Monday, October 25, 2004



Last week Rex Jory of the Adelaide Advertiser screamed: Lack of incentives to build a better society
The Opinion piece suggested that governments and corporations had `forgotten the carrot` in favour of `applying the stick`. It was said that there should be incentives for good drivers in addition to penalties such as new legislation to cancel the drivers licences of those convicted of drink driving. My army days in Nitra where certain characters demolished houses as they drove along the Line of Duty (uncesored beauty)
Some of the tanks will even feature during The trial of Saddam Hussein

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Exactly the Day After My Wedding Vows The Term Spin Doctors Was Born
The carrot behind every wedding is the honeymoon. I rather decline to comment about what is behind the stick. Anyway, many, many years ago, twenty years in fact, I came across the term spin doctor (via International Herald Tribune). It was around the same time that I met some of the Sydney spinners from Sussex Street and Riley Street for the first time.
Twenty years ago, on October 21, 1984 the term 'spin doctor' made its public debut:
Under the headline "The debate and the spin doctors", the New York Times reported: "Tonight at about 9.30, seconds after the Reagan-Mondale debate ends, a bazaar will suddenly materialise in the press room of the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won't be just press agents trying to impart a favourable spin to a routine press release. They'll be the Spin Doctors . . .

Hunger which is now the fuel most of the spinning engine, is not a hunger for democracy [via Backpages; Spin-doctoring is bad for our democracy, but journalists' passivity is worse ]
• · In PDF version The Democratic Audit of Australia explores how political parties use technology in Australia to entrench themselves in power Freedom From Information; Deep structural flaws in a system where violence dominates, gangs rule and fear pervades ]
• · · Down ABC Memory Lane ; [
Postal Voters: Look Who Is Counting and Deciding whether or not 1233 is out ]
• · · · Boilermaker Bill's Macquarie St musings Carr trip to Canberra – Part XXII
[Mr MALCOLM KERR: It is the wisest project this Government has undertaken. The honourable member then referred to buses. I would like to give each honourable member opposite the money to buy a copy of the Daily Telegraph.
Alan Ashton: I wouldn’t use the Daily Telegraph if I was in an outback toilet!]
• · · · · Someone once described Parliamentary condolence motions as organised hypocrisies. But Wednesday night saw a genuinely moving tribute to Tony McGrane, the independent member for Dubbo, who died on 15 September just weeks after being diagnosed with what would prove to be a vicious liver cancer. [As Pam Allan said, if there were 92 others like Tony, none of us would ever have been elected. Thank God there are not that many Tony McGranes around, because some of us do want to be here.
From my experience most indepents who become representative of lower houses are the most fascinating people. Tony was among the handful of members who welcomed in Wei Jingsheng, the celebrated Chinese dissident who was imprisoned for almost 20 years for engaging in peaceful dissent from official policy, when he visited the New South Wales Parliament on 30 August, 1999. Tony was the only one who knew more about the Chinese dialect Wei was speaking than anyone else in the group. ]
• · · · · · Redflex Holdings State's traffic chief held shares in a speed camera company; Federalism Inc Sydney hospitals on code red for most of August Carr offers sacrifice in return for health switch ; Premier Bob Carr and his wife Helena have taken a further step in their strategy to exit public life in NSW