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Soros, a Hungarian emigre to the US, concedes that he is open to such accusations. "I can be seen as a traitor to my class and my adopted country, but I am proud to take that role. I think there are values which transcend class and country. I think my country can be wrong and that's the value of an open society and that is the value which has made America great.

A Sense of Possibility, a Blast of Fresh Air
Within minutes of meeting the Herald at his plush west London abode, he complains about George Bush's "Orwellian truth machine" and its use of "doublespeak".
In the United States today you do have a pluralistic, free media. Neverthe-less, the truth machine is capable of manufacturing truth, so that the majority of people in America continue to believe that Saddam was somehow connected to September 11, when all the evidence points to the opposite...
The less faith we have in authority, the more trust we place in our own judgement.
The Nobel Prize-winning writer Gunter Grass said the German Weimar Republic collapsed and the Nazis took over in 1933 because there were not enough citizens. This was the lesson he had learnt: Citizens cannot leave politics just to politicians.
· Victim-turned-perpetrator [ See Also Life is a struggle for survival ]

Empowering events were almost without exception described as joyous occasions. Participants experienced a deep sense of happiness and even euphoria in being involved in protest events.
The first time she took part in one of these counter-summits, she had a distinct feeling that some sort of political portal was opening up This opening was a sense of possibility, a blast of fresh air. These protests - which are actually week-long marathons of intense education on global politics, late-night strategy sessions, festivals of music and street theatre - are like stepping into a parallel universe. Urgency replaces resignation, strangers talk to each other and the prospect of a radical change in political course seems like the most logical thought in the world."
· Life should get better - healthier, wealthier, happier, more satisfying and interesting. Is this the case?

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Do the Americans get irony?
UK sitcom The Office caused an upset at the Golden Globes, when it received two top awards. Do we still believe that Americans just don't get irony?
· Just don't do irony
Isn't it ironic?
· Doing Business With The Enemy: Halliburton sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian Government [See Also As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths ]

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Fear of untruths being revealed: Law lord hits wrong target on evidence over Iraq war
Why does it come as no surprise that Lord Hutton took the stick to the BBC and its reporter Andrew Gilligan and in the process exonerated the Blair Government over the dossier justifying the war against Iraq? Because in the view of judges, and most other long-in-the-tooth lawyers, the media invariably is out of line, and if it makes a mistake, as Gilligan did, then the crucifixion is so much easier.
· Hutton report excerpts [link first seen at Something's fishy: One-sided verdict is not the final word]

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The US is Now in the Hands of a Group of Extremists
Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations, he's talking about your money -- and every other American's money?
· The US must examine its global role and adopt a more constructive vision-George Soros MUST READ [ courtesy of Googlish webdiarist alive]

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For every mile of beautiful scenery and warm sunshine, there are hundreds of miles of cold, dark nights, no food and no one to care whether I live or die...
I got there about sundown, half-starved, and, before my eyes on the American River, I could see thousands of campfires. I went to the nearest hobo jungle and smelled something cooking.
The last free men: Rudy Phillips is not running away. He is just seeing the world!

Sex-trafficking trade
The sex-trafficking trade may begin in Eastern Europe and wend its way through Mexico, but it lands in the suburbs and cities of America, where perhaps tens of thousands are held captive and pimped out for forced sex-yum yum in the U.S. This Is horrible beyond imagination.
· Certainly not victimless crimes here

When the police publicly identify someone as a suspect in a notorious crime, the injury done to that person’s reputation may be irreparable. Just ask Richard Jewel. James Van de Velde is doing his best to restore his reputation after the New Haven Police Department identified him as one of 5 to 10 suspects in the stabbing murder of one of his students at Yale in 1998. No other suspect was named...
[ See Also The Politics of Crime ]

Young people who grow up in a context of real economic opportunity, basic rule of law and the right to speak and write what they please don't usually want to blow up the world. They want to be part of it!
A simple message: The cure to the problem of the Middle East is jobs...
[link first seen at War of Ideas, Part 6: It's the economy, stupid: Tom Friedman gives us a bonus sixth part to his five-part series (smile)]

The lure of the unknown writer proved absolutely irresistible for many virtual readers. Thank you one and all readers at Amazon for challenging the orthodoxy of the publishing world, so the next generation of writers don't have to! Imagine... Phew, how tough it has been for ordinary storytellers of my calibre running on literary water. Today you put me in the three figure current. Cold River is ranked as 710 as at 9 am Sydney time...
· Now, Ice cold beer, anyone?

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2004 AD & the Story of Our Teeth: A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class Teeth
Caroline's is the face of the working poor, marked by a poverty-generated handicap more obvious than most deficiencies but no different, really, from the less visible deficits that reflect and reinforce destitution. If she were not poor, she would not have lost her teeth, and if she had not lost her teeth, perhaps she would not have remained poor.
· Not just bureaucrats who cheat the poor but also the poor who cheat themselves
· Citizen impotence, our specifically modern experience of poverty [link first seen at Rebeccablood]
· Electronic Elections: a new electronic voting system based on open-source software created in Australia
· Interactive Voting Map

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Well, if you write non-fiction, review non-fiction, or prefer to read non-fiction, break out the champagne. The most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world. Because we are a newspaper, we should be more skewed toward non-fiction.

The Plot Thickens at The New York Times Book Review
With a new Sunday book editor on the horizon, The New York Times takes a hard look at its literary coverage paper-wide.
· Which way are the winds blowing?

First, the American tradition of free speech and free press gives us a nearly unbounded right to cover the banal, the bizarre, and the shamelessly self-promoting.
· Why Do We Cover Celebrities? [ courtesy of Romenesko ]
· Electronic Elections: a new electronic voting system based on open-source software created in Australia
· Interactive Voting Map [ courtesy of Southerlybuster ]
· Blog Design Innovations

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What do you like to listen to before bed?
The rare and precious gifts in life that I know in the deepest part of my soul was made for me.
· Musical Art [link first seen at I Don't Know Art, But I Know What I Hate ]

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January, 1848: THOREAU delivers a lecture on -- the relation of the individual to the State -- later retitled CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

Strange Freedoms
Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.
· Dimensions
· Carnival Of The Capitalists: Winds Of Change.NET

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It comes as no surprise that nearly a third of our young people who want to get into a university have missed out ("Degrees of separation: thousands rejected", Herald, January 19) when our Government spends its resources on the military and not education... Letters, SMH 20/1/04 Denis Doherty, Glebe

Broken Earth of Good & Evil
Joan Kroc, the late widow of the McDonald's founder, has left almost $2 billion to the Salvation Army.
The religious charity said today it was "humbled" by the generosity of one of the biggest bequests ever made.
The money will be used to develop community centres across the United States which will be named after Ray and Joan Kroc.
· Salvation Army [ courtesy of Google ]

Die Broke
You are not a corporation - you are a human being. Your money shouldn't outlive you. You should exit life as you came into it: penniless. Your assets are resources to be used, for your own benefit and for the benefit of those you love. Every dollar that's left in your bank account after you die is a dollar you wasted. Use your resources to help people now when you know they need it, when it will do the most good, rather than hoping they'll be helped when you're dead. The last czech you write should be to your undertaker… and it should bounce.

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A Dragon, the World, and the strong urge to hibernate: active articles from across the gamut
One of the operating political assumptions of the Bush administration is that the checks and balances have essentially been checked.
· Beacuse freedom cannot protect itself. [ see also Moral pork-barrelling: sucking up to hog farmers and singing the praises ...]
· Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty by Randy Barnett [link first seen at Interplay between the freedom of speech and election law ]
· Modern regulation of corporate political donations [ via Displacement of Bloggs ]

Evil, Law, and the State
Evil, Law, and the State is part of a larger series of ongoing conferences, run under the general banner 'At the Interface.' This series aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
Much of the law and behavioral science scholarship focuses on individual behavior without taking into account the larger institutional setting in which the behavior occurs. Political pressures complicate the behavioral analysis of legal institutions.
· Jan Votkinz Creating Southern Stations of Evil [ courtesy of Conference ]

In a nation without aristocracy, Hookes was one of those rarities, a prince among men; honest man who spoke his mind...
· A celebration, then a senseless tragedy: David Hookes

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As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion – but not their own facts.

Dishonest Socialisation of Loses: Are there parallels to be drawn or not?
Our goal here can’t be to find truth – that’s a job for philosophers and theologians. What we can do here is sort through the factual claims being made between now and election day, using the best techniques of journalism and scholarship.
And I can think of no better job for a journalist than holding politicians accountable for getting the facts right, regardless of their party or political philosophy.
Like the anarchists, Roosevelt diagnosed a growing awareness among Americans of genuine injustice. He believed, as few other politicians did, that the comforts of middle-class life blinded many of his fellow countrymen to the hardships endured by the majority of humankind - hardships whose effects might be lessened by political action.
And so, although Roosevelt opened his first address to Congress by pledging himself to fight the 'evil' of anarchism, he moved immediately into a much longer section of his speech titled 'Regulation of Corporations.' He proposed to address the great 'social problems' and the 'antagonism' of the day - the radicalism that threatened Americans' safety by trimming the excesses of unfettered capitalism.
· Corporate Welfare reaching new heights: (Kosciusko, Australia)
· The most evil corporate entity ever... (US)
[ via Political Fact Czech ]
[ courtesy of Is this a great job, or what?]
· Is Mina Naguib, the hackiest double dragon living in Montreal, or what?

My family is off again to Homebush Aquatic Centre where the NSW age swimming championships are being held covering ages 13-19 years/Over Age; covering the long, long, period from 13-19 January...
Swimming in our family emerged out of summer days splashing at Andrew (Boy) Charton and Bondi Iceberg pools, but the love of swimming came from the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef...
While many swimmers fall into the shooting star category, it is the healthiest sport on earth and almost as tough as ballet where extremely intensive dedication and love are a must. But, unlike ballet, swimming is objective. It is the ego, H2O and the clock...

True Passion Motivates Most Swimmers
The Middle Earth Europeans seem to be everywhere even at Homebush Aquatic Center and some even work for the IOI Scientific Committee (ISC) which in its maiden newsletter for the Athen Olympics poetically noted:
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
Are the ones who do!
The Olympics are still young and full of promises, for those who believe in them. I hope James Cumes might one day blog more about the true Olympic Spirit.
Meanwhile Dr. Tom Verhoeff, ISC Chair, writes that until IOI'99, the preparation and execution process suffered from a scaling problem...
The GA had very limited time to assess the tasks for approval and translation. This gave rise to long, intense, emotional discussions (a few well-informed persons versus a large group with little information), taking place under severe time constraints...
(As a result,) the ISC acts as an intermediary between GA and the HSC in the preparation and execution process. In all of this, it is important to remember that the ISC is intended to represent the GA. In fact, most ISC members have been GA members and they often return to the GA after serving on the ISC.
Now, we turn our attention to IOI 2004 in Athens, Greece. If the contact person has changed for your country from the one used in 2003, please send an email to Mr. Spyros Bakoyiannis, Greece, sbakogia@epy.gr so he will have an up-to-date list of the country contacts. The contact person is necessary for sending out country invitations to IOI 2004...
· Olympiad Newsletter (PDF format) [ courtesy of Turning Dreams to Realities]
· Thorpedo in Swimming to Athens mode [link first seen at NSW Swimming Championships ]
· Bidders begin 2012 Olympics race

True Blue Olympic Colours & Spirits: People over 60 in Wales will be given free access to swimming pools in the first move of its kind in Europe. The move follows a scheme which gave schoolchildren free swimming during last year's summer holidays... (Politicians of all colours take note)
Sadly, Gray - who first found fame delivering confessional, humorous stage monologues such as Swimming to Cambodia man is missing

Dreams

I eat, drink, live, sleep, dream of less soccer, sweatshops & station disasters ... But, greed almost always trumps ideology.

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McWorld
What could be more global than soccer? The world’s leading professional players and owners pay no mind to national borders, with major teams banking revenues in every currency available on the foreign exchange and billions of fans cheering for their champions in too many languages to count. But in many ways, the beautiful game reveals much more about globalization’s limits than its possibilities.
· Foreign Policy magazines are exploring the absurdity of Football
· Not Sparing the Sweatshop Rod
· Australia: Waterfall disaster

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The pundits are whispering that Bob Carr is likely to run over Amerika

Verbal shrines: Red Flags or Grinding Axes
Veteran journalists are coming to some grim conclusions about their industry. Are they raising red flags or merely grinding axes?
Much recent criticism of the media falls along conventional political fault lines - that the press is either too 'liberal' or too 'conservative.' In the years since Sept. 11 the criticism also has been politically polarized: We're not patriotic enough. We're not skeptical enough. We're anti-American traitors. We're flunkys for the White House and the Pentagon.
· We're not patriotic enough. We're not skeptical enough... [ via Romenesko ]
· It's not our job to be sources. The taxpayers don't pay us to leak! Our job is not to make your job easy... [ via Dismissive nature of some remarks in piece are striking ]

Something can exist which is much more powerful, and which we cannot imagine at all. In 1889, the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, having published one article by Rudyard Kipling, declined to accept any more of the author's work. The reason? 'I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling,' he explained, 'but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers.' Eighteen years later, Kipling (who had already written 'The Man Who Would Be King'), was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Double Dragon Pick Speaks the Language of Booklovers
Veteran singer-songwriter, John Hiatt, sings the language of music lovers in his newly penned lyrics for the unreleased song Cold River exclusively with Amazon.com customers.
Mothers teach us not to blow our own horn, but I recently received an email from a librarian who has recommeded my Cold River to other libraries and also included a link to this article:
I find the gestalt of the book world oppressive; it gives me a pain and it makes me grumpy. I find the movie-person's view of the arts much more congenial, whatever quarrels I may have with it. And I'm often left wondering: how can books people say of themselves that they love books when they look down their noses at 90% of the books that get published? They disdain not just Stephen King but also self-help books, visual books, and trash biographies; they relish little more than an intense discussion about what's a real book and what's not. (My staggeringly original response to this tiresome issue: They're all books, for god's sake.) IMHO, what books people love isn't books; what they love is their own standards, and their fantasies about what literature should be.
At times, it looked like my story would not be published. Then, the publishing stable of Double Dragon tried my Real Tail and the rest is history. So my gratitude goes to all librarians for keeping the ghosts of Morava River alive!
· Dreams and death shine a light on literally truth

Klima's simple style cloaked a fascination with moral uncertainties, divided loyalties, small betrayals and, above all, tortuous relationships between men and women. His books may well contain a higher incidence of adultery and infidelity than those of any other serious modern writer.
I have never been divorced. I love my wife. Like everybody else we have been through a period of problems. But not all my novels are based on my personal experience. Or, better to say: one experience helps you to invent more stories.
[ Bohemian writing My Beloved Prague ]
· Amazon's not-really-sekrit 800 number: 800 201 7575
In literary Amazon, the richest surname in the 21st century may be Jozef Imrich. (smile)[ courtesy of Boing]

GAMES

In America's first political mass media stunt, they constructed a 10-foot-high ball of twine, wood and tin, covered it with Whig political slogans, and rolled it first from Cleveland to Columbus and then from town to town across the country (hence the expression "Keep the ball rolling").

Keeping the Ball Rolling: The Sport of Empire
Football, like many games, involves penetrating an opponents territory. But unlike chess or basketball, violence is integral to football. To like football, you have to enjoy seeing large men hit each other. You have to enjoy a clash of small armies and the drama of combat.
· The war metaphor fit in other ways [ Real Game I want to like Howard, I really Do ]

Public Enemies Number One
The business of uncovering corruption is not for the faint-hearted. In France, Eva Joly, the country's best known magistrate, lived under 24-hour police protection for six years: six years spent in the knowledge that someone out there was being paid to track her and, given the opportunity, kill her. Joly didn't investigate Colombian drug barons or mafia networks - her work took place in a country which is one of the world's most civilised. She was investigating corruption among French politicians, lawyers and company directors. Corruption is usually a crime of the elite, of those with access to money and power.
· Businessmen, some of whom had already been fingered for corruption, moved their money into the media, knowing that no editor will publish defamatory material about one of the group's major shareholders
· Capone Dead At 48; Dry Era Gang Chief [ via L. Dennis Kozlowski ]

He was a man of high intelligence and innovative concepts whose talents, especially in international affairs, were widely respected by both friend and foe. Yet he was so motivated by hatreds and fears that he abused his powers and resorted to lies and cover-ups.
· Nixon: His Story

Rowland apologized
Rowland on Wednesday again apologized for accepting gifts at his summer cottage and lying about it, but he insisted he never provided any favors or took any actions in exchange for the gifts:
Tonight, I humbly ask for a renewed opportunity to earn back your trust, to redeem myself in your eyes and to continue to lead this state. As you can imagine, I've had many sleepless nights over the past few weeks.
· Trust

Quarantining dissent
Feorge W. Bush - champion of free speech? Nope. I hope I have the guts to defy the Secret Service about this if the opportunity ever presents itself.
As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free-speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.
The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us ...
· Designated Free-Speech Zone:1984 / 2004 [blatantly pinched from I am seriously beginning to think Howard Dean is a GOP plant. This guy is too good to be true. ]

Blog For One and All, But Especially for the Poweless Among Us
We're living in Internet time, kids, and we're not going back. We got here, in Morris's quick summary, by push and pull. The push is the shriveling audience for network news. Lyndon Johnson used his famous three-set console to keep an eye on ABC, CBS and NBC and see what 70 percent of the country was watching with him. The nightly news exposure gets 18 percent of the electorate these days. And though some pols will triple their TV buys to make up the difference, "it's the last gasp of a dying system." The pull, Morris says, is the fact that one quarter of the country is on a computer during prime time; 70 percent of Americans have regular Internet access. It's an entirely new age in politics.
-- I admit, I only occassionally checked in on Howard Dean's blog this year, but this thing simply changed politics, the media, and America in general like nothing since Drudge. When Dean wins in November, Joe Trippi will take a post in the administration that completely alters the way communities and governments function. Finally, a future to look forward to. · Blog For America
Rex's Best Blogs
Fimoculous (a.k.a., Rex Sorgatz) has comeout with its annual 30+ Best Blogs. Sorgatz identifies some of the usual suspects, as well as some you probably hadn't heard about but should know.
· Listing, which is always worth a look [ via E-Media Tidbits: Remember the Poweless and Give Bullies a Fearless Serve]

A number of good examples of the Best of 2003
Time to start planning now for the Best of 2004
· BBC profiles leading women who made international headlines
· Rediff.com in India has an online gallery of notable pictures
· San Francisco Chronicle profiles prominent locals who passed away
· Ravalli Republic features the best local news stories
· UK's Telegraph newspaper site has a review section on the best photography exhibits
· Best discoveries of the year by its travel writers
· The San Francisco Chronicle's site also has a review of the best books
· Times Picayune highlights the best local books of Louisiana writers
· Seattle Times reviews the year in rock music [ via E-Media Tidbits ]

Who has time to read books ? In any case, books are so ... second millennium. And most of them are overrated. And so many of them are too long. So, here's an idea: Read really good blogs -- e.g., The Me in Media Dragon (ironic grin...).
When certain bloggers blog, bullies do not dance in the streets. Most bloggers are writing in the shadows of Tim Dunlop and Tim Porter or writing bland stuff.

Strictly Iron Curtain
Over 1000 readers and nothing is the same again including my email ...A lesson in how not to conceal all the mean, messy, tragic and unhappy aspects of our existence from readers.
My fictional literary agent John Brockman, who even makes boring scientists into successful authors, has posted an intriguing question on his Edge website. He seeks suggestions for contemporary "laws", just as Boyle, Newton, Faraday and other pioneers gave their names to the rules of the physical universe. (That eminent pair, Sod and Murphy, soon followed suit.) Brockman advises his would-be legislators to stick to the scientific disciplines, and you can find their responses at www.edge.org/q2004:
For far too long, personal hunch and taste have persisted in an industry that should adhere to the strict principles of modern management. So, to welcome the new year, let's propose a few core principles to clarify the muddled business of books...( He's joking, of course, smile)
· All stories now are either quick, or dead: Over Thousand Thank Yous (sic) [blatantly pinched from ABCTales: Lianna and her Bohemian Bunch]

PS: At Amazon Surf, Swim, even Look Inside COLD RIVER

To protect your rivers, protect your mountains.
-Emperor Yu of China, 1600 BCE

Children and Refugees have and always will be the Mountains of Our Fragile World
Viliami Tanginoa died three years ago at the Maribyrnong detention centre. Now that the coroner has reported, Peter Mares looks at why...
· A death in the rain [ courtesy of Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology]
[ via Human rights 2003 ]
Law Enforcers Under Stress
· Soooo True: Jan Komensky is turning in his grave

MY AMAZON

Books are back, and their pages are filled with politics, biography, and history
Like a battleship, book publishing doesn't turn on a dime, so the old year's trends don't usually determine a new year's books. However, conversations with literary agents, who are always trying to sniff out what publishers want, turn up a few trends in publishing that may affect our reading in 2004 and beyond.
· The readers are back [ courtesy of http://www.boston.com/ae/books 1/1/04]
· TOP TROIKA: AMAZON, BLOGGER & GOOGLE
[ via Graceful Amazon: Thanks Jeff Bezos ]

Political Junkies Freewheeling 'Bloggers' Are Rewriting Rules Of Journalism
They used to be known as the boys on the bus: the big-name columnists, network TV producers and reporters for large-circulation newspapers who had the power to make or break a presidential candidate's reputation. Now they've got competition.
In the 2004 election, the boys (and girls) on the bus have been joined by a new class of political arbiters: the geeks on their laptops. They call themselves bloggers. Their mission: to remake political journalism and, quite possibly, democracy itself. The plan: to make an end run around big media by becoming publishers on the Internet.
· US Today overview of political blogs [ via US Today]
· Making yet another impressive, but vain attempt to shame the shameless [ courtesy of NRO'S Crystal Ball: great predictions for 2004 ]
· Paradox: Political parties more orthodox; religions more fluid [blatantly pinched from Electronic Voting Firm Hacked: 2004 Election ]

Marketing Plot: Cold River is about hot exposure on Google
I want to wish you all a happy New Year. I also want to thank you for being a valued visitor and friend. At Media Dragon, 2003 was a breakout year. We are now sponsored by environmentally friendly makers and marketers of savvy scooters. We have vaulted to number 5 & 10 on Google for the highly treasured keywords "cold river" We are also being recognized even more in the industry by large players like the Sydney Morning Herald.
I know you will enjoy links and investigative reporting scoops in 2004. Be sure to read Jozef eBook Cold River and his forthcoming profile of the Sydney.

Have a terrific 2004
Jozef Imrich
Co-Presidente

THE FIGHT FOR GOOD
The success of the Tolkien books and now films are rooted in the clear, compelling moral logic of his stories: good against evil...
· Rejecting Dilday's critique of the cult movies [ via Open Democracy]
· Library beefs up its eBook collection... [blatantly pinched from Ideas that will matter in 2004...]
PS: Consider a position with the Open Democracy as they are opening savvy global workshops in 2004.

The Year That Was

The Year That Was
The Net now makes it possible to take the pulse of readers by tracking what types of stories they search for and e-mail to friends. Many sites have taken advantage of this interactivity in creating year-end features. Rather than just pick and tell readers what the "Top Stories ofthe Year" are, journalists can now easily ask readers their opinion.
Here is MSNBC.com's survey and CNN.com's survey.
Most E-Mailed Articles of 2003
The brave New South Wales newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald is taking a leaf out of the city of New York. I expect other sites to imitate it in the future. At least, I hope they do. The New York Times has mined its 2003 e-mail data to create a smart series of slideshows showing the Most E-Mailed Articles of 2003. Iraq
and Jayson Blair were among the popular stories, not surprising, but so were from tales of sushi memos and yarns about talking fish.
And the Times was kind enough to waive the usual charge for archived articles and let users read these treats for free.
The slideshows include: Most E-Mailed News Articles ; Most E-Mailed Opinion Articles ; Most E-Mailed Magazine Articles ; Other Fare From the Top 100.

Top searches of 2003
Yahoo and Lycos have posted excellent summaries of the
top searches of 2003. In addition to overall searches, they've broken downthe searches by category --everything from the Top Jennifer Searches tothe Top Iraq-related searches.
Top Yahoo searches of 2003
Yahoo's top news searches were:
Cloning, Hurricane Isabel, Saddam Hussein, Laci Peterson, Affirmative Action, Elizabeth Smart, Jessica Lynch, Iraq War, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Rush Limbaugh, Cold River (smile)
Lycos' Web's Most Wanted 2003
Iraq War, Kobe Bryant, Space Shuttle Columbia,
Federal Do-Not-Call List, SARS, Michael Jackson arrest, MS Blaster/Lovsan Computer Virus, First Human Clone, Super Bowl XXXVII, Laci Peterson, Media Dragon (grin)
Amazing how different the lists are, eh? I never would have guessed.
Google usually does its own wrap-up of the year-in-search, but it hasn't posted its 2003 round-up yet (as at 1/1 2004). Here's last year's
2002 for comparision.
Google and Czech this page in the coming days for the 2003 summary: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
Have a happy New Year's!