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The figures are out, so now comes the hard part for NSW Treasurer Michael Costa - selling his pre-election budget - State promised investment in future: Australia's NSW State Forecasts Deficit, Borrows A$17.4 Bln Excuses, excuses: Costa's house of cards strategy
Debnam decries deficit - Betting the future on a dark horse - NSW plunges into the red What a gamble: Hark, the sound of chickens coming home to roost

Michael Sallah, Pulitzer Prize winner for work on Vietnam, discusses the parallels between the massacres at Haditha and My Lai. I Hope the Investigation Goes up the Food Chain
Mitch McConnell is the odds on favorite to become the next Senate Republican leader. Why? He's not Bill Frist. In The Wings

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Tea with the FT: ‘That is not the issue’
Among the first things Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, says to me when we sit down is: “That is not the issue.” It was his response to my first question, about the likely outcome of this weekend’s Czech parliamentary elections, and it sets the tone of the rest of the interview.

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, whose parliament goes to the polls this weekend, may have no small talk but he does have an answer for everything.

• Polls [Continuing high levels of support for Prime Minister John Howard and his government have confounded the Labor opposition, and are cause for triumphalism on the conservative side of politics. Coalitions for change: Building bridges in Howard’s Australia ; Poland takes a sharp right turn: Poland could be Europe's first red state. But Poland cuts against the grain ]
• · An interview with Madeleine Albright: "Iraq was a really badly planned operation With the US bogged down in Iraq and Iran defiant over its nuclear program, US foreign policy makers are faced with numerous challenges; Nova 969's Merrick and Rosso were forced to make an on-air apology this morning after a prostitute claimed she had "seen" a senior Labor politician. Prostitute names pollie on air
• · · Promina Group has received ATO approval to proceed with its planned capital return to shareholders of 15c an ordinary share about $156 million. Promina to return $156m ; Bertelsmann agrees £3bn buyback deal
• · · · Australian Financial Review, 29/05/2006, General News, page 5 By: Michaela Boland (no relation to Bruce Boland ;-) During his final year as federal minister for the arts, Rod Kemp plans to fix the film industry or at the very least give it every opportunity to fix itself. Unsurprisingly his ambition has generated plaudits from a sector struggling to keep pace with rocketing costs and rapid change. Review offers hope for filmmakers' funding fix ; Tax rort extraordinaire It's worth uncovering the secrets of the new super model. Shush money
• · · · · What makes the attack even more remarkable is that it was delivered not by a Liberal but by a Labor member of the NSW upper house who is in the same right-wing faction as Mr Punch Fraud, tax cheat and woman abuser: MP attacks Punch ; Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, whose parliament goes to the polls this weekend, may have no small talk but he does have an answer for everything. Poland takes a sharp right turn: Poland could be Tea with the FT: ‘That is not the issue’
• · · · · · Interdependence between sexual debut and church attendance in Italy ; PDF version: Salaries of Members of Congress: A List of Payable Rates and Effective Dates, 1789-2006

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Geoff Mulgan is the ultimate New Labourite. He used to be head of policy at No 10 and founded the Blairite thinktank Demos The power of influence

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Let's share Canada's vast wealth
Economic boom is boosting top salaries of wealthy CEOs at expense of working poor

There has been a monumental shift in mainstream economics over the past 40 years.
When we studied economics in the 1960s, economists and public officials who had an economics policy mandate identified a number of important national goals — full employment, rapid economic growth, a viable balance of payments and an equitable distribution of income. These goals were stated in the terms of reference of the Economic Council of Canada and repeated in the Council's First Annual Review of 1964, "Economic Goals for Canada to 1970."

• Goals [ Corruption, most blatant at the local level, is still dragging the country down Brown envelopes ; ; ]
• · Now that earmarks have been tainted by scandal, what's a self-respecting pork barreler to do? Fight back, of course. What's Wrong With a Healthy Helping of Pork? ;
• · · Where's the radical realism when we need it? An old communist confesses: the class war is over and even Rupert Murdoch makes sense EVERYONE remembers where they were the first time they found themselves agreeing with Rupert Murdoch ; Two defining moments in their history, the dawn of the Cold War and the '60s antiwar movement, present stark alternatives -- and reflect a lasting rift within the party The choice ; Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation
• · · · Fashionable Guerrillas: For the Left, noble revolutionaries are always in style. Notwithstanding the political catastrophes of the twentieth century, the notion of the noble guerrilla persists on the left ; In his new book Europe as Empire, the Oxford academic Jan Zielonka has come up with a novel solution to the problem. Europe, he cheekily suggests, is best characterised not as a state at all but as a hulking great empire, a juggernaut movingly slowly but determinedly east and south. The European empire
• · · · · The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems The Rise of Crowdsourcing ; Corporate R & D. Robert Shiller provides career counseling for the twenty-first century Career concerns
• · · · · · Comment on "A Garage and an Idea: What More Does an Entrepreneur Need?" High Tech's Log Cabin ; MySpace, MyPolitics