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This is depressing. Especially when I think that I survived communism without ever being fingerprinted... Orwell 2004: ID cards passed despite abstentions VICTORIA's world-first roadside drug-testing system is in a shambles after police revealed two of the first three drivers to test positive had been cleared following laboratory analysis of their samples. SHHHHH Drug Absentism Embarrasment

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Daily Character assassinations
I think the government is perhaps a necessary evil. Before one can have hope the slaves have to suffer assassination, they have to endure and they have to build characters. It is happening on trains in hospitals at schools. We should be grateful for the opportunity to sweat and even to shed blood at hospital. That reminds me time to give the Red Cross some of my blood (smile)

An ex-employee of the NSW Cabinet Office once told me that the daily routine of he (sic) and his colleagues went something like this:
1. Arrive at office.
2. Read The Daily Telegraph.
3. Prepare briefing papers for Premier and relevant Ministers on the issues raised in each article in The Daily Telegraph.
He assured me this was no exaggeration. According to this public servant, the Carr Government’s daily plan consists of little more than responding to and dealing with anything that appears in the Telegraph.

• Politicians who are looking for a kick, are usually kicked out instead. Make no mistake, Stalin and Hitler used to be back by unpopular demand Putting on Truthful Airs: The Privileges of the MLC ; [Fewer and fewer Labor pollies have been self-employed, privately employed or even unemployed. They belong to a class who comprehend the outside world through focus groups, demographic analyses and what are virtually anthropological observations of voters, rather than direct experience. Is Kerry Packer the Picker of Labour Premiers?]
• · The immediate reaction of the self-styled Solzhenitsyn of the south, Richard Flanagan, was to rush into print with a portentously titled item for The Age “Is this the end of dissent in Australia?”, so that looks unlikely; [Roddy Meagher: Rarely, if ever, has the departure from the bench of an Australian judge accompanied by such attention in the popular press. Parting gift: Cheerful character assassinations ]
• · · 'Hotel Rwanda': Holding a Moral Center as Civilization Fell Cut down the tall trees ; [Mark your calendars: Unique Auditing: Integrity Initiatives: Patricia Azarias, Director, Internal Audit Division, United Nations, USA
The United Nations Organisational Integrity Initiative
Unique reporting relationships and work environment of the United Nations
Issues of auditing peacekeeping operations Monday 7th March 2005]
• · · · MR HUTLEY: In our respectful submission, your Honour, this is not an appropriate vehicle for special leave.
CALLINAN J: You know, I always think that is a very unattractive formula and not a very good submission. I remember unsuccessfully appearing here once and my client saying, with an expletive, “What have I got to do, drive a Cadillac into Court?” It never impresses me, if standing alone. David Starkoff’s blog Inchoate David has not acquired a permanent blog link, but who cares as his entire blog is a real diamond. Cut into it if you dare and ponder on the streetwise meaning of life ...
• · · · · Ramsubba Reddy, who had served as Housing Minister in the N Chandrababu Naidu government, was one of the main accused in the murder of two Congress activists at Shadnagar in Mahaboobnagar district in December 1991 TDP Minister was given a lifer in a double-murder case
• · · · · · Tony Blair, telling it like it is. Now what a magnificent example of the human spirit - that's the side we should be on ... Full text: Blair's statement in Baghdad

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Personality clashes and what one insider calls "the perennial cultural divide between the creative and the corporate" have plunged Australia's most prestigious literary prize into discord. Miles Franklin Literary Award

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Ach Santa, wishes are horses and readers can ride
Everywhere, being popular seems like the most important thing in the world. We often think that being the center of attention would be fantastic — like being a famous movie star or an Olympic Swimmer.
That's what Jesse Aarons thinks in Bridge to Terabithia until he meets Leslie Burke. Yet the speaker in Emily Dickinson's poem, "I'm nobody! Who are you?" readily admits to being an outsider. What's more, she even seems to like it. She says it would be "dreary" to be "somebody."
Is she crazy? Who would want to be an outsider?
Think about it for a moment. Who would really want to be an insider?
As an outsider, a "nobody," the speaker is not forced to be "public." She does not have to face the scrutiny or disapproval of people who are likely to be jealous of her popularity. She does not have to play games, put on an act, or keep trying in order to be a somebody. She can be herself and be comfortable.
What's more, she is not alone.
Are you nobody?: Everyone feels like a "nobody" at some point in life.
What Does It Mean?
The poem's first stanza tells how the speaker meets a fellow "nobody" — a friend. Together, the two nobodies can enjoy each other's company and their shared anonymity.
Anne Shirley, the heroine of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables book series, knows what it is like to be an outsider and to have a special friend. Her best friend and kindred spirit is Diana Barry.
As a pair, they aren't really nobodies anymore. That's why the speaker says, "Don't tell! / They 'd banish us, you know." She understands that once you have another "nobody" at your side, you aren't really a "nobody" anymore. And she doesn't want to be banished or kicked out from what she sees as a society of nobodies.
She's comfortable there.
In the second stanza, the tone of the poem changes. The speaker sounds confident. Perhaps it is her discovery that there are other people like her — other "nobodies"-- that makes her feels strongly that being a "somebody" isn't such a great idea.
She realizes that having a friend who understands you and accepts you as you are is more important than being admired by a lot of people or being in the "in" crowd.
In the poem's second stanza, the speaker also makes a strange comparison. She says that being a somebody is like being a frog. What does this simile mean? Aside from Kermit, there aren't many celebrity frogs around.
A lot of people -- kids and adults -- feel lonely sometimes. Emily Dickinson's poem "I'm nobody! Who are you?" expresses how being a loner can sometimes be a positive thing.
Why does the speaker choose that amphibian as her representative of a public creature?
It's because frogs make a lot of noise. The poem says that frogs, though they can croak and make themselves heard and be noticed, are noticed only by "an admiring bog." The b(l)og is the frog's environment, not the frog's friend. So who cares what the b(l)og thinks?
That's what the poem says about being a "somebody" who gets noticed by an admiring public. Frequently, the relationship is impersonal and distanced, not like a real friendship. Somebodies may have many admirers, but they might not be able to make those personal connections that real friendship offers.
Being "nobodies" helps bloggers, writers, storytellers, find each other.

Imagine this: a stack of books in every bath house, big house, cat house, clearing house, dog house, dream house, glass house, lower house, rooming house, trade house, upper house, and outhouse.
Imagine this: every parent reading to every child every night; a dog-eared, rumpled book on every teenager's night stand; real books in book bags; books (in use) in every boat, bus, cable car, subway, streetcar, subway, train, trolley.

• Santa, you can imagine all of them, create all of them, dream all of them, and then see, hear, smell, touch, taste and even intuit the resulting world of wonder from all of them [I might be rich yet I am Nobody]
• · The largest Canadian Double Dragon (epublishers) is bucking the trend ... Bookworms turning to internet bore into local profits ; [Humans will download their minds into computers one day. With a new robotics firm, Hans Moravec begins the journey from warehouse drones to robo sapiens ]
• · · Mark A. R. Kleiman The pro-war-novel-of-high-literary-merit category seems to be rather thin.
• · · · Shakespeare described imagination as "a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater; and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it." An enjoyable article about the work involved in reading and how it devolops the imagination
• · · · · The New York Times released the winners of the 2004 Best Librarian Awards. Congratulations to them all!. Here's The List of the Guilty
• · · · · · The Polish Librarians Association has issued an "Appeal for Cuban Librarians" calling for the release of their Cuban colleagues Solidarity of the Underground Stack

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From the region which is located so close to the Christmas Island a devastating news reached the Dunning family today. Adam Dunning was shot and killed at 3.10am while on patrol. The Solomon Island capital of Honiara
A powerful explosion killed at least 24 people and wounded 57 others today when it ripped through the tented dining hall of a large American military base in Mosul Pools of blood streamed out of the darkened dining hall at Forward Operating Base Marez

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The Real Reason Kofi Annan Must Go
Genocide, not oil money, is the proof of his failed leadership. The sooner Vaclav Havel takes over the UN the better for one and all ... If you or your friends are still under the delustion that the United Nations is a force for world peace, read this column by a former UN peacekeeper.

A debate currently rages about whether Kofi Annan enjoys the moral authority to lead the United Nations because the Oil for Food scandal happened under his command. That debate is 10 years too late and addresses the wrong subject.

• Because of Bosnia and Rwanda, at least as much as the UN's Blood-for-Oil program [Like popes, parliamentary clerks, professors and Penn State football coaches, Supreme Court justices tend to hold onto their jobs forever Politics, courts inseparable]
• · A couple of years ago, I was denied my rights in a Newark courtroom. What happened to me is a dirty little (open) secret of the American justice system. It happens hundreds of times every day during jury selections around the country. It's called a "peremptory challenge." One Angry Man
• · · It was a series of unfortunate events... A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Some mysterious "Iraqi" men might be rebreaking your legs pretty soon Presidential Order [Doublespeak: It is difficult to determine from the second-hand description whether the technique in this e-mail (impersonating the FBI) was permissible or not.]
• · · · Strange Comparison of the Year Mairead Corrigan Maguire Nobel laureate compares Israeli nuclear arms to gas chambers ; [FCC Chairman Michael Powell on indecency, innovation, consolidation, and competition ]
• · · · · In the long walk of history between man and dragon, the bark mitzvah could be seen as an unexpected pit stop Today He Is a Dragon; Actually, He Always Was ; [James Capozzola Assembling a List of Tenders of the Best Breed Ever]

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Unfortunately, as a mere practicing lawyer, Denise Howell was unable to follow or understand most of the article. That's more a criticism of me, of course, than it is a criticism of his article, which I'm sure that I'd find quite good if I could understand it Sipping Illegal Latte
Robert J. Ambrogi highlights 13 websites, launched this past year, that merit your review, including an online legal bookstore, an e-discovery resource, a new meta-search engine, and a collection of historical documents on the civil rights movement Recommendations For Recently Launched Law-Related Websites

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Fast Chat: The Wonkette
Ana Marie Cox, the Monica Lewinski of the Blogosphere - or is it the Anna Nicole Smith?, started writing as the Wonkette in January '03, delivering a gossipy, satirical blog on D.C. politics. Now she's working on her first novel.

They're locked in this mutually pleasurable sort of Tracy-Hepburn relationship, but it's not as entertaining to everyone else as it is to them. Watching Tracy and Hepburn is fun for the audience. Watching bloggers and mainstream journalists go at it—for one thing, you know they're not going to fall in love at the end.

• The Wonkette stands on the shoulders of giants and shakes it What's the relationship between bloggers and mainstream journalists? [War and politics, the staples of so many bloggers, have reached a downturn in their blog-ability ]
• · Blogging I told you so!; [There’s a vast alternative to Dan Rather. The Blogosphere’s Smaller Stars ]
• · · Search Engine Resubmission Myth ; [A New Book: The Google Story ]
• · · · A fraudulent document and a fallen television icon propelled a trio of online writers to Internet stardom earlier this year when they used their Web site, Power Line Local site a top dog in Web logs; [Desperately Marketing Google ]
• · · · · Do you know that there is a marketing revolution happening online this very moment? Marketing Revolution With BLogs And RSS ; [The popular Internet search engine Google may be creating a new great wonder of the world, much like one Alexander the Great created long ago.
Google wants to create new world wonder ]
• · · · · · Recent court developments have been grim for those who cherish a free press. Punishing the Press - via - Appealing Howard Bashman

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Search engine Google has offered geeks and non-geeks alike an early present this Christmas. Launching Google Print, the company hopes to begin the long task of integration between searching offline content in the online world. Google Launches Print Service

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Tapping Reservoirs of Raw Emotions
Causes of failure are always more complicated and varied than are the reasons for success. Science teaches are that humans are more alike than different, with the primary differentiator being culture. A great writer is not made simply by his delivery, though superb story-telling is prerequisite. Rather, what sets a great writer apart is his ability to be different and to share that difference when he observes people in real life situations. The artful storyteller holds a unique mirror before our eyes; and we recognise truths, revealing truths, about ourselves.
Strangely, it is mostly Slavic writers who create a pulpable sense of energy and expectation. They teach me how to open my eyes and my mind. They know how I feel and exactly what I need. Boing Boing picked up yet another interesting/creepy angle on a slightly different story we all need ...

Boing Boing randomly happened to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code right when it came out. When he told my pal Vann Hall about the novel, he said the basis of the plot sounded like a non-fiction book from the early 1980s called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. A few months after Da Vinci Code hit it big, he noticed that Holy Blood, Holy Grail had also made it to the bestseller lists, more than twenty years after it was first published. Now it seems that the Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors are suing Dan Brown for ripping off their research.

• Da Vinci (Legal) Code ; [Free eBooks for your PDA ; Looking for a rare read? Just Google it ; Juvenile Nonfiction: Cold River as Top 12 at Christmas 2004; River name: Morava; Street name: Imrychova (surburb of Prague called Kamk) named after Karel Imrich (1907-1944), a leader of an illegal group Meopta, Karel was killed during the WWII on 11.10.1944 at Draanech]
• · Apparently, publishing house Random House is thinking about jumping into the online retail business themselves , trying to sell books directly to the public. Cold Rivers Going Digital
• · · Oprah's impact on book sales bigger than expected
• · · · Exclusive: Google Apparently Considered Online Store
• · · · · New Matilda is a weekly newsletter of independent political commentary: Spoil Your Loved one or even Better Surprise Your Enemy Give them a gift to remember you by Want a different tune?
• · · · · · Fly Away: Cold River Causing Floods @ Amerikan Airports ; [Nothing attracts scrutiny so well as size and success, so welcome to the majors, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). Much Ado About Google ]

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Iranian foreign ministry spokesman announced Sunday December 19 that intelligence minister Ali Younessi would “soon” report to the government on an eight-member spy ring that gathered information for Israel. Spy Circle

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: It's a Small World, After All
Americans don't read many foreign writers... Politically, America has become infamous as the beast that feeds only its own appetite.

Well, it looks like the big kahunas of contemporary literature have found a new cause. Responding to the America-first Zeitgeist that has spilled into our political discourse, they're hitting back with New York's first international writers' festival, PEN World Voices, to be held April 16-22 in the Big Apple. Luminaries such as Ha Jin, Vaclav Havel, and Wole Soyinka have already signed on, all in apparent support of the sponsor's underlying concern: the increasing political and cultural isolation of the United States.
We ourselves have experienced the fallout of the world's growing suspicion and antipathy to U.S. policies, says Larry Siems of the New York-based PEN American Center, which is hosting the event. In the post-9/11 world, Siems says, writers here are dealing with negative reaction to America's literary exports, while writers abroad are finding it tougher to obtain visas to come to this country.

• Post-9/11 world [The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has two dogs, named Marx and Engels because "they are German, hairy and have no respect for property." Naming Convention]
• · Artificial life' comes step closer: NSW Premier Bob Carr, government ministers and Westfield tried to cover up their involvement in the Orange Grove affair Grove Saga ; Former NSW gaming and racing minister Richard Face today pleaded guilty to lying to the state's corruption watchdog, saying he was under severe stress and panicked. Professional Politicians at State Level Total Political Amateurs at the Local Level: Tzar of Crookedfield (sic); [A Sydney mayor stood down today over allegations he accepted a wad of cash from a developer. Cr Alfred Tsang ; - Cold Revenge Sydney Style: New mayor accused of entrapment ; Those who break the law, pay for the law, ensuring the safety of the community Alfred Tsang said Strathfield Council is part of the State Government's Supplementary Policing Trial... ]
• · · Gross National Happiness. New economic measure: Happiness ; [Now, I can't do an Erin Brockovich and sue a company and I'm no Bob Geldof to organise 'Bandaid' but I need to send a message to the premier, Bob Carr. Professor John Thompson, head of melanoma worldwide ]
• · · · MASSACHUSETTS HAS a tough reputation to live down with the rest of the nation: loony-left liberals, lousy drivers, failed presidential candidates. To top it all off, everyone thinks we're cheap bastards, too. Generosity Index
• · · · · Many of those who were successful under communism were wonderfully prepared to succeed in many a modern corporation Great Expectations ; [Prime mover: John Winston Howard the second longest survivor ]
• · · · · · Boris: My mobile has been throbbing for the past hour with calls from the nice telly people wanting me to go on and gloat about the extinction of David Blunkett, and for the past hour I have been sitting here trying to work up some enthusiasm. It wasn't Nannygate: it was telling the truth about Labour ; [We're all little people in little houses I hope you run the country better than you've managed over the last 15 minutes ]

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Every now and then super-search-engine Google changes the way they rank results. For quite a while now the system they had in place has worked in our favour: type in a book title and the author's name and, if we have the book under review, chances were very, very good our review-page would be one of the top few results. But last week things changed, and that is no longer the case. Google dance: There isn't actually a name for whats wrong with the steps [Same with Media Dragon - without being ranked highly by Google our kingdom is dead; Blogstreet is still ranking us highly, but without Google Media Dragon Is No More

The Blog, The Press, The Media: The ruthless old media dragon
Gallup finds journalists not trusted, but research indicates some highly developed moral reasoning.

The American public thinks journalists are ethically challenged, according to a Gallup Poll. Yet another study shows journalists have highly developed abilities when it comes to moral reasoning. What gives?
First the studies. The American public doesn't trust reporters. This according to Gallup's most recent poll rating of perceived honesty among certain professions. Less than 25 percent of the people who responded the survey rated reporters' ethical standards as high or very high.

• Journalists: More Ethical than People Realize? [ Ten examples of bad journalism ]
• · John Jerome: Only writing secret I know - for shrinking a project to manageable size How do you eat a dragon?
• · · 10 Things We Learned About Blogs ; [If you're going to peddle opinions for a living, self-assurance is essential. If you don't have it, you need to bluff. People don't want to read a lot of - Oh dear, this is so terribly complicated, I just can't make up my poor little mind Many's the pundit who has retired on full disability after developing a tragic tendency to see both sides of the issue ]
• · · · Iraqi Bloggers, In the News And Critiquing It
• · · · · Puff the Media Dragon ; [Warhol’s 15 Minutes: has everything but Bela Lugosi declaiming Bevare! Bevare the media dragon! although De Niro is almost at the level of Lugosi these days: He pulls faces, he grimaces, he parrots his old schtick]
• · · · · · Popdex Citations Your BlogStreet or Mine: Who's in your Neighborhood?

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Merry Christmas? Remember last week, when that pregnant woman was strangled and had the fetus cut out of her? Here's something to take your breath away: A savage double murder in the psychiatric wing of a French hospital, in which a nurse's decapitated head was left on top of a television in the patients' day room, stunned France and left hospital staff terrified of returning to work ...

Invisible Hands & Markets: Elections and Economy Law

He admitted that the most he'd hoped for was not to lose any seats of his own. The triumph was not foreshadowed by the poll formerly favoured by the pros - Newspoll - and those other polls pointing to a strong Howard win were openly pooh-poohed by their sponsors. The moral is: no matter who you are or how close your ear is to the ground, it's simply not possible to know how an election will transpire. Like forecasting the economy, it's just supposed experts pretending to know more than they do

• Debt, dumb politics and dumber politicians [The Topic Should Be China Robert Reich returns from Australia with a reality check: It's China, stupid ]
• · The buble is bolting The Real Estate Bubble Proof in Surreality; Sydney Asking Price: Quicksand ; [For old Soviet specialists, there is the surreal re-emergence of the Serbski institute of psychiatry and Dr Pechernikova. She was notorious for putting away anti-Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s for "schizophrenia"; in other words, being mad enough to question the regime.Nothing left but theft ; Undercover Expose ]
• · · If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss: He was once worth $80 million. Now John Elliott says he has just $293 in the bank (John will be back bigger and better ...)
• · · · The top 1,000 things to know
• · · · · Displaying a taste in sensible gifts, Santa Costello has unveiled plans to overhaul the do-it-yourself tax regime. Pendulum swing back towards ordinary taxpayers
• · · · · · Costello to ease up on taxpayer ; With Intercontinental Beer, It's All in the Rocks (and That Doesn't Mean Ice) The refreshing bitterness of an English pale ale, the clean light taste of a Pilsener, the dark, almost burnt graininess of Irish stout. To Dr. Alex Maltman, these are prime illustrations of the power of double dragon

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Reality bites Bankrupt Santa needs the Ca$h

The Blog, The Press, The Media: The Pursuit of Knowledge, From Genesis to Google
Every morning brings us the news of the globe, and yet we are poor in newsworthy stories.

One warm afternoon in the late 19th century, two middle-aged office clerks met on the same bench of the Boulevard Bourdon in Paris and immediately became the best of friends. Bouvard and Pécuchet (the names Gustave Flaubert gave to his two comic heroes) discovered through their friendship a common purpose: the pursuit of universal knowledge. To achieve this ambitious goal, they attempted to read everything they could find on every branch of human endeavor and, from their readings, cull the most outstanding facts and ideas. Flaubert's death in 1880 put an end to their enterprise, which was in essence endless, but not before the two brave explorers had read their way through many learned volumes on agriculture, literature, animal husbandry, medicine, archeology and politics, always with disappointing results. What Flaubert's two clowns discovered is what we have always known but seldom believed: that the accumulation of knowledge isn't knowledge.
The desire to know everything on earth and in heaven is so ancient that one of the earliest accounts of this ambition is already a cautionary tale. According to the 11th chapter of Genesis, after the Flood, the people of the earth journeyed east, to the land of Shinar, and decided to build a city and a tower that would reach the heavens.

• Google [Ex Google ]
• · As the people I hang out with on Freenode are painfully aware of by now, I’ve been on a blog platform testing binge. Stephanie reviews 13 free weblog-hosting platforms
• · · Jeffrey Rosen on blogging and privacy: One of the first sex scandals of the blogosphere ended, of course, in a book deal. In May, Ana Marie Cox, the Internet gossip whose Web log, Wonkette, focuses on Washington, published a link to another blogger who called herself the Washingtonienne Your Blog or Mine? The border between public and private; [A look at the Florida political bloggers who matter -- and one who broke news. ]
• · · · Apple's Steve Jobs was chosen a Person Who Mattered.
• · · · · Google Does it Again How fast this is... I type pretty fast, and it updates with every single keypress... Power of Suggestion
• · · · · · Jay Rosen is a press critic and writer whose primary focus is the media's role in a democracy. More Undercurrent: Action in Greensboro on Open Source Journalism

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The Net has made us bigger, but not necessarily better. Is Google God? Maybe not, but it's way up there

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: I have spent my life learning other people's lines
Can a novel start a war, free serfs, break up a marriage, drive readers to suicide, close factories, bring about a law change, swing an election, or serve as a weapon in a national or international struggle? In Kharkov I have seen all kinds of queues—for the film Tarzan, butter, women’s drawers, chicken giblets and horse-meat sausage. But I cannot remember a queue as long as the one for your book in the libraries ...
An Actor with a Brain — In this era when actors spout off to look like "good guys" in the face of terror, Herbert Lom...

Lesson learned — Roger Simon links to this excellent portrait of 87 year-old actor Herbert Lom in the Independent. Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich ze Schluderpacheru was wise to change his surname to Lom. It is one of many wise decisions he has made in his long life. Another was to emigrate to England, from his native Czechoslovakia, in January 1939.

• Herbert Lom: The odd fellow [As political consciousness and knowledge grow more prevalent in the broad culture, leading literary stars lag behind, as does much of the literary establishment. The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news—things which on their own merits would get the big headlines—being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact A Few Notes on the Literary Establishment ]
• · And have yourself a wonderful Mangaian night
• · · How we became barbarians Getting in Touch with Your Inner Terrorist ; [Some of them are deliberate. The lies the spin doctors spin. Some are matters of blindness, some lack of imagination, some of shallowness. Some of propriety. Some of fear. The simple fear of saying things that no one else is saying. Sometimes it's from being stuck in the trees and never seeing the forest, let alone the earth from which it grows or the relationship to the sun and the air and sky and the rain and the rivers that run underground. Non-fiction is full of lies. ]
• · · · In Defense of Academic Publishing: An Interview with Willis Regier
• · · · · The Killing of the Monster: There are many virtues to the democratic spirit, and one of them is humility; a humility that sometimes stops intelligent men making asses of themselves in public... Whatever happened to heroes? [But for some of us hope is the thing that gets stuck to the bottom of your shoe like a bad book deal. I’m a living example of how the writing life goes wrong as evidenced by my own recent publishing misadventure. See, the life of a novelist is a perilous one ]
• · · · · · Artists’ are not the only people who are — or could be — creative.

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Bill Moyers has always taken the high road, but it got a little lonely up there. In a country where political discourse grows ever more shrill, his voice was more and more easily drowned out. Last night, at the age of 70 and on the eve of his 50th wedding anniversary, Bill Moyers took the high road home. Bill Moyers Gets In the Last Word

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Road to Freedom via Unfriendly fire
Quote of the year for Tim Dunlop’s money:

This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community….
[S]uch a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

• Australia will survive al-Qa'ida as well. But we need to stop empowering the terrorists by abridging our liberties [Chemical Ali appears before Iraqi judge ]
• · Did Stanislav Petrov Save the World? Mark Mcdonald of Knight Ridder says, maybe so Petrov Affair 1983
• · · Duncan Campbell, a former Australian ambassador to Rome and Vienna and once a deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Department, says targeting and eliminating known terrorist operatives is more efficient and costs fewer lives than waging conventional war. Kill terror chiefs: ex-envoy ; [Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear ]
• · · · Golkar selects Yudhoyono ally as new leader
• · · · · Freedom of Cold War and Dissent
• · · · · · Here's my plan to end the red-blue rift ; [The Orange Grove Revolutions 2004 AD Ukrainian Orange Revolution; This is the Age of I, I am rich revolution of iPods ]

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Six sleeps to Christmas and the nights are anything but silent. Community carols

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Balance in the Service of Falsehood
The Media's Failure to Challenge Official Deception Over Iraq was the Product of a Journalism with Built-in Bias

The British and US governments stand accused of lying their way to war on Iraq, both at home and abroad. But while a series of what were widely regarded as nobbled inquiries have at least gone through the motions of holding them to account, there has been no attempt to hold the media to account for its role in making war possible. To his credit, George Monbiot argued on these pages earlier this year that "the falsehoods reproduced by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and consequential: it is hard to see how Britain could have gone to war if the press had done its job." But an examination of this failure, and its roots in a mass media with a long history of protecting and promoting the powerful, is conspicuous by its absence.
Like egomaniacal rulers forever, dating back to the cave, our pollies demonized the people they wanted to kill. They have "weapons of mass destruction," they asserted. Yeah, like we don't. Like India doesn't. Like Israel doesn't. Like Pakistan doesn't. Like China doesn't. Like Russia doesn't. Why don't we invade them? Or ourselves?

• WMD [The Plight of Whistleblowers]
• · BzzAgent.comis a company which creates marketing campaigns for consumer product clients. There is no such thing as bad buzz.
• · · Best Of The Web Forbes: Extreme Blogging
• · · · 100 most useful websites Cream of the crop
• · · · · The Best Legal Web Sites
• · · · · · Promise and pitfalls of e-printing

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If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. This was a message my youngest daughter received at her primary school graduation on Friday night. We send children to school to find meaning. Everything else is secondary. We humans want to believe in our own species. On nights like that the joys of parents and their fears come out of hiding. Words in certains songs do that to parents: “We are the feeling in your song; We are the rhythm that color your song; We are the pain that makes the melody strong.”

Stephen Covey said that there are only two lasting bequests we can give our children; one is roots, the other is wings. However, a faith is often what holds people's lives together. It is an attempt to resolve the tensions of everyday life by promising an idealized future in which one will be rescued from all the problems of ordinary life.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk being called sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement..
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self
To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair, and to try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greastest hazard in life is to risk
nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and becomes nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he's forfeited his freedom.
Only the person who risks is truly free.
- Leo Buscalia

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Donna’s Year 6 Self Examining Book & Powerpoint of Memories
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

I mentioned the other day that Dvorak’s String Sextet was written in “A major, that most divinely innocent of keys." Now a reader writes to ask:
Is there something intrinsic to the key of A major that makes it more innocent than any other? Is it innocent only when strings are playing in it?
Keys are often said to possess characteristics associated with various extra-musical emotional states. While there has never been a consensus on these associations, the material basis for these attributions was at one time quite real: because of inequalities in actual temperament, each mode acquired a unique intonation and thus its own distinctive “tone,” and the sense that each mode had its own musical characteristics was strong enough to persist even in circumstances in which equal temperament was abstractly assumed. Though highly specific with respect to different repertories and listeners, these expressive qualties fall into two basic categories, which conform to the basic difference—often asserted as an opposition—between major and minor: major is heard to be brighter and more cheerful than minor, which in comparison is darker and sadder.

• D minor: it's not just a key, it's a living! ; [Oh sister, oh brother]
• · Picture a mundane aspect of everyday life that most readers will recognize: you're in touch with a coworker on the other side of the planet via email or IM, and at the same time you get an SMS telling you to bring home a carton of milk Sociology of Mobility
• · · The earth is always changing as man develops and has to deal with new combinations of elements; and the writer who is to be anything more than an echo of his predecessors must always find expression for something which has never yet been expressed, must master a new set of Phenomena which has never yet been mastered….
• · · · So did you really read all those Christmas stories, or just set them out like decorations? Here's a quiz from the Guardian for you holiday/lit know-it-alls. Literary Scrooge: God bless us, every one

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George Orwell in the making Casino Used Cameras to Ogle Women While in Sydney MP is bugged in relation to Orange Grove Affair Are we not all being bugged. My question is Who is bugging the bugger?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The Circuitbreaker Rowville Books on Mark Latham
I first became aware of the New Politics of the Outsider at the NSW Parliament House. I was working at the reference area of the Library so I often came across Mark who even then had a sense of urgency about him. Characters like Mark are often too busy to bother attending their own funeral. Mark liked to compare him self to socialists with human face. He likes to clone himself on the idea of the politician who knows how the 'third way' works. To those he liked at the library, be it bubbly Greig Tillotson or the expert historian on Bill McKell, David Clune, he created an atmosphere of the Starbuck cofee club. The Parliament was their third place a place where the cosiness of Tony Blair was served up. Female waitresses seemed to like his style, although he lacked the touch of Mike Cleary or the sex appeal of a certain Bill Clinton.
Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr, his bosses at the time, expected Mark to have the intellectual sophistication of Vaclav Havel. Latham was always charming to me even shared a story or two be it in the lift or the indoor pool. His boyish eyes made you feel like playing on the soccer field. Mark seemed to be just one of us, a servant, an outsider, who was born poor just like the Brittish pollie David Blunkett, but whose eyes followed you everywhere. I always wondered what was behind those blue hazel flaked eyes ... I doubt that any writer or any women would ever be allowed to keep him still for long enough to reach deep inside those two huge pools on his face...
Ach, even if you were a better swimmer he would make you feel that he was actually leading... That is a leadership gift!

In her Quarterly Essay Margaret Simons explores Latham’s spatial political language. It’s a thoughtful essay with some attractive personal notes. She is particularly informative on Latham’s record as Mayor of Liverpool and usefully summarises some of his ideas about welfare, employment, health, taxation, and education. But, like McGregor, Simons exaggerates Latham’s novelty. She manages this once through simple factual error, when she claims that ‘Latham differs from Whitlam and Menzies in having been born on the fringes’ (p. 35). We can take it for granted that Simons has never been to Menzies’ birthplace, Jeparit! Equally, I find it hard to see Menzies, the son of a shopkeeper, having been ‘born into comfort and privilege’ (p. 35). Simons also believes that Latham’s ‘arrival on the political scene has brought to an end the fictions that have dominated politics for the last ten years’ (p. 107).

• More hard Labor: Latham inside out [Exclusive Members Only: Bear Pit Pillow Talk ]
• · The Swimming Games Political People Play. It's a game of inches – the line between the politics of sports and the sport of politics. Giving Meaning to 'Never Again'
• · · Foreign Policy, a look at the Top Ten stories you missed in 2004
• · · · Facts are stupid things. There is a little argument from professional historians, for whom context, rather than mute data points, is everything. Of Human Bondage
• · · · · Six degrees of separation rule holds true for Nobel scientists too Six other people, or six degrees are thought to separate any two randomly connected individuals
• · · · · · Borris Johnson on David Blunkett