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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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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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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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Google: Dirty business of war profiteering gets dirtier

Invisible Hands & Markets: Corruption stench as company loses Iraq contract
One of Australia's largest postwar contracts in Iraq has collapsed, with the partners embroiled in a multi-million-dollar legal battle and allegations of corruption in the awarding of contracts by a leading Pentagon supplier.
Morris Corporation, a Queensland catering company that has delivered meals to the armed forces in hot-spots from Somalia to Cambodia, was dumped last year by the giant US military contractor Halliburton, losing a $100 million contract to supply meals to US troops in Iraq.
· Corruption stench as company loses Iraq contract [link first seen at Halliburton: Hell's kitchen]
· See Also Goodbye to the over-40 hour working week
· See Also A self-sufficient hero says to heck with all those nitpicky, clock-punching bureaucrats
· See Also Ben Stein on the tale of the toaster, or how trade deficits are good (doc file)
· See Also Contrabassist and the CEO: Moral Judgment and Collective Identity

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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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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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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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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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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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According to Reuters, BMW drivers are more likely to lie to magazine surveys, and Porsche drivers really are trying to compensate for something.

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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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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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

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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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Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed when an explosion tore through a stadium where he was attending a Victory Day celebration

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Rumsfeld Accepts Blame and Offers Apology in Abuse
So to those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology," Mr. Rumsfeld said as he began a marathon day of testimony on Capitol Hill, much of it televised live on all major networks. Lawmakers called back-to-back hearings to examine cases of detainee abuse that have ignited world outrage and brought Mr. Rumsfeld a personal scolding from President Bush.
· No ifs, ands or butts if there's a failure, it's me: The Worst Is Yet To Come [ via NYTimes (reg. req.)]
· See Also I had come to see Colin Powell because, for several weeks, his closest friends and colleagues had been telegraphing a story to me. Powell was finished, they'd said. Exhausted. Frustrated. Bitter... Unfortunately, the truth is scarier than the lie
· Karl Rove Tells Graduates Character Matters: America needs people who have the moral clarity and courage to do what's right, regardless of consequence, fashion or fad
· See Also Are there times when we have to accept torture?
· See Also How News Becomes News: Abu Ghraib: 1,000 Words
· See Also The Supreme Court Asks: Who Will Guard the Guardians?
· See Also The Seeds of Abu Ghraib were Sown in American Prisons
· See Also This is the New Gulag: Bush has Created a Global Network of Extra-legal and Secret US Prisons with Thousands of Inmates...
· See Also Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern
· See Also Why the radio rorts go on, and on: David Flint is a problem, but his masters in government are the real villains of the piece
· See Also Japanese Political Pension Scandal
· See Also Redistricting allows politicians to choose their voters before the voters get to choose them

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We've now reached the point where nothing happened unless it is linked by digital images on the web...

The Blog, The Press, The Media: How the Media Dragon Word Gets Around
The blogosphere has a strange ability to push a seemingly obscure idea into the forefront of people's minds in a heartbeat. How this happens is a bit of a mystery. Sam Arbesman wanted to know how it works, so he created a meme and set it loose.
· MeFi readers were more likely to infect others with the meme than were those of kottke.org
· See Also Editors should praise — not punish — dissenters: As I've always said, when you're too busy to write, use someone else's words

To be able to send out a book to a future publisher is so much more impressive than a web link, but to be able to send a book and an online audience of thousands to a publisher is even better...
· See Also Ben Hammersley reports on the writers and artists who are earning money through the internet with micropayments [ courtesy of Ben Hammersley]
· See Also The Blog of Things To Come: Joi Ito is using his Weblog to put his virtual organization into action [Link Poached from Lucid article about Joi Ito]

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Reason: Fools for Communism: Still apologists after all these years
In 1983, or more likely in 1984, the Indiana University historian Robert F. Byrnes collected essays from 35 experts on the Soviet Union -- the cream of American academia -- in a book titled After Brezhnev. Their conclusion: Any U.S. thought of winning the Cold War was a pipe dream. "The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with a very stable, conservative, immobile government," Byrnes said in an interview, summing up the book. "We don’t see any collapse or weakening of the Soviet system."
Barely six years later, the Soviet empire began falling apart. By 1991 it had vanished from the face of the earth. Did Professor Byrnes call a press conference to offer an apology for the collective stupidity of his colleagues, or for his part in recording it? Did he edit a new work titled Gosh, We Didn’t Know Our Ass From Our Elbow? Hardly. Being part of the American chattering class means never having to say you’re sorry.
· In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage, by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr [ courtesy of REASON ]
· See Also Prague's Liberation: Only years later would I learn that the western part of Czechoslovakia had been liberated by troops of the U.S. Third Army under the command of Gen. George S. Patton
· See Also European Union: Giving Good Soldier Svejk a needed break
· See Also BookWorldPrague is back, with an impressive literary flourish

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Bush team takes hit on secret files
In several recent cases, the administration first refused requests for information by saying that releasing it would jeopardize national security, then released that same information itself at a moment when it became politically convenient to do so -- leaving the impression that it was safe to release all along.
· Document declassifications: Why a Village Well Is a Weapon in the War on Terror
· See Also Wilkie, Bolt and ONA at odds over top secret report
· See Also Webdiary columnist Antony Loewenstein interviews U.S. whistleblower Joseph Wilson

A growing log of omissions, alterations, and distortions of vital information that was once readily available through government sources.
· See Also MisInformation Exchange

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A fast spreading nightmare called Sasser hit thousands of PCs within the last few days...
To see beyond their own little world and get a sense of what's really going on, journalists and readers need to get out of their pajamas!

Battlefield of Dreams
Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month, the situation was truly desperate.
· T Time [ via NYTimes.com ]
· See Also Instinct for bureaucratic self-protection: Cat's got his tongue about Abu Ghraib? [ via JohnQuiggin.com ]
· See Also Say hello to Media Matters, the new website headed up by former conservative journalist David Brock
· See Also The Next Velvet Revolution Will Not Be Blogged

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A fast spreading nightmare called Sasser hit thousands of PCs within the last few days...
To see beyond their own little world and get a sense of what's really going on, journalists and readers need to get out of their pajamas!

Battlefield of Dreams
Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month, the situation was truly desperate.
· T Time [ via NYTimes.com ]
· See Also Instinct for bureaucratic self-protection: Cat's got his tongue about Abu Ghraib? [ via JohnQuiggin.com ]
· See Also Say hello to Media Matters, the new website headed up by former conservative journalist David Brock
· See Also The Next Velvet Revolution Will Not Be Blogged

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There is nothing about this story that doesn't make my memories of my days in the Czechoslovak Army alive...

Iron Curtains Ordered for Military in torture scandal
I'm not one who puts the UK press on a pedestal - I've lived enough to know that it too occasionally has an on-again off-again relationship with the truth. But, it is pretty sad that we have to turn to the Guardian to learn a key detail about the prison torture story. A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.
· Keep doing things that can only reinforce the perception around the world that America is a big bully [ via Atrios: acusados de obrigar iraquianos a simular actos sexuais e a fazer pirâmides humanas]
· See Also Photos show jail abuse by US troops
· See Also ...if proven, the Brittish perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform and they have besmirched the Army's good name and conduct
· See Also Triumph turns to tragedy: More Agents Track MEdia Dragon Than Bin Laden
· See Also Listing of those killed in Iraq is now on the American ABC website

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The past decade has been one of the most eventful in American political history, from the Republican takeover of Congress to the presidential impeachment, the resignation of two speakers of the House, the deadlocked presidential election, the 2001 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more... (Insert another shameless plug for Technorati here!)

Why Books Are the Hot Medium
Former government officials have committed their recollections to books at least since 1934, when a former White House usher, Irwin Hood Hoover, published the memoir "Forty-Two Years in the White House"... But seldom, if ever, have as many volumes thick with inside details of an administration appeared as fast as they have during the presidency of George W. Bush.
· Memoirs [link first seen at NYTimes.com]
· See Also Insert another shameless plug for Cold Medium: I may not know what writting is but I know what I survived...
· See Also A man, a man's man, a manly man
· See Also The Jesus Factor in Amerikan Politics
· See Also Pledge to give power to the people takes centre stage
· See Also Machiavelli's philosophy: It is notoriously vile and his name has become an adjective for evil and two-faced-ness.