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As the late Roger Straus, one of the great postwar publishers, notable for his plain speaking, was fond of observing: Even a blind pig will eventually find his truffle.

Invisible Hands & Markets: The Slovak Dragon
From problematic baby brother in a fringe region to tax haven and industrial centre, the small Slovak republic has come a long way, but at least it's on the right track. It's been called the Detroit of Europe, even though the Hong Kong of Europe might be more appropriate. Recently Deutsche Welle labeled Slovakia A Monaco on the Danube. Even more importantly, it's not out of the question that soon we will hear about the Slovakias of Africa or South America (or Iraq).
Ask anyone who's been traveling in Central Europe to name the first thing that comes to mind when they think about the Slovak Republic. The most likely answer you will get is a baby brother complex. True, a hiker might think of the Tatra Mountains, and anyone with a broader historical perspective might mention the Bratislava cathedral and the fact that for a period the Habsburgs used to be crowned there. But it's still there, this feeling of inferiority. Or is it?
There are more important things than politics, and that government should not mess too much with peoples' lives or the economy.
· The Slavic Tiger [history first seen at Muddy History]
· · See Also Changing mindsets and fortunes in the poorest nations
· · · See Also Sir John Templeton donates $1 million to counter George Soros
· · · · See Also Ach Europa: Questions about a European public space
· · · · · See Also Dialogue of the deaf: Europeans talk a lot about each other but less with each other
· · · · · · See Also Housing eats up 40% of income

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84-year-old Bob Bemer, computer pioneer who developed the code that allows computers to understand text as a series of numbers, passed away June 22 in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas. His USA Today obituary says his personal motto was...((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Culture Wars
For years the left has dominated our cultural institutions. Now the right is fighting back. For dispatches from the front line, join The Bulletin's Tim Blair, Fairfax columnist Greg Hywood, and ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine. Are our universities, museums - and even Radio National - diverse enough?
The culture wars are the battle for ideas that's raging in our institutions, such as universities, courts, churches, schools…they involve subjects such as the environment, the right sort of marriage, Aborigines' history. Recently in the New York Times, writer David Brooks said that the university educated class in America has now split into two groups, which he calls professionals and managers. Professionals are teachers, some lawyers, academics, journalists—people who tend to work in the knowledge industry. On the other hand we have managers, who tend to work for business and corporations; often involved in making things. These two groups, he said, have different beliefs and this lies at the basis of many of the culture wars and much public debate in our time.
· Counterpoints [ courtesy of www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/counterpoint/] [[ Who are Britain's top 100 intellectuals?]]> (( Who are Dragon's 50 Coolest Blogs?)) (((Blogging: Bill Gates has a reputation for coming late to the party, then making a big splash when he arrives )))
· · See Also Bullyboy Bolt meets his match in Senator Mackay: Bolt sends dozens of emails a day, however, he probably got more than he bargained for (( LAT editor: We've got to try harder to be heard out here))
· · · See Also A libel allegation [against Seymour Hersh] has been reduced to a request for a correction, which is a little like a demolition artist placing an order for nitroglycerin but settling for nitrous oxide ((Besides choosing the highest security settings for Internet Explorer, Windows users could download an alternate browser, such as Mozilla or Opera. Mac users are not in danger)) (((Search Engine Optimization Submission Placement Ranking )))
· · · · · See Also Britton: I thought former Sun-Times boss Radler was a snake

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Alan Kohler writes: The business of selling tax deductions is just finishing off another very big June
Ross Gittins writes: Tax changes bent on punishing working wives
...Tax Call to support the other gaming, not just film, industry

Down Under you feel like you're watching The Sopranos on a bear pit scale when you watch the Stiff; (t)electorising the lives of the minders of likely suspects such as the former leader of the House, Paul Whelan and the former Speaker, John Murray...

Invisible Hands & Markets: Singleton bets on all-Australian TV stiffis
Concerned about the erosion of Australian culture, ad man John Singleton is prepared to write a very big czech for a fourth commercial TV network which would show only local programs.
· How Magician John Makes Rupert Dissapear from Antipodean Tube [link first seen at Back Pages & MEdia Dragon Prayers Answered] (((More people are rejecting traditional sales messages, presenting the ad industry with big challenges & Ocker John knows that
· · See Also Paul Krugman a wicked economist? [worth czeching The wickedly honest Antipodean]
· · · See Also Many Minorities Prove They're Unfit For Home Ownership
· · · · See Also So the Iranians seized some British warships ....Crazy action turns out to be not so crazy at all (( Economy that never sleeps))
· · · · · See Also Swedenization of Europe ((Willing Slaves: how the overwork culture is ruling our lives ))
· · · · · · See Also CBS News Confirms Amazon.com Partnership, Profiting from Clinton Book Sales

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Everybody needs good budgets ...Egan rides through the turbulence of his last budget; surfing the waves Ego Inc.

Time to ponder on The Perspective of Wealth & Freedom by Amartya Sen

Invisible Hands & Markets: Poverty and income gaps
I've been alerted to this story by Miranda Devine saying that the tragic house fire in Sydney a couple of days happened because the family couldn't afford blankets. It's often been asserted that poverty is an out-of-date concept, but there is still plenty of absolute deprivation in modern societies.
Devine's article focuses on the need for more charitable effort on the part of those of us who are doing well, and this is an important point. Most of us could give more than we do without suffering too much as a result. We should all think about it and try to make more of an effort. But it's equally important to look at the economic structures and government policies that have led to growing (or, depending on how you measure it) unimproved poverty rates over a long period of reasonably good economic growth.
· Quiggin on Poverty [link first seen at John Quiggin]
· · See Also What is the secret of Ikea's success?
· · · See Also Jim Holt on the idea that happiness can harm a person's character[link first seen at The Perspective of Freedom ]
· · · · See Also Surge in claims for workplace stress (( Altruism in evil ))
· · · · · See Also A look at the New Geeks, people who are technically trained but also work in other disciplines
· · · · · · See Also Long and close look at Air America's financial troubles

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How James Hardie's spin turned to mud

Invisible Hands & Markets: AN EYE FOR AN EYE And eventually all will be blind
A Monitor article this week looks at the proposed construction project of two bridges in Alaska, in addition to other transportation improvement measures, totaling $2 billion. The project is testing lawmakers and voters' sensibilities
· Peering over a Pork Barrel: Alaska's 'bridges to nowhere' [link first seen at CS Monitor]
· · See Also Northern Lights Internet Solutions, Ltd: Darlene Fichter
· · · See Also The Working Poor: Invisible in America
· · · · See Also New Invisible Age culture
· · · · · See Also Merhan Karimi Nasseri has lived in a Paris airport for 15 years, and now Hollywood is knocking: the inspiration for a Spielberg film, The Termina, starring Tom Hanks!
· · · · · · See Also Here’s a way to get young people registered to vote: Give them free beer & Cold River

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No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history ...

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Facing up to conflicts of interest
Lies, postage stamps and stationery brought a sad end to Richard Face's political career, but his demise has a sting in the tail for politicians.
The issue of a cooling-off period for ministers before they take up lucrative positions in the private sector not a million miles from their portfolio has been around for years.
The Greiner Government tried to introduce a two-year cooling-off period, but it was largely ignored by its own departing ministers.
IN ITS report, ICAC has recommended new rules for departing ministers. It says they should include a process for approving or advising ministers about offers of employment before or after they leave office, a specified cooling-off period before they can accept work in their former area of responsibility and, most importantly, some way of "appropriately enforcing the rules".
· Three other states have codes of conduct [ Elsewhere The Independent Commission Against Corruption: Face should be charged ] [ Which is worse:... Tough choice. ICAC report (PDF Format)
· · See Also Wild Factional Fists at Punchbowl: Liberals may sack brawling recruits
· · · See Also The political elites of Australia: France's most profound contribution to the post-Cold War order was made by doctors, not armies [ Malcolm's seen Labor's enemy - and it's Peter Garrett: Raising the spectre of the former rock singer being under the dictat of a shadowy central committee
· · · · See Also An American officer referred to the Abu Ghraib scandal as a moral Chernobyl [Link Elsewhere 50-page PDF version of the memo: We may have to start using blunt words like murder and rape to describe what we see]
· · · · · See Also Morality lost, as Australia refuses to acknowledge its implication in torture
· · · · · · See Also Failing to take into account alternative transport solutions or land-use potential
· · · · · · See Also A new independent watchdog body with royal commission powers will be established to oversee the nation's federal crime agencies

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John Ruskin, the 19th century essayist, called illth. The tragedy—the Tragedy of the Market, one might say—is that it has to create problems and needs, or the gears will grind to a halt...
But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know the Truth?

Tragedy & Market Across Frontiers: George Orwell… meet Franz Kafka: Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes
These are, in fact, documents of shame, symbolic of a kind of bureaucratic lawlessness let loose at the heart of our government. They are intent on creating a pseudo-legal basis for replacing the rule of law with the rule of a commander-in-chief. As Robert Kuttner put it in the Boston Globe, For nearly three years, the Bush administration has resorted to the most preposterous fictions to define either locales or categories of people to whom the law does not apply. If you connect the dots, the torture at Abu Ghraib is part of a larger slide toward tyranny as the Bush administration tries to exempt itself from the rule of law.
As justifications for torture, these are the sorts of documents one can imagine finding in the files of some grim third world dictatorship or maybe the former Apartheid regime of South Africa
· Good law is in a new drug: Lawlessness [ via All knowledge is either physics or stamp collecting]
· · See Also What is the good Luxury Fever? Rising materialism[ via But Money can buy happiness after all]
· · · See Also Land of private affluence and public poverty: When schools and libraries are begging for funds in the richest nation in the world, only a confirmed ideologue could deny that something is out of whack
· · · · See Also I hope Bush steals another election...This is America, not Denmark. In this country, tens of millions of people choose to watch FoxNews not simply because Americans are credulous idiots or at the behest of some right-wing corporate cabal, but because average Americans respect viciousness
· · · · · See Also MAKING A KILLING: New war profiteers
· · · · · · See Also How philosophy makes job of 'selling' Standard Life easier

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German, French and British voters dealt swift kicks to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair this weekend by electing anti-European Union candidates to the European Parliament.
Even in European countries that are new to democracy, voters find things to do other than voting for a new European Parliament. Apathy and scepticism mark first EU vote in "New Europe"
A breakdown of the 732-seat European Parliament after historic elections that saw some 150 million Europeans cast ballots across 25 member nations of the expanded European DisUnion.
Official Site of European Parliament provides raw data

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Poor Version of Democracy
While the United States wages war to expand democracy around the world, how is our own democracy doing? Not very well, says a group of distinguished scholars.
The voices of American citizens are raised and heard unequally. The privileged participate more than others and are increasingly well organized to press their demands on government. Public officials, in turn, are much more responsive to the privileged than to average citizens and the least affluent.
· Disparities in political participation, the report says, ensure that ordinary Americans speak in a whisper while the most advantaged roar. [“right” liberals versus “false” ones The Importance of Norberto Bobbio ]
· · See Also Which presidential style is best? [ via Imagined Communities: Not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings]
· · · See Also Campaigns Drawn to Political Labels: e(l)ectionconnoisairs , pollsters, political scientists and media pundits create catching-phrases to coin swing voters

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All that I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three, I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety, I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at 100, I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am 110, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive.
Hokusai, A Hundred Views of Fuji (Tatra Mountains)

Invisible Hands & Markets: No More Escapes Across Iron Curtains As The Next Velvet Revolution will be Bogged: Between hither and yon
Most of the youth of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are not optimistic -- social services have collapsed and life expectancy is down.
The young largely brought about the collapse of communist regimes. They were the ones who went to demonstrations and meetings, and led the strike actions.
Now their children are disappointed and mistrustful of politics. Average youth unemployment is twice the general level. Many feel they have been failed by the adults who promised beautiful living and freedom that for many has turned into poverty, fear and loneliness.
· We expected better [link first seen at Prague Post]
· · See Also America is the land of the sex-discrimination lawsuit: the world's biggest award, of $10.6m, was made by an American jury in 2002 to a former employee of Hoffman LaRoche
· · · See Also William Powers on how it pays to be wrong in the news business
· · · · See Also I find BMW's with number plates like "IMRICH" really a bit rich: How to treat corporate criminals
· · · · · See Also U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell “was trying to steer a no-bid contract to a software company called Thinkstream Inc.
· · · · · · See Also Bio-terror is the name of the dream that post-modern societies dream in their self-appointed state of war, and "anthrax" the fulfilment of that wish [Extract from Cold River State of communist economy]
· · · · · · · See Also Getting pollies & crats to care about any future other than its own: Rail bureaucrats cash in as service crisis mounts [linked with ICAC: Senior ministers believe that a single command would overcome jurisdictional clashes and streamline operational activities ]

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David Chalmers hasvery good list of philosophy blogs.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The High Cost of...Everything
There's a stealth issue in this presidential campaign that could go far in determining the election results. I'm talking about the rising gas, phone, electricity, milk and cable prices that are damaging millions of hard-working families struggling to live in George W. Bush's America. In addition to paying $2-plus per gallon prices at the pump, consumers are getting squeezed at the supermarket—shelling out as much as $4 per gallon for milk.
· Staples are going through the roof [ via Powerful And Polarized ]
· · See Also Is US like Germany of the '30s?
· · · See Also Corruption Inc, rooting out rotten cops: For decades, revelations of police corruption and links to organised crime leapfrogged from state to state
· · · · See Also Cancer, birth defects, stillbirths and more soared out of control: Rock & Radiation, not Ronald Reagan, Brought down the Soviet Union [Link Poached from Remembering Tiananmen ]
· · · · · See Also Rev. Jesse Jackson gives Democrats a to-do list for victory in November [ via The next Democratic president must recognize the obvious: that means are as important as ends]
· · · · · · See Also The Outsourcing Bogeyman

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No bossy blogs? I shudder at the thought

The Blog, The Press, The Media: John Quiggin: A Real Bargain
For those of you who like end-of-financial year bargains, here's one that's hard to beat. The Australian government has a scheme under which it matches donations to certain aid projects on a $3 for $1 basis1.So if you give $500, the matching funds can bring the grant up to $2000 which is enough to buy books for an entire school in a poor country. In addition, the donations themselves are tax deductible, so if you're one of those groaning under our top marginal tax rate, the effective cost is only $250.
· $$$ WOW [ courtesy of VictoryOverWant ]
· · See Also BBC 'will not ask for more cash' [ We all have a crush on Bookslut]
· · · See Also Is PBS Finding New Politics? US PBS is supposed to be neutral politically. But now some critics wonder if PBS is adopting more of a political slant...
· · · · See Also Amazon Gets Into The Hollywood Movie Business (Los Angeles Times 06/05/04) [ PR Bloggers and the Evolving View of Marketing ]
· · · · · See Also Newsroom management: It should be invisible to readers
· · · · · · See Also This White House and administration are far more secretive than the Nixon crowd

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Three strikes for bankrupt wife

Invisible Hands & Markets: How Org Charts Lie
The frustrated banker realizes all too keenly that the work of a senior manager is largely about orchestrating the work of others. So central and essential is this role that an entire industry—maybe even several—has emerged, with the goal of revolutionizing the way people get their work done. Over the past two decades, waves of initiatives—such as de-layering, reengineering, total quality management (TQM), teams, supply chain integration, alliances, and implementation of myriad technologies—have washed through the corporate landscape, with varying degrees of success. These efforts to improve efficiency and eradicate bureaucracy have indeed transformed how work gets done. Employees are less constrained than before by formal reporting relationships or overly bureaucratic processes and procedures; important work in most organizations now gets done through networks of employees.
· The Hidden Power of Social Networks [link first seen at
· · See Also He's back: CEO axed as Packer takes helm
· · · See Also Nobody ever said, 'This is the guy in charge of the public research group

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Is Nike going to see a massive increase in revenue and market share from this? No Are they going to generate some good feelings and low-level buzz? Yes.

The Blog, The Press, The Media: The Teenagers gender spilt in blog use is 50-50
Teenage boys and girls are using blogs, easily publishable online diaries, in many more similar ways than has been predicted
· Teenagers reach out via weblogs - they use them for 'self therapy' [ courtesy of NewsIsFree: Your own Advanced News Reader and Feed Publisher ] [ via Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow ]
· · See Also Circle of self-interest hides the truth
· · · See Also Broadcasting tzar: Flint's going was surprise for everyone
· · · · See Also Making Apples More Corporate: Mac users now have an Office suite equal to Windows (Apple Airportexpress) (( Siliconvalley: Airport Express and the Reality Distortion Field ))
· · · · · See Also 101 ways to improve your news site (
Notes from Danny O'Brien's NotCon Recap of Life Hacks: 220 index cards getting a cheap laugh)
· · · · · · See Also Blogging is not about site traffic or competition about the cleverest of writing
· · · · · · · See Also The recent trend of books being adapted for the screen is making America stupid. More stupid than it already is

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Why do political theories so often fail the test of common sense?<

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: America’s prayer
Can America find its universal soul in being complexly human rather than eternally innocent? And can Europe's former dissidents find a fresh language of truth in which to challenge unjust United States power?
When I first heard the Czech singer Marta Kubis?ová’s song Modlitba pro Martu (“Marta’s Prayer” or “Prayer Made for Marta”), it was just after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. I was almost 12 years old. I awoke from my childish dreams into the world of politics and its conscience. During the next ten years, my conscience was formed by this courageous song, which was banned and yet remained a national rallying cry. I was further impressed by two essays of Václav Havel, Politics and Conscience and The Power of the Powerless, as well as by his Open Letter to Gustav Husák (Husák was the president of “normalised” Czechoslovakia, installed after the Soviet occupation in 1968).
Today, after spending half of my life in the United States, I am reminded of Marta’s prayer:
May peace remain with this land; may anger, envy and hatred, fear and strife, pass; may they soon pass, now that the lost governance of your affairs returns to you, oh people...

· May my prayer speak to the hearts that were not burned by the time of hatred. . .
· · See Also Universal soul in being complexly human rather than eternally innocent?
· · · See Also Voters who say they go to church every week usually vote for Republicans
· · · · See Also Dooh Nibor is Robin Hood in reverse, as in "Steal from the poor, give to the rich
· · · · · See Also Let the partisan and polarized talk begin!
· · · · · · See Also The pros and cons of extremist websites

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Everyone, Let Me Introduce You to Michael Carmody, the Commish
Does Dawkins consider Carmody a successful appointment? "Oh yes, I think so."
Carmody's ascension, the youngest ever commissioner at 42-years-old, was remarked on in the media but largely overshadowed at the time because of the determined attacks on his predecessor Boucher by liberal then senator Bronwyn Bishop over what appeared to be last-minute changes to a revenue raising crackdown, allegedly to prevent the ATO's impending bankruptcy. That, and the announcement of Boucher's appointment to the plum Paris job of ambassador to the OECD, gave Senator Bishop plenty of fuel for the upcoming estimates hearings in which Carmody, as newly named successor, was playing a starring role in for the first time.
How do you measure a successful tax man? Tax insiders frequently remark that Carmody doesn't assess his performance on the basis of benchmarks set by anyone in Canberra - either those on Capital Hill or elsewhere in the public service. Instead, he sees tax administration as a global game, comparing himself and the performance of his organisation to the tax commissioners of other revenue authorities around the world.
· The government couldn't function without him: The contradiction that is Carmody [Link Poached from GOOGLE ]

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Armed intervention for unilateral geopolitical reasons, without any long-term coherent gameplan eg: Russia in Chechnya, the Cuba and South Africa in Angola, the US in Iraq, etc ad nauseam, DOESN”T WORK!
It’s like treating TB or Typhus by bleeding the patient with an unsterilised knife. It’s a new century folks. Let’s stop with the gunboat diplomacy and get a little smarter here.
Nabakov

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The rise of the independents
To IMAGINE politics without parties is like trying to imagine Australian football without teams. Politics just is the game played out by rival parties, and anyone who tries to play politics in some way entirely independent of parties consigns herself to irrelevance. That situation had undoubtedly changed by the time of the 2001 federal election, which was contested by no fewer than 29 registered political parties – only three of whom secured representation in the House of Representatives – but which saw three independents elected, the largest number to succeed at a single federal poll for decades.
· 2004 shaping Hung Parliament [ via Mr Oakeshott, MP for Port Macquarie and a defector from the Nationals]
· · See Also So far, 46 percent of the 798 Americans killed in the war as of May 26 have come from small towns outside of metropolitan areas
· · · See Also Downer Und Refugees: IT BECOMES increasingly difficult to be proud of Australia
· · · · See Also Welcome to 1984, Australia: When you don't know whether to laugh, cry or throw a brick through the window, you become numb [link first watched at Security operations: Watching them watching us ]
· · · · See Also President Clinton's Keynote Wows 'Em at BookExpo America
· · · · · · See Also Ross Coulthart ...The Super Super Fraud: Australia's biggest ever superannuation fraud

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Shouldn't we expect that the rich and powerful organise things in their own interests. It's called capitalism Bilderberg: The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory

Invisible Hands & Markets: Who pays the lion’s share of personal income tax?
We have grown accustomed to the idea that so-called 'progressive taxation' is 'fair', but a proportional tax system (in which everybody pays the same proportion of their income in tax) would be much fairer. Sinclair Davidson argues not only that income tax in Australia is high by international standards, but also that higher rate taxpayers are paying much more than their fair share.
· Taxing Debates (PDF) [link first seen at The Centre for Independent Studies ]
· · See Also Curing sick hospitals: ONE THING John Menadue
has learned is that the so-called "health debate" is between insiders - doctors and minister
· · · See Also Despite marked improvement in the lives of American children, a new study finds rising numbers of [disconnected young adults]
· · · · See Also Economic measures can lead to bad decision-making
· · · · · See Also Here's a crusade sure to infuriate the vast majority of penny-pinching traditionalists
· · · · · · See Also Arabia's field of dreams: How Dubai has become one of the world's most successful business ventures

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DidTheyReadIt didtheyreadit.com, can clandestinely track when and where their e-mail is read. When you use DidTheyReadIt, e-mails that you send are automatically and invisibly tracked.

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Bill Cosby lambastes some lower-income black parents for irresponsibility
The Cosby story — like others before it — has shown that a news story can grow legs thanks more to repackagers in the blogosphere than to "legitimate" print and broadcast outlets
· Bill Cosby & the Blogosphere [ courtesy of Where Librarians Go To Hack ]
· · See Also Bloggers Unregulated: WHAT A CRAZY MARKETPLACE
· · · See Also Boy crazy Washingtonienne, not of NSW Parliament or Nippon Club Phame: Senator sacked me over tales of congress
· · · · See Also Outsourced IT staff fingered porn stash wanker
· · · · · See Also Tax bucks, blues and blogs with Hillary Bray
· · · · · · See Also Media Dragon: weblogging is a more frequent topic in NY and Sydney news
· · · · · · · See Also wURLdBook extends your reach into the Internet!

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CIA Director George Tenet states the obvious and (will wonders never cease?)

Tracking Policies & Investigative Stories: James Kelman: Look back in anger
The Booker winner James Kelman has been rocking the literary establishment for more than 20 years. Lesley Mcdowell talks to him about radicalism and rage
My culture and my language have a right to exist, James Kelman said in his 1994 Booker-night acceptance speech, after winning the prize for How Late it Was, How Late, and no one has the authority to dismiss that right. This foot-soldier of fiction and class warfare, it would seem, has finally won his place among the literary elite. The battle is over.
· You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free
· Soros: Abu Ghraib = September 11
· · See Also Fantastic Premier, Bob Carr, to introduce a ban on plastic bags [Man of Plastic Turning plastic shopping bags into steel]
· · · See Also A profound debate is taking place, amongst those connected with the tourist industry, over Australian image as tinseltown
· · · · See Also Some of the most keenly watched polls, especially in the months before an election, are those on party support, leadership and political issues
· · · · · See Also Kim Un-yong: Olympic committee vice-president jailed for embezzlement
· · · · · · See Also Rogueish Failures: President Bush likes to claim that Iraq is the central front in the war terror, but what you won't hear him saying is that it is only that because his actions have turned it into a failed state

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We are turning our bodies into data. Since information can confer both power and wealth, we are at risk of a new slavery , with its attendants of old: loss of self sovereignty, discrimination, corrosion of individual identity, dignity denied.

Invisible Hands & Markets: How Successfully they've gamed the California energy market in 2000
He steals money from California to the tune of about a million.
Will you rephrase that? asks a second employee.
OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million
· What's far more devastating than to read these transcripts is to listen to the tapes in the story viewable in the javascript link at CBSnews.com
· · See Also Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, on The Great Escape
· · · See Also 10 Principles of Change Management
· · · · See Also Professional norms and the treacherous temptation of moral freedom
· · · · · See Also John Quiggin: Taxing Move to Queensland
· · · · · · See Also Imagine again ...buying groceries in the same way that voters make political choices