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From Gods to Kings then aristocrats, and now to chardonnay elites

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: A society under great strain needs robust, unfettered journalism more than ever
Novelist William Kennedy told University at Albany grads that 25 percent of the people in their age group don't pay much attention to the press, which is deeply depressing, and dangerous. The press can be trivial, yes, and it's not always trustworthy. ..But despite fakery, plagiarism, distortion, lies, government secrecy and media stupidity, there is an ongoing communal drive in the American media -- print-press and broadcast -- to ferret out the truth. This is the single most valuable thing we can do to preserve a free society -- protect the right to know what's going on in our world -- argue for it, insist upon it, work for it.
· Stats about young people, the press are depressing
· See Also Journalism rarely been better at doing what it's supposed to do
· See Also Why not a new Pulitzer Prize for excellence in ethics and professional practice?
· See Also I Want a War Sim: The Global Battlefield between media and war
· See Also Real history of U.S. relations with Iraq, Iran and Israel’s Likud Party?
· The U.S. government spends more than $33 billion and arrests 1.5 million people annually to enforce drug prohibition
· See Also If peoples and countries with similar cultures (that is, values, traditions, religions) are coming together, then countries made up of different cultures are in danger of coming apart
· See Also The U.S. is buying bullets from Israel Military Industries Ltd
· See Also The Connection: Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom...
· See Also Prostitution story a case of lazy journalism

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On the face of it, Alain de Botton: the people's philosopher, has very little cause to be anxious. The 34-year-old writer was enthusiastically received at the recent Sydney Writers Festival. His popularity stems from his ability to make sometimes weighty subjects attractive to the general reader. In it, he managed to unlock some of the mysteries in the work of the great literary master, for people who might otherwise be plain scared of tackling it

Feeding the Soul: Stellar novelist takes peace prize
Arundhati Roy, the lyrical Indian novelist, political activist and human rights campaigner, is the winner of the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize.
Roy rose to prominence as the author of The God of Small Things, which won the 1997 Booker Prize, but is just as well known today for her clashes with authority. She described her relationship with authority as "genetically adversarial".
Roy said from New Delhi: "Today, in a world convulsed by violence and unbelievable brutality the lines between 'us' and 'the terrorists' have been completely blurred. We don't have to choose between imperialism and terrorism; we have to choose what form of resistance will rid us of both.
"What shall we choose? Violence or non-violence? We have to choose knowing that when we are violent to our enemies, we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalise others, we brutalise ourselves. And eventually we run the risk of becoming our oppressors."
My writing is not really about nations and histories, it's about power. About the paranoia and ruthlessness of power.
She predicts: "Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil, but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power. Twenty-first century market capitalism, American-style, will fail for the same reasons. Both are edifices constructed by human intelligence, undone by human nature."
She has argued that Osama bin Laden is "America's family secret", the monstrous offspring of its support for the mujahideen after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid waste by America's foreign policy."
The bombs raining down, she says, are "blowing up whole warehouses of suppressed fury" and will inevitably spawn more terrorism.
· The Peace of Small Things [Link Poached from God, The Devil, and Darwin: There are no atheists in foxholes ]
· See Also The little films that could: small stories of Escape no longer lost to free market
· See Also Science & Escapes & Jazz: Creativity And The Working City
· See Also Why sex is better than the alternatives
· See Also Pope Worries About Soulless' U.S. Life

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If the individual, as in the past generation, neglects politics - except as a means of obtaining some selfish end - then the people will at times of crisis be dumb and impotent, and despotic rulers will make war
Rediscovering our moral compass through Menzies

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: SuperDome: Going once, going twice
The dangerous distance between the private and the commons:
It was a cool autumn evening and Craig Knowles was in his ministerial car on the way home from Lithgow when his mobile phone rang. On the other end was Gerry Gleeson, probably one of the most feared and powerful public servants in NSW. Gleeson, nicknamed "The Cardinal" during his long tenure as Neville Wran's omnipotent department head, was making a courtesy call only, to say the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, the government body he chairs, was poised to make an extraordinary multimillion-dollar bid for the beleaguered SuperDome.
· Cardinal Foreshores [ via Ryle Jopson: Investigative Team]
· Real political agent's dream
· See Also Waterfall: You are very clever with words and very clever at dissecting what the question is
· See Also Why have an election if we already know the result?
· See Also Talking politics as a common part of everyday life
· See Also No Such Thing as Paranoia: the culture of conspiracism
· See Also Principal Executive Officers (PEOs): Tax Sacrifices
· See Also Upside of zero privacy
· See Also Think Again: Human Rights
· See Also How Ahmed Chalabi used NYT's reporter Judith Miller to make the case for invasion
· See Also Letter of Torture
· See Also Libyan nuclear equipment 'missing'
· See Also Alleged terrorist of Lakemba Cell
· See Also Eddie must be Obeid in Lebanon

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He is a nonideological figure in the most partisan place in the country, a guy who keeps his opinions to himself in a city that demands and rewards polarizing punditry
Mark Jurkowitz on Bob Woodward

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Journo: I'm astounded at how subjective editors can be
Vanessa Pierce says she felt obligated during her job search to tell editors that she's Republican. Why? Subconsciously, I think it was a test. My test would determine the media bias once and for all. It worked. ...My conclusion: The media are biased. WHAT SHE'S LEARNED IN THE NEWSROOM: I'm often astounded at how subjective newspaper editors can be in creating the daily paper. For example, bias in newspapers is represented by selection of editorial columns. Fourteen columnists next to two doesn't seem objective.
· See Also Conservatives need not apply: The search for un-biased media
· See Also I don't think "unbiased journalism" is a particularly noble or desirable thing. The Q and A explains why...
· See Also Non Stop Blogging
· See Also Disney’s In Indecency Mix
· See Also Padraic Pearse McGuinness, AO Editor, Quadrant [ courtesy of Quiggin: Rendering the contributions of people like Paddy largely obsolete]
· See Also From Sarin to the Berg beheading: why do the news media keep silent when rumors sweep the internet?
· See Also Despite his readers’ fears, a self-financed American blogger returns to Iraq
· See Also SF Chronicle war reporter lucky he got shot only in the butt: Anywhere else, and it could have been very serious

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Che Guevara as martyr and T-shirt emblem

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Is there a little bit of Moktada al-Sadr in every Iraqi's breast?
It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart
· It's an epic gamble [From Lebanon How the Arab world is living a pre-democratic moment
· See Also Inquiry into Tehran's role in starting conflict: Top Pentagon ally Chalabi accused
· See Also Amnesty International has launched a scathing attack on Australia and its allies, accusing them of sacrificing human rights in a blind pursuit of security [Outside Link Inside outcasts: prisoners and the right to vote in Australia (PDF)]
· See Also The New York Times traces Nicholas Berg's odd path to his gruesome fate
· See Also This can only be read as a signal of the end of Gerry Gleeson's power in Sydney [This Link Poached from SuperDome splash-out not what the Premier ordered ] [Yet Another Link Poached from It's not too often that State Government authorities or anyone associated with them have the nerve to cut Kerry Packer's companies out of a deal]
· See Also Relatives can join MPs on official jaunts:
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
· See Also Washingtonienne told the online Washington tabloid Wonkette that she never posted her X-rated messages to gain celebrity [via Wonkette ]
· See Also The Politics of Partisan Neutrality

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Rising Tide Till Debt Do Us Part

Invisible Hands & Markets: Losing Moral Compass: Socialism meets free markets?
Many people believe the collapse of the Soviet Union 12 years ago proves that free market capitalism is the only viable socio-economic model for modern countries to follow. But David Schweickart, the speaker at the Big Problems lecture, “After Capitalism: How about Democracy?” would disagree that the fall of the Soviet Union means the end of socialism.
Schweickart, a professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago, described to students and faculty on Monday how alternatives to free-market enterprise could incorporate many aspects of socialism while still being capitalist. The lecture, part of the Big Problems Curriculum series hosted by the New Collegiate Division, incorporated many of the ideas in his book, After Capitalism, which posits a coherent vision of an alternative to globalizing capitalism that Schweickart termed “economic democracy.”
· After Capitalism: How about Democracy? [ Times like this, It seems like we could use a few more rational anarchists ][ via Casual employment: trends and characteristics (PDF)]
· See Also The ATO has made it abundantly clear that it is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to tax evasion
· See Also The Letter D We Had To Have: Housing boom may finally be coming to an end
· See Also Can we apply economic theory to suicide bombers? Yes (PDF) [From the Philippines a lack of economic opportunities fuels exodus of brightest prospects ]

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Media Watch is being closely watched

The Blog, The Press, The Media: 'Scoops' and Truth at the Times
Who's the exact opposite of Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter accused of inventing sources and quotes, plagiarizing and other sins? Well, how about Judith Miller? Where Blair is young and black and inexperienced, a rookie journalist whose job was largely to interview ordinary people, Miller is middle-aged and white and a veteranTimes star whose job it is to interact with the best and the brightest in science, academia and government.
· She is said to have lied to her editor about the sourcing of one of her biggest "scoops" it doesn't seem all that unlikely
· See Also Antony Loewenstein: The latest casualty: Webdiary's interview with Phillip Knightley
· See Also Michael Moore and Me:hunging me out to dry on my own words
· See Also Jeff Jarvis points to the Iraqi bloggers
· See Also Antipodean surfer offering a weekly blog-bile award
· See Also Fascination with the concept of memes

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Perl and its motto: There's More Than One Way To Do It.

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: The Supreme "What If"... Economic benefits of Highway spending
To political analysts, the highway bill is a popular program that has fallen prey to partisan, and intraparty, bickering. Lost in the dispute is the economic question: What are we getting for our money?
· High Bill
· See Also This Web site features multilingual health education information in written, audio, and video formats
· See Also Full text of Human Rights Record of the US in 2003
· See Also The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students [link first seen at The Warsaw Ghetto Today ]
· See Also Antipodean site generates material that allows users to compare countries based on many different statistics
· See Also Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Society
· See Also Paradox of Choices
· See Also Secrecy: A Russian scientist at a former Soviet biological weapons laboratory in Siberia has died after accidentally sticking herself with a needle laced with Ebola
· See Also Greece: Threat of Terrorism and Security of the Olympics (PDF)
· See Also Australia: Less tax or more social spending: twenty years of opinion polling (PDF)
· See Also Internet users are increasingly turning to e-government sites to carry out their business with government

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#10: Another fine mess you've got us into, Governor Getting us where no "Media Watch" dares to go, but Blogjam goes on!

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Bloggers and books: Today I went to the cleaners
Are bloggers a gold mine for literary agents or can few write more than a lengthy posting?
· There are more than a million blogs, and very few of them will ever get the attention of Kate Lee [ attention of #19,578: The thing about Amazon is, anyone with the ability to type can review your book. Some are quite thoughtful, others just like the sound of their anger ]
· See Also Grant Henninger: How strange it is that we feel close to those that we interact with on the Internet
· See Also Google: A proposal to help fight deceptive Internet software
· See Also Why you should never put your picture on the Internet
· See Also Andy Kaufman's National Starbucks and Wal-Mart Tour: Some will always have their doubts. I don't care about those people anymore[ courtesy of Snopes]
· See Also Comparison of various blog software packages

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Are You a Potential Terrorist? Database Identifies 120,000 "Statistically Likely Terrorists ]

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The Power of Laughter
Michael Moore, Bush-baiter, Cult Figure and Global Internet Brand, has much to teach Modern Politicians...
here are many ways of making a political point, as MPs unhappily discovered yesterday. One of them is to hurl a balloon full of purple powder into the chamber of the House of Commons, an act that should be universally condemned. But, when traditional means fail, perhaps there are other ways of getting through.
· Fahrenheit 9/11
· See Also Outsourcing Blame: Some things are too important to hire out
· See Also Political leaders in Westminster systems (PDF)
· Change Agents... Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing
· See Also Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'
· See Also Broken Engagement " by Gen. Wesley Clark
· See Also E.L. Doctorow booed for anti-Bush remarks
· See Also George Bush Never Looked into Nick's Eyes...
· See Also Detainees Don't Get Lawyers, But Dogs Do

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When Advocates Become Regulators

Invisible Hands & Markets: Egalitarianism has been great lie of past two centuries
HISTORY is the biography of mankind. So it is unsurprising that such an ambitious project should attract so many aspiring authors. As is the way with biography, there are as many varied interpretations of the subject as there are students. We live in an era when history has expanded in its potential scope, literally, to cosmic dimensions; when there is unprecedented amateur interest in the subject; and when, paradoxically, it is being downgraded in schools and academe, as well as being manipulated for political purposes.
· The end of history was proclaimed 12 years ago; but somehow it trundles on [link first seen at Amerikan Aristokracy: Call it the revenge of the rentier class ]
· See Also The Political Stock Market
· See Also Impact of the 2004 federal budget tax changes

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Tracking Trends Great & Small: The Letters Editor and the Reader
The Reader feature of the NY Times seemed to strike a chord, and scores of readers wrote back. Many were pleased to learn that the anonymous editor had a name. Some were grateful for the advice; others were amused, acerbic, occasionally even dyspeptic. I had my 15 minutes of fame: a flurry of dissection on the Internet; an interview on TV that lasted, well, about 15 minutes. We printed two letters in response — pro and con, naturally.
· Our Compact: The mission and the mechanics of the letters page
· See Also On how coffee bars keep on spilling across the landscape
· See Also For proof that all politics is local, look no further than Fundrace.org
· See Also Cities fall over one another to stage political conventions for the same reason they fall over one another to stage the Olympics: to Make Money

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Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Egalitarian spirit
The long-time mantra that Liberalism is all about self-interest while Labor is all about "social interdependency" and "egalitarianism" is one of those fairytales that doubtless produces that "warm-inner glow" that helps to power the political commitment of the left but contributes little to understanding either the Howard Government or the recent budget - or politics in general for that matter.
· Why long-time mantra that classical liberalism is all about self-interest is a fairytale?
· The silenced minority: European multicultural society that was shattered
· See Also Rakat Villa: Survivors describe wedding massacre as generals refuse to apologise
· See Also Millions of People Worldwide on the Move
· See Also Economic migrants face discrimination
· See Also Thinking Freedom

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Carl Ender’s criterion for buying a picture was that it should repel his senses and his intelligence. Only then could he be sure of having bought a valuable modern work. Long years of practice had brought him to the stage that he would be automatically impressed by anything he disliked, and would react to anything he liked with indignant suspicion. It was by such a method that he had secured his reputation of having an ‘infallible eye’.
Joseph Roth, Right and Left (trans. Michael Hofmann)

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Underground heros: political lessons
Two of the brightest and most unlikely stars of underground media found they had much in common at a discussion on alternative media yesterday. Comic book anti-hero Harvey Pekar from grassroots Cleveland, US and weblogger Salam Pax from the heat of Baghdad, both write about their ordinary lives with extraordinary impact.
· Salam Pekar [link first seen at UTS ]
· See Also Google: Sydney Writer's Festival
· See Also The Other is an online space for my thoughts on depression and literature
· See Also Ancient idea of tyranny help us understand the bad guys of the 21st...

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She contrasts this situation with that of the torcedores, the cigar-rollers, in Cuba's tobacco factories, where they hire readers to read to the workers. The listeners in my Cuban fantasy are not passive ... Their literary taste is as sharp as a razor, they react to every badly used word, to every false note.
Where's the challenge?

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car
The greatest shock for an east European writer who turned up in the western literary marketplace was the absence of aesthetic criteria. The easterner, brought up to believe in a distinction between "literature" and "trash", is introduced to a westerner and admits modestly that he is a writer. "What a coincidence!" the reply comes. "Our 10-year-old daughter is just finishing a novel. We even have a publisher!" This is the first insult in a series that makes him understand that the best way to be published is to make sure he has done something else to become famous for first: to be Joan Collins or Ivana Trump; a prostitute, murderer or model. An art-dealer friend reminds the author about Piero Manzoni's artwork, "Artist Shit", sold at the price of gold in 1961. While the price of gold has remained more or less stable in the past 40 years, he tells her, the price of shit has seen astronomical growth.
· No wonder there are walls in many parts of eastern Europe graffiti'd with the words "Come back, communists, all is forgiven!"
· See Also Baby Dragons: A digitized collection of the treasures of children's literature
· See Also Have you scheduled any leisure lately
· See Also Why the language of the marketplace shouldn't rule our moral and political thinking
· See Also I contemplated motherhood well aware that at many points the line between private matters and public affairs was faint and broken
· See Also Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Society
· See Also There have only been three good women: The first walked out of the world, the second drowned in the Rhine, the third they are still looking for

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Overheard yesterday @ SWF:
Penis mighty...
People get into journalism to give themselves closer access to the lives they wish they had, but will never get...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Gates backs blogs for businesses
In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Mr Gates said the regularly updated journals, or blogs, could be a good way for firms to tell customers, staff and partners what they are doing.
· Google-Atom vs. Microsoft-RSS war [ courtesy of Bill ]
· See Also We will see less and less truly independent weblogs
· See Also Letterman: His role is that of a luminous fixed star in political space, around whom other bodies must orient themselves
· See Also Sites to try when other engines fail you
· See Also eBookworms
· See Also New web sites that aim to narrow down the online dating minefield to people who share common political views

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Rather than trading on new discoveries the social sciences specialize in erecting new fads, disposing of them in a few decades, and then going on to even newer fads:instincts (reptilian), feelings (mammalian), and thoughts (neocortex)

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Irony inc: former detainee to travel to Iraq for Dad's funeral
Three years ago the then Minister Philip Ruddock refused Ahmed Alzalimi permission to visit his wife Sondous Ismail Ibrahim in Indonesia after their three children drowned in the Siev X disaster.
When they argue a man who has lost three children is not a sufficiently serious situation to warrant the minister exercising his discretion and here we have a situation where, yes there is a real tragedy involved but because of the political connections the visa is offered very promptly there is a significant inconsistency
· Why hell was invented.... [ via Webdiary ]
· See Also For a change, here's some good news from Iraq that you might have missed (I don't know how that could have happened[ courtesy of The Most Ancient Enemy They have no faces...]
· See Also Why We Fight: The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language
· See Also Horst Köhler: Germany girds for an unknown president
· See Also For a 'New Imperialism: The A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt regimes

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April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land; mixing memory and desire; stirring dull roots with spring rain
T.S. Eliot

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Everyone does it, so it must be OK, right?
Lawyers get paid considerable sums to do it. Journalists do it on a daily basis. According to their critics, President George Bush and his Administration do it routinely. I’m sure that I do it, and no doubt you do it as well. Everyone does it, so it must be OK, right?
“It” refers to the cherry pick -- the careful selection of information to buttress a particular predetermined perspective while ignoring other information that does not. In other words, take the best and leave the rest.
· Cherry Picking
· See Also Facts about Sarin, Binary Agents, and 155mm Shells
· See Also Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, a senior al-Qaeda leader in Italy who used coded porn to communicate with his superiors and apparently had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks [ courtesy of Windsofchange]
· See Also Say hello to Seruku.Seruku is toolbar-based application: Save and Search Web Pages Viewed in Your Browser
· See Also Just in case you haven't heard yet about Darwinian blogging
· See Also Tim Dunlop: Conspiracy theorist, Yobbo, has some really unnatural feelings towards Blair & S whose name must not be mentioned...

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Think more money will yield greater happiness? Great minds of the past - and present-day psychological experts - proclaim otherwise Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits...

Feeding the Soul: I'm here to light your fire... Commencement Address: The class of 2004 of Hobart
I've got good news for all of you this morning: I talk fast.
So as King Henry the VIII of England said to each of his seven wives: I won't keep you long.
I've come here today with five bits of advice on how to get where you want to get, follow your dreams, keep your values and make good on the best hunch you ever had about yourself. William Butler Yeats once said: Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.
I'm here to light your fire.
Rule One: Get yourself in the game.
· See Also Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire
· The widow of the American reporter beheaded in 2002 by Pakistani militants told graduating journalists to never forget their ideals: Danny Pearl never did...
· CAN GOOGLE TEACH YOU HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON? [Link Poached from Google ]
· See Also Frustration of Exile
· See Also This site promotes the positive influence that fathers can have on their daughters' lives
· See Also Down-to-earth perspectives on YA [young adult]: This site is intended to be a comfortable place for teen readers
· A worthy aspiration for most humans: To be like your own dog

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The good are always beautiful and the evil always misshapen and ugly... if success is a sign of heavenly favor, doesn’t big brother suggests that heaven favors citizens in birthday suits?

Invisible Hands & Markets: Why I’m not rich
This is one of those rude questions that is offensive because it contains so many other ugly and hidden questions. Social scientists call those hidden questions a subtext. The name isn’t important, but since I’m an underemployed historian, I’ll use subtext because these words are about all I have to show for my education.
The three most obvious subtexts to if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?
· Bouncing Czechs & Nicknames [More at One-Third of US Children Live in Poverty; May 04]
· See Also Murdoch's war on truth: it's NOT about oil
· See Also James Hardie's Dutch blues
· See Also How to be your own invisible career coach
· See Also Ground-down members of the underclass who lack the class consciousness for revolt.: Most Humanities PhDs go to school for 7 years and end up on food stamps

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The big news from Cannes is that Michael Moore's new anti-Bush flick received the longest standing ovation in the history of the festival.

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Dishy, half-naked Kerry's daughter & Moore lit a powder keg at the Cannes Film Festival while Castro undressed the publishing emperors Down Under
Two years ago Brian Castro's novel Shanghai Dancing could not find a publisher.
We hope all those publishers who turned the book down give themselves a pat on the back for yet another job well done. But we expect nothing less -- and certainly never anything more -- from them.
· Shanghai surprise
· See Also Much-rejected book takes top awards [link first seen at NSW Premier's Literary: Brian Castro won the fiction prize ]
· See Also The Children's Book Series by J. K. Rowlingova [link first seen at The bizarre world of bonkers book collecting ]
· See Also The literary life is swamped by its epiphenomena: books’ blurbs and author photos are more important than their content
· See Also Bush, the wastrel son who runs up gambling debts in the belief that his wealthy family, concerned for its prestige, will have no choice but to pay off his creditors
· See Also There is telling stories and telling stories: Ayatollah Khomeini lived his Paris exile, afraid the surrounding culture might prove corrupting
· See Also Tell them to stop lecturing and start telling stories instead
· See Also Conrad's Heart of Darkness is frighteningly relevant today
· See Also As Tocqueville remarked, the French look up in anxiety while the English look down in satisfaction. A hidden rule of Englishness

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Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: Public relations: also known as corporate damage control
In an ideal world companies would have nothing to hide. Journalists would have no need to be pushy, intrusive and sceptical. Spin doctors and PR would be redundant or eking out a pittance. Instead both are big business, they work for big business and they make a motza. Usually their work is invisible to the public although journalists and politicians are often very aware they are being manipulated by professionals paid to shape the news.
· James Hardie's secret plan to spin the media and the politicians [link first seen at AFR ]
· See Also A Field Guide to Swing Voters
· See Also Illicit Drugs in Australia: Use, Harm and Policy Responses
· See Also World Migration 2003: Managing Migration - Challenges and Responses for People on the Move
· See Also Naked in the Gymnasium: Women as Agents of Social Change
· See Also Canadian Parliamentary Trivia

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Given the fact that when they were in power Democrats had little use for the notion of ministerial responsibility, their sudden discovery of it over Abu Ghraib suggests that this has little to do with principle...
Washington Post, Krauthammer

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Bush and Blair speed up their exit strategy

· CATHERINE MacLEOD: USA AND BRITAIN PLAN QUICK EXIT FROM IRAQ
· See Also New Technology Loosens Controls Over Images of War [ via The Needle in the Database: The Impact of Technology on Current Events and Freedom of Information ]
· See Also Bouncing Czechs and balances: The most defective part of the Federal Constitution, beyond all question, is that which relates to the executive department
· See Also A new American dream: On how Europe remains the society against which the US measures itself
· See Also Finding the words: Europe and the United States look at terrorism in different ways
· See Also Spheres of influence around Bush’s candidacy: top givers to GOP candidates and committees, and the laundry industry’s role in a regulatory action that saved it millions
· See Also Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka vows more protests after his arrest
· They Shoot Hawks, don’t they?
Sarin Nerve Agent Bomb Explodes in Iraq
· See Also Lucio - A Lover AND a Fighter: If only the United States had the suave sophistication and Constitutional plasticity of Ecuador, they could still have Bill Clinton as President! (Spannish)

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Terry Sedgwick is standing in for David Tiley who stood in for Tim Dunlop who stood in for the man who danced with a man who danced with the Prince of Wales: Blogjam9 World appears to be swamped by a rolling tsumani of apologies. Bush, Blair, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Kimmit ...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: We, the Media by Dan Gillmor
Just finished reading the Galley Proof of We, the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gillmor. O'Reilly is the publisher and it should be coming out mid-July. The book will be published under a Creative Commons license and you will be able to download it free for non-commercial use.
Dan is one of the few professional journalists that really understands the impact of blogs and other new technologies on journalism. It's amazing how many professional journalists I know pooh pooh blogs and keep on chugging like nothing is changing.
· Anyway, it's an amazingly important book for anyone interested in journalism and democracy. It goes well with Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture and Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs [ courtesy of Joi Ito]
· See Also A French blogger arrested by the Police because of his blogging
· See Also Gossip Wants to Be Free, to Be Free: In defense of online scandal mongering
· See Also Eliminate the middleman: Information is both invaluable and impossible to value
Get Me Rewrite! Stories make the world go around. So how come liberals can’t tell one?
· See Also Howell Raines underestimated the intensity of staff unrest, the “guerrilla war” in his newsroom. Here is his own account of his downfall in the uncut version
· See Also Look ma, I'm blogging... Seth Finkelstein writes about whether the Internet can be shaped. It can, but it's hard
· Internet translates into success. The business of translation has taken off with the rise of the Internet, globalization and international conflicts

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And Julian Baggini on how That's a hypothetical question” has become a favored tool of evasion for politicians the world over

Strong Leaders Encourage Dissent The Buck Stops … Where? - Stop blaming your henchmen
Fred Kaplan in Slate focuses on the aspect of the White House culpability story that is being drowned out by the disgusting spectacles of Abu Ghraib and Nick Berg: the deliberate negligence of Zarqawi :It's a tossup which is more disturbing: a president who passes up the chance to kill a top-level enemy in the war on terrorism for the sake of pursuing a reckless diversion in Iraq?
· Collective Sigh: Reckless or Intentional Disregard? [link first seen at ]
· See Also Double standards with respect to the Geneva Convention; On my name day, March 19, 2004, President Bush asked: Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?
· See Also The Gray Zone... Sy Hersh: (who also uncovered the My Lai massacre)
· See Also The government finds a new way to nail old tax evaders

The deluge of books about Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler apparently knows no end...
· See Also Jean Bethke Elshtain on why Hitler and the Nazis continue to fascinate

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Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, was once a revered symbol of moral resistance to the Soviet state. He probably deserves more credit than any other person for stripping away communism’s moral prestige among Western intellectuals.

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: "We're Just Friends": Myth Construction of Freedom
I can see freedom, the red of nature's sunset/ and God on a sharp razor ....
One upside of tyranny is the way it acts as a spur to creativity, Keneally says, only partly tongue-in-cheek. Reams of poetry and verse are being written in the country's detention centres, while outside them, a thriving "refugee art" genre has emerged on the country's stages, concert halls and theatres in the past few years.
He believes that after a slow start, people are being galvanised to take action through the sheer weight of private conscience, and developments in the political domain. It takes time for a head of opposition and dissent to grow. I've been in America recently, and the same thing is happening there
· A lot of Americans are starting to state their opposition to their Government's present policies, to things being done in their name
· See Also The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a novel firmly rooted in its time has, despite so much spilt politics, oddly not dated...
· See Also If France makes movies for the French, and Amerika makes movies for the world, who's left to make movies for Amerika?
· See Also Pravda: how war encourages sexual instincts in people
· See Also Jane Jacobs, the matchless analyst of all things urban, gives birth to a new book, Dark Age Ahead
· See Also Exiles in a small world: Pnin is Vladimir Nabokov as he might have turned out in U.S. exile: an odd, eccentric, sad figure, doomed never to grasp the society in which he finds himself...
· See Also Olympian War of Words: Sydney v Athens
· Writers take a note of the Light Age Ahead for (my) Dragon Tooth Submissions Department[ courtesy of When Dragon meets Descartes]
· See Also Brilliant review of Slavoj Zizek's The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity; sadly in pdf version

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The story of Abdurahman Khadr and his journey from Osama bin Laden to the CIA provides insight into Al Qaeda, US intelligence and the hidden world inside Guantanamo Bay. “Al Qaeda Family” @ 8.30 pm Monday 17 May ABC TV

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Marco Polos: Microsoft-Sponsored Trips
Katherine M. Skiba and Jeff Nelson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviewed congressional travel records to find that Microsoft and affiliated firms have lavished $180,429 on members of Congress, their spouses and aides in the 16 months ending in April, the records show. Most trips were to Microsoft headquarters, records show. Some trips involved Microsoft product launches, while seven spouses accompanied lawmakers on trips since January 2003. Rep. H. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, along with his wife and staff, accepted trips worth $72,405.
· Pacific Islanders & Parliamentary Clerks [ via Scoop]
· See Also Havel says the obvious: Europe is lacking politicians capable of implementing their visions -- politicians who can stick to their beliefs despite fickle public opinion
· See Also Bill Clinton is back: The final sentence of his memoirs completed... & this time Clinton is getting personal about Bush
· See Also Berg Case Gets Even More Bizarre
· See Also Devika Hovell: Legal obligation or not, we must do more than express disgust
· See Also The Rule of Law and the Rules of War: Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales says the United States is bound to observe the rules of war in the Geneva Conventions
· See Also Where is the outcry over these accounts of physical and mental harm in our detention camps?
· See Also Terrorism and International Law: A Catholic Perspective
· See Also Catholically Courageous Carr Casting the First Stone: Clubs Politics to Turn Extremely Personal [ Club Called Panthers ]

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Assorted reflections on the nature of blogging: Blogging provides a kind of safety valve that bleeds off pressure in the day to day insanity of life. First danger is to make sure blogging doesn’t spoil your appetite for real life contact with real people... you have to avoid the rock on the one hand and the dragon monster on the other!!!

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Forget the Beast, Let’s Deal with those Ducks
Old San Francisco Examiner had a newsroom culture that was equal parts Sun Tzu, Homer Simpson and Hunter Thompson. When I became metro editor, my management training consisted of this advice from a predecessor: This job is like being nibbled to death by ducks. Don’t let them get to you.
That was many years ago, and the old Examiner is gone. But the ducks are thriving in newsrooms across the country, biting the ankles and nipping at the shins of front-line editors, quacking up a storm about budget lines, weekend shifts, seating arrangements, the company car and so much more, distracting those editors from what they were hired to do: Good journalism.
It’s not a fun place to be, in the middle. Bosses want long-term vision converted to daily reality. Reporters have needs and idiosyncrasies. The news beast is ravenous around the clock.
· Training for managers: Tomorrow’s Workforce [ courtesy of Tim Porter]
· See Also The CEO-to-reporter pay ratio in this case is 36 to 1: CEOs are too busy slopping at the salary-and-bonus trough to look up long enough, wipe off their chins and read this
· See Also Blogrolling Security
· See Also In light of recent reporting fabrication scandals, some Pulitzer Prize judges were suspicious of unattributed, imprecise or anonymous sourcing
· See Also Google: On your marks, get set, search

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I really don't want to blog about war anymore, but it just keeps getting worse and worse...now it looks as if the oil game might up for Americans in Iraq. Margo Kingston undresses the deeper motives before the Antipodean eyes: Oils ain't just oils, they're to die for

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: The Politics of Petroleum
Ken Silverstein of the Los Angeles Times has a series on oil companies’ efforts in Kazakhstan and Angola, based on internal company documents and other records. In the first piece, Silverstein writes that a group of influential Americans, including a former Secretary of State and the former executive director of the Democratic National Committee, pressed for U.S. support of the authoritarian Kazakh government. The paper found dozens of former government officials “who have worked for the oil industry or for foreign governments with extensive energy reserves - and, almost invariably, poor human rights records.” The second story, on Angola, details how oil firms “have won favor with the Dos Santos regime by steering contracts to Angolan insiders and by giving millions of dollars to foundations controlled by the ruling family.”
· Other stories are forthcoming [link first seen at Scoop ]
· See Also Utility authorities fail to disclose and notify residents of toxic contamination of their drinking water
· See Also EU Council Plans to Scrap Parliamentary Vote without Discussion
· See Also Australia’s rules on political lobbying are loose and inadequate, according to Allan Fels
· See Also A political party whose predecessor, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, enforced censorship, says without a hint of irony that its draft law was inspired by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
· See Also Municipal corruption has been a persistent problem since democracy dawned in the country in 1989
· See Also Same as the Old Boss: Agbar Technologies, the company that won the right to succeed Envirotest

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As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
It's too bad Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stopped reading newspapers because he missed great journalism battle this week. Every day, the New York Times and the Washington Post tried to break the better story. It amounted to the journalistic equivalent of the Olympics...What makes Rummy run?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Kurt Vonnegut: Cold (River) Turkey
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces.
· They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas [ Follow the link here It's not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News]
· See Also We need a bigger Army. We got a bigger budget - but the money is going to CEOs, not to G.I. Joe [Link Poached from I'm probably the last person on earth to link this ]
· See Also Berg Beheading: Busy lulling themselves to sleep in their elitist coccoon of arrogance [Czech Out INDC Journal Interviews the Instapundit
· See Also Gandhi triumphs in India election
· See Also 1st Internet President Roh Returned to Power by the Constitutional Court in South Koreas

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The risk of disliking a speaker is one many will take. Writers are popular speakers. Some challenge. Some reinforce. Some inspire. Some deflate. Some tap into dreams. Some sketch nightmares. Some illuminate paths, or warn of ways best not taken. Some explain feelings held, but not yet examined. Some examine feelings not widely held. All have something to say to someone, somewhere. This coming week is a chance for Sydney to hear them say it aloud.
William Faulkner nailed the self-absorption often shown by writers when he wrote: If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: I'm Not Making this Up
David Sedaris writes stories of personal disclosure as funny as they are strange. Competitive storytelling was a skill David Sedaris learned in a household of six children. Just as in the Imrich Familia, everyone wanted mother's attention...
When you write at home it doesn't really qualify as work. It doesn't engage you with the world. The days are much better if you do something you don't want to do.
· Sedaris will read from his work at the Sydney Writers' Festival, at 8.30pm on May 21 [link digged up after reading Editorial II Sydney Writers' Festival: A Week of Words]
· See Also Tough world, tiny market for NZ books
· See Also Are Big Publishers Bribing Bookstores For Better Shelf Placement? Sweetener trips for the retail chains
· See Also How to write your doctoral thesis: Loved ones will forgive you, since they will be deluded into believing that after the process is complete, you will have a sense of achievement, and more earning potential. They are wrong...
· See Also Getting behind my flesh and blood meme: I have a coat that has six arms. I Inherited this coat from Gregor Samsa

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The Blog, The Press, The Media: Whaddya mean, "we"?
So yes, we do get that blogs are all about communication with readers, not processed info dump-and-run. And we get that people want to know who's giving them that information. We also get that this is a new medium and that despite the conventions of the blogosphere, not everything is set in stone when it comes to blog style and tone.
· Googleblog: Not everything is set in stone when it comes to blog style and tone [ courtesy of Google has some fun features that may be unfamiliar to many ]
· See Also One of the things that I like most about iLaw is the retelling of the stories, and explanation of the theories, that are at the core of the field of internet law [ courtesy of Is Your Website Good or Evil?]
· See Also Searching Idol: The top five reasons why search is still way too hard

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To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.
-George Orwell

Invisible Hands & Markets: The Meritocracy Myth
But we're not failures. In a lot of ways, we're the ones who keep things humming by doing the jobs that have to be done but nobody else wants to do. We keep your office clean and cook and serve your food, we stock the shelves so you'll have things to buy when you go to the store (think a manager's going to lower himself to do that every day?), we plow your streets and rake your leaves and take care of you when you're sick, we teach your kids and watch them when you're at work and empty your septic tank and pick your vegetables and staple your recliner so you won't fall through it when you sit down.
· We're a lot more important than you think. [link first seen at FromTheTrenches ]
· See Also The Neoconomists of Revolution: elbowing each other
· For Hollywood, news biz is turning into showbiz: Doubts whether viewers would buy the idea of journalists as noble knights tilting at the windmills of corruption and social inequality... one reason the emphasis now is on journalism as comedy
· See Also Frogtown Crime
· See Also How the slot machine was remade, and how it's remaking America
· See Also Visible Officials Hold Fake Degrees

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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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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

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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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