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Barry O'Farrell and Peter Debnam are locked in a close contest to succeed disgraced former NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden If outside experience, professionalism, and long-term survival matters - Peter Debnam it is! A month ago it was Bob Carr and John Brogden. Now, in the space of the winter parliamentary break, the state has lost a premier, a deputy premier, and the opposition leader Angela Cuming on a proposition

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Shattered Brogden's suicide bid
Democracy allows that we are led by fragile leaders

John Brogden was rushed to hospital last night after an apparent suicide attempt, one day after he resigned in disgrace as the NSW Opposition Leader. He was found at his Pittwater electorate office some time before 11pm with self-inflicted stab wounds. He is believed to have been in a drug-and alcohol-induced stupor, and was taken by ambulance to Royal North Shore Hospital.

• Turning 'Unknown' Into 'Unknowable' [Crikey: Political leaders have to go and eat turd sandwiches while smiling ; A suicide attempt by former NSW opposition leader John Brogden has left his family, friends and Liberal party colleagues shocked and distraught Brogden suicide attempt ; Brogden's sordid past revealed ]
• · By Gregory Lyon and Jean du Plessis Names such as Hannes, Rivkin and, more recently, Vizard have thrown the spotlight on insider trading. In light of the prosecutions arising from these high profile cases this book is timely The Law of Insider Trading in Australia; A minority, however vocal, cannot impose its will on the rest of us if we decline to permit it. Not even if the President seems to side with them; he is, after all, merely the first among equals, and he will not own that flag much longer. Reluctant Leaders; Policy Parade
• · · Back in 1999 at a conference on infrastructure in Sydney, Hon Graham Hill made me realise that tax could be a very fascinating area to study. It is with great sadness to learn of his the sudden passing of the, Judge, Federal Court of Australia. Graham was made a Judge of the Federal Court on 1 February 1989 and had a long and highly distinguished involvement in the field of taxation, not only on the Bench but also as an educator, a much sought-after speaker and an author. He had a vast depth and breadth of knowledge of taxation, and was always willing to impart that expertise and knowledge to others Death of the Hon Graham Hill ; Appeal could end tax minimisation
• · · · Greg Maddock 'Whistleblower of the year' named ; Ashley Lavelle: Labor’s problems are symptomatic of a crisis in international social democracy – a crisis of declining electoral support, falling party membership, and of a lack of ideas and purpose The crisis in federal Labor ; Paul Williams analyses Peter Beattie’s two weekend by-election defeats No more Mr Nice Guy?; The first part of this revised brief discusses the 141 by-elections for the House of Representatives since Federation, including the most recent for the New South Wales division of Werriwa Research Brief 1: House of Representatives by-elections 1901 to 2005
• · · · · If we refuse to discuss torture, then we lose the opportunity to publicly explain the reasons why torture is so objectionable, argues Ben Saul. Torture irreparably damages human dignity, devalues human life, and corrupts the institutions of our democracy Torture degrades us all ; Peter Jennings argues that both sides of the anti-terrorism dialogue must give ground Listening, not lecturing, is the answer
• · · · · · Dr David Clune (head of the research area) and Stewart Smith provide an overview of desalination plants and technology from around the world, including case studies, in the context of current NSW government policy Desalination, waste water, and the Sydney Metropolitan Water Plan ; Towards a new Australian suburbanism ; Refugees and regional settlement: balancing priorities

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We must select the illusion
which appeals to our temperament,
and embrace it with passion.
-Cyril Connolly

One of the greediest moves ever by big telephone companies appears — for the moment — to have run amok, if not backfired City-Sponsored Wi-Fi's Wild Ride

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Parting remarks on the Australian Public Service
I would like to focus on the perennial challenge for the Australian Public Service, the balancing of our responsibility to be responsive, with our responsibilities to be apolitical, impartial and professional.

There was bipartisan consensus in the 1970s and 1980s that the Service was too independent and not as responsive to the elected Government as it ought to be. I doubt there are many today, however, who would argue that the Public Service needs to shift the balance further towards responsiveness. The serious questions today concern our professionalism and our impartiality, and whether our obligation to be responsive has caused some of us sometimes to be too concerned to please

• PS [Learning from America ; There’s no justification for taxpayer dollars being used to fund party political activity by governments Selling the Australian government ]
• · Inept police, politics, Internet and 'cucumber season' combine CzechTek: Anatomy of a scandal; Former Cold War mole Minarík gets re-charged in Munich terrorism plot State reopens bomb case against RFE spy ; FOIA Lawsuit to Obtain JFK Records Blocked by CIA
• · · The saga of Vivian Alvarez Solon is much more than the string of wrongs so carelessly and callously inflicted upon the seriously ill Australian mother A culture of denial ; Researching Librarian
• · · · The State of Online Legislative Research and What Makes a Good Legislative History, by Susan H. Paschell Legislative research ; Everybody loves a good story. Washington of course, has lots of them: political maneuverings and international intrigue The Document’s Story: Legislative Narration ; The mood in America is shifting against the Iraq war, but it has found inadequate expression in Congress Leaderless on the Left
• · · · · Public access to information under the FOIA; More Than 4 Million FOIA Requests Made in 2004 ; Revising constituency boundaries in the United States and Australia: it couldn’t be more different Democratic Audit of Australia (summary); Report (PFD) - Richard Engstrom provides a comparative analysis
• · · · · · Suing into submission: using litigation to quell dissent ; Underground banking: legitimate remittance network or money laundering system?

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Ethicist once aptly stated: Attraction is a feeling. Love is a choice...

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To quote Staind: 'It's Been Awhile' since I have been given an opportunity to love a movie. Last night I watched a masterpiece. In About Schmidt we come across Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) who has arrived at several of life's crossroads all at the same time. Everything in his world was both under control and about to go madly wrong and fall apart. About Schmidt is nothing more or less than the opportunity to spend some time with the kind of man that we often meet in real life’s crossroads, in real pubs, in real chaos clubs, but rarely view on screens. If you're not deeply touched by this movie, check your pulse as this story gave me emotional whiplash. Jack uses his specific acting talent not just to entertain us but to open our mind for the possibly deep emptiness of people who call somewhere in their life and recognize that they aren't as rich as they are supposed to be. This strangely simple/complex character, Schmidt, tries to convince the audience that a full life should be the goal instead of just living without being aware of their own role. This can give a very positive motivation for every age.

During this darkly painful odyssey, Warren details his adventures and shares his observations with an unexpected new friend and confessor -- Ndugu Umbo, a six-year-old Tanzanian orphan whom he sponsors for $22 a month through an organization that advertises on TV. From these long letters filled with a lifetime of things unsaid, Warren begins -- perhaps for the first time -- to glimpse himself and the life he has lived. Inside the metaphorical forrest of ‘About Schmidt’ words seem magical and tragic. One moment we are in almost blinding sunlight, the next pitched under a dark blanket where the temperature is ten degrees cooler.

The script has very edgy material...
When I was a kid I used to think that maybe I was special, that somehow destiny had tapped me to be a great man - not like Churchill or Walt Disney or somebody like that. But somebody, you know, at least semi-important.

We see his melancholy through his exaggerated drunken state:
I can't get over you guys. No drinking, no carousing, no carrying on at all. I thought you college kids - let me tell you something, and I want you to listen very hard. That test tomorrow is meaningless. The senselessness of it all is going to hit you someday like a ton of bricks.

Live life to the point of tears.
-Albert Camus

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Bureaucracy is a much-maligned feature of contemporary government. And yet the aftermath of September 11 has opened the door to a reassessment of the role of a skilled civil service in the survival and viability of democratic society Dismantling Democratic States 10 days that dismantled the Labor Party Bloodbath in Macquarie Street There were inklings of Bob Carr's resignation two months before the event, write a journalistic couple, Robert Wainwright and Paola Totaro, (czech out hard copy for an exclusive diary entry) Premier's silence gave game away

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Taxing Australian Federalism
The States, argues former Queensland Treasurer David Hamill, are in danger of becoming just another set of service providers to the Commonwealth as major changes continue to be wrought upon the nation's fiscal powers.

The Howard Government heralded its New Tax System (ANTS) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as a major reform of Australia's taxation system that would also enhance the financial capacity of Australia's States and Territories to provide community services. It was claimed that these reforms would arrest the erosion of States' and Territories' fiscal capacity that had occurred with the Commonwealth expanding its role in the social and economic affairs of the nation over the course of the twentieth century. In reality, ANTS and the GST have done exactly the opposite

• ANTS [One in 13 of the country's wealthiest individuals will soon be investigated by the Tax Office or locked in disputes with it - many for failing to disclose offshore assets or income Pay your dues, Tax Office tells wealthy; The death of the NSW property tax and end of vendor duty will speed fall in house prices Carr denies delaying vendor tax decision ; Web Porn to be Taxed, Filtered]
• · Health: Policy or Polyfilla? We need political leadership in Australia ; Information, e-government and opportunity: A public housing estate online
• · · Hurting family life and the working poor Pell and Jensen raise IR protest to critical mass; Labor needs some conviction politics Kim Beazley’s Tampa? ; John Quiggin doubts whether further privatisation of Telstra will benefit taxpayers T3 will be another disaster
• · · · Traudl Junge, the central character of the recent controversial movie Downfall, lived in Sydney with her younger sister The secret life of Hitler's secretary; Torture: The slippery slope to surrender to terror ; Bin Laden may not be capable of organising terror attacks directly, but then he does not need to Al-Qaida is now an idea, not an organisation
• · · · · Mushy middle? No way! A twelve-point creative-centrist agenda ; Ten best American political novels, 1945 - 2000 ; It's the perfume of the radical that gives him his edge Why Giorgio Agamben is so popular ; Government Regulation of Irrationality: Moral and Cognitive Hazards
• · · · · · The Real Aipac Spy Ring Story -- It Was All About Iran ; Before the War, CIA Reportedly Trained a Team of Iraqis to Aid U.S Scorpions ; Galloway says Blair and Bush Have blood on their hands

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Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do.You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles
-Abbie Hoffman

While Ohmynews is changing the way news is produced in Korea, and Dan Gilmour is changing the way news for the San Francisco Bay Area of the US with Bayoshpere – here in the UK citizen journalism isn’t really taking hold Citizen-journalism already overtaken by big media in UK?

Buchwald helps citizen journalists write a really good column Voice of the people

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Potent Voices vs. Unheard Voices
The conventional news media are embattled. Attacked by both left and right in book after book, rocked by scandals, challenged by upstart bloggers, they have become a focus of controversy and concern.

Their audience is in decline, their credibility with the public in shreds. In a recent poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 65 percent of the respondents thought that most news organizations, if they discover they've made a mistake, try to ignore it or cover it up, and 79 percent opined that a media company would hesitate to carry negative stories about a corporation from which it received substantial advertising revenues

• Bad News [
He hacks on and on about the "crisis" in old media in the Times Book Review Judge Posner's Incorrect Verdict ; Posner rehashed tired "liberal media" claims ]
• · Michael McKinnon and his battles with bureaucrats over access to vital documents explaining the decision making process behind federal government policies News loses FOI bid on taxation ; To Serve The National City And Through It The Nation FOI Act may as well be scrapped Transparency and accountability: a blistering editorial ; CCTV fails when it might be inconvenient to Police
• · ·
• · · · Save the rainforests by having a beer, help African school-children by eating chocolate: companies have discovered that the way to a customer's pocket is through his heart. But just how ethical is "ethical marketing?" Just how ethical is "ethical marketing"? Selling Goods by Doing Good ; The blogosphere sets off a debate on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’ Reconsidered ; Jason Calacanis, fed up with the Technorati 100, will pay you $10,000 to design a Blog 500 list
• · · · · From Technology Review, Lawrence Lessig on how the people own ideas: We entered the youth camp that morning by passing down a long, white gravel road and under a wooden gate. Spread to one side, and for as far as you could see, were rows and rows of tents. In front were scores of showers, with hundreds of kids in swimsuits milling about, waiting to rinse. It felt like a refugee camp The People Own Ideas! [a response by Richard Epstein, ; Years ago I swore off responding to Professor Epstein in print--not because he's not full of ideas and very often right (he is both of those things, and more), but because it's so hard to get him to listen... and a rebuttal by Lessig ]
• · · · · · Dark Blogs Case Study 01 - A European Pharmaceutical Group ; Des Moines Register on bloggers: losers Blog 'reports' lack media's credibility ; Interview with the AdSense million dollar man, Jason Calacanis People who don’t like RSS advertising are freaks