renowned poet, John Kinsella, has enraged two of his peers, who he claims were his partners in crime during a debauched youth.

Robert Adamson and Anthony Lawrence, both highly respected, award-winning poets, were horrified to read Kinsella's lurid accounts of communal drug-taking sessions and pornography-watching. They have accused him of betraying their friendship, and of fabricating some of his stories.

The pair counter-attacked in the way they knew best: with words. They fired off a stream of florid e-mails, brimming with metaphors and allusions to blood and gore.

According to Adamson, they were intended to be funny, and a parody of Kinsella's own style. He did not take them that way.

Kinsella, the author of 30 volumes of poetry, and a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, said he was "distressed and appalled". Some of the several dozen e-mails amounted to "death threats", he said.
Poison pens    

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Inside every AFL footballer there are three goals and a Norm Smith Medal to win the Premiership at a critical time. Inside every cricketer there is a century to turn an Ashes Series and to clinch the game for his country. Inside every MP is a glorious Prime Ministership waiting to get out if only they are given the chance. And inside every journalist is a great novelist, the great Australian novel yet to be written which will change the world as we know it. LAUNCH OF “THE UNEXPECTED ELEMENTS OF LOVE

NSW Premier Morris Iemma has proposed a radical rewriting of the nation's tax arrangements under which the states would grab control of the GST Push for states to run GST

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I can think of few books about Israel and Palestine, written by an Australian, as important as Antony Loewenstein's brave j'accuse. In challenging the propagandists to give up their addiction, he is a truth-teller bar none.
--John Pilger

On Tuesday night, the night of Census and glabal thinking while acting locally most of the Sydney packed into the Glebe Bookshop. David Marr, Margo Kingston, Liz Jackson, and Terry McGee created a soulful atmosphere for Sydneysiders as book was born entitled My Israel Questions Antony Loewenstein - a Sydney-based journalist and author

PS: Could Cold River and Sophie Scholl be under the same director?

Eye on Census Confessions of a census collector: it's not all bad    
CENSUS collectors get a vivid insight into Australian society when they pound the streets. Just ask Brett Rutter, a veteran of three surveys. One man signed his form Donald Duck and named his residence as Hollywood. A refugee family, fearful of authority, cowered when he arrived on their doorstep. Some families let their children answer the door, alone, to strangers at night. And Melbourne gets bloody cold in winter.

Spare a thought for the 30,000 census soldiers, who, Australia-wide, have traipsed some long, lonely miles handing out forms for us to fill out on census night, this Tuesday, August 8. From Wednesday, they have 20 days to return to 10 million households and collect 13 million forms, each form containing 61 questions.

Information gleaned, including age, education, ethnicity, employment, housing and religion, is crucial for governments to plan future services including schools, hospitals and aged care.

This year Rutter, 35, has been assigned the city end of the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, a socially mixed area where student bedsits sit next to toffy townhouses.

In the past week, Mr Rutter has also visited government flats, which he felt apprehensive about and so visited by day. He got worried looks from one family, but soon discovered they were from a war-torn country and spoke little English. "Maybe where they're from, any type of authority is something to be feared," Rutter says.

Rutter gave the family information in their language about a free phone interpreter service to help them. Many Fitzroy shops have flats upstairs, but Rutter found some sales staff had no idea of who, if anyone, lived above them. One problem for modern census collectors is that a house is no longer just a house. People live in warehouses, stables and even former places of worship.

Rutter rang one church to make sure no one lived on-site. "The minister said that no one lives in the church, but there's a homeless man who sleeps under the veranda every night. So that gets reported to a special unit in the ABS and they'll send someone around on Tuesday night to interview him for the census."

One surprising thing about Fitzroy was that as late as 8pm, children as young as five would answer the door alone, "and for a good minute I'd be saying, 'is Mum or Dad there? Can you get them? And there'd be no security screen' ."

The first census Rutter collected for was in 1991, in the middle-class, largely English-immigrant Adelaide suburb of Para Hills, where one man threatened to belt him with a cricket bat if he didn't leave his property.

Then there was the man who called himself Donald Duck. Rutter got talking and discovered the man "just didn't understand the purpose of the census and felt it was a bit intrusive". But the man relented when Rutter explained the information would benefit his own community.

Collecting forms for the 1996 census, Rutter was assigned the inner Adelaide suburb of Fitzroy, an affluent area full of multimillion-dollar mansions with high walls that were hard to get around.

"Three or four houses had no doorbells and no letterbox slots," he says. "One or two owners I only got to when the security gates opened and they drove out in their Mercedes, and I'd yell out, 'excuse me …'."

Another resident admitted he didn't want to fill out the census because he made all his money on the black market. He gave in when Rutter assured him the information wasn't cross-checked the with the tax office. Having moved to Melbourne in 2001, Rutter says he still loves the social aspect of census work, and it's extra income to his full-time administration job at a university.

He's a believer in the census. "I just believe it's a good thing to have done," he says. "Some countries don't bother doing it for their people. I don't think anyone has anything to fear from it. It's a good thing to do and everyone should feel that they matter to the community."

Confessions of a census collector: it's not all bad

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It is no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
--Mark Twain

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Blaise Pascal ended his long letter to the Jesuits on July 7, 1656, with this apology, "This is long because I lack the time to make it short."

To be Read, One Must First Be Remembered

Art of Standing Out: Being Different POP!: Stand Out In Any Crowd
Your brain can only "hold" about seven bits of information in short-term memory. That's why the most remembered advertising messages are not more than ten words. In fact, four of the top ten slogans of the 20th Century, as selected by *Advertising Age* magazine, are five words or less:

1. "Diamonds are forever." (De Beers)
2. "Just do it." (Nike)
5. "We try harder" (Avis)

"Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn," wrote Robert Southey.

Reinforce your memorably brief message by adding a dash of humor.

~ Pulitzer Prize-winning author Art Buchwald, 80, is dying from kidney and vascular ailments. In fact, after he chose to forego life-prolonging dialysis, his doctor predicted he'd be dead by now. "I have death on hold," he jokes.

A parade of family, friends, celebrities and reporters continue to visit his hospice bedside. All arrive, he says, complaining about the parking. "Dying is easy. Parking is impossible," he quips back.

• Where There is Smoko: Making a Striking Comparison [The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship ; Davos of social entrepreneurship ]

I too wanted a perfect ending ...

"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
~ Lily Tomlin

"Everybody experiences far more than they understand. Yet it is experience rather than understanding, that influences behavior."
~ Marshall McLuhan

"To be successful you can't show up to the potluck with just a fork."
~ Dave Liniger, co-founder and chairman of RE/MAX International

"Follow your dreams.'' This message, spray-painted on a concrete abutment near the interchange of highways in the San Francisco area, was painted over quickly several times during April and May, probably by our state agency, Caltrans. About a month ago, a new message appeared:
"Fine, live in despair!'' This one has been left alone.

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
~ Ingrid Bergman

"Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them."
~ Henry Mencken

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered the trick is to discover them."
~ Galileo

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
~ Zora Neale Hurston

I wanted a perfect ending... Now, I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
~ Gilda Radner

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Paddington cafes are alive with all kinds of stories some more amazing than others. I rather like the references to Sensational Soy Story

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FILM FUNDING AND TAX INCENTIVES: GOVERNMENT REVIEW ANNOUNCED
The Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator Rod Kemp, has announced a review of the Government's funding for film production. Mr Kemp said the review will take a broad-ranging look at the effectiveness of current Government direct and indirect support, including film tax incentives.

In releasing an Issues Paper, " Review of Australian Government Film Funding Support ", the Minister said it will investigate options for the most effective ways of improving the long-term viability of the film industry in the future.

TERMS OF REFERENCE
In particular, the review will examine the effectiveness and continued appropriateness of different mechanisms of Government support for the industry, including:

* investigating whether, and to what extent, tax incentives and other Government support measures are appropriate and effective in attracting private sector investment to the industry; and

* developing possible options for improving the effectiveness of tax incentives and other government support measures, where necessary.

The review will also take account of the findings of the 2005 review of the Div 10BA and 10B ITAA 1936 tax incentive schemes, which is examining issues relating to the clarity of the operations of these schemes. The findings of the 2006 statutory review of the Refundable Film Tax Offset scheme under s 376-110 of the ITAA 1997 (see2006 WTB 22 [921]) will also be taken into account in this review.

The review is expected to be completed by October 2006.
FILM TAX INCENTIVES
The Government notes that the current tax incentives designed to increase private investment in film tend to fall into 2 main types:

* tax credits, rebates and refunds to production companies, which operate in a similar manner to the Australian Refundable Film Tax Offset; and

* tax incentives for investors, like Div 10BA of the ITAA 1936, which accelerate deductions.
Where the direct beneficiary of an incentive is a producer, this is classed as a tax incentive for producers. These may be claimable on completion of the film, or a component of the incentive can be provided upfront (eg Div 10BA).

The Government notes that, in some countries, like Australia, a tax incentive for producers is offered principally to attract runaway productions where eligibility criteria are expenditure-based. In other countries, a mixture of direct and indirect support is offered for national product. The Government says this support is provided either solely on cultural criteria or by using a combination of cultural and expenditure criteria.

In relation to the film tax incentives, the Government is seeking specific comments on:
* whether tax incentives are still an effective and appropriate mechanism;
* the appropriateness of the current Div 10BA/10B schemes;
* whether a tax incentive for producers should be considered instead of a tax incentive for investors;
* the criteria which should apply for Australian participation in any incentive scheme; and
* any other models that might be effective in encouraging private investment.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The Issue Paper, " Review of Australian Government Film Funding Support ", July 2006, is available on the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Website [http://www.dcita.gov.au/__data/assets/file/40782/Austalian_film_review.rtf].

Further information can also be obtained from Rhonda Thorpe - tel: (02) 6271 1713; email: rhonda.thorpe@dcita.gov.au [mailto:rhonda.thorpe@dcita.gov.au]

SUBMISSION
Submissions on the review are due by 11 August 2006to: Mr Peter Young, General Manager, Film and Digital Content, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, GPO Box 2154, CANBERRA ACT 2601 - email: filmreview2006@dcita.gov.au [mailto:filmreview2006@dcita.gov.au]

Source: Minister for the Arts and Sport media release  
RTF version:Review of Australian Government Film Funding Support

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Nothing new under the sun ... death has not touched me yet 15 REASONS TO DATE DROWNING ICEBERGS ;-) 1 - we're half naked all the time 2 - we're always wet and we love it 3 - we do it on our backs or our stomachs 4 - we are ready at the sound of a buzzer 5 - we can do it fast or slow 6 - we can do it four different ways 7 - no matter how tired we get we can always keep going always keep going 8 - we can do it in the cold or in the rain 9 - we do it in water 10- we are always in shape 11- we're always ready to go fast 12- it wont take long to get us undresesed 13- we have excellent endurance and stamina 14- we don't mind it when it gets a lil rough 15- we're just so hot This site is dedicated to poetry and to the people who make poetry possible: poets and their readers Welcome to Famous Poets and Poems! 

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Making Every Word Count When I talk about tight language, I mean no extra words: A Cold River doesn't need to "move really slowly" when it can "slink" or "creep" along its banks-- the elimination of the need for an adverb results in a much stronger image with half the words. Why use three weak or common words to say what can be said with one strong word?

Poetry is distilled language; that is why it is not prose. While many other types of writing pay by the word, poetry usually benefits from use of fewer words. When I provide editorial feedback to poets submitting manuscripts to the press I work for, I encourage them to revisit their poems with an eye to keeping language tight and fresh. These problems can be addressed-- and usually fixed-- simply through attention to them in the poet's revision process with each poem.

• Pick Powerful Verbs [Off cuts. Bulletin with Newsweek, 11/07/2006, General News, page 66. By: Andrew L. Urban. The collapse of a planned $250m film production finance facility is being blamed on slow decisions by the Taxation Office. 'The film finance market requires rulings within weeks, not months,' says Tim Levy, a director of Future Films Australia, which has been trying to raise private finance for about 12 feature films. Write and Sell Your Screenplay; Jennifer Byrne opens her new book show with the Miles Franklin winner, writes Jacqui Taffel. Follow the reader: First Tuesday Book Club premieres on the ABC on Tuesday at 10.05pm ] • · Tapping into the worldwide popularity of reading groups, the ABC has created a book club everyone can join: TRY telling the book club ladies that the novel is dead. That, like the ballet, the symphony, representational painting, the play and the ceramic jug, its work is over, its purpose gone. No one will hear you over the sound of white wine being poured and tales of steamy stuff between the covers. Between the covers ; Having recently joined a book club it was with great interest that I read Graeme Blundell's article on the book club in The Weekend Australian's - Review. Much of the article was devoted to the upcoming debut of ABC TV's First Tuesday Book Club - hosted by Jennifer Byrne and aired on the first Tuesday of every month. Bookish types • · · From "citizen" to "passport": Belonging to a country used to mean something He who enjoys the right of sharing in deliberative or judicial office thereby attains the status of a citizen ; Once the sex capital of the world, a crackdown on prostitution and the rise of porn megastores are destroying a unique, secret heritage. Last tango in Paris • · · · A scourge called Silvio ; If this is the third world war, we’re losing There are lessons in the cold war for those who fear the rise of Islamo-fascism • · · · · You know how it goes: A traffic jam blocks your way to work. A rude driver swerves in front of your car and you spill that just-purchased café latte into your lap. You arrive late, in a lousy mood. From there, the day just goes downhill and your workplace performance falls to pieces. Or does it? Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Desk; Vegan diet helps type 2 diabetes • · · · · · Takagi Masakatsu is a visual artist and musician, but his two identities are in fact inseparable. Blending images, video, animation, and music to form unique aesthetic experiences, his art knows no borders. To achieve it he turns to his Mac. Takagi Masakatsu: Sound of Light; Around the world, `citizen' means many different things Czech this out: An Australian citizen is a British subject

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Readers of Cold River take to spirit of democracy like a fish to water ...
Public corruption, unfortunately, will never be totally eradicated. But the will of people to fight it, so as to preserve our freedoms and protect our democracy, is strong The Reasoning Behind Logic Puzzles: Congress Online Newsletter

The Blog, The Press, The Media: People and PR Power 
Astroturfing is evil. Astroturfing is always unethical and usually illegal. It corrodes democracy which relies on transparency. It is usually undertaken by people who are afraid, or lack the skills, to engage in open and honest public debates.
Sometimes it is excused because the other side (NGOs and activists) are unreasonable or claim to represent more people than they really do. That excuse doesn't cut it.
Astroturfing is a blight on the PR profession.

Paull Young's blog post this week brought home the disgrace of this ineffectual approach to me once again.
So why not use the power of blogging to campaign on this issue and to at least make people aware of what's so bad about astroturfing and why good PR people need to take a stand against it?
Paull has created a page on the newPR wiki which tells you all about astroturfing, this campaign, and what you can do to help.

• PR bloggers urged to fight against astroturfing [ Trevor Cook's post introducing the campaign AntiAstroturfing / ; From Wired, a cover story on Rupert Murdoch and MySpace Perched on the edge of a bright white power sofa ; Six trends driving the global economy. First, steam power replaced muscle power and launched the Industrial Revolution ; Human relationships were basically variants on the dynamic between master and slave ]
• · From Media Matters, a look at the top falsehoods about The New York Times and the Bush bank-tracking program. Warrantless domestic surveillance program ; Muddler as he was, Charles Dickens's character in David Copperfield, Mr Micawber, understood how sixpence could be the difference between happiness and misery: if your income is sixpence more than you spend, that's happiness; if it is a sixpence less, misery. The same lesson applies to  BBC story
• · · Google making Microsoft irrelevant? With its new spreadsheet application, Google continues on its path toward world domination All Hail ; PDF version: Compendium of Innovative E-government Practices: a compilation of case studies of innovative e-government solutions
• · · · Are you a Howard hugger or a Howard hater? Conventional political wisdom holds that one must either love John Howard and loathe Paul Keating, or vice versa. The Longest Decade ; It will surprise no-one who lived in New South Wales during the 1970s and 1980s that a book called The Wran Era focuses almost completely on Neville Wran. David Hill headed Wran’s Ministerial Advisory Unit, inevitably dubbed the Mau-Mau after Kenyan terrorists. Wran’s most obvious asset was his mastery of the media The Wran era: ‘A sometimes volatile period’
• · · · · ECCENTRIC to the last, John Marsden left an estate valued at between $8 million and $10 million - and he left nothing to chance. He even left instructions on the future home for his collection of ornamental ducks Marsden has a final word ; Jim Ritchie - Whistleblower's tragic end Police warm up to unique approach to cold cases
• · · · · · AUSTRALIANS could use electronic voting systems in next year's federal election if a proposed trial goes ahead ... We are prepared to live with that downside because it is a huge step forward Blind to lead way in e-voting ; E-mail is so last millennium...Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder _ a parent, teacher or a boss _ or to receive an attached file. But increasingly, the former darling of high-tech communication is losing favor to instant and text messaging, and to the chatter generated on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. E-mail losing its clout in the world of text-driven communication