… Did you know that scientifically, there are two main differences that have been proven between those that ‘have’ and those that ‘have not’. Firstly, people with tertiary qualifications will generally earn more money during their careers. Secondly, the chances of these people being dishonest and deceitful during their careers are doubled. Source: A study conducted by Oxford University during the late 1990s. - SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS Courtesy of HM
Gabbie knows that Melbourne boasts some wonderful old universities, theatres, rich in history, fame and infamy. There is always something on … With most actors working in film and television in Australia, 16th Street offers programs exclusively in screen acting. Indeed, 16th Street Actors Studio developed Australia's first full-time training program for screen performance Good Luck with the Sweet 16nth Street Gabbie; These are some of Australia's busiest and most recognisable stars of the stage and screen, yet going back to school isn't beyond them I was in Villawood and Gabbie hopes to get to this Hollywood ; THE Most VITAL Audition Tip You will EVER Need to Know Scholarship for Actors IF YOU’VE ever wondered why Melbournians often complain bitterly about the dearth of live music far from home, here is the answer: there is lots of it where they come from. Melbourne has more live music venues than any other Australian city. Born to be loud
16th Street on Lucky Black Friday Poetry is not a luxury
For women . . . poetry is not a luxury It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
- Audre Lorde
• Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Media Dragon Readers [Amazon £7bn sales, no UK corporation tax. Theguardian, 4 April 2012. Amazon.co.uk, Britain's biggest online retailer, generated sales of more than £3.3bn in the country last year but paid no corporation tax on any of the profits from that income - and is under investigation by the UK tax authorities Amazon River ; Two days into leaving, / the river's outer frond flushes worms imagined in the fire / onto the embankment of rust, / mud deep when imagination became an asterisk in the mine How is this possible? How could a book from a first-time author — with English as a second language — hit bestseller lists and stick for a decade and counting? The odds seem impossible: there are more than 200,000 books published each year in the US, and less than 5% ever sell more than 5,000 copies. Cold River: Luck and timing play a (always big) part ; Indie Bestseller Lists let you know what indie readers are buying right now Just because they say it can’t be done doesn’t make it so. Just because it’s labeled “impossible” doesn’t make it even remotely impossible. Do your homework, micro-test like a mother, and trust your conclusions. You could be wrong, and you often will be, but… what if you’re right? Indie Bestsellers | IndieBound]Blogs are sometimes overlooked as a significant source of online buzz in comparison to social networking sites, yet consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006. People are churning out more content than ever, and blogging remains an important avenue for consumer expression, according to an NM Incite report. Consumer-generated blogs have continued a strong upward trend since the company began tracking them in 2006, according to the U.S. Digital Consumer Report State of The Media: Q3-Q4 2011. While Facebook continues to be the social media juggernaut, don't count blogging out. Combined, the three major blogging platforms -- Blogger, Wordpress and Tumbler, in that order -- account for 80.5 million unique pairs of eyeballs in October 2011, NM Incite said today. (Facebook had 139.1 million unique that month.)" [a hat tip to all my blogging colleagues whose tenure is moving into a second decade - You're the beast!]
• · "Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." Frank ZappaPlastic people of the bohemian universe; Did you know that there is a mathematical formula in Western music? A team of researchers from McGill and Stanford analyzed over 2,000 pieces of music by more than 40 different composers over the last 400 years and found that it's the rhythm in the tune that people respond to and enjoy... Rhythm & Response; While constant access to information enabled by digital devices has done much to improve our lives, it also exacts costs with respect to our attention and productivity that are especially harmful in a knowledge based economy. Increased public awareness of the impact of our information consumption habits—and ways to develop a healthier “information diet”—will help mitigate the negative impacts of constant connectivity Restoring Contemplation: How Disconnecting Bolsters the Knowledge Economy
• · · Bruce Hawker has withered in the full glare of publicity, so who can take his place? Before becoming a self-appointed political strategist and media commentator Bruce Hawker was the former Chief of Staff for the new Foreign Minister Bob Carr when Carr was New South Wales Premier. His links to Carr continue as he fades from the political scene and he seems to have set up Mark Arbib as his successor as the next Labor strategist. Bruce Hawker passes the Labor baton to Mark Arbib; In the most explosive evidence at Monday's hearing by the state's gaming authority, a lawyer for The Star read three texts that Peter Grimshaw, Mr O'Farrell's communications director, sent to his partner in 2010. Peter Grimshaw ; Peter Grimshaw quit following two days of sensational testimony at an inquiry by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority into whether he or others attempted to undermine Sydney's The Star casino and the position of its former boss, Sid Vaikunta. One year and one week into Barry O'Farrell's government and the first scalp is one of his most powerful aides, the Premier's communications director Peter Grimshaw. worse It has all the sordid feel of a Labor scandal. Maybe, in some ways, it is ; Peter Grimshaw ; It took a wide boy with a tax-haven tan and a big mouth to tell us what’s really going on
• Those of us who try to care about this country sink from distaste to disgust to revulsion, till in the end there is nothing left to do but laugh.
• Every so often (it happened three times last week) someone says to me that I should find something cheerful to write about. They’ve come to the wrong shop. All the political parties employ battalions of professional liars who can provide you with all the happy falsehoods that you want.
• And the power-worshippers and courtiers of political journalism proudly pass on this tripe as if it were their own work Talk about having no shame
• · · · In the last decade, financiers have speculated billions of pounds in food, helping to make prices dearer and more volatile. Speculation by large investment banks is driving up food prices for the world's poorest people, tipping millions into hunger and poverty. Investment in food commodities by banks and hedge funds has risen from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) in the past five years, helping to push prices to 30-year highs and causing sharp price fluctuations that have little to do with the actual supply of food, says the United Nations' leading expert on food. The real hunger games: How banks gamble on food prices – and the poor lose out ; The Gujarat high court has ruled that banks cannot freeze accounts nor can they stop issuing cheque book or providing ATM facility where the account holder has not supplied KYC ( Know Your Customer) documents. The court has further ruled that presence of the account holder was not a 'must' for production of documents required for KYC. The ruling was given by division bench of Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Paresh Upadhyay last week while hearing a petition seeking temporary bail filed by one of the convicts of the 2008 Patan gangrape case, serving a life term KYC ; An examination of the web of “shell” companies shows that its main ownership leads to Liechtenstein through a company called Deswa Holding Establishment which owns 99 per cent of Venus Projects Ltd in which too Rishi has a stake. As of December 2009, the ownership of Tatra Sipox was between one Mrs Bozen Durdovicoca, Slovakian citizen, who owned 50 per cent shares and Venus Projects (Hong Kong) Ltd which also had 50 per cent stake. Inquiries revealed that Tatra Sipox, which was originally incorporated in 1994, was promoted by one Jozef Majsky of Cervenova in Bratislava, Slovakia and Venus Projects UK Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Venus Projects Hong Kong. Venus Projects Ltd’s address has been shown to be 2 Brentford Business Centre, Brentford Middle. TATRA ; Playing with fire Financial innovation can do a lot of good, It is its tendency to excess that must be curbed
• · · · · A whistle blower inside the ATO says it has abused its power and wasted money in a crackdown on highly wealthy people. 7:30 Report These papers (available via the link above) are a follow-up to a roundtable that reviewed the Australian tax system, the Henry Review recommendations and the extent of their implementation, and last year's Tax Summit at Parliament House. In October 2011 the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia, in partnership with the ANU and the Australia New Zealand School of Government, convened a roundtable event examining the tax and social transfer systems. Tax and social security
• · · · · · · Israeli fraudster fights UK attempt to seize assets British police want to confiscate the property of a lawyer who swindled Holocaust survivors CACT ; Eugene O’Neill never staged Long Day’s Journey during his lifetime. It was too painful. Rarely has a playwright stripped himself so bare Blood, sweat and tears
• · · · · · · An overmodest timidity has taken hold among high-style, personality-driven essayists like John Jeremiah Sullivan, who plays the doofus on the page. Why? It sells. The Son Shines Bright ； Thanks to disruptive innovations, much of our world today looks radically different than it did just a decade or two ago. Remember flying in the old days? Air travel used to be inevitably expensive and cumbersome — until Southwest Airlines. Trips to the video store and looming late fees are now a distant memory, thanks to Netflix. In industry after industry, disruptions deliver more for less and change everything from how we communicate with one another to how we work and shop. But, there's one major economic sector where disruptive innovation remains as rare as a sunny day in Seattle: the public sector Disrupting the public sector