---

Book reviewers are questioning the terms of William Morrow’s new process for bloggers who want review copies. In the News: Reviewers Revolt, No Recall

And Czech out this digitized 1959 recording of Flannery O’Connor reading A Good Man like Jozef Imrich Is Hard to Find ;-)


When the world was young Sunlit memories - Telling the GREAT GLOBAL (American) story
Ah, the apple trees,
Sunlit memories,
Where the hammock swung,
On our backs we'd lie;
Looking at the sky,
Till the stars were strung,
When the world was young.
This moment, this minute,
And each second in it
Will leave a glow upon the sky,
And as time goes by,
It will never die.
-Johnny Mercer When the World Was Young
Via Carpe Libris – of when the parliamentary library world was young

"The fact that the rule of law was the only thing we had to hold this country in place morally I found an interesting story," Redford says. "This was an example of how the Constitution was rearranged to satisfy political interests at that time." The contemporary parallels are obvious but Redford invokes them anyway, pointing to the "constant threats" to the US Constitution through some "pretty big events in American history that were threats to the moral standing of our country", including McCarthyism, the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair.You have these patterns that have repeated themselves over time. And it's usually the same people, the same mentality, the same personalities that threaten that. . I find that interesting because I suspect that if we as Americans had a better value of history we wouldn't be repeating these things but I think we have a short-term memory.

• My global business card states: I will disappoint you – Do not Bother Telling the GREAT GLOBAL (American) story ; [The Book Depository is not Amazon - although it was purchased by the latter, it remains an icon driven, illustrative and content rich site to explore and from which to discover new titles, inexpensive older ones, read reviews and share ratings, and learn about upcoming releases. This site sells books and e-books, and you can also watch "The Book Depository Live - Thousands of customers all over the world enjoying our free worldwide shipping." Users may: Set your default eBook reader and format (39 devices are listed), read the blog, use the advanced search options, or browse for titles by topic, read the site's wonderfully designed, direct and personal Twitter feed, and remain hopeful that the folks who run this book site maintain what still looks and feels like a magical little kingdom for bibliophiles all around the world The Book Depository is not Amazon ; The World Wide Web Foundation is very pleased to announce an exciting new initiative: the World Wide Web Index. We thank Google for a generous grant of US $1 million to the Foundation, which we are using to seed the creation of the Index...What is the Web Index? The Web Index will be the world’s first multi-dimensional measure of the Web and its impact on people in a large number of countries. It will be a composite index, incorporating political, economic, social, and developmental indicators, as well as indicators of Web connectivity and infrastructure ; Born in the Soviet Union, buried in Venice, a citizen of America, the poet Joseph Brodsky was a nowhere man – a universalist and a cosmopolitan Brodsky ]
• · With Greece and Ireland in economic shreds, while Portugal, Spain, and perhaps even Italy head south, only one nation can save Europe from financial Armageddon: a highly reluctant Germany. The ironies—like the fact that bankers from Düsseldorf were the ultimate patsies in Wall Street’s con game—pile up quickly as Michael Lewis investigates German attitudes toward money, excrement, and the country’s Nazi past, all of which help explain its peculiar new status It’s the Economy, Dummkopf! ; They’re the stories that you prefer to keep locked up in your chamber of secrets. These are hard stories to tell. But they need to come out. Not for the shock value or a good sob story. But because they’re important. Every story has the right to be heard
• · · Without it, the fact a B-list businessman was killed, butchered and burnt after a sordid sexual encounter would be almost forgotten by now. Rockefeller Sex, sleaze and secrets in revealing book ;Films about geniuses are so numerous that they almost constitute their own genre. One seems to pop up every few years, always with a few distinct markers. Genius Films About Genius (and Other Pretenders)
• · · · Assessing fall's crop of sitcoms about men who are unemployed, underemployed, or in desperate need of a makeover Primetime's Looming Male Identity Crisis ; As the list of politicos laid low by sexual scandal grows longer, history offers lessons on when the press should opt for exposure—and when it should leave well enough alone Sex and the Married Politician
• · · · · You can almost hear the clicks of barbecues firing up in unison around Australia. Whether it's sausages, steaks or prawns, there is nothing more quintessentially Australian than casual barbecuing affairs ; Wilhelm Imrich aka Reich, the father of the sexual revolution, started out as a star pupil of Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology. Breaking with religious teachings that the sole function of sex ought to be procreation and that any other erotic pursuit was sinful, Reich offered a new and defiantly humanist perspective, asserting that sexual pleasure was beneficial—indeed, necessary—to human flourishing, and that, when it came to orgasms, the more the merrier. Sex, that voyage of discovery for generation after generation. ; From seamstress to mistress to magnate, Coco Chanel never kept her little black dress on for very long.. Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War
• · · · · · T.S. Eliot was one of the world’s unhappiest people. His life was a nightmare of anxiety. But misery stirred creativity... ; Literature and the psychology lab A suggestion about how to read – treat it as an exercise in pretence Novelists are thought to be uniquely perceptive about human nature, but does reading fiction increase knowledge? Clarify emotions? Deepen sympathy? Literature and the mind ; In V.F.’s October issue, A. Scott Berg recounts the discovery of a literary treasure trove: a cache of Ernest Hemingway’s early correspondence, for decades kept hidden at the late novelist’s estate in Cuba. Here, in greater detail, are some of the letters Hemingway wrote as a young man Ernest Hemingway’s Early Life in Letters

---

... Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of
trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is, many persons
strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. ...”
- author unknown, 1692, Desiderata

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
-Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain

Film schools are trade schools playacting as art schools and moonlighting in business courses. Their value is dubious, but the demand is insatiable. If you want to be a filmmaker and you can’t afford film school, know that you don’t really learn anything in film school anyway. They can never teach you how to tell a story anyway, or all you’ll do is tell stories like everyone else. You learn to tell stories by telling stories. And you want to learn your own way of doing things. moonlighting

The Cinema is Dead. Long Live the Cinema! Life … at 24 frames per second
According to Nielsen BookScan, the publishing industry standard for book sales data, book sales are pretty healthy, with one significant proviso which I'll come to. Ten years ago in 2001, 162m books were sold in Britain. Ten years later – a decade in which the internet bloomed, online gaming exploded, television channels proliferated, digital piracy rampaged and, latterly, recession gloomed – 229m books sold. So, a 42% increase in the number of books sold over the last 10 years...For one thing, people are buying more and more books in Amazonia, and more and more of them are on Amazon's ebook platform the Kindle. In May this year, Amazon announced that, for the first time, it was selling more Kindle versions of books than paperback and hardbacks combined, and (here's the thing that doesn't get quoted so often) sales of print books were still increasing."

Like many industries over the last 30-plus years, cinema has had its share of setbacks. Technological advances, from the rise of VHS, the rental market, DVD subscription services, and most recently the threat of downloads (both legally via Video on Demand and illegally) together with the shortening of theatrical windows and digital conversion have led many to predict the demise of cinemas.

• Reele Life [If you’re looking for new ways to get around for fun or to work, or might be trying to live a greener lifestyle in 2012, why not try biking? New Biking Directions Legend on Google ; Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For "Fat paychecks, sweet perks, fun colleagues, and over 70,000 jobs ready to be filled -- these employers offer dream workplaces. Like Google, which reclaims the top spot this year to become a three-time champion. Meet this year's top 100; The National Archives is preserving government information published on the web by archiving UK Central Government Websites..The UK Government Web Archive has received more than a billion hits since it was launched by The National Archives in 2003 and is now one of the most-visited websites in government. UK Government Web Archive; fMRI’s and free will. Imagine a neuroscientist knowing what you’ll decide before you do. Is
consciousness a biochemical afterthought?...]
• · In today’s expanding cities, social skills are becoming ever more essential to economic growth. The history of human progress is intimately intertwined with that of cities. The Epic of Gilgamesh—perhaps the oldest known work of literature—closes with an awed description of the walls of the city of Uruk. Plato’s Republic—which envisioned an ideal city—was a product of the cultural and intellectual flowering of the earthly city of Athens, as well as a broadside against its politics. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Brunelleschi, da Vinci, and Michelangelo all were born in or near the city of Florence. Great thinkers, artists, and entrepreneurs—what I call the creative class—rarely come out of nowhere. They cluster and thrive in places where the conversation and culture are the most stimulating. Where the Skills Are ; Tomorrow, the deadline for self-assessment tax filing, 20,000 HMRC staff are striking in call centres, protesting at the outsourcing of their jobs in trial areas, paying private employees £3,300 less Taxing wealth? The public mood still escapes the Tories ;
• · · HAVE YOU HEARD statements like this: Why don't they do something about it? I wish I wouldn't have to change? Why can't things be better? Why do salespeople suck? Why does operations screw up all the time? I wish we had better tools? We need a bigger budget? Why do the other guys have a better territory? ; PS on notice over social media use ; Internet preferred by engaging public ; The Australian Public Service Commission has updated its guide on the processes and requirements involved in terminating APS staff APSC updates guide on terminations
• · · · Groupthink or solitude which one offers the best work environment? The rise of the new groupthink ; integrity engagement and results should define public service professionals Preparing a commentary on a proposed PS Values Statement led Percy Allan to appreciate the importance of brevity and simplicity. Government work is god's work: ; The Government has warned federal bureaucrats against criticising politicians on Facebook and Twitter, saying ''unreasonable'' comments could result in disciplinary action. ; The internet has emerged as the preferred means of accessing Government services according to a study conducted by the Australian Government Information Management Office ; Once purely a Japanese phenomenon, 'karoshi' (death from overwork) is becoming an increasingly large issue for workplaces across Asia and even Australia Worked to death
• · · · · · Across the globe, drug trafficking and the organised crime behind it are placing increasing pressures on all legal and democratic systems. But countries emerging from conflict or violence are particularly susceptible to organised crime Trafficking is endangering the fragile democracies of this vulnerable region ; Tax crimes, especially those committed in connection with theft or other crimes, carry serious penalties - Nearly everyone recognizes that theft is a serious crime. However, many don't realize that most perpetrators also commit tax crimes when they fail to inform the federal government of their stolen profits. Tax Crimes Bring Incarceration and Financial Penalties; One of Britain's most high-profile football managers, Harry Redknapp, flew to Monaco to set up a secret offshore bank account named after his pet dog to receive bungs of nearly £200,000 and hide them from the taxman, a court heard yesterday How the dog with a Monaco bank account led police to Redknapp's secret 'bungs'
• · · · · · · UK Report: Serious Economic Crime Serious Economic Crime - A boardroom guide to prevention and compliance; THE Australian Tax office is pushing for more powers to investigate secret tax havens as well as increased penalties for offshore tax evasion New crackdown on offshore tax evasion ; The Vatican on Thursday threw its weight behind three international drives against drug trafficking, transnational organised crime and the funding of terrorism. First, the Holy See ratified the United Nations Convention Against the Illegal Trafficking of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, from December 1998, which it had already signed Holy See ratifies one Convention, joins two others

---

Love is in the air 。。。 Now there's no love as true as the love that dies untold Malchkeon - From your Valentine

Valentine’s Day was not created to bring sadness. It is a day set aside to honor Saint Valentine by remembering the purpose for our existence: we were born to love. For as the Beatles once sang, the love you take is equal to the love you make New Year’s Eve was originally St. Sylvester’s - Valentine's Day through the ages

The digital age has not killed the endearing ritual of getting a Valentine's Day card。 Although the roots of St. Valentine’s Day date back to the Middle Ages, we are indebted to the Victorians for many of our most popular features of the celebration, including greeting cards, chocolate and other confectionary in heart-shaped boxes. Men and women today can still learn a great deal by reading Jane Austen and what she has to say on love, relationships, the battle of the sexes, hope, promiscuity, courtship, and happiness. Austen wrote some of the most powerful love stories in Western literature, and though 200 years have passed since her novels were published, they still have a remarkable ability to speak to the modern world. Her six novels continue to exert a profound influence on our culture.

Back in 1800 Names of men and women (equal numbers of each) were placed into two different containers. A lottery of sorts took place where one man's name was drawn and matched with a woman's name. The people called were called "Valentines," and the pairing was considered a good omen of these couples marrying later on. Since most of us have absolutely no idea who St. Valentine was, what can be wrong in celebrating love? On the contrary, we are commanded to love, the more the better (if perhaps not romantically). Omen For Men/Women - AMEN - Dear chocolate: Still love you madly

The language of royal love - Long before Camilla Parker Bowles became the Duchess of Cornwall, Freda Dudley Ward was the lover, confidante and companion of Prince Charles's immediate predecessor - the Prince of Wales who became the ill-fated Edward VIII. It was Edward, known to his intimate circle as David, who abdicated in 1936 to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. In exile they became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Illicit love gets an airing on Valentine's Day at the State Library Illicit love gets an airing on Valentine's Day at the State Library

---

Wallace Stevens sold insurance, William Carlos Williams was a physician, T.S. Eliot was a banker, ‎ Steve Jobs distorted reality ， Jozef Imrich slaved in the NSW parliamentary library. If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made To hell with starving for your art

BYZANTINE SECTION NUMBERING
The Income Tax Assessment Acts (mainly ITAA 1936) and the Taxation Administration Act 1953 are replete with examples of what might be loosely called "creative" section numbering eg s 8AAZLE (treatment of payments etc and RBA surpluses), s 102AAZBA (Modified application of CGT - change of residence), s 159GZZZZG (Rebate election re tax-exempt infrastructure borrowings), etc.
In a December 2011 Federal Court decision ( DCT v Brilliant Homes Management Pty Ltd [2011] FCA 1539) involving the winding up of a company due to a running balance account (RBA) deficit debt (Part IIB of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 deals with RBA statements), Rares J lamented the use of convoluted section numbering as follows:
The unfortunate Byzantine modern tendency of Commonwealth Parliamentary drafters to include amendments to legislation that have a series of letters after them makes the explanation of these provisions more difficult and hard to comprehend. Re-enactment of legislation with appropriate renumbering of provisions such as s 8AAZJ would simplify the comprehensibility and explanation of legislation. The absurd use of such lettering was also found in the criminal cartel provisions in ss 44ZZRF and 47ZZRG of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) that was misleadingly retitled, but not comprehensibly structured, as the Consumer and Competition Act 2010 (Cth). These are the central provisions that will have to be explained to juries, using two numbers and four letters, each time the section is mentioned in argument either to the judge or jury Mildly amusing
Czech Out House of Lords Debate on Tax Avoidance

We are the 99% How most Media Dragons and Their readers can navigate the blogosphere
A born freelance. John Leonard’s prose--breezy, pun-filled, playful--was never ponderous or self-important. No one wrote cultural journalism quite like him. If you consider a collection of John Leonard’s essays and reviews as a lifelong accounting, you will have a good idea of what went on of significance in the latter half of the American twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first. Though reviewing literary work was his calling, it did not box him in. He was a born freelance, going wherever that tenuous life led him, from the monuments of high culture that he was inspired to celebrate, to the commodities of the low, from which he would take gleanings where most of us would find none. It is difficult to understand how, with his immense reading and the sustenance his mind sought, he could have sat himself down year after year to examine the products of television. Yet there he was, considering what it meant when sitcom settings moved from the kitchen to the living room, and the family characters sitting on the living room couch, and presumably watching their television, seemed to be watching him.

Did not Eliot return to dead cultures, ancient languages, and the Legend of the Fisher King? Did not Yeats sustain himself on the Irish folklore? Did not Lawrence traipse across continents to Mexico, seeking the meaning of the Aztecs, the wisdom of primitive man?… Yours is a motel civilization…. Your art makes no sense and your music is too loud.”

• Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Reading John Leonard: A Tribute ; [The literary gatekeepers and fiction publishing. Marketing the boundaries: The fiction of Margo Lanagan; They’re a moral compass: testing our ethics, shaping our politics, spurring science, and piquing our curiosity... What’s the meaning of literary bmonsters? ; Social-science pugilist. The proudly politically incorrect Charles Murray is back, and he still can’t resist the urge to provoke. Cue the scholarly outrage Urge to provoke ; Orwell called them “disgusting tripe,” Camille Paglia considers them a “corrupt practice,” Stephen King winces at their “hyperbolic ecstasies” – Book blurbs have been a scandal since antiquity... I Greet You in the Middle of a Great Career: A Brief History of Blurbs ; Publishing with Double Dragon has been likened to marrying royalty—the honor is greater than the pleasure Double Dragon Publishing; ]
• · Books about poverty typically propose solutions or decry the problem. Katherine Boo is up to something else. She shows how poverty is lived She shows how poverty is lived: Poverty as Destiny ; His name is synonymous with brutality, and he had a penchant for rape and pillage, but is Attila the Hun unfairly maligned? flagellum Dei, the scourge of God Nice Things to Say About Attila the Hun
• · · The new censorship. Editors are no longer frightened of politicians but of Islamist violence, oligarchs, and CEO’s, says Nick Cohen. Ours is the age of bound and gagged journalism... Bound & Gagged; Vaclav Havel was keen to the limits of rationalism, and insistent that something stands above us, beyond our understanding. The Village Voice gives out theater awards called the Obies (for Off-Broadway), and during the 1980s the Voice’s theater department voted to bestow one of those prizes on the distinguished absurdist Václav Havel, who dwelled in the faraway absurdistan known as the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic... Democracy and the Human Heart
• · · · We all have many things to be grateful for and often we’re so busy in the chaos of daily life to take time and fully appreciate everything we have. For this reason gratitude is sometimes referred to as the Forgotten happiness ... ; The world is full of success stories – tales where the little guy takes a great idea and builds a thriving business, dominates an industry or takes over the world. But emulating such success is no easy task and can be daunting for even the most experienced person. So how do you become successful? Richard St John has eight secrets to share...
• · · · · The Penny Hoarder - Buying housing used to bestow multiple blessings, but their flow has now dried-up Housing fundamentalism fails
• · · · · · She was a flamboyant depressive; a woman who kept a revolver in the drawer and bullets in a tin of Pledge.” And you thought you had mommy issues Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Elderschadenfreude, explains Sandra Tsing Loh, is the secret pleasure of hearing about aging parents who are even more impossible than yours. Prepare to experience it Daddy Issues

---

When Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, flies to Chongqing Saturday to wrap up a five-day tour of China, he may be walking into the middle of one of the biggest power struggles in recent Chinese history. His host, Bo Xilai, party secretary in the southwestern megacity, is a prominent “princeling” who has been tipped to join China’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee during a generational change of leadership in October. Chinese politician Wang Lijun mysteriously disappears amid rumours he tried to defect February 9, Wang Lijun, a former gang-busting policeman and now Vice Mayor of Central China’s Chongqing, requested a meeting at a U.S. consulate general, according to a U.S. official.

"Wang Lijun did request a meeting at the U.S. consulate general in Chengdu earlier this week," Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman of the United States Department of State, said on Wednesday. Chengdu and Chongqing are both cities in Sichuan province.

Nuland said the state department did not talk about issues related to those seeking refugee status or asylum. Responding to rumors that Wang was forced to leave the consulate, Nuland said: “[Wang] left of his own volition.... He walked out. It was his choice.” In a statement made after news of his visit to the U.S. consulate broke, the Chongqing government announced on Wednesday that Wang was receiving "vacation-style treatment" for stress. No other details were given. [Wang] left of his own volition.... He walked out. It was his choice.” ;

---

... the earth is full of thy riches.
So is this great and wide sea,
wherein are things creeping
innumerable, both small and
great beasts. Psalms 104: 24-25

It is the path of least resistance that makes rivers and men crooked Time Waits for No Man

A Few snowflakes, appropriately, fell around the parish church of Portsea yesterday in Hampshire as hundreds gathered inside to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of its most famous son, Charles Dickens. Dickens turns 200 today on Tuesday 7 February 2012. There's no sense singing “Happy Birthday” since he died in 1870 and the song was written decades after that Do we really need to make such a fuss about Karol?‎; A global Dickens appreciation, and a modest proposal - It's part of a marathon celebration of Charles Dickens's 200th birthday – the Global Dickens Read-a-thon Google on Dickens ; Charles Dickens was one of our finest ever writers and it is right and proper that so many people worldwide have been paying homage to the great man this week on his 200th anniversary Dickens would have loved being on Twitter; What is the connection between the great 19th century English novelist and the best-loved Czech literary anti-hero? The answer is, surprisingly enough, that without Dickens we quite possibly wouldn’t have Švejk at all. David Vaughan looks at this and some other Czech links with Dickens in this week’s Czech Books. Dickens and the Good Soldier Švejk ; Karol Dickens was long fascinated by Australia and there is a Charles Dickens statue at Centennial Park, Sydney – Down Under Great southern expectations Dickens based many of his characters on real people and Dickens at 200: still the best we've got on being poor Imrich Not - Like Cold River, Dickens was always a struggle Demagogic politicians, uncaring business titans, cunning union leaders, persistent unemployment: What would Dickens, poet of poverty, make of our own hard times?...

A Tale of A Decade Old Media Dragon in the Year of the Dragon Because the truth needs to be told … Everything is but a dream within a dream
Does time exist? Is our perception of the world different from its true reality? Is our concept of time fundamentally flawed? These are the central questions raised by KILLING TIME, a provocative documentary that explores the nature of time.

The film centers on the work of Julian Barbour, a prominent Theoretical Physicist, who gained notoriety with the publication of his landmark book, "The End of Time" (1999). In it, Barbour presents the concept of time as a human construct, not as a separately existing dimension. In a series of interviews, using nothing more than a Polaroid to snap random pictures, Barbour illustrates the development of his radical theory. He explains that physics has always been grounded in Sir Isaac Newton's conception of time as an invisible river that exists and flows independently of the objects in the world.
However, through his work with collaborator Bruno Bertotti, and his own attempts to reconcile the conflict between Quantum Mechanics and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Barbour came to the conclusion that Newton was wrong. Barbour posits that time is, in fact, an illusion - a measure imposed on the world by humanity. He explains this with the concept of a 'now', which he describes as a snapshot in time - a completely frozen, self-contained instant (much like a Polaroid photograph). Time is simply the measure of the space between two separate and unrelated 'nows.'

• Well, like this river, time seems to flow endlessly from one moment to the next. KILLING TIME ; The truth is the light and light is the truth in the River Town To blog or not to blog …; [As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain highest perfect knowing /Philosophy/ ; There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything. There’s Only Enough Room in the Blogosphere for the 144 Million of Us ; Top of the Blogs; Trends ; Social media has gone from being a pastime to a necessary component of any brand and business. Ten Media Dragons to follow in the year of the dragon ;]
• · Our home planet is about 4.5 billion (4,500 million) years old. how-it-works-amazing-answers-to-curious-questions ; The universe itself is expanding, but not in the way a balloon expands. The expansion is taking place throughout the universe, where space-time itself is being stretched outwards. Whereas a balloon pushes its edges out as it expands, the universe is also pushing its insides outwards as well, but there is no centre of the universe, so everything is moving away from everything else. It’s a bit like baking a ball of dough; the entire dough expands and grows, not just its edges. However, based on our knowledge of how old the universe is, roughly 14 billion years, we can observe a theoretical ‘edge’ of the visible universe about 14 billion light years away from us. howstuffworks.com It’s a bit like baking a ball of dough; the entire dough expand s and grows, not just its edges.
• · · I'm interested in bending the edges of the spectrum to make the abstract and the concrete hit one another more directly www.howitworksdaily.com ; The Frozen River, deals with the question, "Does time flow?" One of the key points in this chapter deals with special relativity. Observers moving relative to each other have different conceptions of what exists at a given moment, and hence they have different conceptions of reality. The conclusion is that time does not flow, as all things simultaneously exist at the same time The Frozen River; It is said that writers are people who, as children, did not receive sufficient rejection either from adults or peers and so are compelled to seek it relentlessly in later life. Dickens put Cold River on the literary map
• · · · True time would never be revealed by mere clocks--of this Newton was sure Time Waits for No Man; When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination's wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I was free! Googopoly
• · · · · How does a newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings? Blog lets readers interact with characters from book: Fallen Lake; Dickens wrote about social issues that still resonate today ... Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash! Be water, my friend. Will Inequality Keep Getting Worse?
• · · · · · Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion. Newton, forgive me;" Einstein wrote in his Autobiographical Notes ; The general idea for Michelson Morley type experiments is that it is faster to swim a return journey across a flowing river than it takes to swim an equivalent distance upstream and back. If you do the maths it is quite easy to verify this. We have to substitute the swimmer for light and the river for the aether, and then build our testing apparatus accordingly. Invisible river that flows uniformly for ever irrespective of how fast the boat is being rowed the ripples from the oars will travel across the water with the same speed
• · · · · · From The Atlantic - 150th Anniversary Edition - The Duty to Think "On the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, we present this commemorative issue featuring Atlantic stories by Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and many more." James Bennet editor of The Atlantic: "It is possible, in these pages, to enter into both the humanity of figures consecrated or condemned by history and the uncertainty the writers must have felt during the rush of events...It seemed to us that these Atlantic pieces have a way of conversing across the decades. And so in this issue, one finds Garry Wills’s account from 1992 of how Lincoln used the Gettysburg Address to reinterpret the Constitution and thereby “revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely.” And then, equipped with that explication of how Lincoln purified the nation’s meaning, and with President Obama’s summation of what that meaning is, the reader can then encounter, with fresh appreciation, Lowell’s epitaph for Lincoln: New birth of our new soil, the first American The Duty to Think ; This year the media will gather in Berlin from March 6th 2012, on the eve of ITB Berlin, as the world’s leading travel trade show devotes the day entirely to the sector for the first time. Duty To Meet with Journalists

---

It’s been said that a biographer is a novelist under oath. A life story cannot be told with facts alone. It must be marshaled to maximum literary effect... In the Footsteps of Giants

Congratulations to Andrew Tink for his book on Lord Sydney, providing us with a fascinating biography of the person for whom our great city of Sydney was named

The former Chairman of the NSW Public Accounts Committee, Shadow Attorney General and Shadow Leader of the House in New South Wales Parliament, Andrew Tink will next week introduce his latest book, Lord Sydney: The Life and Times of Tommy Townshend at Willoughby City Library’s Talks@Willoughby at 12.30pm, Thursday 2 February at Chatswood Library, Lower Ground, The Concourse, 409 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood. Note also the extract of the book entitled Gamble at the birth of a nation Review in the SMH Father figure to the colony

Offering insight into the difficult political environment of late eighteenth-century Britain, Lord Sydney is a comprehensive biography of Thomas ‘Tommy’ Townshend. As Secretary of State for the Home Department, Lord Sydney was the minister responsible for recommending the adoption of a plan for a settlement in Australia and the man for whom the city of Sydney was named. Since his retirement from politics in 2006, Andrew has concentrated on two of his great passions – writing and history. His first political biography, William Charles Wentworth was awarded ‘The Nib’ CAL Waverley Award for Literature in 2010.

Bookings are essential for Talks@Willoughby, visit library website or phone 9777 7900 ; Andrew Tink speaking on February 13 William Charles Wentworth

SYDNEY WITH A WHY OR AN EYE? Good Lord, there's a story in our city's namesake
HE gave his name to our city. Yet there is no official statue or memorial here to commemorate Lord Sydney, the British home secretary who was instrumental in transporting convicts to NSW.
''I don't think there should be,'' said Andrew Tink, the former state politician turned biographer. ''But the life of the man whose decision it was to order the European settlement of Australia is worth a book.
''There has been no biography of Sydney. And I'm finding it very hard to understand why I'm having so much trouble getting this one published.''

Our book of the month is Andrew Tink's fine new biography of Lord Sydney, promoter of the 1788 settlement of New South Wales and the man for whom our city was named. Andrew Tink spent nineteen years in the New South Wales Parliament, including eleven as a Shadow Minister and three as Shadow Leader of the House. Had he stayed on he would now be in government of course, but he chose to step down in 2007 to concentrate on his writing. He is a politician who can write; and he understands history better than most. Politicians ought to be good at history (otherwise, as we know, they will be condemned to repeat it) but not that many are, and we think none in recent times has dug quite as deeply as Andrew.

The man who gave Sydney its name risked his career in choosing the penal settlement's site and governor. But he was lucky and wise, writes Andrew Tink in this extract from his new biography.
• Risk assessment in the justice system isn’t new; Nation built on second chances [Andrew Tink. Epping, NSW 2121. Central Northern Sydney, Sydney Northern Suburbs. p: 02 9877 0266. http://www.andrewtink.com.au ; Lord Sydney: The Life and Times of Tommy Townshend ; Andrew Tink's paper on the naming of Sydney ]
• · Andrew Moore speaks with Andrew Tink, author of a biography of Lord Sydney, Thomas Townshend. Tue, 06 Dec 2011 09:45:00. 2GB archived ; History: Andrew’s Story
• · · The little known part Charles II had in the naming of Sydney. Australia’s most populous city derives its name from Algernon Sidney, a British politician executed in 1683 for treason, following the 1784 decision by his nephew Tommy Townshend, as Britain’s home secretary, to establish a penal colony in its distant territory. ;Andrew Tink, the former MP, fresh from his prizewinning William Charles Wentworth, decided to fill this gap. It was not easy. Most of Sydney’s personal papers are in the Clements Library in Michigan. The records of his role in dealing with George III’s madness are with the Royal College of Physicians in London. Yet when Tink had finished his manuscript, Australian publishers showed little interest. Peter Coleman on Sydney
• · · · It’s taken Andrew Tink 7 years to find a publisher but after the success of his award winning biography of the great explorer William Charles Wentworth Ascension Press have now published Lord Sydney, The Life and Times of Tommy Townshen.; When Lady Frances Sidney ran foul of Queen Elizabeth I, she adopted a family motto which the much-maligned organisers of Sydney's 2000 Olympics might well have copied: God preserve me from calumny! Lady Sidney was born in 1531, the daughter of Sir William Sidney of Penshurst, Kent and the aunt of the poet Sir Philip Sidney. In 1555 she became the second wife of Thomas Radcliffe, who in 1557 succeeded his father as Earl of Sussex. Like her husband, Lady Frances was a trusted courtier, serving as one of Queen Elizabeth's Ladies of the Bedchamber. After the Earl's death in 1583, Lady Frances incurred the Queen's displeasure, as a result of slanders about her treatment of her late husband, so she adopted the motto Dieu me garde de calomnie
• · · · · Premier O'Farrell was accompanied by his colleague Andrew Tink—another veteran of that era-who left politics a few years back and has published a couple of very well received biographies on William Charles Wentworth and Lord Sydney since that time. It was terrific to see him in good fettle this week as he has suffered from ill health in recent times. In Uncharted Waters; What If …
• · · · · · When John Brogden was forced to quit as Leader of the NSW Liberal Party in 2005, John Howard apparently wanted Andrew Tink to run for the position. Tink chose not to and, the following year, announced that he would not recontest his seat at the 2007 State Election, thus ending a 19 year parliamentary career. On quitting politics, Tink commented that ‘I've got a fascination for historical biography and (I) really want to devote a bit of time into getting stuck into that as something totally different, but something that is nevertheless intellectually challenging'; Wentworth, politics and fighting cancer ; Andrew Tink, 52, one of the best performers
• · · · · · · · Risk assessment in the justice system isn’t new - A statistics professor says he can predict crime before it occurs Drawing from criminal databases dating to the 1960s, Berk initially modeled the Philadelphia algorithm on more than 100,000 old cases, relying on three dozen predictors, including the perpetrator’s age, gender, neighborhood, and number of prior crimes. Misfortune Teller; Media Dragon predicted the birth of this book by Andrew on Lord Sydney back in 2006 Fortunate Teller

Sikh Order of Australia

---

Who Makes you proud? Our population is made up of nationalities from around the world ... Each year Antipodeans celebrate the achievement and contribution of creative Australians through the Australia Day Awards. Australia Day, that holiest of days for Aussies, is one huge celebration of everything Australian. Australia Day, in 2012, is an occasion on which many people might reflect how fortunate they are to live in a country so distant from most of the problems apparent elsewhere in the world.

Mr Bawa Singh Jagdev, OAM, and Mrs Vera Hatton, OAM, can now add the Medal of the Order of Australia to their impressive resumes after being recognised in the Australia Day honours for their services to the Community. They join the total of 439 recipients announced today by Governor-General, Quentin Bryce who noted:

I want to give my strong support to the awards made through the Australian honours system. They elevate the concept of giving to others. The honours announced today recognise community values and celebrate what is important and unifying in Australian life.

Commit to making a difference as a regular human being, because we have that power.

Media Coverage - Six Degree of Separation
I. Global - Sikh Chic - Bawa Jagdev
II. Local - Southern Courier - Bawa Jagdev
III. Multicultural SBS - Bawa Jagdev

A migrant who arrived in Australia from Keya, East Africa, with his wife and two children more than 30 years ago for a big adventure has received a today’s Australia Day honours. Mr Jagdev may have been born and bred in Punjab, under the Himalayan Mountains, but since 1975 he calls Sydney his home and uses the Southern Cross as his compass. Mr Jagdev has spent his life in Australia working to improve outcomes for others. It is this selflessness that has been recognised with the Order of Australia. 

Mr Jagdev is the first turbaned Sikh to receive such high honour. One might describe Mr Jagdev as someone who knows how to make a difference, given his ability to motivate others. The simplicity and beauty of Sikhism left a lasting impact on Mr Jagdev. Sikhism is about compassion, forgiveness and unshorn hair and kirpan are an inalienable part of Sikh culture. For Mr Jagdev the OAM comes as an acknowledgement of his passion for community as there were a lot of barriers for new immigrant cultures that needed to be broken down. 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 Mr Jagdev 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. Today, most Australians see a Sikh as an Aussie, not as a foreigner. Today’s award tops off the fairy tale for him ; 

 We come from a very privileged nation. For centuries (around two centuries to be precise) we have been known as the ‘Lucky Country’. I don’t think there is a more apt description for our wonderful land Down Under. Blessed with perfect climates, with open spaces, with paradisiacal topography, with freedom, democracy and free speech – Australia sets the bar for many people the world over. One of the most multi-cultural societies on the face of the planet
The Sikh presence at the parade has been possible due to the efforts of the Sikh Council of Australia (SCA), and in particular its officers Ajmer Singh Gill, Vickram Singh Grewal and Bawa Singh Jagdev. They have lobbied hard to have the contribution of the Sikhs in both World Wars officially recognised ANZAC- Sikh of Sikhs

Australia Day - Celebrate what's great! Top Australians awarded highest accolades Rush …In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair!
The Australian of the Year 2012, Geoffrey Rush, has now celebrated 40 years as an Australian actor, achieving the rare international distinction of the ‘Triple Crown’ - an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy. He also has three Australian Film Institute honours, three British Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, four Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, and last year was inducted into the ranks of Australia’s elite with a Helpmann Award.

GEOFFREY RUSH'S trophy room, one might assume, would be a fairly impressive and comprehensive sight - and now the abundantly talented thespian must make room for one more: Australian of the Year 2012. We are natural at acting the goat, taking the mickey, playing the clown

The director Neil Armfield, a long-time collaborator on acclaimed theatre productions such as Exit the King and Diary of a Madman, said the award was well deserved. ''He's put such incredible work into his profession,'' he said. ''He's never sought rewards, he's always gone for the most interesting jobs and it's paid off brilliantly with this incredible career.''
• Starring role for Rush, the clown prince of acting Australia Day 2012 Honours List ; In the nine decades since her birth on the island of Murrungga, Laurie Baymarrwangga has seen the arrival of missionaries, exploitation by Japanese and European fishermen, war and tumultuous change Laurie Baymarrwangga [The Governor-General is pleased to announce the following appointments and awards: Australia Day 2012 Honours List; The Biographical notes for each recipient in the Australia Day 2012 Honours List. PDF - Australia Day is a reflection of our nation's identity]
• · History - The tradition of having Australia Day as a national holiday on 26 January is a recent one. Not until 1935 did all the Australian states and territories use that name to mark that date. Not until 1994 did they begin to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on that date Australia Day - Celebrate what's great! ; Google Draws hundreds of Ausie Stories Together
• · · AUSTRALIA Day has become the quintessential day to celebrate being Australian. How we celebrate can take many forms - attending a citizenship ceremony, seeing a concert, watching a regatta, playing cricket in the park, enjoying a barbecue with friends and family or watching the fireworks. What is important is that we do celebrate our successes as a nation and that each of us, in whatever way we want to. Join in that celebration ; We love the fact that we can count bogans, westies, toffs, posh bastards, concrete cowboys and yobos amongst our mates. Bondi Icons
• · · · 2012 Australia Day Address: Professor says racism still rife in Australia Address Taps into mysterious human disease; If a Chinese person were to fall on the wrong side of the law, it would be to the detriment of the entire Chinese community. Dr Charlie Teo ; Dr Charlie Teo says the racism problem is very real.
• · · · · Exploding the myths about our country No bigger occasion for nationAs Australia Day approaches, the great Aussie annual introspection starts. ; Clinton wishes us a happy Australia Day
• · · · · · The ultimate Aussie dish; Maggie's Australia Day pavlova ; Remarkable and truly inspirational runner, Centenarian Sikh runner Fauja Singh is an inspiration for others. While running marathon races in London, New York and Toronto, he raised money for various charities promoting Sikh culture around the world. He has also raised money for a charity dedicated to the care for premature babies. "Turbaned Tornado

---

I hope my daughters Sasha and Gabbie read wisely and live even more wise --- When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. Life is a choice. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness…

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
I wish I didn't work so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now Twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now: "Last week we asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many of you wrote in with your vision of the world in 2112. Many of the "strange, almost impossible" predictions made by Watkins came true. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas : Twenty top predictions for life 100 years ; Strange, almost impossible

Help Me To Save … You Sweating The Big Stuff
From the obituary of Jonathan Richardson (shoe shine worker, dead at 74): In the context of his reaction to joining civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama:" When someone puts you down, you just smile at them, and that makes them wonder what you're thinking. You just smile at them and walk away".

From the obituary of Aimee Joan Grunberger (mother, teacher and poet, dead at 44 from complications related to breast cancer): "From where she sat in her study, she could see through the town. She saw the pettiness and the politics. She saw the people hurrying around and the squabbles. "These people need cancer," Aimee Grunberger said. "These people need cancer, not enough to kill them, just enough to make them see what's important". It was something she wouldn't wish on anyone. To a degree, it was something she would wish on everyone".

• Obituaries - what are they good for? - When someone goes "before their time" there is often reflection on the meaning of live, and what a well-lived life, purpose-inspired might look like. I found some deep meaning in a recent post by Bronnie Ware, who worked for many years in palliative care. She found that every single patient found their peace before they departed. When questioned about any regrets they had, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five she found... Regrets of the Dying/Lessons for the Living [Mounted intellectual property actions will not need much scrutiny in terms of credibility The Wikipedia Blackout: Congress and digital erasure; Sitting as Chair or Director on a board can merely mean maintaining a privileged culture of insider game playing Protest and Occupy: the promise for 2012 ]
• · Social media is revolutionising the way we all communicate. Despite this the financial sector has been slow to embrace the opportunities that social media provides. Within this research report we explore and analyse current perceptions and future perspectives within the financial sector towards social media Made in heaven or marriage from hell? Social media and the financial sector (PDF); Given that today’s world is faster paced and more dynamic than ever before, and the increasingly complex and overwhelming amount of information that is therefore available, the rise of organizations whose primary goals include the generation of research and the provision of information should, perhaps, come as no great surprise. Indeed, think tanks have enjoyed massive growth – both in number and in their role in global policymaking – over the last decade 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index
• · · The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over ; Employees who chat over the photo copier or around the coffee machine are not necessarily wasting time. Gallup research shows that socialising is good for employees' wellbeing - and company performance. Office socialising found to be good for wellbeing and company performance
• · · · Making good on part of the House of Representative's commitment to increase congressional transparency, today the House Clerk's office launched http://docs.house.gov/, a one stop website where the public can access all House bills, amendments, resolutions for floor consideration, and conference reports in XML, as well as information on floor proceedings and more. Information will ultimately be published online in real time and archived for perpetuity. The Clerk is hosting the site, and the information will primarily come from the leadership, the Committee on House Administration, the Rules Committee, and the Clerk's office Sunlight Foundation: ; A seductive approach to homemaking Bigger and better
• · · · · William Browder is head of Hermitage Capital in London’s Golden Square. He is a naturalized British citizen, the grandson, as it happens, of Earl Browder, the head of the US Communist Party in the 1940s. That link did neither him nor his mathematician father no favours in life. In the last year he has received 11 death threats – a text message quoted the Godfather about history showing that ‘there is no one so powerful they cannot be killed’. The calls were traced back to Russia. They probably did not come from gangsters, but from the senior figures in the Russian police, or more worryingly the FSB secret police. They are the ones who poisoned the late Mr Litvinienko with polonium in the middle of London Biziness and justice, Russian style ; We decided to help raise the level of integrity Italians turn to the Internet against tax evasion
• · · · · ·
When city services can autonomously go online and digest information from the cloud, they can reach a level of performance never before seen. How the "Internet of Things" Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms ; Social and internet fill the top two slots, echoing what we saw in the 2010 API stats. Telephony has become a larger part of the directory for likely two reasons. First, telco operators are waking up to the API world. And secondly, the Twilio API has shown everyone the utility of infrastructure-as-a-service.
o Twilio (234)
o Google Maps (169)
o Twitter (142)
o Twilio SMS (133)
o Facebook (99) Programmable Web Services Directory of over 100 government [local, state and federal] APIs released in 2011

CODA: Zappos.com Email to 24 Millions Customers on Password Hacking January 15, 2012 - "Subject: Information on the Zappos.com site - please create a new password. First, the bad news: We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password). THE BETTER NEWS: The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed. SECURITY PRECAUTIONS: For your protection and to prevent unauthorized access, we have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please follow the instructions below to create a new password. We also recommend that you change your password on any other web site where you use the same or a similar password. As always, please remember that Zappos.com will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail. Please exercise caution if you receive any emails or phone calls that ask for personal information or direct you to a web site where you are asked to provide personal information. PLEASE CREATE A NEW PASSWORD: We have expired and reset your password so you can create a new password. Please create a new password by visiting Zappos.com and clicking on the "Create a New Password" link in the upper right corner of the web site and follow the steps from there. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any additional questions about this process, please email us at passwordchange@zappos.com"

---

Gabbie who is living her acting dream in Melbourne invaded Sydney for a few days to touch basis with her friends and to smell the salty air of Sydney Beaches ... I was never as brave as Gabbie, what a brave young woman, to travel around the world in 8 eight months. Enjoy your 20s, go out, have fun, travel, get some life experience, fall in love, have your heart broken, be disappointed, put out good plays, put out bad plays, but when you get to your 30s, that's when you'll put out important works, that's when you'll act in the best roles of your life ... Inspiring teenagers across the world

The tortured lives and spiritual anguish of three great modern poets. The accursed poets. Name the malady, Baudelaire, Verlaine, or Rimbaud suffered from it: arthritis, diabetes, alcoholism, syphilis. Each relished his own martyrdom, even flaunted it... The Cursed Poets and Their Gods

What should be a blessing – more leisure – has become a curse. Or as Slavoj Žižek puts it: Being exploited in a job is now considered a privilege... Capitalism produces unemployment.

Enduring allure Taking a Novel Approach to Life
Attention, novelty junkies: New is not always improved. Ideas that succeed are those that stick around long enough to become old...
Neophiliacs tend to chase the new at all costs. Neophobes—also known as fuddy-duddies—tend to avoid it.

Are we overwhelmed by the new or trapped in the old? The digital age bombards us with technological wonders. And yet, as Simon Reynolds argued in the recent book "Retromania," our attachment to the past leads us to consume pop culture well past its shelf life. The iPod may have revolutionized how we listen to music, but many people are using it to listen to tunes that hit the big time half a century ago—or using their iPads to book tickets for a revived 1950s Broadway musical or for the latest movie based on a comic book from the 1940s.

• · Taking a Novel Approach to Life [ On the Internet, expertise is pooled, intelligence is collective, and discovery is being reinvented. Welcome to the era of open-source science Sunlight; Joan Didion is guilty of a great artistic and personal crime: She got old. Her writing got old, her perspective got old. Her bag of tricks doesn’t work anymore The Autumn of Joan Didion ]
• · · Authors’ ability to endlessly edit their digital work will overturn publishing. Maybe books will improve, but movable type is easily abused...Books That Are Never Done Being Written ; The writer’s work is a triumph—and a disaster; The Internet, says John Brockman, is the infinite oscillation of our collective conscious interacting with itself, adding a fuller, richer dimension to what it means to be human... Undercover
• · · · Saint or crank? By turns a pleasure-seeking aristocrat and a peasant guru of antimaterialism, Tolstoy was both monstrous and moral... Tolstoy: A Russian Life; Enduring allure ... More Persian and Indian than Arab, The Arabian Nights is the stuff of Occidental fantasy. What explains Scheherazade’s enduring allure? Visions of the Arabian Nights
• · · · ·Who is Vladimir Putin? A master of persuasion, not coercion. No ordinary KGB-trained thug, he doesn’t destroy enemies. He manipulates them Putin and the Uses of His Story; William Shirer devoted 1,250 pages and 25 years to understanding the Third Reich. He didn’t pretend to have all the answers. Some things are inexplicable... Revisiting The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
• · · · · ·Sigmund Freud, the boy who was born on the banks of the Moravian river Morava, is out of fashion. The reason? His heroic refusal to flatter humankind Freud: the last great Enlightenment thinker; The human mind, he wrote, is a perfect computer corrupted by ‘incorrect data’ Religion, grrrr

---

Welcome the littlest and newest member of the extended family Malachi Grant … 21-1-2012 - 18:00 PM Something like a saint - an insane saint ; Couple ditch nest to show some mercy

CODA: Someone commented that M's family seems to be breeding M & M’s with the advent of Michael Jonah and Malachi Paul!! Michael had been called the Big M in the last few days … at least it wasn’t the old M.

---

For three weeks, 21 days, the Sydney Festival makes the city alive and buzzing with a rich array of guru music, arts , manuchao entertainment and outdoor events.

The chief appeal of theatre is its capacity to bring people together – a room or an oval or an opera house – in real space and time. I Am Eora did this for Imrich Media Dragons, Tony and Tina to boot with the the best seats in the house. As the adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I Am Eora is crammed with images and contradictions. The theatre at Carriageworks is big, and they used it to full effect, with lots of movement, sound, and lights. SOON after the quiet opening of this show the extraordinary Jack Charles interrupts the cast from the back of the auditorium: "You can't go back to traditions! You have to move on!" And move on is certainly what Wesley Enoch's show does. They all took part in the early struggle between the Eora group of nations, who inhabited what is now called the Sydney basin, and the white settlers. Part concert, part savagely ironic dance spectacular and part story telling The stage was filled with reflections of moving water and stylised fish, as the Stiff Gins (Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs) and a glamorous Wilma Reading - appropriating, in a shimmering purple gown, the traditions of the pop diva - celebrate strong black women. I Am Eora (I am of this place) breaks new ground in contemporary Australian performance, telling the stories of Sydney's Aboriginal continuity in a celebration of its heroes. There is a very funny routine by Elaine Crombie as a bride, and an appearance by politician Linda Burney, reperforming her fine inaugural speech as the first elected black woman to speak in the NSW parliament. Frank Yamma sings the moving She Cried. Towards the end Charles, as Bennelong the conciliator, comes back and speaks in his golden voice, full of rhetorical emotion. There is a projection of a midden behind him - the piles of shells built up over thousands of years that were ground up to make the mortar that built Sydney. How will our children know where they are? he asks, of us all.
In a nutshell, it was a mix of dance, music, theatre, and projection art, with a cast of Aboriginal performers from across the country. It was meant to be a modern manifestation of the spirit of some of the big figures in Sydney’s Aboriginal past. How will our children of Velvet Revolution know where they are?
I don't make it my job tracking trends in odd sounds but big bands are in judging by the mixed audience last night at the Enmore where everyone wanted more and more brass … Wielding flying bohemian fiddles and accordions in formation with cimbalom (hammered dulcimer) and wearing tacky nylon suits and battered trilbies, Romanian Taraf de Haïdouks join forces with Macedonia's Koçani Orkestar to bring us Band of Gypsies. The violins, cimbalums and accordions of Taraf de Haïdouks battle it out with the brass and percussion of Koçani Orkestar. They drew on dragon and vampire type traditional gypsie music, urban Balkan pop, medieval ballads, oriental brass band music, Turkish influences and even a touch of Bollywood for Malchkeon

Six impossible things before or after dinner Big Days of our lives - Like a seed of the mustard tree
Sharing changes the way we work together. Politics has accelerated to light speed over the past year, as 7 billion people connected through 6 billion mobiles, share their frustrations, aspirations and strategies for dissent. Sharing is a two-edged sword: it makes everything more efficient by making people much more potent. It's getting hard for any government to push its people around.

So when you borrow your neighbour's mower this summer, remember it's just the beginning. We live continuously connected lives, and our possessions are beginning to reflect that. In a few years we'll have forgotten that there was a time, before tomorrow, when sharing was hard.

• A shared future will connect society; Love most important ingredient to kitchen memories The aromas of my mum’s kitchen are floating in the Cold River : [ More on Sydney Festival ; The best seats in the house Finders Keepers at Carriage Work ]
• · There will be a political sex scandal in Canberra in 2012. There'll be one in Washington, too. And probably in Sydney. What predictions came true this year for you; Andrew Clennell - Bruce Hawker, the long-time Labor strategist, says the best thing O'Farrell could do over the next three months is a comprehensive reshuffle to bring in some fresh blood Boring Barry on a very slow boat ; Google On OO’FFarrell
• · · The Beatles are not only the greatest pop group in history but may also be able to teach you tons about how to get ahead in business…and what it takes to survive. That post leads off our small business roundup today with plenty of other resources about how to make your small business great. What the Beatles Could Teach Small Business ; What is happening now is the revenge of the market. A high literary culture, utterly divorced from economic realities, was artificially propped up for fifty year. Everything Old Is New Again - Commentary Magazine
• · · · Bohemian Tash is having having two shows in February. One in Sydney with fellow artists Ruby Jackson and Andrew Dixon. ‘Postcards from the Fringe’ is showing at Kaleidoscope Gallery in Dank Street, Sydney. I will post more details closer to the date. Postcards from the Fringe ; Woody Guthrie on New Year's Rulin's ; I Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It’s Headed - The importance of social networking in today’s online experience cannot be overstated. Social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online in October 2011, and reaches 82 percent of the world’s Internet population, representing 1.2 billion users around the globe t’s a Social World
• · · · · Atlantic - The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods Ari LeVaux: Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood. We are eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as ; This article details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows—sets of near-duplicate tweets—across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants. The Revolutions Were Tweeted
• · · · · · It is often better to travel than to arrive, particularly with a good book in hand. How travel broadens the mind; Don't Mess With Taxes; Meaning discovery engine Be Spacific links for solid research; Vrbov and Wordnik is a new way to discover meaning ; Writer's craft is now a ghost in the machine

---

Tax refund fraud continues to be a focus for revenue agencies everywhere
Tax fraud is a crime. It places an unfair burden on people who do the right thing and contribute their fair share in accordance with the law Suspected promoters of an Education Tax Refund scam had their personal computers and records seized yesterday with the execution of multiple search warrants by the. Australian Taxation Office and Australian Federal Police

Counting the cost of tax havens

TAX evasion - which costs Australia $41.4 billion a year - is the cause of the Greek debt crisis that is destabilising Europe, according to the author of research into the problem.
Every year tax evasion costs the world's governments $3.1 trillion, or about 5.1 per cent of world gross domestic product (GDP), activist group the Tax Justice Network says in a report.
''Greece's problems stem from 40 years of tax evasion and not collecting enough tax revenue,'' TJN director John Christensen told BusinessDay.

• High Cost of blind trusts fraud in tax haven; This country needs extraordinary measures, because the situation is extraordinary Spain to Crack Down on Tax Fraud [ Targeting tax crime: a whole-of-government approach ; Tax crime investigations and results；Although its main focus is on tax crime, the OECD is also concerned with money laundering. Tax and Crime ]
• · If you peel back the layers of Louisiana’s tax structure, you’re likely to find confusion, outrage and, more importantly, room for improvement. The Truth About Taxes ; Who Guards the Guards
• · · Identity criminals claiming millions in tax refund; tax refund fraud was rampant in the state prisons where he served his sentence, and he tried for years to tell the federal government what was going on； Satirists have long joked that America is the land of opportunity—everybody can become a taxpayer. Identity thieves are taking this opportunity literally by assuming taxpayers’ identities for their own financial gain. Identity Thieves ‘Make It Rain’ Cash With Fraudulent Tax Refunds
• · · · IRS steps up efforts to fight fraudulent claims for tax refunds; Lessons to Be learnt； IRS sees staggering jump in identity theft cases
• · · · · An accountant has been arrested at Sydney Airport after allegedly stealing nearly $50,000 from her clients in the city's west. Philippines - Airport arrest over tax return thefts ; It’s always good to have someone on the inside. At least that’s how Nancy and Laurie Sondrall must have felt. Nancy’s sister and Laurie’s aunt, Pamela Marie Dellis, was providing them with ill-gotten booty from the Minnesota Department of Revenue. ; U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson also ordered Bates to pay $246,064 in restitution to HSBC Taxpayer Financial Services and $30,211 in restitution to the IRS. Evidence at trial proved Bates took the names and Social Security numbers of student loan borrowers from the databases at her former employer and conspired to use the stolen identifying information to steal money from the government and from a bank Millbrook woman gets prison for student ID thefts ; In Multiflex Pty Ltd v. The Commissioner of Taxation (2011) FCA 789 the taxpayer challenged the Commissioner's ability to withhold goods and services tax (GST) refunds pending the completion of verification or audit activity. ; The criminal activities date back to the years 1996-2002 when Bena company imported more than 200,000 tonnes of diesel oil and petrol from Slovakia to the Czech Republic - Czech police accuse three of tax evasion for 2.6 billion crowns
• · · · · · Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue (IR) has picked a mega tax scam of Faisalabad as a test case to determine the role of tax officers, gangs of fraudsters, banks staff and others for taking appropriate countermeasures in controlling fraudulent income tax refunds payment and similar nature of organised financial crimes in future. ; Prisoners Become Tax Preparers ; Six men were convicted of tax evasion by a German court today following a fraud linked to the sale of carbon-emission certificates to Deutsche Bank AG. ; Big Boys Small Returns; Limit human involvement and you raise efficiency and reduce the risk of fraud. This is the thinking behind the SA Revenue Service’s automated Vat risk engine. Risk engine misfiring ；A survey conducted in the autumn shows the UK economy loses an estimated £2.7 billion per year due to identity fraud which affects 1.8 million people annually . Identity fraud covers a range of widespread criminal activities with many organised groups being known to supply or use false or stolen genuine personal identities. Crimestoppers launches campaign to fight ID fraud in the run up to Christmas ； Identity Theft and Tax Fraud tax fraud identity theft