Sunday, February 07, 2010




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It's not often that we see an editorial article that prompts us to get the scissors out of the drawer to cut it out of the Extra.
My partner and I recently spend a week in Hawaii. It intrigues me that we left on Friday night, and arrived on Friday morning.
I rang home to see if we’d already left but had to leave a message on the answering machine. Travel expands the mind. We met new people, experienced fantastic scenery and attractions, and created havoc on the Honolulu Freeway.
I also learnt about humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Airline flights are another matter.
Flying cattle class means Jenny Craig meals, Corolla legroom, abysmal movies, and airline bobsession with Fosters. And other people’s kids. For eight and one half hours, we were in a flying crèche.
Crying, tantrums, seat kicking, playing in the aisles and oblivious parents. “It’s OK dear, we’ll be there soon”. No we won’t. We’ve only just flown over Auckland, you dill. Parents need to control their children or be seated in a special area. Some consideration please. - GK Flying solo - Always being positive can become a negative

To run with extra’s theme, is anyone else fed up with the constant publication of letters expressing frustration at trivial annoyances in people’s day today lives? Personally I had to stand quite close to someone on the train this morning and got wet in the rain. Anyone care? Thought not. –CY Don’t sweat the small stuff


How I make the rich even richer: catching the mood of my generation From parliamentary failure to beaurocratic (sic)absurdity: Who are the liars in your life?
Tax Prof Daniel N. Shaviro (NYU) has a forthcoming novel, Getting It (iUniverse, 2010)


Bill Doberman is a liar. He's also a conniver, a phony, a hypocrite, and a cad -- and those are his good points. But will it all be enough to save him on the Night of the Long Knives -- when his law firm, Ashby & Cinders, picks, at most, one new partner -- coming up in just six weeks?
His fellow associates hate him. The partner he's working for wants to destroy him. And does Mr. Cinders, sitting at the top of the food chain, even know who he is?
Not to mention what Lyla will do if she catches him being unfaithful again ...
"Evelyn Waugh meets John Grisham. Hilarious and gripping." Tax Prof Joseph Bankman (Stanford)



Liars ; [I tend to bounce in and out of communism and capitalism and I have found something nice to say about nearly every ism I have experienced. Except Political freedom ; The irony of dictatorships is that when democracy emerges from their ashes, it is sometimes the ex-dictator's top generals who, metaphorically speaking, pound the nails in the coffin of the dictator and make it possible for civilians to keep the military away from the helm of power. This was the case with the successful democratic transitions of Spain, Portugal and Greece many decades ago, and with those of Chile and Argentina more recently, as Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa explains in his latest column. The irony of dictatorships ]
• · Tax, Wheatley and a tale of two Wickenbys ; That encounter moved Mr Egan to … claim he had been "intimidated and terrified" by "the big, burly Usher of the Black Rod", who had approached the Treasurer " in a threatening way with his rod over his shoulder
• · · Jonah Lehrer wrote in December about how psychologists are learning more about how the creative brain functions, using the example of a simple but powerful experiment among college students. One group was given the smallest permission to think fearlessly, and they jumped at it ; Past;
• · · · The former staff member, who was not named, made a protected disclosure to the clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Russell Grove, in January claiming Ms Paluzzano falsified the pay records of her parliamentary staff In an email to Mr Grove, the former staff member said he was accused of threatening Ms Paluzzano. I argue that I was simply trying to fulfil my responsibility to the NSW Parliament of reporting conduct that I find questionable ; The revelation that former public servant Terry Charles Spence had turned whistleblower came as a surprise to everyone Parliamentary embezzler blows whistle on MPs ; Mark D'Arney
• · · · · A lot of hype and hyped-up criticism have accompanied the launch of the iPad. The critics have missed the point. The iPad is not a netbook or scaled-down laptop. It is not a workhorse loaded up with functions and hardware. It is a platform for story-telling, interactive, personal and immediate Insanely, Fantastically, Brilliantly Amazing ; Reminding the world to get a little Insane