Beyond Revolution

Opposition supporters hailed a "velvet revolution"
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has declared a state of emergency after the opposition seized the parliament building and his presidential offices.
· Political turmoil grips Georgia [BBC ]

Beyond Conspiracy
This is not a survivable wound... How many times have I thought THAT, but just not had words as beautiful?
· Judge for yourself [CNN ]

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
· Conventions [ Guardian(UK)]

Disappearing State Corporate Income Tax
T he Disappearing State Corporate Income Tax In state legislatures across the nation, lawmakers are scrambling to cope with revenue shortfalls. Increasingly, however, they can't look to the corporate income tax for much help.
· Taxes [Tax ]
· Taxes [ Tax]

Sunday Sermon

It is not everyday I discover I am being quoted in a sermon (smile)

A Funeral for the Church
I'm 35 with a young family a long way from home. I love this Church, and yet hate so much of what it has stood for in the past. I believe it can and will change, and I want to be there to see it happen. I'm crazy enough to believe in resurrection, and for that reason have no regrets about saying to the church of my youth 'Rest in Peace'. I will remain at the edge, as only at the edge can I be faithful to the inspiration of my faith, Jesus who took risks, was always open to change and valued people over institutions.
Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. And then out of the ashes something new and exciting will emerge.
· The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do [St Matthews]

These are dangerous times, and surreal. Soyinka, in his speech Saturday evening, said Americans need to drop their complacency and realize that the same fanaticism seen in Osama bin Laden is also present in the Bush administration. According to Soyinka, bin Laden's assertion that the world is made up of either "believers or non-believers" is equivalent to Bush's assertion that "you are either with us or against us." Such a belief, Soyinka said, poses the greatest threat to the creative mind. "I hope the current events in Iraq shatter the glass case of American complacence forever," he said.

Violence in Iraq: Foreign or Home-Brewed?
The large majority of the despicable bunch of thugs that commit the terror-acts belong to Al-Qaida
· Danish Daily [Euro Savant]
· Polish Press

Chinese Dragon

New entry on a newish blob by former Australian Ambassador in Europe, Dr James Cumes, who elaborates on the economic and political role of China in 21st Century.
· Lakatoi [Blog By James Cumes]
· Articles devoted to Chinese government [OnlineOpinion ]

The Money Trap:
Soros and his Institute has a brilliant new website peppered with engaging ideas and stories.
This paper focuses on the undisclosed deals between multinational corporations and governments that help officials enrich themselves at the public’s expense. And it shows how even strong laws against corruption in established democracies can be riddled with loopholes to benefit wealthy groups that dominate the legislative process.
· Stopping the Spread of Corruption [OSI PDFformat]

Still At Large
While JI may be on the run, it is simultaneously regrouping and planning its next strike.
This investigation reveals JI as a fluid and dynamic network, able to react quickly to circumstances and to regenerate itself.
· 4 Corners [ABC ]
Saudi
Terrorists stormed past security guards into an affluent, heavily secured residential neighborhood in the Saudi capital Saturday and set off three explosions.
The protection money paid by the Saudi royal family and the support for the Whabbi catachism of hate that has been a fundamental part of the Saudi polity for 50 years is yielding a harvest for those who sewed the dragon's teeth.
· Explosions [CNN ]

I never had sex with that woman...Clinton; But

Living through Secret Affair with Hillary Bray Clinton
Martin Sikora reviewed my book back in August 2002 and publishers of Hillary Clinton pinched his idea and now some readers who use search engine download Cold River and Living History (smile)
Customer Rating: (4 stars)
Posted on 8/23/2002
Unless one went through it, experienced it, and lived it, one can’t ever really know. But a man known as Jozef Imrich lived through it and he tells his story of growing up in communist Czechoslovakia. But ‘Cold River’ is so much more than just a story, a riveting story of trial and escape, and of rebirth. It is, in its essence, a moving and dramatic tale of one man’s quest for freedom; not just in a physical sense, but an emotional one as well. This e-book literally sent chills up my spine. After you finish reading, you can't get certain images out of your head. Even as you are going along, reading it, there are parts where you can't believe you’re breathing. It might seem hard to believe, but there are no photos or maps in this book.
· Jozef [Bookbooters ]
· Hillary [Bookbooters]

As Plato says, it’s war, not peace, that is most likely the normal state of human affairs... More people are finding life is a vitriolish course...

This week is taking a toll on Peace Prizes
The hatred and vitriol she'd encountered from Australians she'd never experienced before, not even from the Israelis ...
· Hanan Ashraw [Sunday: Nine]

Pauline's life is like some bizarre moral barometer for Australia.

Pauline Hanson Singing a duet with a young Aboriginal singer
I was a person that had my opinion and, yes, I thought I knew everything as a member of Parliament to go and look through the prisons. You know nothing, and these politicians and bureaucrats that make the legislation have no idea. And yes, it's been a very daunting, distressing time. I could never explain what it's done to me, but in so many ways I've learnt so much from it ...
· Money, power and position bring justice; without it, you went to jail [Webdiary SMH]
· Federal-state law flaw keeps insider trader out of jail [SMH ]

Monopoly

White House Puts Limits on Queries
The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.
· Pesky Times [WashingtonPost]

I fell under the spell of extreme curiosity about what the hell Prince Chuck supposedly didn’t do...

Broadcasting secret weapons test by mistake
I have seen too many machiavellian mistakes in my life that somehow tend to accidentally happened on purpose ...
· Missssssile [Yahoo]
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the lord
· Don't mention the dead [Guardian(UK)]

Harry

Like Vaclav Havel, Harry Evans proves he's always the smartest person in the society.

The shadow opposition
Only one man seems capable of getting under the Howard Government's skin these days. Paul Keating wanted to sack him. John Howard, too, tried to remove him. But Harry Evans, self-appointed champion of parliamentary process against autocratic executive government, survives.
· Irritant values of the Clerk of Parliament [SMH]

Don’t assume that bad news is bad and good news is good.

Hear no Evil...Do No Evil...Evilism
All the isms, an English wag once said, are wasms."
What is your own image of evil? Have you ever had an intimate personal encounter with it? Does it have its own taste and smell and configuration? ...
Evil is something that, when you see it, when you know it, it's intimate. It's almost sensual. That is why people who have been tortured know it by instinct. They don't need to be told what it is, and they may have a very hard time putting it into words. ... That's the nature of the phenomenon. It's hard to put into words. But you have to have that intimacy with it, that kind of shoulder-to-shoulder rubbing. ...
· What is your own image of evil? [PBS via Wen of Troppo Fame]
· Afghanistan's Liberation - Now #1 Again in Opium! [Independent ]

Don’t assume that bad news is bad and good news is good. President Bush says that the violence in Iraq is a sign of progress. Seriously. Do you realize how bad things would really be if there were no suicide bombings, guerrilla attacks and anti-American violence in Iraq?

Bushocrats accepting the poisoned chalice
Apparently, according to a USA Today study , companies that received contracts for reconstruction in Iraq donated large amounts of money to the Bush election campaign.
· Contract with Evil Forces [USA Tomorrow]
· Labyrinthine [CBC ]


If war was eliminated as a prime-time Media plot device, a lot of writers would be out of work. Writers have lost the knack for -- or can no longer get paid for -- exploring mysteries of human behavior that don't involve war aggression.

War by Car Bomb
It is possible to win a counterguerrilla war. The British did so in Malaya in the 1950s. The United States may succeed in doing so in Iraq today. It is far more difficult, however, to defeat the car bomb. It is on the car bomb, therefore, that the Saddam Hussein loyalists' hope for victory rides.
The guerrilla war in Iraq is wearing and painful for Americans. The enemy plants the roadside bomb and succeeds with the occasional ambush. The losses are mounting. What makes success for the saboteurs still dubious, however, is that they do not represent a true guerrilla force. They are nothing like the successful Vietnamese, Chinese or Cuban guerrillas, who were, in Mao's famous phrase, "fish swimming in the sea of the people."
· The Saddam loyalists swim in a small lake [Washington Post]

Oxygen

The protesters who rallied against the US president are often the truest ‘Americans’ of them all...
David Burchell

Learn to live with less democracy, oxygen, water...
If there are not open platforms for the expression of opposition to mainstream political life then it is wholly possible for violent political expression on the Australian political scene. One of our democratic strengths has been the ability to express political discontent - is it becoming illusory? Most parliamentarians believe they are wholly dependent upon their political leaders for electoral success, giving party leaders unprecendented power. The lack of open dissent within mainstream parties highlights the lack of an ongoing public dialogue, reinforced by the media's obsession with defining politics through a paradigm of conflict.
· Many crosscurrents in our political landscape [SMH Webdiary]
· Water restrictions will become a way of life: Vision Catching Up [SMH ]
· Get used to it: from 2004 no more snappy places, English gardens, lespian deep baritones...
· Irish were seen as the source of all criminality in Sydney

Yukos Oil
Évery so often the arrest of one man involves more than the charges he may face and his fate before the court. In these rare instances, the legal proceedings are a distraction from the larger moral and strategic implications, and so they are intended to be. The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky by Russian secret services in Siberia over the weekend is one such arrest.
· The Failure of Putin's Russia [WashingtonPost ]