New Town

Gianna Ggggirl Apathy to Risk Taking: Global Disease exploited by Bullies

Gianna wants you take a small risk when you enter her sanctuary. She wants you to think and feel when you read her blog. She wants you to be provoked sometimes. She want you to disagree with her. She want you to learn something about yourself and the way you feel about our New Town... in 21st Century
· Do Not We Ever Live in a Political World? [Gianna ]

Bee the Blog

Blogging Bee the Blog

Now that California's political shenanigans have made the nation's front pages, you might want to keep up with the coming gubernatorial recall campaign by reading Sacramento Bee political columnist Dan Weintraub's (relatively) new blog, California Insider.
Weintraub started the blog in April. Even though he self-identifies as a member of the "dreaded mainstream media," he inspires bridge the gap between David Broder and Mickey Kaus, "hoping that the combination produces the best of both worlds and not the worst."
Weintraub's latest post: Debunking a Drudge "world exclusive" report that former Rep. Jack Kemp is going to run for governor.
Good move by Weintraub to move into the blogosphere. Politics should not be left to the thumbsuckers.
· World Exclusive [TimPorter ]

New Website For Researchers on Nuremberg Trials

Transcripts New Website For Researchers on Nuremberg Trials

The Harvard Law School Library has just launched a new website devoted to analysis and digitization of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials: "Nuremberg Trials Project: A Digital Document Collection" at http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu. The Library has approximately one million pages of documents relating to the trial of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and to the twelve trials of other accused war criminals before the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT)."
· Military Tribunals [BeSpacific ]
· Convict Tribunals: First Fleet Full Text [SMH]

Californians are on the verge of making history

Californians are on the verge of making history:

A recall election to determine the fate of Gov. Gray Davis, and our state, is a now a certainty.
More than 90 years ago, a very wise reformer and California governor named Hiram Johnson broke the power of the special interests and instituted a set of reforms to give the state government back to the people.
One of the reforms, the right of recall, can best be described as a Lemon Law for politicians, especially those who lie to get elected and then fail miserably in their jobs.
· By any measure of performance, Gray Davis has failed miserably [StarONLIne ]

Secret Service guy & prankster

Los Angeles Times cartoonist Michael Ramirez says the Secret Service agent who called last week to talk about his Bush cartoon "was very nice, but it was so casual and laid back (that) I really assumed it was a crank call." Ramirez tells Brooke Gladstone: "He said, 'I'd like to meet with you somewhere and talk to you. I'm with the Secret Service.' And I said ... 'How do I know you're with the Secret Service?' And he said 'Well, I've got a black suit and black sunglasses and credentials!'" The agent never got to see the cartoonist, though.
· Cartoonist Draws Attention [WNYC ]

Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution Making Music as a Political Act::or how the Velvet Underground Influenced the Velvet Revolution

Dedicated to the Memory of Mejla Hlavsa

In Thirteen ways of Looking at America we showed the various ways in which American culture got simulated by the indigenous population of the Czech lands and how these adopted cultural ways merged with the domestic ones, often creating curious hybridizations. This paper in a sense represents an extension of this project; the fourteenth way of looking at America in the Czech lands. In it I will discuss some unexpected transatlantic correspondences in the realm of underground music: how the music of The Velvet Underground - via its Czech mediators The Plastic People of the Universe - contributed to the coming into existence of the "Velvet Revolution."
· The Plastic People of the Universe [Angram ]

Deja view(sic)

Your view(sic)
Janet Albrechtsen and her clan seem to think that the Right has done something to deserve its popular support, whilst ignoring the fact that they are popular because they serve up such a simplistic and reassuring worldview in circumstances of global uncertainty. Remember slavery, lynchings, witch-burnings? All were popular in their time.
Damien Flattery
Gippsland, Vic
The Australian: 30 JULY 2003

Corporate Crime

Corporate Crime Without Shame

President Bush's man in charge of the Corporate Fraud Task Force, Larry Thompson, went to the White House this week to let the world know that Bush was cracking down on corporate crime.
But forcing corporate criminals and their executives to plead guilty is only half the game. The other half is punishment.
Corporate crime and violence inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined.
Corporate criminals should not be given a special pass.
Make them admit guilt.
Impose tough sanctions.
Publicize the cases.
· Street Crime [CommonDream ]

The Flow of Patronage

Ted Sherman of the Newark Star-Ledger explored the spending habits of two obscure New Jersey water and sewer agencies, finding that even with little pressure to keep down operational expenses, records show, both agencies dole out plenty of patronage appointments, jobs for friends and family, and millions in engineering, legal and other professional fees to those with political ties. The two agencies employ several elected officials, and some executives earn more than the state's governor.
· Passaic Valley Sewerage [NJ viaScoop]

Baltimore's Council Perks

Doug Donovan of the Baltimore Sun used public records to illustrate the perks of being elected to the Baltimore City Council. "Public documents and interviews reveal that a majority of council members have hired relatives as paid assistants and the entire council receives gifts, such as free parking and movie passes, not enjoyed by most Baltimoreans." Ten of the 19 members have put a relative on the payroll, and council members get free parking from a garage seeking tax breaks from the city. Everybody does it, so I didn't know there was anything wrong with it.
· No one has ever said anything to me that it was against the ethics law [Sunspot viaScoop]

Elections

Elections An Innovative Web Election Feature

If voters in Massachusetts wanted to separate candidate personalities from the issues in their past gubernatorial election, WBUR.org
(http://www.wbur.org) , Boston's NPR affiliate, provided a way. Its "Vote By Issue (http://www.wbur.org/news/candidateq/) " quiz was innovative in
its use of the web's interactive qualities to provide an excellent journalistic service. To create the interactive, the station asked the state's five candidates for governor to provide the fundamentals of their positions on 10 key topics. Then, they took that information and put each stance with a "faceless"candidate. Users were asked to choose the stance they most agree with. In the end, they got a report card, revealing which candidate's plan they chose for each issue. (That's a great concept you might want to borrow for your next election's coverage.)
· Vote [ Wbur]

Order

Mad Max Day Keating, Mad Max and Bush

I hope the Americans have not led us into a Mad Max world, former PM Paul Keating says in a speech on the new world order.
· Diary: PK [Webdiary ]

Bestsellers

Right/Wrong Anne Moore

Why do simpletons like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore sell so well? A longing for clarity in a too-complex world...
· And the looniest of all -- they wind up as bestselling authors [Washington Post]

Asylumn

Cry for help Three years inside leaves boy terrified of a free life

Alamdar Bakhtiari, who has spent three of his 15 years living in detention, says he never wants to come out. He says he feels safer behind the razor wire.
With his angry father, Ali, at his side, Alamdar is edgy and fearful.
His words tumble out, filled with accusations and disbelief. "It is not fair you come and talk to us, and then you go home to your family and a nice house and we stay here. We are not free to leave. You have lovely homes and families, but all we have is nothing, not even our freedom. I am not allowed to enjoy freedom like other boys. It makes me crazy. I hate it here; I hate Australia. I am not a criminal; I have done nothing wrong."
· Alamdar Bakhtiari carved the word freedom on his forearm in an act of desperation [Homeless in Sydney]

Blogging

Blogging Bee the Blog

Now that California's political shenanigans have made the nation's front pages, you might want to keep up with the coming gubernatorial recall campaign by reading Sacramento Bee political columnist Dan Weintraub's (relatively) new blog, California Insider.
Weintraub started the blog in April. Even though he self-identifies as a member of the "dreaded mainstream media," he inspires bridge the gap between David Broder and Mickey Kaus, "hoping that the combination produces the best of both worlds and not the worst."
Weintraub's latest post: Debunking a Drudge "world exclusive" report that former Rep. Jack Kemp is going to run for governor.
Good move by Weintraub to move into the blogosphere. Politics should not be left to the thumbsuckers.
· World Exclusive [TimPorter ]

Flag

Lets say the Flag Legislation has passed the Senate Governor, Imagine doing this to the Australian Flag

Loovely folks at Yahoo shot this... Larrikins & Wicked Wizzards of Aussie Land, are you thinking what I am thinking?
· Presidential Yahoo [Musing over News ]

PS: Ambassadors you better brief your President, before his feet touch the soil DownUnder...I certainly prefer not to go to war against Amerika. I fought against Russia and I won...(smile)

Power

Washminster POWER PLAY

Great wealth was to be gained through monopoly, through using the State for private ends; it was axiomatic therefore that businessmen should run the government and run it for personal profit...

Washington Post's cover story (sorry about the annoying registration screen) by that title makes the case that the Republican leadership in the House is just as bad as that of the Democrats of years past:

Nearly 10 years after winning control of the House by vowing a fairer and more open Congress, Republicans have tossed aside many of the institutional reforms they promised, increasingly employing hard-nosed tactics they decried a decade ago, according to numerous lawmakers and scholars.
Among the reforms championed by an earlier generation of House Republicans, and subsequently dropped or weakened: term limits for rank-and-file members as well as committee chairmen; stricter ethics laws; and greater power for individual members and the minority party.
Republicans have instead consolidated power in the hands of a few leaders, most notably Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.). In the process, the authority of committee chairmen and the influence of rank-and-file members have waned.

This isn't surprising, given how hunger for political power can consume some party members. No political party seems to have a monopoly on abuse of power, the desire to acquire unlimited power haunts governments of all colours. As a theoretical matter, each of the 435 Representatives should be equal, as they all represent a single Congressional District. In reality, I saw what happened to Czechoslovak communist theory in practice during the Prague Spring of 1968.
There were more surprises in store for me after the 1995 NSW election as I watched how the reforms implemented during the hung parliament under John Hatton and Kevin Rozzoli leadership began to dissappear into a dust bin of parliamentary history. The bureaucrats cannot be blamed solely for not standing up to bullies like Bob Carr as most parliamentary clerks are family men and families must be fed. Some blame must be directed at the media for failing to expose the abuses of executive powers. It is the role of our unbiased ABC and other media sources to shed more light in places where disinfectant is desperately needed. Some of the best former journalists seem to be working for the government in power and who can blame them for placing fresh bread on the table each day? It is time for the public and private media outlets to face the reality and be prepared to match the salaries of investigative journaliststs to remuneration packages enjoyed by spinmeiters slaving for executive branches. (It is 3 a.m. on Sunday morning so I better wake up and stop dreaming the impossible dreams: I am better now I just had a cold shower.)
· Goal of Reforms in House Gives Way To Tough Tactics Party Once Criticized [WashingtonPost ]

Blogging

Blogging 'Blogs' shake the political discourse

There's been a wash of articles this month that appear to solidify weblogs as a solid online content platform for politics, business and public information. This continued level of acceptance will hopefully enable more conservative institutions (like courts) to embrace the platform more widely. Recent articles include:

'Blogs' Shake the Political Discourse, by Joanna Weiss; Boston Globe (July 23, 2003).

Legal And Appellate Weblogs: What They Are, Why You Should Read Them, And Why You Should Consider Starting Your Own, by Gary O'Connor and Stephanie Tai; Journal of Appellate Practice and Procedure (posted July 22, 2003).

A Blog for Everyone, by Mark Ward; BBC News (July 22, 2003).

What Are Blogs and Why Is Everyone So Excited About Them? by Jerry Lawson, Brenda Howard, Dennis Kennedy, Ernest Svenson and Tom Mighell; LLRX.com Internet Roundtable Discussion #36 (Posted July 21, 2003).

Welcome to the 'new' Web, same as the 'old' Web, by Christine Boese; CNN Headline News (July 15, 2003).

Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism, by Howard Rheingold for Online Journalism Review (July 9, 2003).

· Welcome to the 'new' Web, same as the 'old' Web [Bag and Baggage]

Crossing The Line?

Middle East Crossing The Line?

The politicization of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is nothing new.
Former Pentagon employee Peter Probst may have used his position and access to non-public information to help lobby and shape U.S. policy in the Middle East.
· Nothing New [TomPaine]

Tax

Subsidising what? Tax abatements often fail to generate jobs

Andy Gammill of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette studied tax breaks offered to potential employers by Allen County, Ind., and found that "more than half have fallen short of the employment promises they made while pleading their cases before local government boards." Despite the record, no government body has rescinded any of the tax abatements granted to businesses. The paper reviewed nearly 200 sets of records filed by the recipient firms.
· Sets of200 [Fortwayne]

Justice for Sale

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Public Service Justice For Sale

Da's Deals Let People Buy Way Out Of Trouble
As Prosecutor, Vince Biskupic Made Secret Deals In Which People Paid Substantial Sums To Avoid Prosecution.
· Despite a state ethics law prohibiting state officials from using their positions to provide substantial benefits to organizations with which they're associated [Madison]

The big thieves hang the little ones.
-- Czech Proverb

Justice

Justice Prosecutor under arrest

The arrest of a prosecutor as an accomplice has put a bizarre new twist on a sensational murder case in Nuremberg.
According to Bavarian Justice Minister Manfred Weiss, the prosecutor, identified only as Stefan M., is the first prosecutor ever to be arrested in the state of Bavaria.
· Gsell, 31, dubbed the beautiful widow [FAZ ]

Literature

Of all the insights literature shares in her medium, I like best those given to us by the sculptor Henry Moore, expressed at age 80: The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is - it must be something you cannot possibly do!

Reading Room Snooping on Readers

OOn the whole, I wouldn't choose to go fishing in a library or a bookstore. The library is a bit dusty, and while the local bookstore may be the final resting place of a forest or two, it's water-challenged.

Nevertheless, the same phrase keeps coming up again and again. As worriers describe the government's ability to search through the records of readers, they label it a ''fishing expedition.'' They define it as part of John Ashcroft's all-terrain venture to catch-and-not-release terrorists.

This fish tale began in the anxious weeks after 9/11 when Congress passed the Patriot Act with hardly a dissent. The Patriot Act became the perfect example of the revised adage: Legislate in haste, and repent at leisure.

Deep in the troubled waters of the 340-page law is Section 215, a provision that gives the feds the right to inspect or seize the records of any reader, Web surfer, book buyer, or book borrower. The government can simply get approval from a secret court without showing probable cause. Moreover, a gag provision means the librarian or bookseller can't tell a customer that the government is reading over his or her shoulder.
This expedition resembles ocean dragging more than fly-fishing.
· 'The True Patriot Act Account [CommonDreams]

Campaign

Presidential Contenders What did they pick as their campaign song...

Being a matter of personal taste, I decided to use these criteria for ranking the candidates:

1. Does the song suck?
2. Do you really think they own the album the song is on?
3. Will it be extremely annoying after being played a million times?
4. Is there more to the song than the title?
5. Is it a creative choice?
6. Did I expect a better taste in music from this candidate?
· Exit Stage Left [Djhlights.blogspot ]

Slaves

Leadership Welcome to the jungle

It's a jungle out there in the workplace.
While bosses preach about teamwork and a supportive culture, their actions promote the opposite by pitting colleagues against each other and encouraging office politics.
The result is a "facade of effectiveness" that prevents workers, and companies, from performing at their best.
They found that nearly nine out of 10 Australian organisations were not performing as well as they could be, because of the culture of blame, indecision and conformity. The research was undertaken by an organisational development company, Human Synergistics, which will release it today to
700 chief executives and human resources officers at a seminar in Sydney.
· 9 out of 10 [SMH]
· Modernization can be irrational and adopted by any type of political system [The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps.]

Paddy's Prayer

The big thieves hang the little ones.
-- Czech Proverb

Mr Right

Pddy's personal character is an obvious enigma: it is hard to tell when insane paranoia supplants scheming rationality.
· Hypocrite [Gianna ]

Getting rid of Saddam Hussein put one Idi Amin imitator out of business (at least for the time being), but there are too many still eager to follow in that slob's footsteps -- don't forget that.

Idi Amin dead dead ? Central Asian Mini-Stalinists

We don't wish death upon anyone, but it's hard to get too worked up about the apparently imminent demise of one of the sorriest dictators of recent times. Yes, the very big (reportedly tipping the scales at some 220 kg these days) and very bad Idi Amin Dada is on his way out.
· Dictators [Saloon ]

Flaming Families

Blogging & Flaming The blogging world seems to be constantly reminded that Tim Blair tends to write as a bully

Did you ever play a game called hot potato when you were a child? The rules are simple. Children sit in a circle and pass along a potato while music is playing. Whoever is left holding the potato when the music stops is "out" and has to leave the game. The winner is the one who never got stuck with the potato. Many bloggers are playing a higher-stakes version of hot potato. The potato in this case is the recent exchange between Tim B and Tim D

It is hard to tell why Blair felt the urge to make a reference to Tim Dunlop's son in his post... This is certainly not going to earn Blair any winning points from reasonable bloggers.
· Attack [Tim Blair]
· Attack in Reply [Tim Dunlop]

Spins

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
- Voltaire, philosopher

Dizzy with spinmeisters

G'Day. Today your say and your recommended reading on the dangers of spin and how to counter it.
· Jean-Jacques Rousseau was right to warn us that democracy is the hardest form of government to maintain [Webdiary ]

Ashes

If you want to set something afire, you must burn yourself

Prague Winter On Wenceslas Square

In 1969 Jan Palach set himself alight in Wenceslas Square in Prague and ignited a protest movement against the Communist Government of Czechoslovakia. This year in the Czech Republic there has been a spate of copy cat suicides by self-immolation. Encounter this week recalls the death of Jan Palach and considers the ethical tradition in Czech political philosophy.
· Carry out your literary dream, no matter how unlikely it may seem [Encounter: Our ABC]

200 Nations

200 copies Oldfield's trouble and strife, caught on tape

The One Nation MP David Oldfield ordered parliamentary staff to make more than 200 copies of his wife's appearance on the TV chat show Beauty and the Beast and used his parliamentary allowance to pay for the blank video tapes...
· Nothing new Under the Sun, Beauty and the Beast [SMH]

For those who relish irony

For those who relish irony, and absurdity . . .

Upside-down reality 10 Things We Can Do to Perpetuate Homelessness

To many people, the world today is upside down. Look at the problem of homelessness, for example. We are the richest and most powerful nation in the world, and yet there are still thousands and thousands of people who sleep on our streets each night.

It doesn't make sense; it is an upside-down reality. But maybe we need to look at homelessness with an upside-down perspective, with an absurd logic that just might illuminate the immensity of this crisis and move us into positive action.
· Maybe the utterly absurd conclusion is this: We really want homelessness to exist in the United States.
[ CommonDreams]

Are you from the ABC?

Solid ABC reports are savage snarls. They're rude and gross. They ridicule the high and mighty. They dare to undress Wrongs & Wrans of this world. They slap down the pompous. They sting. They get the blood boiling. And they make their point -- with the clarity and nuance of a right uppercut. Amen!

Are you from the ABC? ABC review rubbishes claims of war bias

The ABC's complaints review arm has rejected Federal Government allegations of widespread bias in its coverage of the Iraq war, finding no evidence of systemic anti-Americanism.
· Bias [ SMH]

Political Double Standards

Politics Slanted Truth

Political Double Standards: While I've been trying to stay out of the whole left vs. right argument that has turned politics into a whining match, I thought this article was worth noting. I will say this: The difference between the tales Clinton told and the stories the Bush Administration seem to be telling now is that the Clinton's tales led to scandal, where the Bush's stories led to war.
· Right/Wrong
[ Slate]

Monument to Berlin Wall victim unveiled

Monument to Berlin Wall victim unveiled

A monument to the last person killed trying to escape communist East Berlin was unveiled in Berlin on Saturday on what would have been the victim's 35th birthday.

The monument, a 2.6-metre high steel column, was placed at the site of the Britz canal where East German border guards shot and killed Chris Gueffroy, then 20 years old, when he and a friend sought to escape to West Berlin.

The incident took place February 5, 1989 - nine months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Berlin city Minister of Culture Thomas Flierl said that as a "politician of the PDS I feel a special political and human responsibility for the memory of the victims of The Wall". The PDS - Party of Democratic Socialism - is the successor party to the Communist Party. monument, a 2.6-metre high steel column, was placed at the site of the Britz canal where East German border guards shot and killed Chris Gueffroy, then 20 years old, when he and a friend sought to escape to West Berlin.
· The incident took place February 5, 1989 - nine months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. [Wall ]
· Another incident took place July 7, 1980 - nine yearss before the fall of the Berlin Wall... [ Rferl]
Cold River: a survivor's story champions a hot award winning cover designed by my publisher Deron Douglas. Fictionwise boasts ever growing and compelling ebook and paperback collection written by Authors at the DDP

Blogging from Basra

Ishtar talking, July 9 post by Ishtar, translated by Salm Pax Blogging from Basra

Despite all the time and effort I have wasted on the attempt to hide it, trying to tell my self I am wrong and hunting for chances to prove my self wrong. I think the time now is right to reveal it, the time to be honest has come.

In the presence of that mountain sized despair, which has already burdened my weary heart with the frustrations of all the past years to wait for me now and rip me apart to pieces which are hard to bring back together. I am going to declare what has been gnawing on me brutally from the inside so hard I can't even think about blaming myself for keeping this inside for so long. I will confess that I despise you.

Yes, I blame you for creating all these rifts within me, I hate you as much our people have suffered, as much as my ears had to listen to the sounds of bombs and missiles, I hate you as much as the destruction my eyes has seen, as much as I hate the blood that flowed, the wasted years and the loss of my hopes for a future. I hate you as much as all the Iraqis who had to immigrate, as much as the politicians who had to disappear. I blame you for the suffering through the merciless humid and hot nights of Basra without the simplest creature comforts, I blame you for not being able to find the simplest entertainment in my city the second biggest city in Iraq, blame you for the dirt road I have to travel to get to my university which is right in the middle of the city. Blame you for loosing the will to live and for my need for love which was lost in you...

Because of all that, my dearest Iraq, I despise you. But please, my love and hate, understand my anger. I want you to stop answering my questions about the wasted childhood and youth by saying that these things will be forgotten, because if you do that again you will have to allow me to keep on despising you.

· Because of all that, my dearest Iraq, I despise you. But please, my love and hate, understand my anger. [Blog viaIshtar]

Cold Revolution

In 1934 Sergei Kirov was mysteriously murdered. Stalin took charge of the murder investigation and built it into the exposure of a major political conspiracy against the state. This was the origin of the mass terror which culminated in the huge show trials of 1936-38. Stalin eliminated all his main political rivals and surrounded himself with yes-men. Stalin's court was not unlike that of Ivan the Terrible. Stalin was a voracious reader of history books and he consciously modelled himself on the 16th-century Tsar. He built up his own elite of henchmen - not unlike Ivan's oprichnina - to undermine the old political establishment. He gave them flats and dachas, cars and chauffeurs, to buy their gratitude. And every year he murdered some of them to keep the others on their toes.

Defector walks across DMZ

A North Korean defector walked across the heavily mine-infested border to the South yesterday, a day after the two armies traded machinegun fire across the frontier.
· Escaping a difficult life in the North [NZHerald19.07.2003 2.30 am]
· Berlin Wall [FuBerlin ]

White House Smear

White House Smear A War on Wilson? a thuggish act

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.
· This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames [TheNation(US)]
· 16 words and counting ...Bully pulpit fiction: Hellbent on misleading [TheNation(US)]
· I was a fool to believe that those in command wouldn't dare risk the public's indignation at such an indecent scheme [ Augusta]
· current generations "have forgotten Watergate....I think the pendulum has swung again [NJ(US)]

Election.com

Tis Amerikan Erection Offshore Company Captures Online Military Vote

Since 2001 Accenture and Election.com have been strategic partners "to jointly deliver comprehensive election solutions to governments worldwide. Last month Accenture bought the public-sector election assets of Election.com, which suffered its own scandal this year when it was discovered that Osan Ltd, a firm of Saudi and other foreign investors, bought controlling interest in it.
The company earned nearly $700 million last year working for Uncle Sam and - ironically - is currently under contract with the Internal Revenue Service itself to redesign its online and Internet operations.
· A sense of civic duty isn't high on Accenture's list of priorities [CommonDreams ]

Political Junkies

Politics Web sites generate buzz for political chattering class

T.J. Rooney, Pennsylvania's Democratic Party chairman, says he checks it five or six times a day. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter peruses it on Fridays on the train home to Philadelphia.
And scores of politicos and reporters across the Keystone State and in Washington are constantly clicking on www.PoliticsPA.com, a must-read for Pennsylvania's political junkies.
· Pol Junkies [Los Angeles]
· Department of Continuous News
[WashingtonPost ]
· Tiny costs, big influence: Turf News a.k.a. Grassroots [OJR ]

Election.com

Offshore Company Captures Online Military Vote

Since 2001 Accenture and Election.com have been strategic partners "to jointly deliver comprehensive election solutions to governments worldwide. Last month Accenture bought the public-sector election assets of Election.com, which suffered its own scandal this year when it was discovered that Osan Ltd, a firm of Saudi and other foreign investors, bought controlling interest in it.
The company earned nearly $700 million last year working for Uncle Sam and - ironically - is currently under contract with the Internal Revenue Service itself to redesign its online and Internet operations.
· A sense of civic duty isn't high on Accenture's list of priorities [CommonDreams ]

Nuclear War Junggle

Much Ado About Survival North & South; East & West; West & North

Relations between the US and North Korea are spiralling out of control, and war is a possibility...
· Only the Paranoid will survive [ SMH]

Machiavellian Madness

The shocking mix of fiscal madness and duplicity

The evidence of Bush’s duplicity on taxes is rising almost as fast as his borrowing.
· Left, Right & Center [Tompaine. ]
· Offshore’s Rise: free trade is not "win-win."

Here is the dream. You are a backbencher...
· Machiavellian madness [Australian ]

Paranoid

Dead Man Reading FBI is Here

Two FBI agents became interested in journalist and bookstore employee Marc Schultz after he was seen in an Atlanta coffeeshop reading a print-out of a story titled "Weapons of Mass Stupidity." (It's a piece on Fox News and Rupert Murdoch.) Schultz, who was grilled by the agents, writes: "My co-worker, Craig, says that we should probably be thankful the FBI takes these things seriously; I say it seems like a dark day when an American citizen regards reading as a threat, and downright pitch-black when the federal government agrees.
· Agents [ Atlanta]
· Dangerous CIA [Sunday Nine]

Dead Man Sexing it Up Weapons adviser named as possible source for BBC story disappears

Isn't it amazing how many people who have dodgy secrets about their government often go missing or are mysteriously found dead? There are those who would dismiss conspiracy theorists as nutters, but that's a convenient badge isn't it? The latest suspicious death concerns the man who was thought to be the 'mole' who informed the BBC that the dossier on Iraq was sexed up to promote the idea of going to war. If this body does turn out to be his, I wonder what story will be concocted...
· Never mind that Only Paranoid People Survive [BBC ]

Future of History

History will forgive us

When you start appealing to historians, you know they're in deep trouble! Maybe it's because someone told Tony “you better sound real good , or you’re history!” and the idea kinda stuck.
And Congress loved it. The prime minister received 19 standing ovations during his 32-minute speech. Amen...
· Does " history" pay taxes? [Guardian ]

Political bLog

Blogging Joke's on you, says the Westminster blogger

Labour MP Tom Watson's ironic appeal to the nation's youth is becoming an unlikely hit in the internet community.
Westminster held a world-first in July2003 AD, when around 120 bloggers descend on parliament for a discussion on how politicians can best use the "blogosphere" to further policy and public interaction.
· Maaa Dear Watson [BBC ]
· Parliamentary blogosphere [Guardian ]
· Editorial pages are predictable, repetitive, and usually cranky [TimPorter]
· Jourggers [TM]

Involving researchers in investigations Phony Politicians

St. Paul Pioneer Press special investigation finds state politicians (including the governor) were paid fees by a phone company which cheated customers.
· Cheating [TwinCities ]

Trust

Australian Treasurer Do no harm

There are non-monetary things that add to the wealth of a society. Civic engagement and the values which it promotes like trust and tolerance are some of those things. You can call them social capital if that is conceptually easier. It might help with the idea of building them up, running them down, adding to our wealth, or detracting from it. But a society which has these things should be careful not to let them run down. Once they are gone it takes a lot of effort to get them back again.
· Trust [Sydney Institute(viaMargo)]

Political Donations

Politics ALP body to keep Jews onside

Labor should listen to all sides. Political influence requires the currency of ideas, not cash. Labor cannot be bought.
· Donations [ Australian]

Police

Police When police should say “no!” to gratuities

Many writers on police corruption see the acceptance of even the smallest gift or benefit as being the beginning of the end of an honest officer’s career. Others suggest that the acceptance of gratuities does little harm, and that there may in fact be positive benefits in the practice, not just for the officer involved, but for society as a whole.
· Police corruption [Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University (PDF file)]

Political legitimacy

Global corruption barometer

A deep and widespread crisis in political legitimacy emerges from the first-ever Global Corruption Barometer.
· Political legitimacy [Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University(WordDocument]

Deflation 2004 AD

Deflation 2004 AD Bush administration admits to record deficits

Jeez, it looks as though the GOP is losing the press. Their spin on the upcoming budget deficits isn't getting much respect.
Republicans say the more important measure of red ink is how it compares to the size of the U.S. economy, because that illustrates the government's ability to afford carrying the debt.
And the AP reporter's response?

Even gauged that way, a shortfall 4 percent as big as the economy — as this year's and next's will probably be — begins to approach the dimension of the deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s that both parties agreed were untenable.
· True, true. And yeah, I'm as shocked [viaTaxingThoughts ]

Vulnerable Children

Leaving Head Start Behind

The Head Start program, begun 38 years ago, takes a comprehensive approach to helping the nation's poorest children and families. The program has provided high-quality early education, health care, nutrition and social services to more than 20 million children, as well as support to their families. President Bush's proposal for Head Start would allow the federal government to abandon its promise to truly give children a head start.
· Vulnerable children enter school ready to learn [TomPaine ]

Organisations Usually Get the Managers They Deserve

Social Ventures

Organisations Usually Get the Managers They Deserve
· S Responsibility [Crikey! ]

End of Secrecy

End of Secrecy Orwell's list of 'crypto-communists' to be released

The government has agreed to strip the final shred of secrecy from the leftwing author George Orwell's famous 54-year-old list of "crypto-communists" and put it in the public domain.
The Foreign Office is expected shortly to disgorge its copy of the document - until now held back as too sensitive. The public record office in Kew hopes to make the file openly available this summer.
· Timothy Garton Ash [Guardian of His Story

Old Order

Secrecy The Anti-information Administration

The Bush, Carr, Putin, you name it, administrations have a thing about secrecy; it can't get enough of it. Bit by bit, the administration have laid out policies curtailing the flow of information regarding fundamental activities of government.
· Alphabetical Order [ TomPaine]

Corporations

Doing Business Focus On The Corporation

With millions in corporate money marinating everything from the Congress to the Smithsonian, little is left untouched.
From the Nature Conservancy, to the National Consumers League, the corporate cash is flowing, and many public interest groups are swimming in it.
Even the Gray Panthers, that venerable public interest group started by Maggie Kuhn to fight for the rights of seniors against the corporate goliaths, cannot stay dry for long.
· They too have been soaked [EatTheState ]

Hope

Hope A Lottery-Winning Couple Who Gave Millions to Charity Could Give World Leaders a Lesson in Wealth Distribution

Here is a good story. Barbara and Ray Wragg recently won £7.6m ($12.4 million US) on the lottery, and naturally it changed their lives. Ray was a roofing supervisor, often leaving home at 4am to get to distant building sites. Barbara had worked for years as a nursing assistant at the Royal Hallamshire hospital in Sheffield, on 11-hour night shifts in the urology department, taking home under £150 a week.
· Generosity [Guardian ]

Informed We Understand; Misled We Wage Wars!

Infomaniac of this rather fragile world sadly peppered with liars & bullies Unite!

Government Open Government Information Awareness

MIT just opened its Open Government Information Awareness site. The site offers a remarkable amount of information about all three branches of the federal government. The amount of information now at your fingertips is simply daunting. By way of example (and certainly not in limitation), the site gives a list of contributors to the campaigns of members of Congress, a detailed listing of the expenditures of those members, and their financial disclosure filings.
Well designed sites such as this raise any number of questions. For instance, given the proliferation of bloggers of all stripes (both in topic choice and political viewpoint) and the ready accessibility of information, the market for commercial alternatives, newspapers for instance, would seem to be seriously eroding.
· The implications are huge [OpenGovernment ]

Right to Know

The premise of GIA is that individual citizens have the right to know details about government, while government has the power to know details about citizens. Our goal is to develop a technology which empowers citizens to form a sort of intelligence agency; gathering, sorting, and acting on information they gather about the government. Only by employing such technologies can we hope to have a government 'by the people, and for the people.'

McKinley noted wanted to "seed" the site with such information to give people a sense of what was possible.

McKinley built two clever features into the system to help keep the information as accurate as possible. The first one enables users to rank the credibility of other contributors. The second feature automatically notifies the subject of a submission -- whether individual or organization -- and asks it to respond. They can confirm or deny the submission -- and denials are noted, though the submissions are not purged.

For instance, say a scandal breaks, but the politician in question is later exonerated because of a specific fact.
Users can poll the system to see if that fact was logged, and find out who contributed that fact, and when they did, without knowing their real name. They can then rank the credibility of that contributor, and ask the system to notify them if he or she makes further contributions in the future. Thus, they can learn whether they trust or mistrust a contributor, while the contributor still retains anonymity.

As more information gets added to the site over time -- from databases and from individuals -- the Open Government Information Awareness site has the potential to be a great source of ideas and data for journalists. I, for one, hope it catches on.
· I, for one, hope it catches on [ WashingtonPost]

Leadership

Misleaders Why the CEO in Chief Needs an Audit

The Bush White House is run on a business model. The president is the CEO. He delegates to others, including the vice president, who was once a CEO himself. It therefore should come as no surprise that George W. Bush, a Harvard MBA after all, is doing what other CEOs do when they get into trouble. In his case, he's "restated" his reasons for going to war.
Corporations do this all the time. If a profit of, say, $2.8 billion turns out to be a loss of a similar amount on account of unanticipated developments (corruption, greed, the demands of mistresses), the figure merely gets "restated." Usually no one is held responsible for this, because a billion here or a billion there can, as we know, fall through the cracks. In fact, the CEO -- having been given a bonus for such a banner year -- is then given another one for managing his company through difficult times.
· Times of CEO [The Washington Post Company]

Elections

Elections Young people 'too busy' to vote

Just 16% of voters aged under 25 voted in May's elections to the Welsh assembly, new research shows.
The Electoral Commission ordered the research because it wants to find out why so few people voted in the Welsh elections.
· Welsh Glory [BBC ]
· Vote for Hope [Los Angeles]

Trust

Constitution of Brothers Trust Is Important

Five and a half days after a U.S. strike against a convoy of vehicles on the road near the Iraq-Syria border, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense claimed they had no details of the action.
· That's not believable [Reese ]

Always On

Media Journalists Only Look Dead

As E.J. Dionne wrote in his 1996 book, They Only Look Dead, the press operates under a number of conflicting diktats: be neutral yet investigative; be disengaged but have an impact; be fair-minded but have an edge. Therein lies the nut of our tortured relationship with objectivity. Few would argue that complete objectivity is possible, yet we bristle when someone suggests we aren't being objective - or fair, or balanced - as if everyone agrees on what they all mean.
· Re-thinking objectivity fascinating article in Review [Columbia Journalism Via Infomaniac]

Information The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive

It's magnetic. It's like a tar baby: the more you touch it, the more you have to.
· Online compulsive disorder [NY Times; Registration required USER: ajreader; PASSWORD: access]

Cold War River

Any survivor has more to say than all the historians combined about what happened.
-Elie Wiesel

Cold War River: Sparking a hot war of words!

You spend the second half of your life getting over your first half:
Cold River has no great debates or brilliant insights about politics. But it is political through and through because the characters are nothing, and mean nothing, outside of the political situation in which they find themselves...
· Overnight Success takes 20 something years for survivor-writer [Dual Loyalty]

I have been constantly reminded that God is a Politician

Political World - by Bob Dylan

We live in a political world,
Love don't have any place.
We're living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don't have a face

We live in a political world,
Icicles hanging down,
Wedding bells ring and angels sing,
clouds cover up the ground.

We live in a political world,
Wisdom is thrown into jail,
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank,
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last.

We live in a political world.
The one we can see and can feel
But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck,
We all know for sure that it's real.

We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear,
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you're never why you're here.

We live in a political world
Under the microscope,
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope.

We live in a political world
Turning and a'thrashing about,
As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out.

We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all,
It's turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall.

We live in a political world
Everything is hers or his,
Climb into the frame and shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is.

Because of politicians: Australia is my country, Prague is my hometown.