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Pretender to throne caught pretending
Lets stop pretending Gianna's sense of irony rocks - Filed under: Rightwingers say the darndest things — Gianna @ 10:06 pm

The Shorter Road to Surfdom - punchy and punchified Glenn Milne: Alternative PM acts like alternative PM. The cheek!

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IT Builds a Better Idea
As companies seek more and better ideas, CIOs have an opportunity to reinvent the innovation process and, by enabling people to collaborate, make IT an engine for growth. Innovation in big companies has always been treated like gold—hidden deep inside secret vaultlike labs and protected from everyone except the researchers in lab coats. When products or services emerge from the labs after years of development—and just one in a hundred does—they fail most of the time. I have been instructed to share this story or else ... ;-)

Courtesy of the Daring lover of irony the Antipodean Barista AIDS via Special Documentary Hub

My mentor, Terry McGee, is familiar with Gorbachev's (sic) images from last year Gold Coast invasion.

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Red Lantern set a few hearts on Fire at Crown Street Et Tu, Children of the world ... Royal Saint Valentine

To honour my days at parliamentary library of new south wales etc ... Love Library Day

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Regrettably, the quality of congressional Web sites was generally disappointing. As we outlined previously in our January 2006 e-newsletter The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly an overwhelming amount of content and links were outdated on Member Web sites. In some instances, it was clear that sites hadn’t been updated since 2003 when we released our last report. They Are Back …

Blogosphere Now The power of the blogerati
As a blogger myself (but one who does it for my own writing release and Heaven forbid, fun, and not money), I am sometimes taken aback by some comments I get from readers, especially the anonymous ones. Apparently I am 'supposed' to take my blogging far more seriously than I do. I've discovered many believe a blog's power and/or influence is just as strong in some ways than some mainstream media (as utterly ridiculous as that sounds). Therefore, when I express my views (as stupid or as grand as I feel that day), I'm 'supposed' to hold myself to the same impartial standards as a professional in the media. So much for freedom of speech, creativity, opinion and/or a participatory dialogue.

A brawl has broken out over an opinion piece in London's Telegraph by British literary critic John Sutherland, who deplores the damage done by sloppy online book reviewers. Sutherland wrote on November 12 about a damaging series of reader reviews on the Amazon website of Victoria Glendinning's new biography of Leonard Woolf.

• John Sutherland ; [A New Zealand teenager who was sent on a computer training course as part of a police rehabilitation program has admitted to hacking into internet banking accounts and stealing nearly $NZ50,000 Teen hacker 'a very clever boy' ; Voters are all equal in NSW. But the good cash money son helps you jump the queue. Money Talks: Election Time ; Andre Elder on how young NSW legislature seems to be NSW politics in 2007 and beyond ]
• · It is the reaction, not the event, that determines leadership. Blogging politics In the first significant step towards free wireless broadband throughout NSW's most popular cities, the state government today announced a tender inviting Internet providers to bid for the large-scale development. NSW Minister for Commerce, John Della Bosca, announced Internet providers were being invited to take part in the Iemma government's initiative to provide free wireless broadband to the state's major CBD areas. NSW free wireless plan gets underway ;
• · Are these people in the corner office tone-deaf? The public is clamoring for clean corporate governance, and here they are cutting themselves cute little side deals with shareholders' money Crony art of Capitalism ; The internet bouncers
• · · Telstra and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will announce shortly that they have established, separately, a presence in the cult virtual world of Second Life. They will join a growing throng of international companies - including Dell, Toyota, Adidas, IBM, and Intel - who have built a base within the virtual world, seeking to test its worthiness as a promotional and commercial tool. Australians in virtual world stampede ; Political journalists need to recall that fair and accurate reporting and informed debate are essential for a functioning society. A tired and emotional Glenn Milne’s rampage at the Walkley awards recently reminds us once again just how dodgy our political journalists are. We rely on people like Milne, Michelle Grattan, Paul Kelly, Laurie Oakes and the rest to inform us about our nation’s politics. They wield real power since they not only tell us the news, they tell us what it means as well.

The failure of Australia’s political media
• · · · Alexander Litvinenko died fighting a dangerous game against a Russia dominated by genuinely dark institutions.
The media is inevitably full of predictions about the Rudd/Gillard Labour leadership. John Hewson, Alexander Downer, Mark Latham, Rudd. The media reaction in each of these cases has been the same: “a fresh face”, “the dream team”, “a new generation”, positive coverage, polls shoot up. I was alerted to this funny story on Late Night Live. When the London Review of Books began taking personal ads, the content was quirkily British - as for instance in the ad from which I took the heading. “”Bastard. Complete and utter. Whatever you do, don’t reply - you’ll only regret it. Man, 38.” Apparently that ad was a huge success generating lots of inquiries. Now there’s a book based on the column full of all sorts of nonsense. Reality is darker than James Bond ; FRANK WARREN HAS been called many things. The most trusted stranger in America. A unique global guru. Today's Media "It" Boy. Father confessor of the world wide web Strangers' secrets have become a telling chronicle of the modern age.
• · · · · THE road to riches once swung through law, banking and business. But these days the young mega-rich are just as likely to be in fashion, film, or music. One in three of Australia's young multimillionaires aged 40 or under made their fortunes in the "creative industries", research shows. Among the older millionaires, only one in 10 were involved in creative pursuits. Young creative types the new mega-rich ; How's the book biz these days? I asked one of the real pros, Carole Baron, former topper at Penguin, G.P. Putnam's, Dutton, Pocket Books et al in her 25-year career, and today publishing director of a partnership between media heavyweights Time Warner and Bertelsmann A.G. that they call Bookspan. Hanging With Bookies and Bloggers
• · · · · · Free Excel Spreadsheets ; John Quiggin’s Wordpress dashboard recorded its 50 000-th comment. ; Ozblogistan and Club Troppo Missing Link makes a comeback!

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Sikh of Sikhs, Bawa Jagdev has been rewarded for his services to the community at the Strangers Room at the NSW Parliament House on 8 February 2007 AD ...


Some friends and family amongst us are more than willing to go the extra mile on behalf of the weakest in our community. Bawa Singh Jagdev has contributed immensely to the Sikh community developing many education, religious and cultural programmes for the community. He was instrumental in establishing the first religious place of worship for the Sikh Community along with weekend language schools. Other significant work undertaken by Bawa for his community includes the provision of free meals for the community, the establishment of a free meditation area and the organisation of many cultural and sporting events, not only for members of the Sikh background but also those of Muslim, Hindu and Christian backgrounds. The 2006CRC Lifetime Achievement in Community Sector: Mr Bawa Singh Jagdev


The existence of the spirit world The costs of volunteering
Independent Weekly this week, on 10/02/2007, shares story by Moira Deslandes. Volunteers are an integral part of our society. More than six million Australians over the age of 18 volunteer each year and of that number, South Australians are leading the way with volunteering commitments

VOLUNTEERS are an integral part of our society. More than six million Australians over the age of 18 volunteer each year and of that number, South Australians are leading the way with volunteering commitments. At least one out of every two (or610,000 South Australians) freely share their time and skills with others.
This equates to 72.8 million hours volunteered each year. This investment in volunteering
returns dividends to our state, building our social, economic, cultural and environmental capital. However, in October 2006, Volunteering Australia conducted an online survey which found almost all volunteers (88 per cent) incur out-of-pocket expenses that are not reimbursed. Some 1,245 respondents completed the survey, of which 724 were volunteers and 466 were representatives of volunteer involving organisations. The remaining 55 respondents were from groups such as
government, media and business. The survey found that out-of-pocket expenses amounted to $600 on average for each volunteer and these costs caused sufficient impact on one-in-10 volunteers to force them to stop or reduce their volunteering participation.
Many other volunteers, although financially worse off, felt they were unable to relinquish their commitments due to the demand for the services that they provided, particularly in the community
services and welfare sectors. Broad areas where volunteers incur costs are transport (petrol/vehicle/public transport), telephone, safety equipment and clothing (including uniforms and their maintenance), and training. More than a quarter of volunteer involving organisations experienced an increase in reimbursement requests from volunteers over the past year.
Some organisations had to adjust their reimbursement policy or formula, or increase reimbursement levels, for example, following the impact of petrol price rises on travel expenses, and these growing reimbursement requests then compounded upon many not-for-profit organisational overheads. In the second half of this year Volunteering Australia brought together
a small taskforce of experts to look at the issue of rising costs of volunteering and to determine possible solutions. The national Costs of Volunteering Taskforce presented its report to the
Federal Government in December 2006 and urged it to consider several options outlining a national scheme to reimburse volunteers' out-of-pocket expenses.
The taskforce recommended six options that were divided into two categories:
reimbursement to the volunteer through the organisation for which they
work and personal reimbursement direct to the volunteer. It is hoped the
government will consider the options and work with the taskforce to bring.in
a simple and fair solution. Taskforce recommendations
Organisational reimbursement options:
1. Agrantprocessssimilartotheexisting
volunteer smallequipment grant (VSEG)
program through which organisations
would apply for funding on the basis
that they have reimbursed, or intend
to reimburse, volunteer out-of-pocket
expenses.
2. Government requirement for
volunteer reimbursement budget iii
funding applications from not-for-profit
organisations.
3. Tax credit to the not-for-profit organisation
- this would most effectively be
administered through the Goods &
Services Tax (GST) system as an offset
on the Business Activity Statement
(BAS) given that most not-for-profit
organisations are income tax exempt.
Personal reimbursement options:
1. A personal tax rebate.
2. A personal tax reduction.
3. A personal grant/claim process that
the volunteer would apply for directly
to the relevant government agency,
for example, the Health Insurance
Commission (ie: Medicare offices) and
provide evidence of relevant expenses.
Many volunteers don't wish to be reimbursed because they see volunteering
as a way of allowing them to meet and experience a diversity of activities
and people. Butforothers these costs are beginning to make an impact on their
participation, and this is an issue of some concern.
In Australia, we are fortunate to have a high level of volunteer involvement,
but we cannot be complacent. Our volunteers are under-recognised and
undervalued.
With more than 700,000 non-profit organisations countrywide, most of which are small and entirely dependent on the commitment of volunteers, the government and community need to do
all they can to ensure we do not experience a significant downturn in volunteer involvement, because of the rising cost of volunteering.

• Volunteer wins award; [The politics of giving; Turning a negative into a positive]
• · Prime Minister John Howard's 'decent Aussie values' test can't come quickly enough for me. A testing time for our new arrivals; Democracy is another casualty of the Iraq War: Gerhard Schroeder’s address to the survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Public responsibility - lessons from the nazi era

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While her songs take listeners back to innocence and humanity that no longer exists, Sasha is fighting to help make sure that the music does The Staple Singers on Triple JJJ

I remember my first exposures Down Under: The Story of the Story Bridge ;-)

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As Abraham Lincoln said 'To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men' (and women)

Sheldon said in 2000 that the profession of author suited him best: There is no budget to worry about, you can have as many characters as you want; you can give them all yachts ... Sidney Sheldon, a writer whose keen grasp of popular tastes fuelled a string of feverishly romantic and suspenseful books - and made him a perennial bestseller - has died of pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 89.
I try to construct them so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one more chapter. It's the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial: leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the chapter Novels made good junk and their author millions

The Zeccola Family: a land of refuge for film lovers If Tomorrow Comes – Be it Art or Idea
Pull back the curtains on one of Australia’s most influential film families. It was in his birthplace, a humble southern Italian village, that Antonio Zeccola first got a taste for film. Every weekend of his childhood, he would watch movies screened by his father in the village church hall. When the Zeccolas migrated to Melbourne, they brought their passion for film with them. Over the next fifty years, Antonio Zeccola built his own cinema chain. Today Palace Cinemas is a family enterprise run by Antonio, his wife and their four children. It’s a major force in Australian film culture. But the movie business is as high risk today as it ever was, and keeping the family venture afloat is a nerve-wracking operation.

Antonio Zeccola is the Managing Director of Palace Films and Palace Cinemas with a 40-year history of distributing quality local and international titles in Australia and New Zealand. He has received credit as Executive Producer for Paul Goldman's Australian Rules and again for Rolf de Heer's Alexandra's Project, which was officially selected for screening at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2003, where it was nominated for a Golden Bear.
Antonio has a strong commitment to the Australian film industry and has invested in three of the country's most highly anticipated films of 2006: The Book of Revelation, Ana Kokkinos' follow-up to the past Palace Films success Head On; Irresistible, starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill; and Macbeth in which the director of Romper Stomper, Geoffrey Wright, brings Shakespeare's play to gangland Melbourne.
Palace Cinemas is Antonio's exhibition division with 73 screens across 21 locations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth making it Australia's only national group of cinemas dedicated to the presentation of quality film. Antonio's passion for restoring, reinvigorating and saving cinema icons has led him to recently acquire and refurbish the Chauvel Cinema in Sydney and the Westgarth Theatre in Melbourne.
From the foyer to the big screen, the founder of Palace cinemas supports Australian films, writes Gabriella Coslovich.
Talk about extreme makeover. The foyer of South Yarra's Cinema Como used to have about as much personality as a railway station waiting room. Not any more. The new-look Como, being launched on Thursday, is unrecognisable - think bordello meets Gilbert and Sullivan (that's a compliment). Ten Canoes sails off with swag of awards
Credits:
KOKODA
GFN Productions
Executive Producers: Geoff Levy, Lynda House, Antonio Zeccola
Producers: Leesa Kahn, Catriona Hughes
Director: Alister Grierson
Writers: Alister Grierson, John Lonie
Sales and Distribution: Palace Films, Arclight Films

• Curtain falls with a wild ride ; [ Our celluloid wonderland ; For foreign artists often found our country a land of refuge for their misunderstood genius France: a land of refuge for foreign artists ]
• · TELEVISION production and film company Beyond International has closed its loss-making film distribution arm. Managing director Mikael Borglund said the division had been running at a loss for some time and was a major drag on company's earnings. Film arm beyond salvation; Feel free to go back and add comments to my Book Club entries on December 3 and December 10. This is a fluid conversation and I look forward to hearing from you. Book club
• · The hottest siblings in horror share directing and editing duties on their stateside debut, The Messengers, which was the top-grossing film of the weekend. The Messengers ; More and more moviemakers are choosing Australia's southeastern state as the home of their film shoots, including A Cry in the Dark, Picnic at Hanging Rock and, more recently, the live-action Charlotte's Web. Where the Wild Things Are
• · · Or, more prosaically: critical thinking is the skillful application of a repertoire of validated general techniques for deciding the level of confidence you should have in a proposition in the light of the available evidence. A shorter version is the art of being right. ; Sullivan breaks magic 49-second barrier
• · · · To Be Rich and Bohemian A Walk On The Virtual Side; Way Beyond Pretty
• · · · · Are beaches and books in danger?
The conventional wisdom would say yes. After all, more and more media--the Internet, cable television, satellite radio, videogames--compete for our time. And the Web in particular, with its emphasis on textual snippets, skimming and collaborative creation, seems ill-suited to nurture the sustained, authoritative transmission of complex ideas that has been the historical purview of the printed page. But surprise--the conventional wisdom is wrong. Our special report on books and the future of publishing is brim-full of reasons to be optimistic. People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression--wikis, networked books--are blossoming in a digital hothouse. No tension ahead of riots anniversary; Forbes has just put out a special edition on the future of books. It looks really interesting and that's just scanning the contents. Peopple still burn books. But that only means that books are still dangerous enough to destroy. And if people want to destroy them, they are valuable enough that they will endure.
"Books are humanity in print."
• · · · · · Donald Mitchell has written 2,923 book reviews for Amazon.com--and made $20,000 doing it. The Secret Life Of An Online Book Reviewer ; (By mate - Jonathan Enfield) Cold River is proof that persistence does pay off. I have never been able to explain to people how despite having such limited movement, achieving my dreams can lift the spirit so that I feel it’s possible not just to overcome my own physical limitations but to defy gravity itself. Man who catch fly using chopsticks can accomplish anything! Electronic publishing isn't leading to the death of books. Stop Worrying About Copyrights

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As Abraham Lincoln said 'To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men' (and women)

Sheldon said in 2000 that the profession of author suited him best: There is no budget to worry about, you can have as many characters as you want; you can give them all yachts ... Sidney Sheldon, a writer whose keen grasp of popular tastes fuelled a string of feverishly romantic and suspenseful books - and made him a perennial bestseller - has died of pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 89.
I try to construct them so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one more chapter. It's the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial: leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the chapter Novels made good junk and their author millions

The Zeccola Family: a land of refuge for film lovers If Tomorrow Comes – Be it Art or Idea
Pull back the curtains on one of Australia’s most influential film families. It was in his birthplace, a humble southern Italian village, that Antonio Zeccola first got a taste for film. Every weekend of his childhood, he would watch movies screened by his father in the village church hall. When the Zeccolas migrated to Melbourne, they brought their passion for film with them. Over the next fifty years, Antonio Zeccola built his own cinema chain. Today Palace Cinemas is a family enterprise run by Antonio, his wife and their four children. It’s a major force in Australian film culture. But the movie business is as high risk today as it ever was, and keeping the family venture afloat is a nerve-wracking operation.

Antonio Zeccola is the Managing Director of Palace Films and Palace Cinemas with a 40-year history of distributing quality local and international titles in Australia and New Zealand. He has received credit as Executive Producer for Paul Goldman's Australian Rules and again for Rolf de Heer's Alexandra's Project, which was officially selected for screening at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2003, where it was nominated for a Golden Bear.
Antonio has a strong commitment to the Australian film industry and has invested in three of the country's most highly anticipated films of 2006: The Book of Revelation, Ana Kokkinos' follow-up to the past Palace Films success Head On; Irresistible, starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill; and Macbeth in which the director of Romper Stomper, Geoffrey Wright, brings Shakespeare's play to gangland Melbourne.
Palace Cinemas is Antonio's exhibition division with 73 screens across 21 locations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth making it Australia's only national group of cinemas dedicated to the presentation of quality film. Antonio's passion for restoring, reinvigorating and saving cinema icons has led him to recently acquire and refurbish the Chauvel Cinema in Sydney and the Westgarth Theatre in Melbourne.
From the foyer to the big screen, the founder of Palace cinemas supports Australian films, writes Gabriella Coslovich.
Talk about extreme makeover. The foyer of South Yarra's Cinema Como used to have about as much personality as a railway station waiting room. Not any more. The new-look Como, being launched on Thursday, is unrecognisable - think bordello meets Gilbert and Sullivan (that's a compliment). Ten Canoes sails off with swag of awards
Credits:
KOKODA
GFN Productions
Executive Producers: Geoff Levy, Lynda House, Antonio Zeccola
Producers: Leesa Kahn, Catriona Hughes
Director: Alister Grierson
Writers: Alister Grierson, John Lonie
Sales and Distribution: Palace Films, Arclight Films

• Curtain falls with a wild ride ; [ Our celluloid wonderland ; For foreign artists often found our country a land of refuge for their misunderstood genius France: a land of refuge for foreign artists ]
• · TELEVISION production and film company Beyond International has closed its loss-making film distribution arm. Managing director Mikael Borglund said the division had been running at a loss for some time and was a major drag on company's earnings. Film arm beyond salvation; Feel free to go back and add comments to my Book Club entries on December 3 and December 10. This is a fluid conversation and I look forward to hearing from you. Book club
• · The hottest siblings in horror share directing and editing duties on their stateside debut, The Messengers, which was the top-grossing film of the weekend. The Messengers ; More and more moviemakers are choosing Australia's southeastern state as the home of their film shoots, including A Cry in the Dark, Picnic at Hanging Rock and, more recently, the live-action Charlotte's Web. Where the Wild Things Are
• · · Or, more prosaically: critical thinking is the skillful application of a repertoire of validated general techniques for deciding the level of confidence you should have in a proposition in the light of the available evidence. A shorter version is the art of being right. ; Sullivan breaks magic 49-second barrier
• · · · To Be Rich and Bohemian A Walk On The Virtual Side; Way Beyond Pretty
• · · · · Are beaches and books in danger?
The conventional wisdom would say yes. After all, more and more media--the Internet, cable television, satellite radio, videogames--compete for our time. And the Web in particular, with its emphasis on textual snippets, skimming and collaborative creation, seems ill-suited to nurture the sustained, authoritative transmission of complex ideas that has been the historical purview of the printed page. But surprise--the conventional wisdom is wrong. Our special report on books and the future of publishing is brim-full of reasons to be optimistic. People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression--wikis, networked books--are blossoming in a digital hothouse. No tension ahead of riots anniversary; Forbes has just put out a special edition on the future of books. It looks really interesting and that's just scanning the contents. Peopple still burn books. But that only means that books are still dangerous enough to destroy. And if people want to destroy them, they are valuable enough that they will endure.
"Books are humanity in print."
• · · · · · Donald Mitchell has written 2,923 book reviews for Amazon.com--and made $20,000 doing it. The Secret Life Of An Online Book Reviewer ; (By mate - Jonathan Enfield) Cold River is proof that persistence does pay off. I have never been able to explain to people how despite having such limited movement, achieving my dreams can lift the spirit so that I feel it’s possible not just to overcome my own physical limitations but to defy gravity itself. Man who catch fly using chopsticks can accomplish anything! Electronic publishing isn't leading to the death of books. Stop Worrying About Copyrights

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In addition, it is vital that there be a set of financial intermediaries, who are at least as competent and sophisticated at receiving, processing, and interpreting financial information . . . as the companies are at delivering it.” Puzzles are “transmitter-dependent”; they turn on what we are told. Mysteries are “receiver dependent”; they turn on the skills of the listener, and Macey argues that, as Enron’s business practices grew more complicated, it was Wall Street’s responsibility to keep pace.

Ancient history or not … Warsaw's new archbishop has resigned amid a scandal over his involvement with the communist-era secret police that has shaken the deeply Roman Catholic country. Archbishop resigns over spying

Can we change the heart of politics? Moral dilemma sharpens: now it's 'rat' or run dry
Dobbing, throughout history, has been seen as a despicable act — perhaps nowhere so much as in Australia, which has harboured a deep distrust of authority since convict days and adhered to a code of mateship demanding that citizens protect each other at all costs.

“I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization”. This query raised by Voltaire, the eighteenth century French philosopher may have numerous responses and answers. One thing is, however, quite clear that evolving the taxation system has been an important step taken by the organised societies while moving up the ladder of civilization.

• Testy Lines; [ Taxation and civilisation ; This month, Siemens, the Germany-based global engineering and electronics company, informed the United States Securities and Exchange Commission that prosecutors investigating the company for corruption have seized bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, two leading "offshore" banking centres. One hand launders the other ]
• · Even if little else can be said for it, Little Chef is a British institution. So the company's turbulent week - when, a year after being ditched by one private-equity group, it was plunged into administration and then pulled back out by another - was noticed by many who normally pay no attention to such dealings. It was further evidence of the way private equity, that is shares in any company not listed on public stock exchanges, is increasingly important to British business. Where the traditional pattern is for private companies to grow before being floated on the stock market, there is now increasing traffic in the other direction, as new year figures from Thomson Financial confirmed. Companies worth a record £77bn globally were taken private in 2006 Business in the dark ; Democracy in Britain is in a dangerous state. Faith in politicians has sunk to an all-time low. But is the public image fair? Cash for questions, lobbying, political favours, patronage, party funding, whipping, indiscretions, secrecy, half-truths...What lies behind these issues? The Truth About Westminster
• · The decision by Bill Gates to give all his time in future to his foundation, and then by Warren Buffett to add $37bn to the fund, will together trigger a series of events of truly lasting significance. Warren Buffett gives $37bn to Bill Gates' Foundation and Gates to leave Microsoft to run it all ; Gates and windows
• · · All great men of the calibre of Marcus Einfeld, who devote their lives to worthy causes, deserve to be rescued by a blonde angel. Angela Liati has come forward to assist the former judge in his hour of need because, as she explained: "The man has given his life to good causes Jeff Shaw needs his own bombshell from a blonde ; Is there a politician or a judge left who's not in trouble?
• · · · Former ABBA star Bjorn Ulvaeus is accused of tax evasion, with officials believing Ulvaeus siphoned his royalty payments into a Netherlands-based construction company. Money, Money, Money was the title of one of former ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus' hits … The tax office agreed to reduce its claim to around $9.5 million, but Ulvaeus appealed the case. It wasn't clear when the court would consider the appeal. Money, Money, Money ; Dancing Queen
• · · · · Every part of the story on its own seems to be the same old, worn-out thing: appointing cronies, political intrigue, pressure, a case of one hand washing the other. Is there anyone left who's not corrupt? ; The national-security expert Gregory Treverton has famously made a distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts are a puzzle. We can’t find him because we don’t have enough information. The key to the puzzle will probably come from someone close to bin Laden, and until we can find that source bin Laden will remain at large OPEN SECRETS
• · · · · · 'No ifs, no buts': the government will turn a blind eye if you are rich You are rich … so am I; Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy

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Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605, AROUND THE TIME OF THE MAKING OF THE NOSE FOR PERFUME:
For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture.

Sharing is what the blogosphere is all about Tips and Tools

Blogging and all that Jazz If Only Id Known! (Tips for a new website)
Everyone has a story, what's yours? Every one has tips what are yours?

In blogs we trust It only takes a bit of software to turn a column into a blog. It's all part of the inexorable drift of all media to the internet. I'm still a bit suspicious of the web, but hundreds of millions of users can't be wrong. What do you think?

• Blogging Starter Checklist; [ ah Blogs and Trust; For example, by merely adding a link to Google's blog search on both its homepage, the feature rocketed up the standings to become No. 1 in the field. ... Google stops providing 'tips' to its own products in its search results ]
• · GOOGLE has moved to put an end to the work of pranksters who manipulate the search engine so that, for example, looking for "miserable failure" will bring up a link to the home page of the US President. Search engine takes on web bombers and trust; There is clearly a culture within the ABC, or at least among its journalists, that they are above criticism. Best Blogs 2006. Déjà vu on the ABC
• · I’ve been home from hospital for a few days, and I can focus on fine print. I’ve cut my fingernails so I can type again. Bread tastes funny and I can’t tolerate coffee. I’ve been away a lot longer than we expected. Coming back slowly; Technorati may have been crowned king of blog searches ever since blogs started to make it big, but new market share numbers suggest that the popular blog search site could be taking the back seat to Google's Blog Search. Web market share analysis firm Hitwise says that, according to their numbers from last week, Google Blog Search has finally surpassed Technorati in web traffic—Google Blog Search now accounting to 0.025 percent of all web traffic and Technorati accounting for 0.023 percent. Google Blog Search outpaces Technorati
• · · The advice is still to be wary of strangers on the street, especially if they’re offering you candy. But with social interaction now fully available in today’s immersive Web 2.0 environments that are both online meeting space and ... By Alex Zaharov-Reutt. Teens getting savvier about MySpace, especially girls ; Search Market Predictions for 2007
• · · · To out-Google Google; Google Calendar overtaking its rivals

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In the information age, very few things are secret. Everyone from ASIO to the Freemasons has a website. So when The Sun-Herald publishes a list of Sydney's secret beaches, we cannot be accused of spilling the beans. All this information is available in streams of entries online, in guidebooks such as Andrew Short's Beaches Of The New South Wales Coast, and Tourism NSW even has a summer campaign promoting its favourite secret beaches. Secret Sydney beaches: A plethora of sandy hideaways tucked into hard to reach spots

Debut: Playing Robinson Crusoe and Jozef Imrich
Tiffany Baker's THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY, pitched as Wally Lamb meets Elizabeth McCracken, about a girl who grows physically and emotionally beyond her small town's wildest expectations, to Caryn Karmatz Rudy at Warner, in a pre-empt, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (world).

Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Alan Drew's book about a family whose lives are thrown into chaos when the 1999 Istanbul earthquake destroys the family's home and way of life, to Kate Medina at Random House, by Dorian Karchmar at the William Morris Agency.

Fifty-one-year old debut fiction writer Donald Ray Pollock's KNOCKEMSTIFF, a dark and wry work of grotesque southern gothic, based on the town of the same name in rural southern Ohio where the author was born and raised, with a violent and unsavory cast of characters hurtling from one life disaster to another -- from the father who pumps his son full of steroids in order to vicariously relive his glory days as a perpetually second-place bodybuilder, to the outback psychotic who gets unceremoniously mixed up with two teenaged siblings committing incest in a dynamite hole, to Gerald Howard at Doubleday, at auction, by Richard Pine of Inkwell Management.

Joe Dunthorne's SUBMARINE, narrated by a fourteen-year-old boy growing up in Swansea, on the south coast of Wales, to Bruce Tracy at Random House, along with Dan Menaker, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Georgia Garrett at AP Watt (US). UK rights to Simon Prosser of Hamish Hamilton.

Sandy Novack's debut novel PRECIOUS, set in 1978 during a summer when a young girl disappears from a small town in Pennsylvania, and the story collection LOVE & OTHER DISASTERS, to Jennifer Hershey at Random House, by Denise Shannon at Denise Shannon Literary Agency (world).
The True Story of the Iron Curtain Crossing: A collection of stories about how one escape can make a difference in the world
Second Life: A surprisingly upbeat, inspirational tale of escape

Elsewhere in silly news, at the start of the lawsuit between billionaire movie producer Philip Anschutz and novelist Clive Cussler, Anschutz's attorneys are now claiming the failure of film version of SAHARA had nothing to do with it being a bad movie--it's because the sales numbers for Cussler's books were exaggerated.