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The use of cliches in blogs should be avoided. Readers of Dickens' novel Oliver Twist may recall that when it was suggested to Mr Bumble that "the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction", he was shocked. He responded with a line that has become one of the English language's most excruciating cliches: "If the law supposes that, the law is an ass - an idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst l wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience - by experience."

Russia’s free media find a haven in Ukraine Is Russia again too big to fail?
The magazine contains real-life case studies, interviews and stories about Australian and international tax crime – how we’re trying to stop it and the serious consequences for those who offend. Targeting tax crime: a whole-of-government approach

The Plan by Michael Cranston for 2009-2010 Traits of a Leader
I read an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones recently called "Why should anyone be led by you?" In it they outline four key differentiators in today's world for successful leaders and apart from a few minor points, I believe in what they had to say and fully recommend you take a read…

There’s an awful lot of theory written about leadership nowadays. For the past decade, along with Mike Pratt, Clive Gilson, and Joe McCollum, we’ve been working with major companies on our view of what constitutes inspirational leadership and peak performance. It started by learning what we could from great sporting organizations such as the All Blacks – whose inspirational dream is to “maintain rugby’s position at the heart of the nation)

• Leaders are born ; [We have long pointed to the fact that the United States is, to a very significant degree, a secrecy jurisdiction, not least through dirty practices offered in places such as Delaware. It isn't something that people like to mention in polite company Australia: America is a secrecy jurisdiction ; Testifying today before the House Financial Services Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took some well-deserved flak for the Fed’s power-grasping attempt to gain even greater control over the nation’s financial institutions. Man-Bites-Dog Story: A Politician Speaks the Truth; Goldman Sachs surprised even optimistic analysts with a $3.44 billion profit for the three months to June, almost 90% more than the previous quarter. Crony Capitalism]
• · In the last of his three Lionel Robbins lectures at the London School of Economics on June 30 of this year, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman remarked that the macroeconomic theory of the past thirty years has been spectacularly useless at best, and positively harmful at worst Inflation Ahead ; I Agree With Paul Krugman, but This Time Only! The inability to collect all sales taxes that are legally due on purchases made over the Internet costs states billions of dollars a year in lost revenue. In 2008, New York State enacted an innovative law that helps to address this problem. Rhode Island adopted a similar measure this year. All states with sales taxes should give serious consideration to doing so as well. sales taxes
• · Our innovative online database helped shed light on the murky world of corporate tax avoidance. Corporate taxation is one of the fundamental issues in British society that rarely gets discussed in mainstream media. A large but twilight industry has grown up in recent years of offshore tax havens and arcane avoidance schemes. They benefit large corporations and rich individuals, but cost governments billions in lost taxes. Holding the UK's major corporations to account ; Lord Mandelson suggested the Government had lost sight of the importance of PR skills. “You can get so consumed by government that you forget to present what you do to the public. Our organisation has to be better, we have to campaign more effectively — and give a clear message.” A new analysis today found businesses are eagerly courting the Conservatives. Leading accountancy firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have given the Tories free services and staff on secondment, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Such companies will compete for billions of pounds of Government contracts
• · · Windfall for Tories as firms eye £4bn contracts ; Blistering attacks on tax avoidance from unions, politicians and the media are coming thick and fast. The prevalence of aggressive but legal tax planning has become increasingly controversial as the public finances sink deeper into the mire The growing allure of foreign shores ; Both Volkswagen and Porsche had close connections with the Third Reich. It was Ferdinand Porsche who designed the "people's car," the legendary VW Beetle, in 1934 Adolf Hitler was so taken with the engineer he declared him "brilliant
• · · · As per the Concise Oxford Dictionary the history of money laundering can be traced to Emperor espasianus who had raised taxes on public toilets by relying on the maxim, ‘pecunia non det’ means money does not stink. A few years ago, Solomon Dwek was the black sheep of the New Jersey Jewish community where his father Yitzhak was a prominent rabbi. After a string of failed real estate ventures and charges of bank fraud, Dwek's career appeared all but over. But the rabbi's son found his true calling as an FBI informant, where he is now achieving stardom after helping bring indictments against 44 defendants, including a number of prominent rabbis, four ex-mayors and a former senator, in one of the largest money-laundering and corruption investigations seen in the U.S. in years How the FBI used a rabbi's son to crack massive U.S. corruption case ; Even in the state of "The Sopranos" and "On the Waterfront," where corruption seems institutionalized, the arrest of a neophyte mayor in office a mere three weeks stands out US Corruption Arrests Shock Jewish Community
• · · · · It’s one of the biggest corruption cases in the history of a state that’s famous for them: Three mayors, two state legislators and several rabbis were among those charged Thursday in what authorities described as a “dual-track” investigation united by a single undercover operative ; BBC
• · The arrests of more than 40 prominent politicians and Jewish leaders in New Jersey and New York on corruption and money laundering charges have sent shockwaves through the close-knit Syrian Jewish community there. Modus operandi Money Laundering; An 87 year-old Syrian rabbi. A special lingo in which payments were "invitations" and approvals were "opportunities." We're slicing people open and selling Google
• · · · · · To read the criticisms about the Net Generation,” writes author Don Tapscott in his latest book, Grown Up Digital, “you might conclude that they are a bunch of dull, celebrity-obsessed, net-addicted, shopaholic exhibitionists Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe ; Navigating the online jungle

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I ain’t shoot nobody in like since the early 80’s, man. Mightier than the guitar. You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art. Insects sting, not in malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics: they desire our blood, not our pain My Book Slut and the The Sydney Morning Herald looks at rockers who write literature

In a classic death spiral: Citizen satisfaction and trust Tax havens: Misplaced passion
A pearl in the crown is A few things John has learned: examining tax havens ;

Here is part of what the Australian Tax Office wrote to Senator Carl Levin, the Chair of the US Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. ‘In our opinion, entities established in some states of the US, for example some US incorporated companies, have some of these same attributes as entities established in secrecy havens.’ These attributes include tax avoidance and evasion, investor fraud,manipulation of markets and sometimes money laundering. So there we have it. The US has its own internal tax and secrecy havens. Now for the UK and its disgraceful tax havens.

• Revolutionary reflections on this world of ours Taxman not always bad guy: Blatant form of Robin Hood economics ever proposed ; [DETAILS of tax scams by Australian organisations involving US entities have been revealed in a submission sent to US authoritiesBanks ; Čekia: Tax havens attract 154 Czech firms in H1
Prague, July 14 (CTK) - The number of Czech companies based in places considered tax havens grew by 154 to 9,144 in the first half of this year, according to databases and calculations of the Cekia agency.
Owing to the economic crisis, interest in transfer of companies to tax havens got smaller. In the full of last year, the number of Czech companies in tax havens rose by 740. Among the most attractive places where taxes are not high are the Netherlands, Cyprus and Luxembourg. The highest relative growth this year was seen by Panama, Monaco and Belize. A significant fall was seen by the British Virgin Islands and the Bohemian Dutch Antilles]
• · For consumers how much is enough? It's a personal answer, and the power of change is always personal. The concept of "Enoughism" is addressed by British journalist John Naish in his book Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More ; Kevin Roberts-authored article in Italian magazine Oxygen, on the role of communications in resolving the water crisis. "[H2O] represents much more than an obvious combination of chemical elements: water is life, and today it can turn into the heart of a revolution that will lead to a Blue Planet, to a sustainable future for all of us." Water is life 15 Jul 09
• · Many owners decline to rent the homes due to local council tax rules, which tax properties at a lower rate if they are empty and unfurnished. That loophole frustrates Mr. Palmer. As the Westminster City Council's empty-property officer, Mr. Palmer strolls the area's streets six hours each day to identify vacant homes and track down their owners. Under British law, local authorities have the power to seek an order to claim ownership of the ghost properties and put them up for sale. Once he identifies a vacant house, Mr. Palmer consults property records. After that, he often finds himself sending letters to the British Virgin Islands, a known tax haven for foreign companies, and a place where many of the property owners in question have mailing addresses. He says he rarely receives a response back. Except, that is, when a court action is about to begin. The compulsory purchase, says Mr. Palmer, is a "tool we use as a last resort to take empty property away from owners who refuse to do anything to it. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables Keeping Up Appearances: London Turns Eye to Empty Mansions ; Goldman Sachs, Best in the Business;
• · · Blogosphere Star Provides Refreshingly Alternative Ideas
Taxation without Representation Unfair to Internet Retailers; All enmity, all envy, they disclaim, Disinterested thieves of our good name: Cool, sober murderers of their neighbors' fame Uncooperative prima donna
• · · · While there is no disputing Bernie Madoff's involvement in the scam, it is reasonable to conclude he wasn't alone Swindler’s list: the Bernie Madoff story; Bernie Madoff Was Only a Petty Crook Compared with Uncle Sam; Italy’s prime minister once again proves to be a great survivor DEPENDING on your view of his final destination, Silvio Berlusconi has either a guardian angel or the luck of the devil. In heaven or hell
• · · · · "The new CRS report - "Gang of Four" Congressional Intelligence Notifications, July 14, 2009 - explains the role of the "Gang of Four," meaning the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, who are to be informed of particularly sensitive intelligence activities. When the Bush Administration first notified Congress of its warrantless surveillance program, it limited the disclosure to the Gang of Four ; These days, when employers are cutting salaries, staff and bonuses - and staff is uncertain about the next round of layoffs - more employees are committing fraud. How to stop fraud; On 14 July 2009, IFSA Chair David Deverall, announced the appointment of John Brogden as IFSA's third CEO to commence on 28 August 2009. Mr Deverall said Mr Brogden "brings both stature and a wealth of experience to the position". He said Mr Brogden "has had experience in public policy as a parliamentarian and adviser, and has successfully led advocacy for the credit union, building society and friendly society peak body". IFSA also thanked Richard Gilbert who will officially retire on 28 August when Mr Brogden assumes the position of CEO John Brogden
• · · · · · For Germans, who have painful memories of state-sponsored surveillance, the new spying allegations touch a raw nerve. Prosecutors have confirmed they're now considering whether to launch a criminal investigation in Deutsche Bank. Germany's largest lender is accused of spying on two board members it suspected of leaking sensitive details, as well as one critical shareholder Deutsche Bank is Germany's largest bank ; IRS agent Albert Bront, 49, of Valencia, California, screamed “I’m going to kill all of you!” when U.S. Treasury agents served a search warrant at his home as part of an investigation into whether Mr. Bront had filed false tax return. He is being held without bail pending a July 28 preliminary hearing in Los Angeles IRS Agent Threatens to Kill Treasury Department Investigators

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The business of tax avoidance, like the trade in derivatives, is ferociously complicated, and intentionally so: the fewer the people who understand what is going on, the easier it is to play the financial equivalent of a three-card trick and whisk your money off to a safe location. Tax dodgers have quite a sense of humour – or so it seems to me. Take transfer mispricing. One of the commonest forms of tax evasion, it accounts for much of the $160 billion. I could explain that this particular stunt involves transnational corporations exaggerating costs and minimising profits when they file their tax returns. I could mention surveys which estimate that more than 60 per cent of international trade takes place within TNCs, allowing companies to make up prices that suit their purposes. But the story wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the firm that officially paid $972.98 for each plastic bucket it imported, or the toilet gloves which were priced at $4,121.81 per kilo Business of tax avoidance ;

Citizen satisfaction and trust: When a Blogger Voices Approval, a Sponsor May Be Lurking Ignorance of money helps bankers and politicians escape
Why is that so hard for people to understand? Keynes did - and he called it a paradox that what works for individuals is completely unsuitable for states - and yet the mindset of the grocer prevails in government.

Most assume that credit = savings, and that only by mobilising savings or surpluses (generated by production of one sort or another) is it possible for banks or financial institutions to lend money to finance economic activity. In other words, that money (deposits/savings/credit) exists only as the result of economic activity; and those deposits/savings/credit then create economic activity.
On the contrary: it is bank money/credit that creates economic activity - and only then are deposits, surpluses and savings generated. And not the other way around.
And this is why we can spend our way out of recession. Indeed it is why we must spend our way out of recession. Any other option costs more, increase debt, and causes more hardship.

• Taxing Times; [ People fight a lot about priorities at DKos. Groups accuse other groups with different priorities of being "concern trolls" or "purity trolls" or of expressing "poutrage". No matter what you think is important, someone else will be happy to tell you it really isn't as important as their pet issue. Here's my way out of that dilemma.
Prosecuting criminal behavior is a post-Bush theme that unifies all groups. To solve our economic problems, we need to prosecute present (and, inevitably, past) criminal behavior and the malign deregulation that enabled such criminality. To get ourselves out of foreign wars, we need to prosecute the war crimes that got us into those wars and the ongoing war crimes and frauds that those operations continue to produce. To solve our healthcare problems, we need to prevent criminal behavior, such as recision, on the part of healthcare-denial companies. But, isn't fighting crime obvious? Not in the age of deregulation. Not in the age of the politicized DOJ. In order to fight crime, we must first restore regulations with teeth. We need to become "law and order Democrats". Below the fold I will lay out the rationale behind that seeming oxymoron. Its the Criminality, Stupid ; Successful innovation remains elusive for many organisations. Part of the problem concerns the myths that surround the innovation process - PDF - Four dangerous myths]
• · IF you've ever wondered how to fire up the folk who inhabit the blogosphere, you got an unambiguous answer last week - insult them. It worked a treat for the boss of News Limited, John Hartigan. In a speech to the National Press Club he said bloggers produced "something of such limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance". For good measure he added that the blogosphere was "all eyeballs and no insight". Many blogs and a large number of comment sites specialise in political extremism and personal vilification Bloggers' rage show they're out of touch with reality ; IT'S Tuesday and I'm at a forum on the topic "Twitter's Impact on Media and Journalism", busily taking down the speeches in shorthand. As I do, the business-suited woman sitting on my left is tweeting about me on her laptop. Journalists take to the Twitterverse
• · · When Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska, she gave a cursory announcement to journalists, then moved on to tell her story directly to her supporters using Twitter and Facebook. This is the latest example of traditional journalists being disintermediated by government and other newsmakers, and it will make a big difference in the careers of IT managers (and me too, as a journalist) Journalists Get Left Out By Social Media ; Katja Presnal, who recommends products on her own blog, is interviewed at elf cosmetics offices in New York. Marketing companies are keen to get their ... When a Blogger Voices Approval, a Sponsor May Be Lurking
• · LIKE a research scientist who gets a chance to play with a chemistry set, Sreenath Sreenivasan, a new-media professor at the Columbia Journalism School, returned to the roots of his chosen field last month riding home on the No. 1 train. How the Media Wrestle With the Web ; TJN and some of our partners in France have just issued a statement expressing great concern about a Cameroonian journalist, Jean Bosco Talla, who is being harrassed and intimidated as a result of his work in publicising a huge and detailed report outlining the scale of dictators' and élites' assets in a wide number of countries around the world, including in Cameroon – PDF ahead - Journalist under threat
• · · Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murders sound respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Old Orwell’s Instructive Errors ; How is the global financial crisis affecting our beliefs about work, money, the environment and each other? Broadcaster Libbi Gorr gathered Australia's top social researchers - Bernard Salt, Mark McCrindle & Dr Rebecca Huntley - to get the lowdown on the meltdown. Is Gen Y that bad? Yes!

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Ach, Bondi. Golden, pinkish sand beaches. Charming pastel Hungry Czech restaurants and kelly-green golf courses. Tiny cafes peppered everywhere …

Ideas can come from anywhere; the thing is to recognize them and give them shape. The global financial catastrophe has hit companies, families, and individuals

Do ideas sometimes pop into your head from, it seems, nowhere? Yes, and it’s because your brain actually operates on the edge of chaos
Fire exists in nature, a wild thing tamed by the mind of man. But when it first appeared, the wheel was an invention of something completely new.. Salute to wheels of ideas

Serving revenge Cold Communist secret police database goes online
Former dissident publishes list, rush of visitors crashes web server

Intense public interest saw a server collapse when databases kept by the Czechoslovak communist secret police (StB) were put online by former dissident Stanislav Penc. Within an hour of the data going online around 11 a.m. July 7, the server collapsed. Over the next three days, the Web site, Svazky.cz, registered 140,000 hits. It has since crashed again several times and was down as of press time.
Democracy needs to know the serious reading of books. Long books. Hard books. Books with which we have to struggle...

• The Dictator and I: Husak’s Émigrés and Exiles [Lessons of Charter 77 July 7 ; 2nd coming of Vacal Havel or Lech Welechsa ; Defining Slavic Dreams The Cold(est) War River]
• · US President Barack Obama has told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin they may not agree on everything but they had an excellent opportunity to put ... In a polite atmosphere where both men seemed reserved, President Obama met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin this morning at his dacha in Moscow. I think you just cut out Lech Waleza and Poles, cut out Havel and the Czechs. There were a whole bunch of people in eastern europe who showed courage. Important to acknowledge people who struggled for own freedom. Lift the Iron curtain. we don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role Obama, Russia 'reset' Cold War relations; Google Stories ; There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. The truth, of course, is that the Soviets ran a brutal, authoritarian regime. The KGB killed their opponents or dragged them off to the Gulag. There was no free press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of worship, no freedom of any kind Obama Rewrites the Cold War
• · Hugo Blick has written a deliciously enthralling triptych of comedy-dramas about people facing death Last Word Monologues ; The next train leaves from all platforms
• · · Even after our recent orgy of bailouts, and even as the culture of entitlement grips our country ever more tightly, Americans hunger for the assurance that we can do it for ourselves without a nanny state running our lives. Rediscovering Frederick Douglass in the Age of Obama ; Economic theory in meltdown: the biggest financial calamity in 80 years has left the reputation of economics in tatters. What went wrong with economics
• · · · To escape a 1930s culture war that soon turned into a shooting war, artists, writers and composers fled Europe for Southern California.. Hitler's Émigrés and Exiles ; Embrace individualism and reject stereotypes, says Tyler Cowen. Even look in a mirror. You may find far more talent than you expected. Talent
• · · · · It’s puzzling that such promising and prurient subject matter can lead to such flat, dull books. My Life In a G-String: A Round Up of Stripper Memoirs Stripper memoirs: Are all naked women pretty much the same? ; Language pervades the deepest domains of thought, shaping us from the nuts and bolts of perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions.. Ideas
• · · · · · The answer is capitalism’s dirty little secret: excessive lending was the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth was being concentrated in the hands of an elite Capitalism's dirty secret ; What is the future for liberal democracy? This should be a pressing question. All around us, corporations rule the roost. They fund political parties and reward former and potential ministers with consultancies. They finance think-tanks, control newspapers and television and radio stations to mobilise particular kinds of opinion Corporate takeover of the state: What future for democracy when the private sector’s advance shows no sign of abating ; ANZ Bank has axed a further 248 jobs across the country as part of its strategy to slash the size of its Australian workforce

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DURING UNCERTAIN TIMES. The End of Absurd Financial Year - No luncheons at Little Snails ... People tend to look back and wonder, How did it get to this? They feel more keenly their missed opportunities and failures in judgment. Regret -the sense that things could have turned out better if only a different choice had been made –becomes pervasive Regret is ardwired into human biology, underscoring its importance in behavior. If misery loves company, it's because perspective helps. It's good to know you're not the only "idiot" in the neighborhood. On some level, we're all idiots. The most successful people are those who have been resolute in the face of failure. Support from colleagues, mentors, or coaches can boost your resilience. Sometimes, though, regret spirals downward into depression. If your thoughts turn morbid, get professional help so you can go back to striving toward your personal and career goals.
One wondersow foreclosures adversely affect households and their neighborhoods — from children and the elderly to public safety and local property tax revenues. The Impacts of Foreclosures on Families and Communities

Different Strokes
Obsession & Perfection
Democracy needs to know the serious reading of books. Long books. Hard books. Books with which we have to struggle...

Some systems – financial, transport, power grids, taxation – are just too big to carry on with any degree of predictability. They become unstable before we can know...

• Struggles with Complexities; [Risk-taking may not be the quality which first comes to mind when the ABC is mentioned. However, controversy has never been far from the ABC's programming. War on 'The Chaser'; Conspiracies have in principle the power to do actual harm in the world. Far more harmful in practice is the power of conspiracy theories... Chasing conspiracy theories... ]
• · The companies who come out the other end of this downturn stronger than when they went in will have sustainability at their core. When I think about a sustainable world, one face always comes to my mind: my granddaughter Stella. Nothing concentrates the mind more powerfully than the future of someone you love… Stella's World: One Stella at a Time ; Recently I was on a panel with Malcolm Gladwell, the high priest of unraveling the mysteries of science and a great storyteller. I've just come across a couple of books by a young (at 27, very young) scientist who might give Malcolm a run for his money, Jonah Lehrer… Jonah Lehrer
• · Everyone likes to talk about how young families are revitalizing big cities. The truth of migration patterns tells another story, as Joel Kotkin explains...Revitalizing big cities ; It’s a standard genre: a book written by a big thinker who wants to capture the spirit of America while armed only with his own brilliance. Spirit of Amerika
• · · Is there a formula for a good life? For 72 years, researchers have followed 268 men through war, career, marriage and divorce, and old age... Is there a formula for a good life? ; Even though more stuff does not lead to more happiness, human beings are driven to acquire, acquire, acquire. Geoffrey Miller can see why...Aquisition
• · · · Richard Wagner viewed himself as an underdog. That’s why, after Mendelssohn’s early death in 1847, he wreaked revenge on the “little Jewish prince”... Wagner; If the Mafia boss thinks you might betray him, he will just kill you or throw you into prison. Saint-Simon’s memoirs do not make us regret the end of the age of great kings. But if only we had today chroniclers as wise, vital, witty, and knowing... Royalty
• · · · · Bill Buckley could turn any event into an adventure, a joke, a showdown. He loved risk. He was just an exciting person to be around... Riding motorbikes without a helmet, flying planes while half asleep—not to mention discussing books he’d never read and using words he didn’t understand—William F. Buckley courted adventure in all that he did. Here, the conservative godfather’s onetime protégé and longtime nemesis fondly recalls their friendship—and argues that Buckley was not the snob many thought him to be Risk Lover; Here are the classic sins that too many leaders don't realise can turn a fabulous employee into a frustrated poor performer. If you manage others, can you honestly go through this list and be 100% sure you've never committed any of these sins?" What are the big leadership sins?
• · · · · · Once limited to hushed exchanges in the break room, employees have more venues to complain than ever. Web 2.0 tools have created a virtual water cooler, and employees' gossip - about everything from how managers handle layoffs to organising company social functions - can instantly reach an opinionated, enabling and often highly reactionary audience A manager's guide to social media ; Research demonstrates that managers are experiencing poor quality and quantity of sleep, and encourages them and their organisations to be aware of the - sometimes disastrous - consequences of 'sleepiness'. The wake-up call for sleepy managers

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He always chose to teach the strugglers. He saw that task as the glory of our profession …

The economy may be slowing down, but everything else is speeding up. Margins collapse like a deck of cards, profits plunge (Fortune 500 companies earned 85% less than they did last year), and shoppers turn their backs in a flash. John Bargh from Yale reckons that we evaluate everything as good or bad in 0.25 seconds. That’s fast! The human mirror

How bad is the economy? It is definitely getting very bad!


Cats are so dramatic !


WE live on one planet and all its wisdom and stupidity are connected Courage under fire: Flow of Deep Wisdom
A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.

Wolfram Alpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases … Wolfram|Alpha, the brainchild of a company with a distinctly scientific bent, is challenging Google by offering a formatted aggregation of data

• Knowledge delivered in any other form is perhaps sweeter Wolfram|Alpha - Start with the Answer ; [The Buzz of Wolfram; Google for music 'Like plugging into a vast electronic brain': Unique search engine ...]
• · We need to resurrect the concept of the “public intellectual ; When it comes to communicating and connecting with your fellow human beings, stories can leave a lasting impact far beyond any set of statistics or PowerPoint demonstration The power of storytelling ; Recognizing that governments throughout the World need assistance and guidance in achieving the promises of electronic government through technology and the Web, this document seeks to define and call forth, but not yet solve, the variety of issues and challenges faced by governments Improving access to government through better use of the web ; Christopher Craigie SC, Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), speech, 2009. Transcript of the speech given by the Director at the CDPP 25th Anniversary Dinner at Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Internet: 25 years of commitment
• · One blogger's account of his use of Facebook - "I've found that posting on Facebook is a good way to ask a question of a diverse set of people. In a business context, Facebook often reminds me of people who can answer questions, point me to someone they know (but I don't), or whom I'd just like to stay in front of Five years of Facebook: a retrospective ; The new reality is simple. Money is either scarce or just not there at all. Next year may be worse, may be better, who can possibly tell. But as fashion designer John Galliano said, "There's a credit crunch, not a creative crunch", and this is exactly how smart marketers can win New marketing in the new reality
• · · Start with the Storytellers: The Future of Journalism Communications, Technology, and the Internet; PDF ahead - Pew Report - The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008
• · · · The Decoder: Twitter is a mass text-messaging service that allows you to send short 140-character updates -- or "tweets" -- to a bunch of people at once. They are your "followers." It was designed to be read on a cellphone, though many people read it online, too. How to Twitter ; House Committees Take the Lead on Using Social Media to Ensure Transparency
• · · · · In a story, the writer commands every aspect of the world the reader inhabits. It is 30 years since the Sony Walkman first appeared – and half of the populace became deaf to the existence of the other half. A.N. Wilson finds nothing to celebrate Gadgets; Google phone undercuts iPhone; Matthew Crawford finished his Ph.D in political philosophy, went to work for a think tank, and then decided to quit – and start repairing motorcycles Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• · · · · · After the Germans rolled over France’s defenses in 1940, how brave were French writers in resisting the Nazis? Ah, it was a complex, sadly mixed affair... Between Collaboration and Resistance; Leonid Khrushchev died a war hero in 1943, 13 years before his father, Nikita, denounced Stalin. Now Russians are being told he was a traitor The trial of Leonid K; The end of East Germany was ushered in by massive protests across the land. But opposition to communist rule had started with a whisper How the End of East Germany Began - Iron Curtain Up Close and Personal A Tear in the Iron Curtain

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Whenever you get the urge to go out and buy, or buy, or buy — head to the Iceberg, the local cafe or bar, get yourself a strong coffee, bluetongue beer or glass of wine (invest the extra buck in the good stuff!), sit long and hard and keenly, swim far into the mind’s labyrinths, then put pen to Moleskin and make this world worth moving in! The brain does weird things, hence: poetry… No one seems to realize that the destruction of poetry as a tradition would not destroy poetry itself …

In the meantime plunge into The coldest and best online journals

Uncertainty is more beautiful still Ability to capture the subtlest shades of the financial palette
From Higher Aims to Hired Hands:The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession.
People with MBAs are not necessarily great business people writes Greg Leader Cramer Business schools stand accused of churning out identikit management footsoldiers equipped with the latest buzz

Something happened to management culture decades ago and now being a Master of Business Administration, especially from Harvard, is rather on the nose. MBA, it's being said, can also stand for 'Mediocre but Arrogant', or 'Management by Accident'

• MBA: Mostly bloody awful My Life Would Have Been Different if I did not come across managers with MBA ; [Ten ways to respond to the stock market collapse - Realize any investment is always a risk. Waiting for Godot: I'm still as mean, arrogant, silly, paranoid and scared as ever; 10 Best Ways to Bring in Blog Traffic The President is more than the present moment ]
• · Leather and lace: inside the secret world of the bikie chick The man police allege may be fuelling Sydney's bikie war and is a force behind its newest gang, Notorious, has warned Sydney to prepare for more bloodshed. Strike Force Raptor: This will end in another Milperra – it all started at Winston Hills Hotel a day before the fathers day ; Google: SYDNEY'S bikie war exploded again last night as a man was ambushed in an underground carpark. He was sprayed with bullets as he stood in the car park on Punchbowl Rd, Lakemba, at about 11.35pm on Saturday night 29 March 09 What is alive in the bikie body clock is also ticking; Ross Coulthart is co-author of Dead Man Running Bikie wars fuelled by drug and crime ; Here is a sign of the times. Line up the names of the Bandidos and Coman- chero shot at Milperra's Viking Tavern on Father's Day 1984, and those of their bosses. Tony McCoy, Gregory Campbell, Jock Ross, Anthony Spencer, Mario Cianter, Leroy Jeschke, Ivan Romchek, Robert Lane, Michael O'Keefe. Secret men's business – no more
• · Who is to blame for the world economic crisis? Does market capitalism have a future? Big questions – in Paris in 1938... Beacon of Liberty Amid Depression; Banjo's journey from bad guy to mentor is pure poetry Like wind loves a window
• · · Rainbow of cinematic poetic content. Like poetry, film tells a story by compressing time, and through an emotive, image-based structure. There is a syntax of images, a rhythm. And it works with light—a material light. Film language is unavoidable—it’s part of our unconscious, our desires, memories, etc., and is very captivating and powerful. Movies With Poetry: A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine …; You will not have roses thrown at your feet. You will not make money. You will not become the celebrated guest poet at universities & bookstores coast-to-coast. You will not be invited to read your poetry all over the world. You will not have multiple book release parties. … You simply will not. Poetry Is To Money As Ice Cream Is To Mud
• · · · If this is accurate, heads are going to roll: ROGUE Defence spies have been accused of hacking into Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's personal laptop computer to steal bank details - to track his financial connections to a wealthy Chinese businesswoman Politicians can be compromised by travel gifts: security expert; THE acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says the political and media focus on links between politicians and Chinese interests is bordering on the absurd. A confidant of Mr Howard, former NSW premier Bob Carr and Mr Rudd Google: Touch of Yellow Peril deja vu; Reveal their secrets … Protect our own Helen Liu 'spy' storm widens; In the dying days of the woeful George Bush administration, former NSW premier Bob Carr wrote to the White House asking for a presidential pardon to be granted to the convicted corporate fraudster Conrad Black. Bob Carr bats for his mate Conrad Black
• · · · · It was a vintage performance as former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett - hardly pausing to catch his breath between the barbs . (Former NSW premier) Bob (Carr) was very good, a lovely man; read a lot; got on well with the fourth estate - in short, did nothing. Red China aka NSW a hopeless failure; Rudd is yet another victim of the "got to be loved" syndrome in public life. I first saw it when I worked for Bob Carr - how the lure of public adulation can transform a serious intellectual into someone obsessed with media management and opinion polls. Both (Carr and Rudd) came from the school of hard rocks, teased and humiliated by their adolescent peers. Both sought comfort in the solidarity of the Labor movement. No one should underestimate the emotional side of politics; It is believed that Ms Liu is well connected within Australian Labor Party (NSW) circles close to former NSW premier Bob Carr Diamond Hill International ; ALP sources said yesterday Ms Liu was well known in NSW Labor circles and was reportedly close to former NSW premier Bob Carr and his wife Helena. Cold War Bomb is ticking
• · · · · · Ethics -- NSW-style. Ethics of NSW MPs -- annual reports a joke ; Pat Sergi, Tony Labbozzetta, Nick Scali and Francesco Madafferi … Talk about the pot calling the kettle black ; New life for Orange Grove

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It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
-Gandhi

ASIC has nabbed its first rumourmonger but its penalty is well short of a deterrent to the market. It raises more questions than it answers. Over the past 12 months, the corporate cop has waged a war of words over so-called rumourtrage -- spreading false rumours with the intention of manipulating the market. The campaign has included a major sweep of the big brokers, subpoenaed emails and lectures on the dangers of spreading false information. ASIC has asked for the laws to be changed to make it easier to bring such charges, by dropping penalties from criminal to civil and attaching conditions to licences that take into account the duty of care in spreading information. All very good, but its first outing as a corporate cop in the field was frankly a joke: Project, After Dinner, Mint. The perpetrator, Richard John Macphillamy of Bondi Iceberg from ANZ's LINWAR (life is nothing without a risk), last September sent 32 emails to clients suggesting there was a run on Macquarie Cash Management Trust. If this became known it would kill the stock price. Now he would not have been the only broker to tell people money was being pulled from Macquarie's cash management trust last September, which was -- so far at least -- the darkest hour in the financial meltdown…Google on Short stoppers

Life is nothing without a risk The power of surprise
New leaders have a special opportunity to engage their team during their first months in a new role. This article looks at four steps leaders can apply to increase their impact within their organisation.

Leaders can practice humility by:
· Allowing others to be in the limelight.
· Learning that trying to be perfect will often fail.
· Avoiding over preaching without permission.
· Seeking others' input on how you are doing.
· Encouraging the practice of humility in your company through your own example: every time you share credit for successes with others, you reinforce the culture of humility for your team

• How New Leaders Can Connect Their Team With the Need For Change; [ It seems taxes have always been a sexy issue, at least for the last millennium since Lady Godiva, that notoriously anti-tax Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who - according to legend - rode naked through the streets of Coventry in England in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants. I am rich, are you? Why am I loving this question so much …; ABS; 8679.0 - Television, Film and Video Production and Post-Production Services, Australia Cold River 08-09]
• · The basic problem, says US professor and author George Panichas, lies in “an absence of a culture of shame” of which corporate greed is cruelly symptomatic. How many homes and cars are needed by one individual?” he asks. “When I hear political leaders talk about working hard on people’s business, I don’t think they understand what ‘working hard’ means. To me, working hard is a housekeeper cleaning hotel rooms all day for a minimum wage, a coal miner working in the coal mines all day, and parents working two jobs to support their family An absence of a culture of shame ; Think of the Taj Mahal or the Golden Gate Bridge. Think of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. If such a building catches the world's eye and finds a place there it becomes an icon, or what Wallace Stevens, speaking of poetry, called a "necessary angel": a presence that speaks powerfully to the senses but whose real message is for the spirit David MaloufAn Angel At Bennelong Point ; The sun had just slipped above the horizon to kiss the Opera House sails
• · COURAGEOUS is a word much devalued in bureaucratic circles - by a television comedy about bureaucrats. Sir Humphrey, the devious department head in Yes, Minister and its sequels would use it to terrify his political boss. He would throw the word in the air with a particular spin, so that praise became mockery; it no longer meant brave, but foolhardy or just stupid. Senator Faulkner lets in the light; Australia’s Right To Know Freedom of Speech Conference Freedom to know; Google Control: if you love it, set it free
• · · Matthew Moore Freedom of Information Editor Changes to FoI bring a new era of disclosure; Rolodex of PARLIAMENTARY knowledge Father of the House: The memoirs of Kim E. Beazley
• · · · What blogging is to email, twitter is to instant messaging (IM) Loving and Hating Twitter in Five Easy Pieces; Photographs of the hour-long liaison - Nigel Griffiths Palace of Westminster in Many Pieces
• · · · · THE unravelling of the affairs of elusive Hills art dealer Ronald Coles, whose Bentley number plate BUY ART has not been seen at his usual haunts for some weeks, has advanced to a new stage. Legal action taken over missing art; The media, particularly tabloid papers, broadsheets, TV and radio, paint the current crisis in Armageddon proportions. Nobody can seriously deny the extreme economic dangers we face. However Britain seems to have led the way in recapitalising the economy and our Government is injecting billions in to the economy and running up high and unprecedented levels of expenditure which the Conservative party claim will hamper generations to come. Media
• · · · · · The whole concept of risk appetite is an understanding of an organisation's desire to take on risk when weighed with potential reward What's your risk appetite?; Learn to turn difficult conversations in the right direction, and break free of emotion's grip Biting words

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Seeing double: thirty years ago I used to celebrate my confirmation as well as my name day as Patrick and Jozef tended to bring special spiritual cheers to the European Spring … So it was appropriate to invade Hunters Hill and share a beer with Kevin before Pauline Gardner and Lynden Jones reminded us of the German accents in the Deathtrap

Use online portals to explore your interests and share comments with like-minded users. Ten years ago circa 1999, if you liked a political story you read in the paper you might mention it to a friend over coffee . These days, if you read that story online you could link it to bookmarking and sharing sites that are read by millions of people, allowing them to comment on the story and vote on how important they think it is. Double Media Dragon

Champions of reform? ASIO at its peak, says departing chief
ASIO is riding high and in the best shape in its 60-year history, according to its outgoing chief Paul O'Sullivan.

Mr O'Sullivan, who relinquished the top job at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation last weekend to take up a senior diplomatic post, said the big investment in the organisation since 2001 had put ASIO on the "front foot" for the first time in a long while. The most compelling argument for this investment continues to be the prevention of a terrorist attack in Australia.

• Antipodean Farm ; [The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) ; AUSTRALIA'S domestic spy agency, ASIO, was dysfunctional throughout much of the Cold War and was probably infiltrated by hostile foreign agents, according to previously top-secret documents from the 1970s. ASIO: the enemy was within ]
• · Most of the real politicians parodied in the Twitter parliament, which has more than 15 fakes - including three bogus Kevin Rudds - have no plans to erase them, crediting satire as being a healthy part of democracy O'Farrell; Burrying the mistakes … One in three of Media Dragon lovers ends up dead
• · Disgraced former judge Marcus Einfeld is being investigated over another traffic offence, this time for not wearing a seatbelt while travelling to court. ; Australian judge Marcus Einfeld was sentenced to two years in prison for lying about a 77 Australian dollar ($54) speeding ticket, while in Indonesia, a lawmaker was sentenced to just six years in jail for accepting a Rp 3.4 billion ($296,000) bribe during a tender process. Two sentences in two countries for different crimes. But crimes nonetheless! 77: When the Penalty Doesn’t Fit the Crime; Google: It was the electronic trail left by Marcus Einfeld the day he was caught speeding that helped detectives unravel his web of deceit and ultimately stained his reputation Prominent Australian jurist Marcus Einfeld Twice married with four children, he is also said to be an accomplished pianist who enjoys theatre and the arts. Google on Marcus Einfeld
• · · Fairness is not an abstract concept. It is essentially practical. Whether one talks in terms of procedural fairness or natural justice, the concern of the law is to avoid practical injustice. Parker v Comptroller-General of Customs; Gary Banks, Productivity Commission Evidence-based policy-making: what is it? how do we get it?; Joan Goodchild: Companies need to run a general social engineering awareness campaign. They need to tell employees what to look for and how to look for it; and teach employees that it's not that the company doesn't trust the people within the organisation, it's that there are people out there trying to hack into systems every day. Social engineering: anatomy of a hack ; Many executives will find themselves trapped in a labyrinth from which there appears no hope of escape. Whether they emerge as heroes or scapegoats is up to them. The road to success is built on ideas
• · · · I hope this movie will finally show people the ferocious face of WORLD, which is the face that really runs things Italy and the world; With the financial world on its head, few would have predicted a year ago that Australia's big four banks would be ranked in the world's top 20 by market Wall St villains now saviours
• · · · · 2009: Big Brother may have been axed from TV, but government bureaucrats are doing their best to keep George Orwell s dystopian nightmare alive. In only the first year government could pry into telecommunication companies customer details under phone bugging laws, 183,099 authorisations were given to 27 federal and state government agencies as part of criminal and civil investigations. 2008: Bug or track people for up to four days without a warrant ; Competitive advantage in today's market is more or less a dream if it is not closely tied to knowledge management. Includes discussion of social network analysis. Knowledge management: it's all about people,
• · · · · · The idea of lengthy, considered and purely rational decision making is not only unattainable but unworkable. You've got to keep the emotion in Better faster decisions ; Career advice: how to prepare if you score an interview ; The world of business has changed and management hasn't kept up. Management 1.0 must move to management 2.0. Inventing management's future: identifying the challenges ; In this report, we explore the successes of analytics in governmental agencies and attempt to develop an assessment framework for those that are yet to embark on the analytics journey or are still in the early stages of it. We focus in particular on four governmental areas: health care, logistics, revenue management, and briefly (because of the paucity of public sources) intelligence... The four sections identify governmental organizations that are exploiting analytics to meet their strategic goals. After the description of these activities and, in some cases, their impact, we discuss key factors that the agencies have faced in implementing analytics. We discuss each agency in terms of the key components necessary for leveraging analytics in our assessment framework The strategic use of analytics in government

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Despite much attention to U.S. government policies since the early 1930s, key questions remain unresolved. Cold War … wise people store up knowledge even though words are chopped in half abondened at the end of lines left swivelling like cut worms eaten by Ukranian during the great famine Are We All Socialists Now? Not at All"


Can we change the heart of economics? Stimulus and Response: Watching Our Rulers Destroy Our World
The extra-constitutional (and thus unconstitutional) "bailout" and "stimulus" programs of the Bush and Obama administrations during the present economic crisis bring to mind Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose failed interventions turned a recession into the Great Depression, according to Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute. Yet, further back in U.S history, one can find a vastly superior approach to dealing with economic fluctuations - one that brought the country phenomenal economic growth during the first century and a half of its existence.

As recently as the major recession of 1920-21, the government took a hands-off position, and the downturn, though sharp, quickly reversed itself into full recovery, Higgs writes in an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor.In another recent article, Higgs argues that although the policies of our leaders in Washington, D.C., are ill designed to restore health to an ailing economy, they are well suited to making the leaders appear to be doing something. They are pouring credit madness on credit madness because they have no real understanding of how the economic world actually works, and, even if they understand, they are politically beholden to the owners and managers of failing economic behemoths who profited handsomely from the artificial prosperity of the boom and are now staring into the abyss.

• Many questions are being raised about the stimulus package's contents and efficacy. Hardly anyone, however, is asking the most importation question: Should the federal government be doing any of this? Instead of stimulus, do nothing – seriously; [As we wait to see how the politicians in Washington will alter the stimulus package the Obama administration is pushing, many questions are being raised about the measure's contents and efficacy. History shows that the economy can recover strongly on its own, if politicians stay out of the way; Neither Liberty nor Safety: Fear, Ideology, and the Growth of Government We have nothing to fear but hype itself]
• · The “stimulus package” is to sensible economic policy as—
military justice is to justice, John Maynard Keynes is to F. A. Hayek “I Love Lucy” is to “Much Ado about Nothing” Pat Robertson is to Mother Teresa a shipload of gravel is to the Rock of Gibraltar Reader’s Digest is to Tolstoy’s War and Peace
rap music is to classical music Tolstoy’s War and Peace ; The use of gross exaggeration - labelling every car crash a tragedy, every flood, a natural disaster, every stock market fall a depression - is mad. Every month 5 billion people loose a job yes 5 billion …
• · The media plays a crucial role in disseminating information regarding issues of public importance to the rest of society. The current global financial crisis and the bank failures that have contributed to it are issues of immense public interest and significant complexity. It is therefore the responsibility of the press to explain what has happened and what measures are being taken by government and financial institutions to address the current state of affairs so that members of the public may evaluate the actions taken by key decision makers and make informed decisions regarding their own circumstances. Banking Crises ; Zimbabweans identify with those words – for Martin Luther King’s dream is our dream. What however will make the actions of President Obama so effective is that they cannot be dismissed as racist. So we can take heart that Robert Mugabe’s regime has been served a powerful warning today that whilst there is a window of opportunity open it must be grasped quickly and in good faith. Hope is indeed on the way You make peace by talking to your enemies Senator David Coltart: Hope is on the way
• · · Neil Waters writes about confidence, candour, consistency and cheerfulness are useful leadership qualities in today's uncertain economic times Four qualities leaders need now, ; What Moses, Attila the Hun and 280,000 books can't tell you about the art of management You wouldn't read about it, Bob
• · · · Winning the Dream ;
• · · · · Common sense, not to mention the evidence, tells us that a larger population cannot possibly be in the interests of Australia. How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future; As Groucho Marx said to some unfortunate, "I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll make an exception". In policy, as in life, it matters when and how you make exceptions … It's Bruce Hawker No.1 and a distant second to anyone else. If you want an opportunity to present your case [to the State Government] you do it through Hawker Britton Tsunami of Lobbyists ; The march of the Chinese into Australia's resource space has intensified
• · · · · · There's nothing like a gathering of the corporate great and good to put the sparkle into the top end of town and the American Australian Association benefit dinner honouring Frank Lowy, the Westfield founder and executive chairman, was a well-needed tonic for the uncharacteristically humbled gathering. Being Frank: we have thousands of TV channels and shops but nothing is on ; China’s political tunnel China's deepening economic crisis is provoking social discontent that will place the Beijing leadership in an impossible political predicament, says the renowned democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng. A cold wind in Beijing

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They came to witness history. For some, the wait that began before dawn and ended as dusk announced its chilling approach was a new beginning. Or a turning point. But they all wanted to be there for history and for posterity. It was a night when it didn't seem to matter that the temperature was below freezing and the wind was cutting through the thickest overcoats. A night when it began to sink in that the once unthinkable had happened in America. And for once, the stars and their bling were overawed or eclipsed … Internet into overdrive as millions express Obama hopes: We feel that he is an inspiring figure

Hope Over Fear Obama should bring out the best in all of us
A New Era Of Responsibility? The Conundrum That Is Barack Obama

Emotions matter. People talk about hope and optimism as if they are fake, false things; phantasms that have nothing to do with the real world. Yet what historian would write about war without talking about the emotions of the time - fear, hatred, envy, revenge and, sometimes, the urge for peace? How can you understand the rise and fall of stockmarkets without comprehending the role of fear, greed and crowd psychology?

• ANALYSIS: Obama aims to involve entire US in economic turnaround --- 'Emotions matter. The hope created by Obama is a real and useful commodity . .; [Hey Google captures all analysis: Americans have high hopes for the presidency of Barack Obama, and the United States is being swept by a wave of optimism ; One of my favorite books is F. G. Bailey’s unjustly neglected masterpiece Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership Another Presidential Inaugural Speech ; This can only go so far. No government can ultimately rely on the printing press to keep everything pushing along. But I'll leave the last word to Lord Skidelsky: The crisis has rightly led to a revival of interest in Keynes. But he was a moralist as well as an economist. He believed that material wellbeing is a necessary condition of the good life, but that beyond a certain standard of comfort, its pursuit can produce corruption, both for the individual and for society. Key Ness ]
• · The most important thing in sport is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. 15 memorable quotes from Election 2008; As he assumed the presidency, Barack Obama declared that it was time to "set aside childish things," to put away "petty grievances," "worn-out dogmas" and "stale political arguments." He promised a new era of responsibility – suggesting that what has come before him was irresponsibility. Analysis: Obama's Speech
• · During World War II, George Orwell was unable to find a publishing house willing to publish Animal Farm, and several of them acknowledged that it was because they were uncomfortable with the provocative content (i.e., what they perceived as being criticism of Stalin at a time when the West considered the Russians a crucial ally). Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. How will the David Gregory theory of journalism apply to the Obama administration?; Last winter, I asked a national political correspondent I know about the media and Barack Obama - was it really as far in the tank for lanky Illinois Senator as it appeared to be? Yeah, he said. And the reason was simple: "Obama is a growth industry." Will Media Hucksters Wreck A Great American Story? They're Trying...
• · · In the meantime, one enterprising blogger has started a campaign to link the words "Cheerful Achievement" to Obama's biography. Sounds good. Obama Googlebombed; For the hard right, inauguration day was an occasion to keep bashing Obama, but serious conservatives are warming to him Conservative pundits don't quite know what to make of Barack ...
• · · · Obama is in the White House but mama still complaining about money because of this thing called the recession. Who Should Obama Look to for Advice?: Jimmy Carter ; Obama outlaws torture, rendition flights and secret jails run by CIA Hopes for the Obama Presidency
• · · · · it is hard to imagine what world would look like without the small and shrinking number of people who engage in painstaking, firsthand research in order to separate the truth from the body of supposed facts, and who keep the rest of us honest. What Will 2009 Bring for Journalism?; Most Americans don’t think of their government as an empire, but in fact the United States has been steadily expanding its control of overseas territories since the turn of the twentieth century. The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland; Our Jewish past is largely a tragedy, and the state of Israel is a continuation of that tragedy. Should Jews leave Israel?
• · · · · · Yes he can: Obama to keep BlackBerry; Everyone was blogging about Tuesday's inauguration -- even the people who were putting it on. A blogger's inauguration

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Labor has delivered a moderate budget that it hopes will "build the nation" by dedicating spending on health care, welfare and infrastructure while winding back the direct benefits to the nation's well-paid. The first Labor budget in 13 years has maintained the tax cuts promised during the election and will now means-test welfare and the controversial baby-bonus which rises to $5000 from June Swan on song ; WAYNE Swan's razor gang has identified $7 billion in savings next year alone; Treasurer Wayne Swan's first budget has been well received by economists but government forecasts for slower economic growth could be too low. Economists praise budget The numbers: What you'll get in the Budget's tax cuts (Google hunter and gatherer $38B investment plan to boost Aussie economy

Yes, Prime Minister: What's in store for Budget 2008? The PM sees public service in brighter light
Address to heads of agencies and members of senior executive service Rudd, a former bureaucrat himself, is — was — one of them. As the PM noted in his address, he has played all the main roles in Yes Minister: I have acted both as a Humphrey, as Bernard and now I'm the minister … So when Ken Henry, the secretary of the Treasury, looks at me through … highly intelligent glasses and says 'courageous, minister', I know the text and the sub-text …

the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Prime Minister, speech, Canberra, 30 April 2008. "Members of the Senior Executive Service, I begin this morning by honouring the traditional owners of this land on which the Parliament now sits. Thank you for the efforts that each of you have made to attend this morning. I know that your workload has been unusually heavy in recent months. Alongside an exhaustive spending review process for the Budget, the transition to a new government means managing new priorities and new policies, and adjusting to new ministers and their offices. The leadership roles that each of you exercise require you to balance the day to day needs of government with longer term policy and planning; in short, the reactive versus the strategic. In the early days of a new government you face both enormous day to day demands while also needing to start implementing new policy platforms."

• Only half joking, senior public servants have been commenting on how much better the country has been running during the caretaker period, without an elected government running the show Running Show; [ All about to change; Yes, Prime Minister. All change for the public service]
• · The whole point of politicians and political parties declaring campaign donations is to show the public what's going on. They are meant to reveal who is giving what to whom, and to sound the alarm at the appearance of improper influence on individual MPs and governments Political donations: disclosure is all show and no tell ; Michael Booth's career began crashing in great, ghastly pieces around his ears. But, surprisingly, it was not on the day in 2006 when he was accused of academic misconduct, but on the day he claims he annoyed a minister. A Sydney researcher claims he paid a high price for offending a government minister
• · The 800 include many of Australia's biggest companies, which have given between $1525 and $543,000 each - and they face fines of $11,000 for each offence 800 face charges for donations ; Money went to party, not me, says Sartor
• · · Brotherhood of St Laurence - This report highlights key federal taxation areas requiring reform, with brief case studies illustrating the inequities, and presents a number of recommendations for a fairer system. The Brotherhood is urging the new federal government to examine options to create a fairer, simpler and a more efficient tax system that maximises economic and social participation. PDF version link ahead The case for change: a snapshot analysis of the Australian tax system ; As far as Budgets go, the bar was set pretty high on this one Swan plays Robin Hood in Budget that takes from the rich ; A COMPREHENSIVE review of the nation's tax system will be unveiled in Tuesday night's federal budget, Treasurer Wayne Swan says. Tax review to be unveiled budget night
• · · · How Boris triumphed in London by not being Boris Mayor ; You know, I have always had a soft spot for Cherie Blair. You may think I am mad, but I have resented the attacks on her, and suspected that it is to do with the jealousy that surrounds a successful, high-earning woman who possesses a mind of her own. Boris on his website on crime and London ; The curse or joy of the Spectator Melisa and Johnson
• · · · ·A revamped data warehouse is helping Victoria Police to reduce crime rates and has delivered AU$2 million in productivity benefits, despite a lack of initial budget planning which threatened to derail the project early on Victoria Police cut crime with data warehousing ; When Philip Hind joined the Australian Taxation Office as chief knowledge officer, the task of managing the organisation's data warehouse was widely viewed as a poison chalice. How did the ATO evolve to make its warehouse-dependent BI applications a critical enterprise tool?... How ATO found an antidote to the BI poison chalice
• · · · · · This Oscar-winning WWII drama puts devils, as well as angels, on the head of the pin The Counterfeiters ; After seven days, she announced the blog was an art project and she wasn't planning to kill herself. I wanted this blog to be about personal discovery … When a 24-year-old woman who called herself "90DayJane" launched a blog in February announcing she would write about her life and feelings for three months and then commit suicide, 150,000 readers flocked to the site. Some came to offer help, some to delight in the drama. Others speculated it was all a hoax. Your blog can be group therapy

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The Dow Jones picks up my sentiments Good financial management is like fresh air, exercise and a healthy diet. Organisations need it every day to stay fit and to live a full and active life.

Isn't it peculiar that governments in South Australia and Tasmania are stoutly resisting cries for permanent corruption commissions to be established in those sainted states? It scarcely seems credible that they should resist such a terrific suggestion. A glance at the NSW model of corruption fighting should be enough to put any besieged government entirely at ease. Odd to fear watchdogs, as bark's worse than bite

Am I the only person to be surprised not by the complaints but by the lack of ambition Martin Wolf
This is not an example of public sector inefficiency as a result. It is an example of private sector greed and inefficiency.

Martin Wolf is one of the best respected economic commentators in the world. His column in the FT this morning is a classic. He argues that:
Am I the only person to be surprised not by the complaints [by the non-domiciled], which are predictable, but by their lack of ambition?
And he goes on, by arguing in absurdum, that if the non-doms arguments are right:
a) Everyone in the UK should be able to use the remittance basis and so pay tax on an optional basis;
b) There should be no tax on incomes over £100,000;
c) Because they generate so much wealth those earning over £100,000 should in fact have a negative tax rate;
d) Billionaires should be paid to come to the UK.
As his argument makes clear, no one has put forward such claims because they know that tax has to be paid by someone. What the wealthy want is that it is paid by anyone but them. As Leona Helmsley put it:
We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
This is what the non-dom debate is about. But as Wolf puts it:
From long experience, I am deeply sceptical of special interest “the sky is falling” pleading. More fundamentally, I am opposed to this particular pleading because it is subversive of any enduring political compact among citizens. If we take the principle that successful people are too important and too mobile to pay tax to its logical conclusion, political community will collapse.
And as he concludes:
Yet the experience also shows that the case for a simple, neutral and stable fiscal system, which taxes the worldwide incomes of all long-stay residents on the basis of ability to pay, is overwhelming. As soon as one departs from that principle one enters in a maze of special pleading or invidious distinctions, in which failed ideas of industrial policy - subsidising winners through the tax system - return to the fore. If the application of that great principle means some rich people leave the country, so be it.
I agree. Entirely.
I also agree (and some should note this) with the simplification part of this argument. Getting rid of the domicile rule would be a great way to do that. But for once the professions seem quite opposed to simplification. Is it because they too think that only the little people should pay tax? I fear it is.

• I agree. Entirely. [Everybody, listen to me, And return me, my ship. I'm your captain, I'm your captain. Although I'm feeling mighty sick. -- Mark Farner American Poet B. Flint AGE OF UNREASON ; ]
• · It's not going to be pretty at the Labor Party's state conference when Morris Iemma lines up to show who's in charge - Donations fuss driven by media dragons … Premier's power play; A man's home may no longer be his castle, but it could well end up being somebody else's castle - THE State Government plans to give its agencies and councils power to compulsorily acquire private land to re-sell to developers at a profit - or, if they choose, at a reduced price so the developers make even more money State can sell your home
• · When stainless steel corrodes - which it shouldn't but does - the result is especially catastrophic because the corruption works unseen, crumbling the core material while leaving its glorious surface unblemished. Nothing is visible, until that fateful instant when the bolt, cleat or cable gives way with a sudden hollow shudder. And calamity abounds. There are various theories on this chemical perfidy. Most involve pitting, from microscopic manganese inclusions that disturb the electrochemistry within, voluntarily rearranging the electrons without approval from head office, much as happens in political parties. Highly polished Carr a rust bucket in disguise; NSW Labor to reform political donations
• · · THE Opposition has accused the Government of contempt of Parliament by failing to disclose four documents containing criticisms of a deal to allow development on land that Planning Department staff had rejected as highly unsuitable. O'Farrell outraged at papers' absence; NSW Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell has marked his first anniversary in the job with a stinging attack on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), accusing it of ducking tough State Government corruption claims. In an extraordinary outburst, Mr O'Farrell said the ICAC was a far cry from the fearless watchdog it was under previous commissioners Ian Temby and Barry O'Keefe. O'Farrell attacks watchdog
• · · · Duncan Hardie YOU only have to look at Duncan Hardie's sprawling faux Spanish villa in the Hunter's wine district to know this is a man who thinks big. Sweetwater Ridge is the realisation of the ultimate dream home for the chairman and founder of Hardie Holdings. Sweetwater was also the name the 57-year-old New Zealand-born speculator gave to another unlikely dream, a new city of 28,000 homes for 59,000 people, with a university and commercial centre thrown in. Paving paradise to save it; The Hardie Holdings subsidiary Eco Trades exhausted its bank of high-conservation land in 2006 when it agreed to hand over 7400 hectares of land to the state's national parks system. Developer moves on to Mid North Coast
• · · · · Hardie Holdings; Land-clearing blots no barrier to biobank plan - Environment ...
• · · · · · THE State Government dismissed advice from its own planners and allowed developers to clear valuable bushland to build housing estates away from existing towns and transport, after months of aggressive lobbying by developers. Secret files expose the sway of developers ; A FEDERAL Government move to expose the lobbying industry to greater public scrutiny has generated a backlash, with lobbying firms seeking changes. ; COMMUNICATING WITH
GOVERNMENT - A BUSINESS - Bruce Hawker. Managing Director. Hawker Britton Pty Ltd. On TUESDAY, May 13, 2008 George Orwell and the STATE GOVERNMENT FAMILIARISATION PROGRAMME ; ONE of the problems for long-term governments is that the past inevitably catches up with them. Hawker pops up in the spin doctors segment on Sally's show about once a month - If you’re in government – any sort of government – there are two things you could be doing: selling your programs or defending them. All of these are possible sources of juicy stories which can stop promising careers in their tracks.