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In a morning keynote session at the Tools of Change conference, Tim O'Reilly set out to explain why "free is more complicated than you think" but, for a company like his, an excellent driver of multiple revenue streams.

First O'Reilly reprised and extended some online posts that crunched numbers to show the easy path to business from free--advertising--is illusory given standard online advertising models. A hypothetical $50 million specialty publishing company (like his) will never generate anywhere even close to that amount of revenue through advertising-supported free content.

O'Reilly told the crowd we're facing all the same challenges as the rest of you--but I still think free is a good idea. But the key is that O'Reilly is already in a lot of different businesses in addition to print book publishing that free help to drive--their online reference/library joint venture; conferences; online courses; a magazine; and even venture capital. Significantly, they can be in all of those businesses because they are all targeted at the same focused community O'Reilly serves in all of their products. That's the important and resonant example more than the fact that O'Reilly uses free online content sharing to drive a variety of revenue streams. (For further relevant reading on this point, look back at Mike Shatzkin's speech on the End of Trade Publishing:

Much of the proof, acknowledged by O'Reilly, was right in the room. "In our business, sponsoring is a big part of what we do." Attendees paid to come to this conference, while over two dozen companies paid for sponsorships and bought speaking slots to address that group. O'Reilly on Free

What Everyone Else Is Reading Public Service Website Ripers: Top 10 intranet sites
Local farmers at NSW Department of Primary Industries / ComputerWorld, January 2008, 2p. Press release from DPI and a news article featuring a list of 10 best designed intranet sites from a world wide competition. NSW DPI was the only Australian site; the New Zealand Ministry of Transport also gained a mention for the antipodes.

San Francisco-based Nielsen Norman Group, which has organised the event for the past eight years, says the priority in intranet development has flipped "from information to people".
"It’s now a given to have basic features such as an employee directory on a company’s intranet,” usability expert and principal of Nielsen Norman Group Jakob Nielsen said in a statement.
"What’s new is the polish and sophistication that companies are giving them so that they serve even more useful purposes, which in the case of the directory means providing more than an employee’s name, rank and serial number, but also his subject-matter expertise, for example.”

• An overview of the report is available at ; [HarperCollins Publishers Promotion to Make Select Books Available Online for Free Harper Tries Full Online Access; For those books not provided free by publishers, there's a new scanner from Atix (selling for about $1,600) that the company calls a book ripper. Newsweek judges it more a thud than a snap, the device—an ominous three-foot high construction draped with a thick black darkroom-style shade—looks like a Goth puppet theater and weighs 44 pounds E-Z Book Scanner Isn't, Yet--But It Will Be ]
• · This article explains how a good writing style can help lawyers persuade judges Persuading Judges in Writing: Tips for Lawyers; Terrific writers: As a senator she has learned compromise and negotiation. She has gotten to know red America as well as blue. If she could win over the rednecks in upstate New York, she can win over any American. She knows this country is full of "security" moms as well as soccer moms. From Erica Jong - a terrific writer ; and more Election pundit
• · Wealth Report finds that a typical Australian family spends $537,000 on raising two children from birth to 21 years. Ach Sasha and Gabbie … Honey, I calculated the kids... it's $537,000: Australian child costs in 2007; A bittersweet and wise month-by-month account of the year in her life during which, upon turning half a century and confronted with his own mortality, he chooses to wake himself up, embrace the passage of time, identify what matters (and what does not) -- and finally decide to live Im Alive ;-)
• · · Good Question for Media Dragons How important are author sites?; Imagine saying hello to Kate Jones who was one of the most brilliant literary agents of her generation, and leaves behind an extraordinary list of devoted authors Kate Jones: Literary agent with flawless taste One of the brightest and best in the British book world: a rare and gifted reader, a dedicated and inspiring editor, and an exceptional publisher; Deron Douglas of wider Double Dragon World
• · · · · There used to be a time when the Republicans were known for their fiscal conservatism. Commentary: The Tax Reduction and Reform Act of 2007; The purpose of this Blog is to collate information about psychological research on deception, and the applications of this research. Criminal Resources: False Confessions

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Here's a story alert for former parliamentary officers, (degreed and self-styled), sociologists, fashion mavens, woman's issue supporters and anyone who enjoys snapshots of the lives of powerful people. You keep a diary and share it with friends like Jack ... Steve and Kevin ....

The Government Domain: Journalists and Government Information: SLA-DGI/GODORT Joint Meeting Scott told the crowd that librarians probably see many more documents than he does, so please feel free to send any "smoking memos" to mshane@nytimes.com. Smoking Memos

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These are the kinds of people who make a difference in the world, not just the saints.
—Joseph L. Badaracco Jr

One benefit derives from the literature itself. Through the novels, plays, short stories, and historical accounts students are brought much closer to life as it is really lived, certainly closer than in lecture learning and even closer than in a case discussion. That's because the authors lay out for us the full context of a situation: the fast friendships, bitter enmities, strong ambitions, and confused goals that the characters must navigate
Leadership is, in part, a struggle of flawed human beings, said Badaracco. And a huge amount of the struggle that the books' characters experience is with themselves. This becomes clear when students read about Jerry, the despairing salesman in "Blessed Assurance," and Okonkwo, a village leader in Nigeria in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, struggling against the arrival of the colonialists. It's also true in another book the students read, Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons, about Sir Thomas More and his long battle with King Henry VIII. The lessons we take from the stories become part of us Teaching The Moral Leader ; Here lately, worry over this takes a percentage of my sleep right off the top. — So I'm telling you, okay? Machiavelli, Morals, and You
; Why Leaders Need Great Books like Cold River ;-) - Word Power Independent Publishers will have strong presence at the THE 12TH EDINBURGH INDEPENDENT RADICAL BOOK FAIR 2008 AD

Shedding blood for liberty The BULLY

ACP Magazines announces closure of The Bulletin magazine, ACP media release, 24 January 2008, 1p. ACP Magazines Chief Executive Officer, Scott Lorson, today announced that weekly news and current affairs title The Bulletin with Newsweek would cease publication from the current issue of the magazine which went on sale on 23 January 2008. The Bulletin is Australia’s longest running magazine and was launched in 1880

• ; The US is notable among major nations in how little it has suffered in foreign wars. A brawl has erupted over a statement in the stump speech of Republican candidate Fred Thompson
• · Future directions in technology-enabled crime: 2007-09 ; War criminal Suharto is dead. Look for the tears from his Western supporters. In their hypocrisy they may recognise he was a dictator, but, they will rationalise, he was "our" dictator. Suharto - war criminal
• · · It is a politicised Howard-Federal public service that has run, and continues to try to run, government. If the cap fits wear it ; Holding on to the ridiculous mythology of the Aussie larrikin as being the definition of Australian spirit IS cause for a cultural cringe. Australia Day cringe
• · · · Chris Hammer, The Bulletin, 27 November 2007, pp.70-73. Judged by Alan Fels, the article looks at the ten individuals in ‘government’ segment of the Power 100 of 2007 – Peter Shergold, Murray Gleeson, Angus Houston, Terry Moran, Mick Keelty, Heather Ridout, Sharon Burrow, Peter Cullen, Ian Watt and Robyn Kruk. Power 100: government; My workspace, Brad Howarth, AFRBoss, October 2007, pp.56-57. They’re the new places to see and be seen, and the hottest social networking sites are also places to forge business. Article looks briefly at: FaceBook, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, loop mobile, YouTube, Orkut, LinkMe, LinkedIn, Windows Live Spaces and Yahoo! 360º. Ironically, not availbale online ;-) AFR - the dinasaur

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Brilliant James Cumes Petrov affair dramatises injustices
AUSTRALIAN plays are rarely performed in Europe. But this week a new Australian play, The Lovers The Outcasts, has been advertised throughout the Viennese underground, on billboards and on the sides of buses and trams.
Beneath a picture of a handsome young man stroking the belly of an equally handsome young woman is the declaration that the play, written by James Cumes, a former Australian ambassador to Austria, is about to have its world premiere.
The Lovers The Outcasts is a historical echo: the story of the Petrov affair that transfixed Australia in the 1950s and, in an era of anti-communist hysteria, contributed to making Liberal Party hero Robert Menzies the longest serving prime minister in Australian history.

The affair had all the elements to fascinate what was then an isolated culture: Soviet spies, a beautiful woman in the shape of Evdokia (Eva) Petrov, and scandalous accusations aimed at the highest reaches of the Australian government.
It also led to one of the most famous photographs of the Cold War era: the sight of Eva Petrov being manhandled on to a plane by Soviet agents aroused sympathy and outrage around the world.
The Lovers The Outcasts begins a three-day run tonight at the elegant Schlosstheater in Schonbrunn Palace, one of Vienna's prime tourist attractions, and the curious nature of the play has already attracted attention from Vienna's main media outlets.
Key to the interest has been the remarkable 85-year-old Cumes, who is still regarded with affection and referred to as Botschafter, or ambassador, wherever he goes.
Everything about Cumes is extraordinary. His conversation is dotted with tales spanning the decades from his years as a soldier in New Guinea during World War II to his many years as a diplomat with postings in West Africa, Paris, London, Geneva, Brussels and his beloved Vienna. Since retiring he has maintained homes in Vienna, Monaco, Canberra and Brisbane.
He is hoping The Lovers The Outcasts will soon be performed at Monaco's Princess Grace Theatre. He also hopes the play will be performed in Australia.
Cumes has long been obsessed, he says, by writing: he has written 15 books in all, including four novels and a blog he maintains on his website. His latest work, written while in his 80s, is an economic polemic called America's Suicidal Statecraft: The Self-destruction of a Superpower.
Five years ago Cumes sat down and recounted the Petrov affair, keen to get out a story that had been lurking in the back of his mind since the 1950s.
"Like so many others, I have always thought the Petrov affair was a great story that deserved more dramatic treatment than it has so far received," he says.
The bare facts of his project are interesting enough; that he managed to attract investment from the cultural establishment of Vienna for a story a half century old and from half a world away is even more remarkable.
The Lovers The Outcasts is being performed in English by the well-established Vienna Theatre Company and has attracted several prominent local actors.
Andrea Kunesch, who plays Eva Petrov, is well known to Austrian television audiences. Balazs Schallenberg, who plays Vladimir Petrov, has worked in films and TV, while Australian Brian Hatfield, who plays an ASIO career officer, has worked for the Melbourne Theatre Company. Vienna-born director Roman Kollmer has worked in radio, TV and movies.

• John Stapleton | February 01, 2008 Everything about Cumes is extraordinary.; [ His conversation is dotted with tales spanning the decades from his years as a soldier in New Guinea during World War II to his many years as a diplomat with postings in West Africa, Paris, London, Geneva, Brussels and his beloved Vienna. Since retiring he has maintained homes in Vienna, Monaco, Canberra and Brisbane. James withsHeidi in Vienna ; As James notes We should all be pursuing a lasting victory over world want]

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It is always pleasant to gallavant with Polish mates like Christopher and Lidka or Slavek, Izy & Basha on Friday - the pirozky nights. To boot, watching the the fireworks with Greek friends like Vicki, Nicki, George Krys, Jules and my better half when even 3 am the night is still young on Australia Day weekends ;-) Like Poe we appear to have Indulged in a drink, perhaps, as in the past, to treat what he called a long weekend attack ; This website provided light reading on Australia Day I Enjoy Reading this pepper and salt mosaic of what is good and bad or ugly about the land of opportunity

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle As Certain as Death: Methods for fleshing out characters!
This website is a companion to The Buying of the President 2008. Like the book, this site explores the roles that money and special interests play in presidential politics.

But unlike the book, which will provide a behind-the-scenes examination of how big money influences the presidential election process, this site is a work in progress — a continually updated window into the 2008 race that’s also richly supplemented with details, insights, and revelations from previous campaigns and, where feasible, those who engineered them. In addition to details about the 2008 candidates and their political benefactors, for example, the site includes everything from a history of money in presidential politics to in-depth, on-the-record interviews with current and former presidential candidates, consultants and strategists, donors and fundraisers, and academics who have studied the intricacies of the political system. What’s more, the site offers the Center for Public Integrity’s complete body of work on presidential elections, most notably cover-to-cover, full-text-searchable copies of the three previous books in the Buying of the President series."

• My Crown Employee experiences remind me just how Amazingly reliably the lobby groups operate in Australia and Amerika ; Limits to reining in the lobbyists ; Indeed, THERE’S no such thing as changing the government without changing the... country Links of Bespacific links ; The Battle for Bennelong: The Adventures of Maxine McKew, Aged 50 Something Exit Right: The Unravelling of John Howard
• · I was thinking about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, with regard to writing, reading, and life. (So I'm a bit of a nerd. This wouldn't surprise any of you by now.) Wikis, blogs and other collaborative web technologies could usher in a new era of science. Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?; As to how the Heisenberg Principle applies to life -- well, I'm still working that out ;
• · · Over 20 million people in the UK used search engines for accessing travel information in the first quarter of 2007, Google UK and comScore, a research firm, found in a study carried out on online consumer behaviour in the travel sector. Google, comScore track online consumer behaviour in UK travel sector ; A new survey from Carat, a media communications company, found that the Hollywood writers’ strike is not driving viewers away from TV but is affecting their viewing patterns, with 72 percent of respondents watching the same amount of prime-time TV than before the strike, 25 percent of people watching less and 3 percent watching more. Writers' Strike
• · · · One of the things a writer is supposed to do is to strip away the surface of our everyday selves and get underneath what's polished and pretty to the more essential stuff of life. The Dangers of Writing Fiction ; A moment with: Marjane Satrapi, writer, artist and film director of 'Persepolis' Marjane Satrapi

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Of course, there’s no equating the artistic talents of teens and the middle aged. Still the spectrum is filled with possibilities … First my daughter Gabriella started to engage her artistic flair on the web and now my mate from the village of Longueville also rebbubles his photographic imaginations. I love the way John put it: Vibrant middle aged male trying to get in contact with his right side brain. Generally clueless ;-)

Turning 50: The price is right to rock back the clock Men behaving badly
I’m a little slow on the uptake about my awareness of noteworthy 2008 dates. On 19 January 2008 AD in The Sydney Morning Herald Susan Wyndham wrote: Turning 50 can be the start of your most powerful decade with a good mix of energy, experience and authority. It's time to let the real you emerge.

But as this writer notes it's not necessarily a turn for the worse: For my 40th birthday, many people came up to console me that at least I wasn't turning 50. At 47, AARP started mailing notices to my house inviting me to join up.
I’m also not overly concerned about my impending journey into deeper middle age and turning 50, so, the recent realization that this milestone in my life also occurs on Easter Sunday (I was born on a Sunday also) is kind of cool. Although I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I find it comforting to think that I may be starting a new life with this odd coincedence.

• Life begins at 50. %0 is the new 40?; With Kylie about to turn four-oh, and Madonna, Jacko and Prince the big 50, it’s an issue we need to resolve pronto for fear of becoming culturally disoriented. Can we love our pop heroes when they’re no longer in youth’s first flush? ; Kabbalah comes off well in latest tome but religion professor makes some sweeping statements Kabbalah: The star-studded spiritualism; Fifty is nifty if you’re ‘Smart’
• · Tale of two 50-yr-olds Madonna's face compared to another 50 year-old; What does 50 look like in 2008? How to Be Fabulous after 40
• · · Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton, the list goes on and on (can't forget Madonna). maureena wonders why it's OK for men to sleep around but not Are girls too easy? ; Saga of fame and violence
• · · · My brother in Law John Drayton loves drinking the family wine, but the family history is not so easy to swallow. THE Draytons, the pioneer Hunter Valley winegrowers, have endured much violent and unexpected death since founding members migrated in the 1850s. Half the family was lost to typhus on the voyage to Australia. Curse steals another Drayton

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We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet.

PS: I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell Paul Kidby site (via Galleycat) The news of my D day has been exaggerated (sic)…

Can we change the heart of reading habits? Judge Says Book Reading/Purchasing Is Private
Court records unsealed last week indicate that earlier this year federal prosecutors had tried to get a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Wisconsin to approve a subpoena compelling Amazon.com to disclose the identity of thousands of people who bought used books online. They were investigating former Madison public official Robert D'Angelo, indicted recently on charges that he ran a used book business of his office and did not report the proceeds as income.

Judge Stephen Crocker turned down the request, ruling that there is a First Amendment right to keep your reading habits private. And the AP says he also "unsealed documents detailing the showdown against prosecutors' wishes."

He wrote, "Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases." Crocker added, "The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission.... It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else."

Apparently, "Crocker brokered a compromise in which [Amazon] would send a letter to the 24,000 customers describing the investigation and asking them to voluntarily contact prosecutors if they were interested in testifying."

• Cold River and InkWell partner Richard Pine says: Movies sell books and our goal is to have the highest book-to-film ratio in the business. Patricia's enthusiasm, resilience and contacts are first rate and we are certain that our clients will benefit enormously from the focus and energy she will bring to the presentation of their work to agents, managers, producers, studios and networks Purchasing Is Private; [Printing poetry by using letterpress allows the time to appreciate and feel each word as it is put into place ... The touch of words; Introducing the 'Best Blog Posts of 2007', an anthology of writing from Australian independent blogs over the past year. Best blog posts '07]
• · Desert Island Discs: My All Time Top Ten Tunes; The rise and rise of stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s seems to reveal our growing desire to connect more sensually with food. Food glorious food fresh Zummer bread …
• · The Lees have a long history of libel stoushes with foreign media, battles they have never lost when heard in Singapore's own courts, which grants them damages payouts that set world records. Singapore libel case a test of Murdoch's bona fides; For the first time since Robert Kennedy we have a presidential candidate, Barack Obama, inspiring real interest in America The politics of hope
• · · Punters and Jokies are the followers and fans of stand-up comedians: here is some insider knowledge about their characteristics Punters and Jokies; Part of the richness of any culture is its language and one facet is the vast array of names parents bestow upon their children. What’s in a name?
• · · · If music be food of love we are starved of affection; We may be in the midst of a true paradigm shift away from one true identity to a new worldview based on a plurality of identities Plurality of identities
• · · · · High-tech CCTV technology installed in Sydney CBD
PLAYING up in Sydney's CBD just became harder;
This discussion paper analyses the Howard government’s Regional Partnerships Program, the subject of a recent Australian National Audit Office report. The authors discuss the democratic implications and question the political value of pork-barrelling. PDF file attached Rolling out the regional pork barrel: a threat to democracy?
• · · · · · Murdoch's Australian papers covered the election with an eye to the likely post-poll climate, writes RODNEY TIFFEN Rupert Murdoch and the Claytons editorial endorsements
; Research obtained under freedom of information laws raises questions about the accuracy of the Howard government’s pre-election advertising campaign on internet safety, writes PETER MARES on our partner website, Creative Economy How NetAlert accentuated the negative

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My cousin Andrej Imrich was 60 this week and there is a lovely description of the village where my father and Andrej were born - Little Monastery on the Poprad River
Pilhov is more of a hamlet than a city. It is today incorporated into the nearby village of Mnisek nad Popradom (= Little Monastery on the Poprad River), which is right where the Poprad flows north across the border with Poland. This is in northeastern Slovakia, about 20 miles east of the High Tatra Mountains, in the region former called Spis County.

Imrich is the Slovak version of a firstname (Czech: Emerich), originally from the German Emmerich. There was an early Hungarian prince, Imre (the Magyar version of the name), who became a saint soon after the Magyars became Christians, so the name was always popular throughout the old Kingdom of Hungary. The Italian version of the name, Amerigo, led to the name for America.
Pilhov; Andrej Imrich

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If you are visiting Vienna in February 2008 make sure you get the TICKETS for WORLD Premiere ´The Lovers The Outcasts´

The Lovers The Outcasts James Cumes A Playwright’s Commentary

Like so many others, I have always thought the Petrov Affair was a great story that deserved more dramatic treatment than it has so far received.
When it happened in 1954, I was a First Secretary in the Department of External Affairs in Canberra. Some might think I was cheek by jowl with the "nest of traitors" alleged at the time to infest the Department. However, I could claim always to be on friendly terms with Foreign Minister R.G. (later Lord) Casey who coined the expression; and I knew no one with whom I was not then and would not now be proud to associate.
That applies particularly to Ric Throssell whose career was largely and most unjustly destroyed by the Affair.
That I knew several of these people as well as others who were involved in the events in some way or another, gave me - potentially at least - some insights into the "Affair."
For those reasons, I wrote a play, based on it but treating the details of the story with some dramatic licence.
Quite by chance, the play came to the notice of someone keen to have it staged and it was taken up by a theatre company. That was early in 2007. As with most enterprises of its kind, there have been some vicissitudes since but the play is now set for its World Première at the beginning of February.
The story arouses a variety of emotions, personal, political and even of course strategic in so far as it demonstrates the clash of Cold-War ideologies in the second half of the 20th Century.
"Will you be able to get for me any documents or reports about this man in external affairs? Is that possible?" the Australian Security man asks.
"Very difficult but I think I can get something," Vladimir replies.
That is the essence of how it all began.
The “something” and, ultimately, the several things Vladimir “gets,” destroy some people’s lives; and it also appears, in the process to have destroyed much of Vladimir’s own life, as well as Eva's life and his loving relationship with her.
When Vladimir defects, he betrays his cause – whether we regard it as good or evil - his country and his professional ethic. What he opts for turns out to be a boring and rather feckless freedom.
Eva wants to remain loyal to her country and to return to her family in Moscow. She opts to go home – where of course she knows she will have to endure Soviet tyranny and, perhaps, imprisonment or even execution.
But she is vulnerable. She too can be “seduced” or, more accurately, intimidated; and she is. She is “seduced” by fear – fear of those who mean to be her friends as much as fear of those who would continue to abuse her.

The Soviet couriers Moscow has sent to collect her take her by car from Canberra to Sydney. On the way, she contemplates suicide but she arrives safely at the airport in Sydney. There the couriers haul her brutally through a crowd of reporters and public to the aircraft that will take her back to her home and family.
The intent of the crowd is friendly but she finds the scuffle terrifying. She loses a shoe. Weeping and disheveled, she is dragged up the aircraft gangway with her shins and knees scraping on the stairs.
To the watching crowd, she becomes a pathetic object – a victim of coarse, inhuman brutality, inflicted by an evil regime.

The photo (see James Cumes website on Authors den for the photo) of her being dragged into the aircraft becomes part of the legend of the Affair - an icon which, even for us now, symbolizes the conflicts of the time.
An attractive young woman is being abused by thugs.
The apparently obscene use of force is seen to typify the obscenity of the totalitarianism on which the Soviet's communist ideology is constructed.
Her lost shoe becomes a symbol too: a symbol of yet another obscenity committed by an oppressive ideology and regime – a totalitarian communist regime that cruelly mistreats the weak and vulnerable, fragile women included.
Aboard the aircraft, speaking to the crew about the Soviet couriers, Eva tells them “They have guns. They will use them.”

Again, this identifies them as thugs. They must be disarmed. Eva must be freed.
For the Australian Government and its agents who had seduced her husband, it could now not be otherwise. They had to be the white knights in shining armor riding to the rescue. They were obliged to “free” her and – incidentally - use her to denounce communism and those who might be shown to have any link, however tenuous, to it.
“I think I can get something," Vladimir had said.
He kept his promise. Now Eva could join him in keeping it.

Eva became a darling of the media. She was described as beautiful, elegant and a leader of women’s fashion. “I found myself publicized like a film star,” she wrote.
They were both used – should we say, fully exploited? - by the Royal Commission on Espionage. In the end, they were denounced by the Commission as people of small consequence who could not be trusted; but the Commission made a significant exception to this judgment. In their “naming” of mostly innocent Australians who had in some way “collaborated” with them in “undermining democracy,” the Commission found that they were "witnesses of truth."

Afterwards, the Menzies Government was securely installed; the Australian Labor Party split. As other events supervened, the media turned their attention to other issues.
Eva and Vladimir would never be forgotten; but they were ignored. Eva had a nervous collapse but she recovered. She and Vladimir were able to live out their lives quietly in suburbia. They may have ceased to be lovers and became outcasts – unrecognized and unacclaimed by either side, except as they would be seen as leading actors in an episode of a historic conflict. In that role, they still symbolize the Cold War and its conflicting ideologies. They also remind us, even today, how human rights can be violated, even by the well-meaning upholders of freedom and democracy, and how personal lives can be shattered in the process of resolving great political and strategic issues.
Prime Minister Menzies won the election of 29 May 1954. He held office until 1966 when, voluntarily, he stepped down. He is still, by far, the longest-serving Prime Minister in Australian history.
• Petrov Affair in Austria ; James Cumes
• · Victory Over Want ; Czech actor Marko Pustišek

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I've always preferred prognostication to nostalgia: The Shortest 2008 Trend Prediction Ever... Personality Matters!

My former boss, Dr Russell Cope, who is known for his insight and concerns about libraries is reviewing a book by Alan Bundy on Australian Libraries Cradle to grave ; Around Malabar a stonethrow away from Dr Cope Cafes like Lighthearted (where Ruby’s friend used to live, on the corner of the lovely and wide Anzac Parade at Malabar also Matter Next best Coffee after the Lighthearted Café is the Café on the Bay

Books Glorious Books Throwing the Book at Them
We wonder if the officials behind this policy have ever tried to repair a bad credit report — an experience that rivals Dante’s “Inferno.” Check it out

It turns out the library can do more than just shush you. If you accumulate enough unpaid late fees, some New York libraries are ready to hit you where it really hurts: your credit score. They have reported millions of dollars in such bad debts. Most people make good before their creditworthiness is damaged. But there is something chilling in this kind of threat from a library.

• What Libraries Stand For; Love that book? Love that Cold River? Then set it free ; The nature of an opinion blog means that most of the opinions expressed here about links that irritate or inspire or entertain me Letters; This is my third and last post about what my move from old to new media dragons has taught me. In the first, I discussed its dynamism, in the second its amazing level of clarity. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Blog: The Endless Conversation
• · Young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries despite the ease with which they can access a wealth of information over the Internet from the Young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries ; It is a conflict that is fading from living memory, but a “blog” from the trenches of the First World War has become a surprise hit on the internet. Soldier’s ‘blog’ from WW1 trenches is internet hit ; Reading? It's already covered You can keep your e-books, thanks — the paperback is perfect as is. ; Australian Library Collections The Naked Truth about Literature and Life ; Cold River: The Cold Truth of Freedom
• · · Technorati made changes this week to the way it counts inbound links for purposes of determining its blog rankings. Technorati Makes Changes To Blog Rankings. Big Hit For No. 1 Engadget ; Best Blog Sites ; Time Magazine's 50 Best Web Sites (Time Uses Flex?) ; Wanted: Single dot-com Yenta seeks ambitious Mr. Big with deep pockets for a long-term relationship. Parent of Dating Sites Looks for a Match
• · · · Famous Blogs - Blog Of The Day Awards - Top Blog Awards - 2007 Weblog Awards ; Amazon Kindle: Kool or Krap? My Top 10 Stories of 2007; Instead of just jotting down the top trends that have a high probability of success and therefore are safe as predictions, I thought it would be interesting to first look at what the best bloggers have to say and see what the implications are for manufacturing, then go out on a limb and make some predictions. Predictions 2008: Fighting Back a Recession and Increasing Trust

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We are drowning in information
and starved for knowledge.
-John Naisbitt, Chairman of The Naisbitt Group

My favourite time of year is the period between Christmas and New Year. It's like a week of Sundays. No one expects any work to get done, the streets are empty, the pressure is off. Just getting dressed feels like an accomplishment Why I love Christmas

At this special time with family and friends I love stories that remind me of what’s important in life. It’s also about the power of friendship and of family…and maybe not taking life so seriously. The transnational family, nourished by email, chatrooms, long-distance calls and SMSs has increasingly become a feature of migrant communities. The Best Gifts Are Simply Love And Understanding

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"I'm not saying it's The Da Vinci Code, but there are aspects to it that make you think of it. There's a lot of art, a lot of history and a lot of religion in it." Borders' Zan Farr says it's her "personal favorite" of the season. Cold River - Winter books preview: Warmth, fire and chills await book lovers this season

The harmonic richness of Newspaper Cold River Book Coverage, Ups and Downs A flood of reviews geared for 2008 V Grinch Stole Christmas
Chicago Sun Times books editor Teresa Budasi wrote about the Grinch Who Stole the Books Section, telling readers on Dec. 23 "the Books section in its current form will cease to exist after today," citing "the economic climate of the news business." Reduced weekly book coverage has been merged into the Sunday Show section of the paper, along with other arts and entertainment coverage.

As Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas celebrates its 50th anniversary -- complete with a new retrospective edition (Random House, 82 pages, $24.99) that includes 32 pages of commentary and archival images on the history of the Grinch -- the Books section in its current form will cease to exist after today.

• How the Grinch stole the Books section ; On the other hand, next week the New Orleans Times-Picayune "will debut The Reading Life, which will feature expanded coverage of books and the New Orleans literary scene each week on the cover of Friday's Living section" instead of Sunday coverage. They promise "new features devoted to book clubs and reading groups, literary movers and shakers, and expanded bestseller lists." Reading Life: THE BELLS IN THEIR SILENCE
• · Bookish pessimists are elitist and wrong: the Internet is good for you. Stars in the Net sky ; Ever vigilant, the mass media dug into a critical social issue and rooted out the information in their never-ending quest to guarantee the people’s right to know. Oops! The media did it again; In Cold River The characters always want what they don’t have.
• · · Identity theft is something that has been around as long as fraud itself. A gram of caution is worth a ton of remedy ; “My house is just a huge expensive brick weighing me down”, writes a homeowner on a Swiss political blog. The Swiss are home free
• · · · Anorak of Cold River Links To Things: Best Of The Web; It was probably inevitable. As one of Tony Soprano's sidekicks observed in a classic episode of the TV series, the two most resilient sectors of the economy are organised crime and certain aspects of showbusiness. The aspects, that is, known as the world's oldest profession - now mixing it with the world's newest technologies Organised Crime ; The Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, yesterday appointed Mr Greiner to develop a new system for accessing the port amid lengthy ship queues Greiner to tackle coal ship standoff

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Old Friends, sat on their park bench like bookends...Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be seventy. Old Friends.
-Dedicated to Steven Monaghan, my friend who invaded our place with Tng Ling this Christmas

I wish all my readers a very very happy and prosperous year ahead. I would like to thank all my linkers my linkers and especially Google engineers for their support and encouragement. Without which I do not think this blog would have been what it is today. ranking as #5 on Google and everywhere else …

This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a portion of National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster and US Marine Corps General Reinwald who was about to sponsor Boy Scouts visiting his military installation.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?

GENERAL REINWALD: We’re going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and
shooting.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see why, they’ll be properly supervised on the rifle range.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.

GENERAL REINWALD: Well, ma’am, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?

The radio went silent and the interview ended. You gotta love the Marines!

PS: It has been the worst and the best of holliday seasons. Christmas Eve with Bawa and Dial Holly Day with Richard and June. Catching up with Gabbie and friends from Holland UK. Dinner with Michael Parkinson at Swell Bronte etc … even swimming in swelly seas with Mal at Bronte. But it also involved going to funerals and spending time at hospitals is something we had to do, but life must go on …

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I have been sitting on this joke for quite some time. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks did it too. He became rich really rich like us ;-)
… I drove by big houses and would wonder who lived there. What did they do for a living? How did they make their money? Someday, I would tell myself, I would live in a house like that. Every weekend I would do it. I worked jobs I didn't like. I worked jobs I loved, but had no chance of being a career. I worked jobs that barely paid the rent. I had so many jobs my parents wondered if I would be stable. Success and Motivation

Media Dragon denies they knew spinach was a performance enhancing drug Bohemian Bloggers Are Richer and Happier ;-)
I'm rich, I'm sport and computer lover.I pick up on the web everything in which I recognize me. This is the world that sorrounds me ;-) Herewithin we detail the many schemes and scams by which our rich have become _incredibly_ rich, our poor poorer and the rest of us left struggling to get by

The internet retailer you choose just might, without disclosure, install software on your computer to snoop on your web browsing. Would you believe it could be one of the country’s oldest retailers Brian Krebs at the Security Fix blog has this story
“It’s a cold case 3500 years old”, are the opening words to this fascinating documentary. Ancient Egypt was the very center of world power, and managed through hieroglyphs to convey that rich history to us in the modern world. The Pharaohs and the dynasties are for the most part better documented than modern leaders. Our Presidents and their legacy lives on in the form of artifacts left in their usually very ornate tombs and pyramids.
• Cold River’s destiny. The book will read you … It’s a cold case 3500 years old ; It would be so nice if something made sense for a change 7 Surreal Urban Street Art Installation Projects: Brad Downey Brings Wonderland to Life
• · Warren Buffett has been all over the business press recently suggesting that the very rich, those on the Forbes 400 list, are taxed advantageously to the rest of the workforce. That it makes no sense that his tax bill as a percentage of income is lower than that of his secretary or housekeeper. Warren Buffett , Taxes and the Presidency ; In Internet nothing is created, everything is copied
• · · We're doing a series of astrological predictions for the 2008 Presidential candidates. War! Terror! Weirdness! Covering the War on Terror, War on Drugs and General Weirdness Death by 1000 Papercuts ; You spend too much time sat in your bedroom, on your PC Are you sure you couldn’t have found the time, Swallowed your pride and admitted your jealousy one of my city’s many front men
• · · · Now to some rubbish on the net … The Derrty Truth is updated daily with celebrity news and fodder for social commentary; Pages and pages filled with sleepless celebrity gossips, daily star tracks and latest photo shoots. Life should be too short for this … Thousand Gossips Blogs ; Our Bollywood covers all the latest happenings in Bollywood and does not indulge in tabloid journalism Our Bollywood

Today is the end of another start of different era for Stefan Albinski golfer, tax guru and Austrac expert Ski of Champions ;-) Aha, the Marriott Hotel puts on a great Ritzy Christmas spread ...

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If you thought Christmas get-togethers couldn't get any worse, you never went to one with Norman Mailer. As the season kicks off, Frances Wilson discovers why literature is full of tales of disastrous parties Parties: a literary survival guide

The World's Longest Literary Honeymoon A little Tax Help

Throughout history, taxes and all things associated with them have been universally loathed. In the Bible, Jesus was thought to be quite peculiar because he hung about with tax collectors. During the Middle Ages, the Hundred Years War was fought because of, amongst other things, excessive taxation. Taxes too helped bring about the American War of Independence: Great Britain was levying duties upon its colonies, and not allowing them a say in how those monies were spent, “no taxation without representation.” More recently, Margaret Thatcher lost her popularity because of a brouhaha over taxes, and in Australia John Howard once very nearly lost his job over the introduction of GST. We don’t like it, this legalised theft. We work hard for what little income we get, and resent any amount of it being taken away by the faceless boffins at the tax department. This attitude means we enjoy immensely any story in which Inland Revenue gets its comeuppance, and take great relish when the little person triumphs over horrid bureaucracy. Stories where taxmen are brought to their knees are usually inspiration for amazing deeds (how many revolutionaries have aped the Boston Tea Party?), and one might think such a tale, such a true story, that happened in our own New Zealand, could make a particularly juicy film. One might think that; one would be wrong.

We’re Here To Help has, at first glance, all the makings of a rollicking yarn. It’s Joe Public fighting Faceless Government Behemoth! It’s Chivalrous Man defending the honour of Beautiful Damsel! It’s quite literally David and Goliath, and, just like always, David emerges triumphant and justified, but there’s something lacking: “interest.” The synopses of the film describe it as a “saga of Kafkaesque and yet comedic proportions.” It’s not. Dave Henderson is treated execrably and is constantly frustrated by the IRD, but to describe his experience as Kafkaesque is not merely hyperbole but does a disservice to Franz Kafka himself. Others have compared We’re Here To Help to that classic of Australian film The Castle (1997). It’s not even close. The Castle was cleverly scripted, brilliantly cast, and delightfully acted. We’re Here To Help: not so much. The acting is rather stilted and the dialogue a little verbose. Erik Thompson (The Black Balloon, Beautiful, Somersault) has been well-cast, but only because he bears a passing resemblance to the real Dave Henderson. Michael Hurst (I’ll Make You Happy, Desperate Remedies, The Tattooist) doesn’t do quite as good an impression of Rodney Hide as he’d like to think, and succeeds only in looking like Michael Hurst in a fat suit and a bald wig. Worse still, the plot isn’t actually that appealing. WE’RE HERE TO HELP (NZ 2007)
DIRECTOR Jonathan Cullinane
WRITER Jonathan Cullinane
CAST Erik Thomson, Miriama Smith, Geoff Clendon, Jason Hoyte, John Leigh, Stephen Papps, Michael Hurst, Peter Elliott, Greg Johnson
NZ RATING PG Contains coarse language
NOTES Based on the book Be Very Afraid, by Dave Henderson

• Be Very Afraid; [People love to complain about literary cliques, but communities of like minds have nurtured much great writing The social side of literature; Umberto Eco's mind is as sharp and witty as ever, writes Ben Naparstek of the man who says he invented Dan Brown The Armani of literature ]
• · In Austria I am part of new literature; in the Czech Republic I'm not Bah, humbug, it's party season again; There's a question that sometimes comes up in conversations about interactive fiction: Is it literature, or a game? Art, film or game? 'Inanimate Alice' redefines 'publish'; Literature has a great unifying force and it can act as a catalyst amidst the diversity prevailing in our region. American dreamer

Ach, a morning of Svety Mikulas ...

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Some symbols are just so powerful you can't get past them. Take Cold War inside the insider’s story Cold River. Life in my teenage years under communism was memorably described as nasty, brutish and short. I know that soccer is a very simple game made unnecessarily complicated by too much analysis and over thinking (a bit like communism really). The simple and deadly experiences of my sister Aga are captured inside it and so is the sale of anthrax et al. This month comes a story along these lines from the old Czech or Slovakia. The Imrich Prophecy

Our Future on a Hotter Planet
Imrich: & Enriched uranium that could have been made into a "dirty bomb" by terrorists has been seized by Slovakian police after it was allegedly offered for sale for $1m.

Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian suspected of peddling the radioactive material were arrested in eastern Slovakia and Hungary on Wednesday. Michal Kopcik, a senior Slovakian police official, said the men had 481.4 grams of uranium in powdered form. It is believed to have come from a former Soviet republic, but the identity of the intended buyer was not disclosed. Tests showed it contained 98.6 per cent uranium-235. Uranium is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 per cent uranium-235.

• Uranium for 'dirty bomb' seized by Slovak police ; [Non-Weapons Grade HEU Bust in Slovakia ]
• · A MAP of the earth's sunniest locations reveal that Australia is a sunburnt country, with plenty of solar energy to spare Australia, how sunburnt are we? ; Spotlights on the climate crusaders
• · A politician has as much legal right as any other citizen to resign from his job at the drop of a hat or at the beckon of a lovelier position Improving politicians' behaviour
• · · Until the early 1990s, most Azerbaijanis in Iran referred to themselves as Turks. In Search Of Multiple Identities; Lessons in Cultural Suicide