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If it weren't for that pesky Blogjam8 compiled by the multitalented filmmaking guru, David Tiley... David observes that the war in Iraq is leaking like the proverbial sieve, and digital communications has created a whole new nightmare for the spindoctors...the US Department of Defence has ordered private supplier Kellogg, Brown, & Root to cut the email service to ordinary soldiers...

Feeding the Soul: Film deal for 'Baghdad blogger'
The Baghdad Blog, a book based on an online diary written by an Iraqi man about life during the conflict there, is to be made into a film.
Media group Intermedia is searching for a scriptwriter to adapt the book by the man, who calls himself Salam Pax.
He's like a Nick Hornby in the middle of a war.
· The blog gave an insight into Iraqi life [ via Salam Pax comes to Sydney] [ Note: Blogologists love Salam]
· See Also a chain of exclusively fair-trade coffee shops
· See Also The Virtual Vicar, The Latest Tool in Internet Conversion Techniques
· See Also Losing streak: carving a career out of playing the loser...one more throw of the dice
· See Also We must believe in luck: The secret of a long and happy marriage appears to be not to expect too much from it

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It really gets me when the critics say I haven't done enough for the economy. Look what I've done for the book publishing industry.
-President George Bush at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner (courtesy of Mrs Barbara Bush )

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: 'Best Book' TV Quest Boosts Library Lending Figures
The Scotsman Reports A TV search to find Britain’s best book was today credited with sparking an upsurge in library lending. New figures for The Big Read show that library lending of the top 21 titles increased by 123%.
While BBC News Says the nation's favourite book has been credited with bringing about a five-fold increase in sales of its top 21 books.
· Sparking an upsurge in library lending. [link first seen at BBC News]
· See Also The Golden Page Awards for Excellence in Publishing now in their seventh year
· See Also An urgent truth in Goya gone digital: There are number of reasons why the evil in those images from Iraq is touching nerves

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Australian government official urges couples to have more children Yahoo For the country

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Polish relations with Amerika
Adam Michnik, a leading force in the Solidarity trade union movement, and the founder and editor of the largest Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, was an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq. In this interview, which occurred in Warsaw on January 15, 2004, Michnik clarifies his position on the war and discusses the responses of other European intellectuals.
· Dissent Magazine - Anti-totalitarianism as a Vocation An Interview with Adam Michnik [ via Dissent ]
· See Also No evidence found of complicity in leadership--just incompetence
· The government is pushing hard for secrecy. We must push back equally hard for openness. I think it's time to consider establishment of a focused lobbying effort in Washington [ via Tim Porter]
· See Also Mohammad Atta’s Decisive Meeting: Prague Revisited
· See Also Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men

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Technology may change, but the morality of war will always pose the same dilemmas. Governments powerless to halt war net images

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Student recalls her ethics lesson from ex-USATer Kelley
Ironically, the man who fabricated quotes, made up stories and paid people to lie for him warned me to never trust anyone I interview. And, after being just one of thousands of people duped by Kelley, his warning was the only thing he told me that later proved to be true
· A Lesson from Jack
· See Also Name-calling knows no bounds in the vendetta between two former friends, Laws and Jones: time to rattle all those powerful teacups
· See Also Rudi Bakhtiar: The funny thing is that every time you do something bad you get more famous
· See Also Search-Engine Writing: written for Google [ courtesy of Google ]
· See Also So many people spend so much time trying to boost their PageRank with all sorts of goofy and annoying tactics.... [ via "Bloglines Toolkit for Mozilla" ]
· See Also Just Trust Us: Listen to the language. It is always a leading indicator of moral confusion
· See Also MEdia Dragons: "Songs about weblogs"

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Six pares of New Zealand rabbits in Amerika

Tracking Trends Great & Small: What's Next: Such short attention spans
Tri trendy create a new order in content management. Will the changing landscape alter your technology plans and way of doing business?
· Brave New World: Three Trends: "Partial sun" and "Partial shade" "Partial pregnancy"
· See Also WHAT'S NEXT, is a look at emerging trends and innovations that could change site visitors' lives
· See Also Child prodigy bloggers: Bloggers want direction but they don't want to ask for it
· See Also Top Trends: Hottest Designs and Coolest Technology
· See Also One study finds that should current population trends continue and immigration cease, today's population of 375 million could decline to 275 million by 2075

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Weak Dollar Makes for Strong Amazon, As Intl. Sales Drive Profit and Sales Growth
Amazon reported sales of $1.53 billion for their first quarter, up 41 percent from a year ago, and net income of $111 million, buoyed considerably by the weak dollar and growing international sales. (North America comprised $847 million of sales.)

Invisible Hands & Markets: The Chain of Numbers: The mother of all spending sprees
Families will win enormous tax, superannuation and maternity benefits, delivering up to $117 a week in the biggest-spending budget ever, which the Treasurer, Peter Costello, hopes will encourage them to have more children.
"If you can have children it's a good thing to do - you should have one for the father, one for the mother and one for the country, if you want to fix the ageing demographic," Mr Costello said last night.
· The centrepiece of the budget is John Howard's long-awaited "barbecue stopper" work and family measures [Link Poached from THE BUDGET AND YOU: Economic reality mother of reinvention ]
· See Also Taxes only high by our low standards? [Link Poached from JohnQuiggin]
· See Also Ken Parish: Taxing times...

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Blogger Don Emilio Fulci described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Exclusive: The New Blogger
For those of us involved in the project, we’ve been waiting months for this day to come. At long last, I’m proud to announce the launch of a project representing the latest collaboration between Stopdesign and Adaptive Path: the redesign of Blogger.com. Congratulations to the entire Blogger team on completing hundreds of hours, and expending tremendous effort to fit so much into this launch. This is Blogger’s first major overhaul since getting acquired by Google in February 2003, and it’s a biggie.
· All for free [ courtesy of The Great Blogger Relaunch ]
· See Also Blogs colliding with traditional media
· See Also Wired News: Sick of Spam? Prepare for Adware
· See Also Honey, They Shrunk the Newspaper: Electronic newspapers need design overhaul

Trends Great & Small: Is Non-Fiction Getting Sexy?
Non-fiction is finally triumphing over its traditionally sexier cousin, fiction, evident yesterday when non-fiction books swept the Trillium Book Awards, Ontario's pre-eminent literary honours. In the English-language category, Thomas King's series of Massey Lectures, The Truth About Stories, beat fiction favourites such as M. G. Vassanji's Giller Prize-winner The In-Between World of Vikram Lall and Barbara Gowdy's The Romantic, which made the long-list for last year's Man Booker Prize.
· The Truth About Stories [link first seen at The Globe & Mail (Canada)]
· See Also Intelliseek Launches BlogPulse.com to Track Trends, Issues, ... [link first seen at Blogpulse.com ]
· See Also Cautionary tale for writers: 'literary agent from hell' Ten Percent of Nothing
· See Also Mega-bucks mean mega-misery to many workers trapped in jobs they hate
· Cold War emergency bunker to house original music and films will be stored in the vault
· See Also Perfect for the nuclear family: Lucas Heights may be next tourist hotspot
· See Also Ukranian uranium: two containers seized of cesium-137, radioactive material, seen as a likely ingredient for a "dirty bomb" [Link Poached from Tim Dunlop]

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Taxation mess needs clean-up. 10/05/2004. The Australian Financial Review. Page 62.
Australia's taxation system is a mess, and it should be reformed. Many governments, for over 30 years, have talked about this but done nothing. They have added more taxes and more concessions, so that the taxation system is now a labyrinth. The top tax rate cuts in too early, meaning that middle class people pay the same tax rate as very wealthy people. The tax scales rise too steeply, leading to poverty traps for those on very low incomes. A huge industry has sprung up, devoted to helping people reduce their personal income tax. This is why the system must be reformed. The family benefits scheme and the taxation system both work to exacerbate the poverty traps, so that the incentive to work is removed. The Australian Government should think long-term for a change and fix this terrible system. Editorial. (reg. req. no link)

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Will this be Peter Costello's last budget?
If parents run the risk of being thrown out of work, they cant have confidence. If homebuyers have to pay double digit interest rates they cant feel secure. We want to deliver security for families so they can plan for the future. And a weak economy wont do it. A weak economy wont pay for the hospitals, the schools and the roads that we all want. And it wont assist our defence and national security effort.
· See Also For the seventh time since 1997 it will be in surplus [link first seen at Google Budget]
· See Also Taxing times as Latham considers his reply
· See Also Springing the money trap; The great divide: $117 to zilch

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Last night Jose Ramos Horta the leading international spokesman for East Timor's cause since 1975 was given Enough Rope on the Antipodean ABC by Andrew Denton...

Repeating History Classes: The Emperor & the Crouching Man Are Naked
The crouching man is naked, his hands tied and his head covered with a hood. The alabaster sculpture on display at a Baghdad gallery bears a striking resemblance to some of the shocking photographs that emerged last week of Iraqi prisoners abused by their American guards at the Abu Ghraib prison. But the 15-inch sculpture, with the words "We are living in American democracy" inscribed on its base was fashioned two months ago.
· Our dignity cannot endure this humiliation [link first seen at Margo Kingston]
· See Also Propaganda that no amount of spin can contain [ via Paul McGeough ]
· See Also There are journalists who try to swim against the Canberra tide. Canberra had failed to stop another boat but rushed to blockade the press [ courtesy of Smugglers & Media Watchers]

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What is this about? We have come to agree on the obvious answers: religion, ideology, political power and territory. But there is one fundamental issue at stake that dares not speak its name. This war is also about -- deeply about -- sex.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Interest rate boost before election
The Bush administration has been alerted that Chairman Alan Greenspan will guide the Federal Reserve Board to a small interest rate boost before the presidential election, and President Bush is reported to be satisfied.
· US Elections [Robert Novak]
· Blair defends human rights record: China
· See Also Taxing times as Latham considers his reply
· See Also And God said unto Fred Nile: go to the Senate
· See Also NY Bar Associaton Reports on Human Rights and Detainees

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Switching back to Blogger from Movable Type

The Blog, The Press, The Media:
Blogger, which is owned by Google, has redesigned its site to make it easier to use and added new features, including posting by e-mail.
· Face-lift intended to make Blogger more friendly to novices [ courtesy of Blogger ]
· See Also John Laws
· See Also Seth Finkelstein interview: "Blogging of a Thesis About Blogging"
· See Also Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information
· See Also KnowItAll SearchAnswer Engines
· See Also Mapping the Risks: Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information

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Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed when an explosion tore through a stadium where he was attending a Victory Day celebration

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Rumsfeld Accepts Blame and Offers Apology in Abuse
So to those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology," Mr. Rumsfeld said as he began a marathon day of testimony on Capitol Hill, much of it televised live on all major networks. Lawmakers called back-to-back hearings to examine cases of detainee abuse that have ignited world outrage and brought Mr. Rumsfeld a personal scolding from President Bush.
· No ifs, ands or butts if there's a failure, it's me: The Worst Is Yet To Come [ via NYTimes (reg. req.)]
· See Also I had come to see Colin Powell because, for several weeks, his closest friends and colleagues had been telegraphing a story to me. Powell was finished, they'd said. Exhausted. Frustrated. Bitter... Unfortunately, the truth is scarier than the lie
· Karl Rove Tells Graduates Character Matters: America needs people who have the moral clarity and courage to do what's right, regardless of consequence, fashion or fad
· See Also Are there times when we have to accept torture?
· See Also How News Becomes News: Abu Ghraib: 1,000 Words
· See Also The Supreme Court Asks: Who Will Guard the Guardians?
· See Also The Seeds of Abu Ghraib were Sown in American Prisons
· See Also This is the New Gulag: Bush has Created a Global Network of Extra-legal and Secret US Prisons with Thousands of Inmates...
· See Also Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern
· See Also Why the radio rorts go on, and on: David Flint is a problem, but his masters in government are the real villains of the piece
· See Also Japanese Political Pension Scandal
· See Also Redistricting allows politicians to choose their voters before the voters get to choose them

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We've now reached the point where nothing happened unless it is linked by digital images on the web...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: How the Media Dragon Word Gets Around
The blogosphere has a strange ability to push a seemingly obscure idea into the forefront of people's minds in a heartbeat. How this happens is a bit of a mystery. Sam Arbesman wanted to know how it works, so he created a meme and set it loose.
· MeFi readers were more likely to infect others with the meme than were those of kottke.org
· See Also Editors should praise — not punish — dissenters: As I've always said, when you're too busy to write, use someone else's words

To be able to send out a book to a future publisher is so much more impressive than a web link, but to be able to send a book and an online audience of thousands to a publisher is even better...
· See Also Ben Hammersley reports on the writers and artists who are earning money through the internet with micropayments [ courtesy of Ben Hammersley]
· See Also The Blog of Things To Come: Joi Ito is using his Weblog to put his virtual organization into action [Link Poached from Lucid article about Joi Ito]