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Excessive secrecy cripples everyone's ability to act by hiding government mistakes and corruption. Hence public knowledge is not inimical to national security, but integral to it.
-Nick Schwellenbach

Tracking Trends Great & Small: Secrets
Whistleblowers have become a fact of life - a seeming necessity - in our democracy. The most famous of them, Daniel Ellsberg, is touring Oregon this week to speak on behalf of what he feels is a vital part of the democratic conscience.
Ellsberg gained fame, as well as criminal charges that could have placed him in prison for 115 years, for making public in 1971 the Pentagon Papers, which awakened the nation to the illegality of the war in Vietnam.
I've gained insights into the psyche and courage of whistleblowers through correspondence with Ellsberg the past year.
• Greatest Whistleblower's Message Still Rings True; [Secrecy is expensive. Over the same period the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on classification increased nearly $2 billion, to $6.5 billion annually Government Secrecy Grows out of Control]
• · The Unforeseen Fruits of Hope Proud to be a Dead Armadillo: There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow line and dead armadillos; [Charles Krauthammer: The Art Of Losing Armadillos: Of all our allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the past 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France... [ The answer is Australia ]
• · · If the United States can produce the best scientists, the most gold medal winning athletes, the greatest business minds and the hottest rock and roll, there is no reason we shouldn't have the best world class killers, ninjas, wet work specialists and dedicated sociopaths as well This is the essence of cold revenge, terror against terror, but 100% targeted and, when performed professionally, absolutely safe for innocent bystanders; [Hamas Official Killed in Syria ]
• · · · Around eighty papers are available online. Topics range from waterfront developments, public transport and telecommunications to spatial inequality, parklands and sustainability State of Australian cities; [Australian Oral Health Alliance Call for action: oral teething problems ]
• · · · · Vivendi Universal (France), Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux (France), Bouygues-Saur (France), RWE-Thames (Germany) and Bechtel-United Utilities (US) have become the water barons who are taking over public utilities Just as we fought wars over oil, so will we fight wars over water by The Awakened Women
• · · · · · Both Parties See a Big Increase in New Voters ; [Swiss authorities have hailed as a success what they say is the world's first binding internet vote in a national referendum ]

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Our Lust For Wealth Made Us Civilized? A new scientific study says prehistoric hunters loved to be dripping in luxury goods, and the taste for flashy trinkets may have been what turned humans from savages into a civilised society with car number plates entitled IMRICH

Invisible Hands & Markets: Taxing Spiders Spread in All Directions
T am among the first to defend the IRS when it deserves to defended. It is underfunded, it is charged with administering a mess of a tax law, it is treated as though it wrote the foolish provisions in the tax law, and it is a favorite scapegoat of Congress for the latter’s tax legislation incompetence. But when the IRS does goof, it gets the headlines, and leaves the world thinking it’s like this all the time.
Modern culture needs to stop rewarding incompetence, laziness, greed, and crime, it needs to stop pretending something bad is good, and it needs to elevate the values of individual responsibility and accountability to the same level to which their counter-balancing forces, freedom and independence, have been raised.
• Confronting the problem head-on rather than pretending that reality is a fantasy [link first seen at ]
• · Each semester I explain to my students that the worse thing to do when in financial trouble is to avoid paying taxes by hiding income Tax Woes for Philadelphia Restauranteur; [link first seen at Jim Maule ]
• · · Pontiac G-6 midsize 2005 sports sedans Someone made a killing? Tax Consequences of Oprah's Car Giveaway
• · · · Is the Middle Class Shrinking?
• · · · · Extraordinary James Cumes Who is Chaff; Who is Grain
• · · · · · It's State Vs State For Movies American states are battling one another trying to lure entertainment projects: tax incentives designed to encourage film, television, and commercial production in their states, the battle between bordering states has intensified

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Byelection at Dubbo Death of an Independent MP, Tony McGrane;

Elections: Rubber can be mightier than the pencil: Pen Is, in fact, Mighty!
A concern that has been regularly raised by political parties, members, Senators and candidates is the level of mail returned unclaimed from mailings to electors.
Significant levels of returned mail from mailings, if generated from the most recent AEC-provided enrolment data, is rightly of concern. Alleged levels of mail returned unclaimed from mailings to electors prior to the election have also been subject to some public comment as indicative of gross inaccuracies in the roll used for the election or of possible attempts to place significant numbers of fraudulently enrolled persons on the roll for particular target Divisions. One wonders what is the percentage in 2004 of the mail returned unclaimed category. I had a brief contractual affair with the AEC in mid 90s and I must admit I was impressed by the Australian electoral system. The vote early and often method is almost impossible to put into practice and the regular knocking on doors (even drug dens) in order to verify the current occupancy was rather thorough. I also worked on the election day at the Bellevue Hill booths and I gathered that chances of anyone fiddling with the ballot papers were minimal. Still, my recommendation was that a pen rather than a pencil be used. (Ach, that recommendation did not go down too well). Still if a professional locksmith, or a cleaning contractor or the real estate agent (landlord) of the building wanted to be mischevious the opportunities are there for the seal of the electoral boxes to be broken. I doubt that anyone less paranoid than a good old Eastern European would actually detect anything unusual.
Political Party Rubber might be be mightier than the electoral pencil or unclaimed mail

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Street Fighting Men: Delving Into Democracy's Shadows
The sociologist Michael Mann took a detour from his epic study of power in human history. It led him straight to the horrors at the center of modern life.
In Fascists, Mr. Mann contends that the rise of right-wing authoritarian movements between the world wars can best be understood as, in effect, nation-statism forging not a cage but a concentration camp.
The culprit in genocide is not democracy, but a form of politics that uses words similar to [those employed by] democrats, but in a different semantic sense.
• The Grid and the Cage [Everywhere the S-word wreaks havoc. Iraqi terrorists kill hundreds of Americans and Iraqis to protest infringement of sovereignty by the Great Satan. Africans massacre other Africans because European-imposed "sovereign" borders clash with tribal allegiances. Violating 'Sovereignty': Questioning a Concept's Long Reign ]
• · Canterbury tales: Young Howard travelled to Kommunist Poland in sexy sixties where he had an interlude with a young Catholic woman in Warsaw Stubborn, methodical and always strategic, there would only ever be one career for John Howard ; [ Some of the juicier election snippets courtesy of Crikey]
• · · Sunday with Janka Wendt: Interview: Mark Latham ; [ Webdiary: Future shock: the ideology of Mark Latham ]
• · · · Sunday continues: Swinging voters: week 3
• · · · · Carr's history-making date with ICAC ; Czechoslovakian crystal chandeliers Mr Merritt, who has been seen behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce bearing the number plates THANKU, formerly ran Merritt Madden printing in Alexandria before retiring to the high life of the Southern Highlands. That company is now managed by the wife of the NSW Premier, Bob Carr, who by all accounts prefers to be known as Helena
[Members were given back-of-the-envelope calculations Belmont Golf Club and the developer, Terrace Tower ]
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The first is our history. Czechs have always been subjects of a larger multinational structure, be it the Roman, Habsburg, Nazi or communist empires. The fact that we have always been subjugated meant that we never learned the art of self-rule. Furthermore, when we did try to strike out on our own (as in 1938 and 1968), the world looked the other way and we paid a heavy price. That's why in 1989 we chose the easy way out. Instead of confronting the past, our dissidents drafted a compromise with the ruling communists, in which the latter merely transformed themselves into a capitalist mafia without relinquishing control. There was no true revolution, since freedom doesn't equal true democracy. This simple but ignored fact explains comments such as Nothing has really changed.
Czech Kommunism Revisited: In the wisecracking words of comedian Jay Leno, politics is just show business for ugly people: Gross’ Political Advertising and Gross' dubious sex appeal; [Gross’ Police in new scandal as anti-mob officer accused of gang links ]

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Truth or scare It's election time so it's on for young and more mature. Sydney Evening Herald, Nick Galvin, provides a political rainbow of websites he also delves into the dirt and decency

Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Human with the magic cislo (number) 55 consider yourselves lucky. You are reliable workers. You tend not to go out partying and clubbing till 2am Treasury upgrade fuels election war chest, Horse trading, More rebates and Offsets

Jakarta bombing story is unravelling and it breaks my heart. This little girl will have a deep effect on the election campaign. Well, she already has ... For four years, David Norman fought immigration authorities to enable his daughter and her Indonesian mother to live in Australia... Caught in the blast as they stood in a queue at the embassy's main gate, 27-year-old Maria Eva Kumalawati was among the nine people killed, while her daughter Elisabeth was shockingly injured

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Mark Morford: Who The Hell Is Undecided? And Why do so Many Election Polls leave you Angry and Stupefied and Drunk?
Polls are the genital warts of election year. They are the swarming gnats in your Jell-O salad, the dead escalator in your shopping mall, the sour milk in your coffee.
These polls are designed solely to mangle your head and confound your synapses and elate you and titillate you and then plunge you into instant despair and then yank you back out at the last second like some sort of "Fear Factor" death-plunge moronism.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Election campaign and party financing in Canada
Anthony M. Sayers and Lisa Young take a comparative look at political party funding in Canada and Australia. Among other things, they find that the lack of restrictions on contributions to Australian parties means that the large parties in particular do much better than their Canadian counterparts and limits the impact of public funding.
• [Democratic Audit of Australia, Australian National University (PDF file) ] Web of Influence: Political Party Funding in Canada and Australia; [He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat - Napoleon: Woo the Swing Voters, Screw the Base: Lose the Election?]
• · Security law on the books Freedom of speech is central to our democracy. The Howard government has sought too much legal control over what people say
• · · Bill Moyers and his colleagues say it was not the system that failed on 9/11. It was our leaders who failed America Circle Of Accountability
• · · · Alan Ramsey Independent spirits have the right attitude; Bad Spirit: Staff depart as old row returns to haunt Turnbull
• · · · · Paul Rogat Loeb Shut Up and Color: The Politics of Bullying ; History lover, Bob Carr admits to ICAC of acting 'inappropriately’; The Nerve of Carr
• · · · · · Judd Legum and David Sirota gather the evidence of the administration's manipulation of fear Vote For Bush Or Die ... Cheney's bald remarks this week were just the latest in a long pattern of deception; The Brave Posturing of Armchair Warriors ... Terror Is No Answer for Chechen Terror by Bernard-Henri Lévy ; There is no war against terrorism. There can be no such thing against an enemy that remains dormant most of the time and is almost never visible It's simply another of life's inevitable troubles, and all we can do as we continue to combat it is repeat Cervantes's famous phrase "Paciencia y barajar": "Have patience, and keep shuffling the cards”