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I wish for all of you the happiest and most hopeful of new years. May you laugh often, cry only when you want to, and never be bored in MMXI! Happiness seems an unintended side effect, like hives or a dry cough, the occasional byproduct of right living ;-)
And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not…
Is happiness ever unmixed, a pure state like pain or terror? And doesn’t it tend to evaporate as we become conscious of its presence? It’s not synonymous with pleasure, though like some pleasures it seems dependent on self-forgetting. Aquinas says happiness is rooted in "goods of the soul." Davis’ idea that being in a Haydn symphony may constitute uncomplicated happiness is suggestive. Being in implies not passive hearing but engaged listening – but listening to what? Music that is elegant, ordered, intelligent and spirited, with an impression of unlikely inevitability. Davis’ friend Edgar Bowers put it like this in From J. Haydn to Constanze Mozart (1791):
I carry one small memory of his form
Aslant at his clavier, with careful ease,
To bring one last enigma to the norm,
Intelligence perfecting the mute keys.
Many ideas we once thought were true turned out to be hard to unlearn...
History should never be used to inculcate virtuous citizenship. Yet it offers the richest imaginable source of moral examples – The essence of great fiction, drama, and life itself

The old year passeth Earlier the roadside dust was sweet. The fermented fruit, the brandy, is sweeter still, carried into the world on the walker’s boot
This has been quite a year for Mrs. MD and me, in some ways challenging, in others gratifying.

We've seen a hundred movies, dozen of plays, read every Vanity Fair magazine (the Spectator or the Financial Times if time permitted,) taken a full-fledged vacation, driven up to Kings Canyon and Uluru, spent a wonderful month in the red center reading books and more books ....
What Mrs. MD and I won't do is take our good fortune for granted, starting with the astonishing fact of our being together. It is, I suspect, exceedingly rare for two people in the middle of life to make a marriage as close as this one has become. When you survive Iron Curtain, every day is a surprise and a blessing. Like Theodore Dalrymple we have never been a one-book reader, devoting attention to a single volume at a time:
Often I read more than one book at a time. When I tire of one I fly to another. This is because the world has always seemed to me so various and so interesting in all its aspects that I have not been able to confine my mind to a single subject or object for very long; therefore I am not, never have been, and never will be the scholar of anything. My mind is magpie-like, attracted by what shines for a moment; I try to persuade myself that this quality of superficiality has its compensations, in breadth of interest, for example
Like Dalrymple, we are no scholars of anything but enjoy learning something about almost everything. Shakespeare was the keenest of cullers, and in that we also recognize ourselves. To cull is to select with discernment, whether the sweetest blueberry or the tartest book.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist?
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (May John Hatton Movement rocks in 2011)

• ... Turn the clock to zero, honey [How AK-47, more than A-bomb, changed history: If somebody were to tell you that the long tragedy of human warfare entered a new and deadly phase in the fifth decade of the 20th century, the historically literate mind almost certainly would jump to the invention of the atomic bomb, which ushered in an age of anxiety and the long balance of terror between the United States and the Soviet Union. Avtomat Kalashnikova - How the rifle I used in Czech Army change the history of the world ; The man of science, like the man of letters, is too apt to view mankind only in the abstract, selecting in his consideration only a single side of our complex and many-sided being. Hopes for 2011]
• · Father Dionigi recognized in his charge’s spirit a state similar to that of St. Augustine in his youth. He gave Petrarch a pocket copy of the Confessions, which the poet had not read. The book was Petrarch’s cherished companion for forty years. It journeyed with him to a mountain top, and once, in its owner’s pocket, it was near drowning with him in the sea. The Nativity of Our Common Adam; As Much as Can Be Made of Life Here’s a profound hole, yet no deeper than a coffin
• · · “To light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of men when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, ‘Let there be light.’” Voltaire possessed an endless appetite for putting himself in harm’s way: duels, insults to nobility ; We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute -- the foundation of the human condition -- and should be better. What makes music sad
• · · · Art as Empathy,” David Foster Wallace noted in the margins of a Tolstoy essay. Wallace’s archive shows he was not such an abstruse postmodernist…While many children are capable of conjuring imaginative tales, the grade-school Wallace has an unusual empathy for the adult double-bind of finding purpose in a job that also brings misery Art as Empathy ; On the eve of a pivotal academic year in Vishal Singh’s life, he faces a stark choice on his bedroom desk: book or computer? Cold River or computer?
• · · · · With Amazon, publishing is now beholden to one profit-obsessed company. What happens when you sell a book like it’s a can of soup?...Where once a publisher had to worry about competing for shelf space, now its entire list of books could be available to customers. Amazon; Depressing Russian Literature
• · · · · · Describing the paintings in words risks sentimentality or banality, which they never possess And thus abstract art is brought to shame, Even if we do not deserve any other; Ever dream of quitting your job and moving to a farm? This book will make you rethink that dream. The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love

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You do something wrong, FATCA shoots your neighbor
- As Seen on Google

Google has grown from an idea generated by two students at Stanford University in 1998 to one of the world’s most well known and successful companies. Liane Hornsey, Director of People Operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa says that the company would not have been able to innovate as quickly as it has, nor create the products it has in such a short space of time without highly valuing employee engagement ;
- The Wikileak video spread like wildfire across the internet and what next this week?
I'm not a wealthy man, but I'm rich in my convictions The West Needs a Good Dose of Perestroika -‎ Nothing Beats Helen Womack ‘s Analysis
During the Cold War, oppressed political dissidents around the world often had an easier time getting human-rights groups to advocate for their freedom. Today, however, it seems that dissidents often fail to garner the international spotlight they previously held. The reasons are manifold--ranging from the politicization of human rights to economic globalization to moral relativism.
Launching the Labour manifesto for the recent British election, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown stood against the backdrop of a golden cornfield and promised a future fair for all. As I watched, I was struck by a powerful sense of deja vu. Where had I seen and heard all that before? Yes, of course, the Soviet Union circa 1980 — the old propaganda that spoke of bumper harvests and five-year plans fulfilled and overfulfilled.

A fresh page was turned in Prague on April 8 when Medvedev and the US President, Barack Obama, signed a treaty to reduce Russian and American stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons. Before that, Obama had cancelled a Bush-era plan to deploy ballistic missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, a prospect that had unsettled Moscow. The treaty was seen by some defence experts as a "one up" to Russia, but others saw wider benefits for the West in the politics of win-win and the new goodwill wafting from the Kremlin.

• Back in the CCCP - USSR ; Moscow Times [It was the greedy free market, supposedly, that created both the housing bubble and the housing bust and led, inevitably, to the “great recession.” Capitalism, according to most liberal pundits (and even Alan Greenspan in a bad mood), is an inherently risky and unstable system that requires government regulation to correct its flaws and moderate its excesses. Crony Capitalism Is NOT Capitalism ; Faking It Won't Make It ]
• · Nothing beats a quiet Sunday afternoon in the traditional book store. Last week I whiled away a couple of hours at two of my favorites – Daunts and Hatchards. Daunts is the best travel bookshop on earth, while Hatchards has five floors of imaginative, beautifully selected, beautifully laid-out books... Nothing Beats Book Stores ; George Clooney and Up in the Air have a lot to tell the employers about the downside of reducing face-to-face contact. Efficiency and savings are often illusory when it comes to computerizing and centralizing businesses. Sydney Expo and Up in the Air ; You thought only conservatives got mad about taxes? Tea partiers, eat your hearts out: A group of liberals got together Tuesday and proved that they, too, can have a tax rebellion. But theirs is a little bit different: They want to pay more taxes. ; Law students and the consumers of legal services like to think that professors are hired by law schools on the basis of pure intellectual ability and achievement. No doubt, individual intellectual ability and achievement play significant roles in law school faculty hiring. However, another important dynamic is overlooked, wealth
• · · Chris Masters in the Telegraph writes about gang violence in Melbourne and Sydney in a story headlined 'Why Sydney's hitmen are deadlier'. Under the usual pictures of the Ibrahims, Morans and the late Michael McGurk, he explains various motives behind the violence and deaths, including the practice of an underling serving jail time for a superior but not being properly rewarded after release. ; hitmen Underbelly 3 - The Golden Mile, set in Kings Cross, debuts this Sunday, Channel 9 8.30. It gets a rave review plus some great site Kings Cross footage on The Australian
• · · · THE Sydney underworld's war without end, the ongoing battle for temporary supremacy, has in recent years featured the most visible members, bikies. The clearest evidence that the jungle rule book of old has been torn up comes from the prisons. Chis Master; Hell on Wheels; Underbelly; I HAVE a particular affection for my Australian friends of Middle Eastern background - they seem imbued with a special generosity and. zest for life
• · · · · The reframe is powerful; arguing in favour of envy would appear as difficult as opposing hope, faith or charity The politics of envy ; Planning laws and lobbying NSW Inc
• · · · · · Founded on a growing evidence base that working is good for health Arbeighcht; It is a fitting coincidence that this new chapter in our tax history coincides with our centenary and in preparing ourselves for entering our new century of tax and superannuation administration! tax history ; Well, it's a good thing I'm rich and famous on google

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Happy Mothers Day to Dial, June and all the wonderful women in this amazing world

Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world. Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. Global Rich List

A Boy with Double Dragon Tattoo is now on the Global list . A list, very few Czechs make it Bohemian Media Dragon
or Australians ( Dangerous Journeys)

Creating a healthy happy world Matters of Amazing Grace
Having looked at history and done theory on happiness in recent blogs, here’s a top 10 from Dr Mike Pratt to pin to your wall Happiness – 10 Key Things We Know

Creating a healthy happy world is a worthy pursuit which we all have a stake in. It’s something academic colleague Dr. Mike Pratt has been working on to evolve Peak Performance theory. This week I have three posts based on Mike’s recent work, and for starters here’s some historical ground from the deep delvers:
BC 384-322: Greek Aristotle strikes it long and deep: Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence
• BC 341-270: Greek Epicurus hits the pleasure button (Epicureanism), and gets tagged as a supporter of hedonism. To his credit, he said you have to draw the line somewhere.
• On sweeping levels, Buddhism and Islam develop powerful paths to happiness.
• 13th century, the Italian Roman Catholic priest Thomas Aquinas weighs in with: “Every man necessarily desires happiness.”
• 1711-1776: the Scot David Hume high five’s Aristotle’s view.
• 1776: The American Declaration of Independence includes the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right.
• 1748 – 1832: Englishman Jeremy Bentham defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. An advocate of utilitarianism, he describes natural law and natural rights as “nonsense upon stilts.”
• 1806 – 1873: John Stuart Mill works up utilitarianism with Jeremy, and focuses on actions that generate pleasure. He says OK to different types of pleasure, and pumps ‘higher pleasure’.
• 1818 – 1883: Karl Marx sees happiness as the ultimate destination, achieved through crashing the lead vehicle.
• 1844 – 1900: Friedrich Nietzsche says happiness is something for British Shopkeepers. Ronnie Barker’s sitcom alter-ego, the grocer Arkwright, to double negative, wouldn’t disagree.
• 1879 – 1955: Albert Einstein compares moral aims like well-being and happiness to the ambitions of a pig.
• 2000 – 2010: Happiness gets pondered, indexed, studied, measured, blogged and tweeted about.

• Stand by for more about his happiness… [The tax bar is commonly referred to as a "special priesthood," and it is only slightly more tolerant than the Catholic Church in ordaining women tax priests. -- Paul L. Caron
Special priesthood; FORMER independent MP John Hatton has called on the Southern Highlands to be awake to political corruption and incompetence. Mr Hatton, who in 1994 led the push for the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption, which will see him played by John Waters in the latest Underbelly series. Corruption buster, John Hatton, to give talk on empowering communities ]
• · It's wonderful to unexpectedly stumble upon a kindred spirit – or at least a person who holds a worldview eerily similar to your own. This happened recently when I came across the work and writings of Gunter Pauli, who is about to release the English language version of his book, The Blue Economy ; 15 April 2010 marked the 6-year anniversary of TaxProf Blog
• · · Sarah Palin's contract discovered by two students to speak at Stanislaus college includes private jet and expensive hotels…MUST BE a r larger for West Coast Events; or, a Hawker 800 or larger for East Coast Events and both are subject to the Speaker's approval Lear 60 ; NYU Hosts Reading Today of Dan Shaviro's Getting It Following up on my prior post, the NYU Graduate Tax Program is hosting a reading and discussion today of the new novel by Tax Prof Daniel N. Shaviro (NYU), Getting It (iUniverse, 2010): Bill Doberman is a liar. He's also a conniver, a phony, a hypocrite, and a cad -- and those are his good points... Evelyn Waugh meets John Grisham. Hilarious and gripping
• · · · The 3 most critical skills for managing a remote team, Wayne Turmel, bnet.com, 1 March 2010. The author suggests that managers of 21st-century teams need the ability to: create human connections quickly, know what tools to use when - and how to use them, and create loyalty; A blog launched today provides the public with an opportunity to participate in the development of the Rudd Government's Standard Business Reporting (SBR) program...the blog provides a online forum for businesses, reporting professionals, software developers and the broader public to discuss SBR issues Lindsay Tanner ; Standard Business Reporting Open for Comment ; The new social media policy recognises the widespread influence that blogs and wikis have within the community, and that of course includes our staff whom we want be alert to the potential risks of identity fraud and other threats. DIAC Use of the web New social media policy to guide staff online activities; It's all the rage for ministries and agencies to have a Facebook or even MySpace page these days. Governments are going where their citizens are. So why bother having a web site at all? Will Facebook profiles replace govt web sites?,
• · · · · Arkadi Kuhlmann, Ivey Business Journal, March-April 2010. Arkadi Kuhlmann, Chairman and CEO of ING Direct USA (America's largest direct bank), describes the steps that he took, and that other leaders can take, to build a distinctive and dynamic culture Culture driven leadership ; Over the last eighteen months of economic turmoil, leaders, and their ethics, morals and judgement, have been scrutinised and questioned. Leadership and its role in business, politics and wider society has been the subject of great debate. Leadership challenges ; In the new movie Date Night, Steve Carell plays tax lawyer Phil Foster, who is married to Claire Tina Fey
CODA: The ninth edition of "As Certain as Death -- Quotations About Taxes," the collection that I have assembled and published in Tax Notes over the last 16 years. It contains 1,577 quotations, a 426 percent increase over the 300 quotations that made up the first edition in 1994....
No matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can depend upon the support of Paul …
[T]axation, in reality, is life. If you know the position a person takes on taxes, you can tell their whole philosophy. The tax code, once you get to know it, embodies all the essence of life: greed, politics, power, goodness, charity.
A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right.
As Certain As Death -- Quotations About Taxes

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Some bad news is not new; it's made worse by the fact that it's caught in a long-term trend that shows no sign of reversal ... Dragon’s writing on the wall tend to attract trouble...



Our Bronte neighbour wrote in mid September a letter to Australian regulators which detailed his concerns about a fund manager in Australia known as the Astarra Strategic Fund – formerly known as Absolute Alpha.
This letter resulted in regulatory action against a cluster of related funds (almost twenty), however my letter was almost entirely about only one fund in the group. I did not make any major suggestions in the letter about other funds in the Astarra complex. My involvement was detailed today in the Sydney Morning Herald (see stories here, here and here, with the first story on the front page below the fold). There was no genius in my letter – everything could be found (fairly easily) on the internet – and the original tip-off came from a reader of my blog – who noticed links with a story I wrote up in March 2009


Fear 'We did it ourselves!
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honour and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!
--Lao-Tsu

An obsessive routine in carrying out the details begets conformity and complacency, which in turn dulls everyone's mind. That is why even as they pay attention to details, they continually encourage people to challenge the process. They implicitly understand the sentiment of CEO-leaders like Quad/Graphic's Harry Quadracchi, Oticon's Lars Kolind and the late Bill McGowan of MCI, who all independently asserted that the job of a leader is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief dis-organizer.

• chief dis-organizer Leaders of capital and social funds [THE corporate regulator has expressed no concerns about two men owning Australian financial services companies, despite questions about the men's role in a British broker involved in a penny stock scandal.
BusinessDay revealed last week that Jeffrey Revell-Reade, based in Austria, and James Sutherland, based in Hong Kong, owned Australian companies that received three financial services licences from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. ;
The Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) has received unconfirmed reports that $85 million of the missing $118 million of assets within the Astarra Strategic Fund (ASF) are safe AIOFP finds $85m of Astarra Strategic assets ; Google i ; Google ii ]
• · The ever expanding volume of information we face on a daily basis - and the wide range of issues in relation to the concept of information overload, ranging from concerns about information fatigue, information interruption, information access and information transparency that require attention to the costs and benefits of faster and more voluminous flows of data, knowledge and decision management Overloaded ; The establishment of the Senior Executive Service (SES) in 1984 sought to create a Service-wide strategic leadership in ideas, management, and ethics in accordance with the Westminster principles and conventions of public administration as they operate in the Australian model of government. The 25th anniversary of the creation of the SES provides an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements made during this time, and to focus on the challenges ahead The Senior Executive Service 25th Anniversary,
• · · Data losses to incur fines of up to £500,000, BBC, 12 January 2010. The UK Information Commissioner's Office will be able to issue fines of up to £500,000 for serious data security breaches. The new rule is expected to come into force in the UK on 6 April 2010. The size of the fine will be determined after an investigation to assess the gravity of the breach. Other factors will include the size and finances of the organisation at fault. Individual cases will also be assessed on whether the breach was accidental or deliberate and how much distress the leak of information caused ; Reinventing management
• · · · The art of management ; The heroic leader, media dragon, the charismatic, goal-scoring superstar who doesn't mind carrying the team on his back, is out. Enter the post-heroic leader, the quieter, engaging team player who brings every player into the decision-making process. In fact, today's complex business environment requires a leader who combines the best of both styles Is heroic leadership all bad?,
• · · · · Australia's first taxes were levied to meet the challenges of those early days. They may also have been relatively efficient, equitable and simple, particularly since most of the revenue for the gaol came from import duties on alcohol – 'the more the citizens drank, the more money there was to control them' If we were able to ask Governor Hunter of the new colony of New South Wales why he introduced the very first taxes in Australia – taxes applying to imports – I suspect his answer would be, simply, that the colony had to finance the building of a new gaol because the old one had 'inexplicably' burnt down, private subscriptions had proved insufficient and Britain had refused further subsidies. Ken Henry the VIII ; Individual income tax returns [electronic resource] : necessary or not? : Toni Balik Australia : CPA Australia, 1998 TAX OFFICE IS NOW ON MEDIA DRAGON, FACEBOOK, TWITTER The Tax Office has advised that it is now on social networking site Twitter providing "tweets" (much in the style of an SMS message - 140 characters or less) on the latest updates on new measures, changes to legislation and reminders of upcoming due dates. The ATO says those keen to take a look without signing up to Twitter can go to http://www.twitter.com/ato_gov_au [http://www.twitter.com/ato_gov_au http://www.twitter.com/ato_gov_au
• · · · · · Nicknamed the “Pirate of Prague” for his bargain-basement purchase of post-Soviet privatization vouchers in his native Czechoslovakia, Kozeny, 46, got in trouble with U.S. authorities when he tried to pull off a similar maneuver in the Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan in the late 1990s. Bohemian Pirate; As researcher Alan Block described the metastatic growth of the tax-haven phenomenon in his groundbreaking work, Masters of Paradise: Organized Crime and the Internal Revenue Service in the Bahamas, "professional criminals were those who took it upon themselves to organize crime. Their true work was the process of organizing crime itself."GAO reports that CSC has 21 subsidiaries "in jurisdictions listed as tax havens" by the federal government. Some of the firm's global operations are located in tech manufacturing powerhouses such as Bermuda (1); British Virgin Islands (4); Costa Rica (1); Hong Kong (5); Ireland (2); Luxembourg (2); Macao (1); Singapore (4); Switzerland (1). Masters of Paradise; Alexander Zvygintsev, Russia's Deputy Prosecutor-General, said Britain and Israel harboured more Russian criminals than any other countries. He told the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta: "It is no coincidence the capital of [Britain] is often called 'Londongrad'. It seems that London, as a major financial centre, is turning into a giant laundrette for laundering criminally sourced funds. Britain called crooks' haven
Scots like Jock agree

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John Brockman’s Edge question for 2010 asks over a hundred intellectuals, “Is the Internet changing the way you think?” the go-to site for the world’s procrastinating intellectuals


Timothy Garton Ash Cut This Story!
Newspaper articles are too long, encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your grasp of the news

George Orwell’s diaries attest to his deep dread of rats. Perhaps not the only thing he shares with characters in Nineteen Eighty-Four... All day clearing out strawberries, which have not been touched since last year. It seems one plant will put out anything up to 12 or 15 runners ...
Promote a conspiracy theory, and your phones will be bugged, your office burgled (but not robbed), your hard drives fragment, and your emails vanish Or so you’ll think. This season's fashion in conspiracy theories—for those out of the loop of enlightenment—concerns health. The Web sites, marginal cable shows and radio phone-ins are full of tales about how Big Pharma and Bad Government are deliberately spreading diseases or manufacturing scares in order to sell us expensive drugs, gull us into dangerous vaccinations or just simply to create an atmosphere of panic which will allow "them" to take over.

• George Orwell’s diaries
[During the Cold War, when Pete Seeger coaxed classrooms full of kids to join him in folk songs, no one saw America’s “singing left” as much of a political threat.
The law of unintended consequences gave a quirky twist to the relation between the Old and New Left and, in the process, lent peculiar accents to America’s musical and political culture that we can’t seem to get rid of even today. The folk revival—a fad sandwiched between the beatniks and the hippies—may have been brief, but it was also the baby boomers’ coming of age, and its echoes have been lasting. Bruce Springsteen made a splash in 2006 with his Seeger Sessions. Ry Cooder paid homage to Woody Guthrie in the 2007 release My Name Is Buddy. Sheryl Crow told Billboard magazine that her song, “Shine Over Babylon,” is “very environmentally conscious, in the tradition of Bob Dylan. Where Have All the Lefties Gone?
; Sovietology was a powerful force in Cold War history, giving the West a better understanding of its adversary. Today, we need a jihadology
In 1945, the United States faced a dire threat. The rising power of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism in Eastern Europe -- and, soon enough, worldwide -- represented a new enemy that imperiled postwar hopes for a peaceful and prosperous world. The United States was poorly equipped to comprehend, let alone respond to, this emerging global danger. The federal government had few experts who spoke Russian or had a deep knowledge of Russian history and culture; universities were barely better off. The field of Soviet studies emerged as a response and became the catalyst for a network of area studies programs that would soon follow.
Sovietology was a powerful force in Cold War history ]
• · Formulaic book-beat stories: how Writer A struggled and made it big, how Writer B’s novel is marketed, or Writer C’s huge advance. Bob Thompson tries to avoid the formulas... The opening piece, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” begins with a description of the San Bernardino Valley, east of Los Angeles, and of “the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves.” Three pages later, with an October Santa Ana bearing witness, a dentist’s wife named Lucille Miller watches her husband burn to death in the family Volkswagen. By the time I emerged from this sinister dreamscape I had overshot my bus stop by a mile.; The French Resistance continues to excite the imagination because of its sheer drama and mystery – embodied perfectly in the story of Jean Moulin... As we approach the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's historic broadcast from London on 18 June 1940 that inaugurated the French Resistance, interest in the story remains undiminished. It is, though, increasingly difficult for the French to fit the Resistance into their collective memory of this difficult period. There is a prevalent British misconception that the French exaggerate their glorious Resistance exploits-everyone claiming a "resister" in the family-in order to gloss over the darker aspects of the Occupation. In truth, those darker aspects are as present in public discussion today as the Resistance. Every school in Paris has a plaque reminding people of the role played by the Vichy state in the deportation of the Jews. The Resistance continues to excite the imagination because of its sheer drama and mystery
• · · Timothy Garton Ash’s technique lies in a mixture of reportage and judgment, circling and deepening, as the one reinforces the other.
Promote a conspiracy theory, and your phones will be bugged, your office burgled (but not robbed), your hard drives fragment, and your emails vanish. Or so you’ll think. The problem of evil and the origins of the devil, who has inspired Goethe, Heine, W. S. Gilbert, Paul Valéry, Berlioz, Gounod, Turgenev and Randy Newman, to name a few Strange footnote ; Upper mismanagement. Why can’t we make things anymore in America? Two words, says Noam Scheiber: business school
• · · · As tattoos go mainstream, it becomes hard for criminals to signal their devotion to crime. They look more and more like ordinary citizens.. It is a truth universally acknowledged that messing with a guy who has facial tattoos is a really bad idea. Getting dirty words tattooed on your eyelids—a popular choice, judging from the mug shots available online—is a serious commitment. It is, as social scientists say, a “signal that is costly to fake.” The bearer of a facial tattoo announces to the world: I expect to be in prison for most of my life, or to hang out with people who consider prison experience a character reference.; The moral triumphs and failures of leaders carry a greater weight and volume than those of non-leaders. In leadership we see morality and immorality magnified. Leaders are human. That is their strength and their weakness. As humans, they are unpredictable creatures, capable of extraordinary kindness and cruelty
• · · · · Toys for Boys; Bankers

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Not every blogger would begin a history of the 2010s with a vignette in which the oldest house in King Street is peppered with stories from the dream team Peter, Linda and the richest man in the world. Big Night Out fireworks filled with an F- 18 flyover, a 100-gun salute, a new tax crackdown or gala ball?

2010 is not any old year. It marks the centenary year for the Australian Taxation Office, a silver anniversary of the introduction of capital gains tax and a ten anniversary of GST (31 January 2000 to be exact - according to Phil).
Australia Post will honour our centenary with a commemorative stamp that will be circulated among our public. It will be co-designed by tax office staff and launched before November 11, 2010.
The Royal Australian Mint will honour our centenary with a circulating 20 cent coin. It will be designed by tax office staff and released in 2010.

Indeed, GST has been with us for nearly 10 years. This time ten years ago, there was talk of riots in the streets and fears of a consumer strike as prices went up and the threat of price policeman Alan Fels waving his stick. But as it turns out that was the least of our worries. Dr Ken Henry - I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization

Recent Survey: Taxpayers giving the rich a cheap ride: survey - Most Australians believe high-income earners do not pay enough tax, and nearly all think low- and middle-income earners pay too much

Taxation is the price we pay for civilization. A Taxing Year to Remember
Michael D'Ascenzo who is widely recognised in Australia and globally for his expertise in taxation and superannuation. (Note - Michael D'Ascenzo is not related to a Canadian actor who is known as Rainbow "Rain" Papadakis in the children's television show Naturally, Sadie.)

Michael D’Ascenzo took up his role as antipodean Commissioner of Taxation on 1 January 2006. When Michael D’Ascenzo joined the Tax Office in 1977, during the bohemian Havel’s Charter 77, he was captured by the exciting work associated with challenging the tax avoidance schemes of the late 1970s and early 1980s, particularly trust stripping and ‘bottom of the harbour’ schemes.
"This tax haven project (Wickenby) is one of the big success stories of the G20," the OECD's head of tax policy, Jeffrey Owens said. "This is not a numbers game. We have seen a real change in attitudes towards compliance."

*The Canberra Times captured a few interesting snippets about the Commish - John Hatton, AO also likes the quote from the Amerikan Oliver Wendell Holmes:

Few children nurse a desire to become that legendary figure of hate, the tax man.
And when young lawyer Michael D'Ascenzo applied to join the public service more than three decades ago, he admits he had little wish to stay at the Australian Taxation Office he now leads.
"The ATO was the first to ring back. I came here with the intention of being here for a few months until I got a better job," he said.
Yet, Mr D'Ascenzo's passion for tax issues grew and he has now been Australia's Taxation Commissioner for more than four years.
The 56-year-old, whose expertise is sought-after worldwide, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to public administration and the tax profession throughout his career.
He says his enthusiasm for his work springs from its crucial contribution to the community. During his 33 years with the agency, the Tax Office's work has grown beyond collecting public revenue to protecting workers' futures by administering sttperannttation law and helping cut red tape for businesses.
"I like the phrase that [American jurist] Oliver Wendell Holmes usually used, that `tax is the price we pay for a civilised society' ... You really are making a great contribution to the community and to Australia." He agrees the Tax Office will always need to battle to win the community's affection. That's the light at the top of the hill. It's the aspiration we go for ... If we can take a few steps forward, then that's progress," he said. "At the end of the day, you're trying to redress thousands of years of stereotyping. while people might not boast about it, deep down, most people appreciate the work we do on behalf of the community." He said the Australia Day honour was not his award alone, but one he would share with the Tax Office and its staff.
But today's achievement clearly means a lot to the Italian-born Mr D'Ascenzo, whose pride was clear when he reflected on how much the award would have meant to his recently deceased mother. "My only regret is that my mum's not here for this moment."

• Minister Congratulates Tax Commissioner on Australia Day Award ; Italian-born Mr D'Ascenzo ; Our ABC [The Historian, Leigh Edmonds, is to capture the official history of the Tax Office recognising our past, present and future Tax Office Centenary significant memoir; Official history ; The Federal Court has dismissed an application by 3 taxpayers seeking an interlocutory injunction to restrain the Tax Office from carrying out an examination of the taxpayers under s 264 of the ITAA 1936. Daniels v Cranston [2009] FCA 1412, Federal Court, Lander J, 20 November 2009 From Bottom of the Harbour to Wickenby Tax Havens;]
• · Australia could have had a goods and services tax (GST) 20 years sooner, had John Howard had his way. GST on John Howard's agenda in 1979
10 years of GST - The trials and tribulations - Memories of Lara Dunston ; Treasury boss Ken Henry has set himself an ambitious goal: he wants to shake up how we all think about rivers and roads A New Tax System In 2009 Jeffery Owens, the head of the OECD’s Centre for Fiscal Affairs remarked, Who would have thought 25 years ago that the ATO would be so highly regarded internationally?; Praise for ATO war on offshore tax cheats
• · · A Flood of leaks from the government about its plans for superannuation and tax reform are causing distress and confusion in the business community and among pre-retirees trying to plan long-term savings and investments. Tax reform leaks are causing concern; Ken Henry report: Contact us before we contact you.
• · · · For weeks – no, months – I have suppressed the dark thoughts. As the new year dawned, the twinges of panic became more persistent, yet I remained paralysed by doubt and guilt. With each passing day, the pressure grows more unbearable… I really must find out where the money goes ... You can help by supporting a piece of US legislation called the Energy Security Through Transparency Act, which would require oil, gas, and mining companies to publicly disclose payments made to governments. Follow the money," which shows just what happens when you buy gas every day ; The macroeconomic arguments for the GST I think were, and remain, watertight. Remember, in the 1980s as Treasurer Keating was for it before he was agin’ it as PM in the 1990s?. The GST introduced a broad-based, growing revenue stream for government and ensured that the wealthy couldn’t avoid paying tax on their (large, and growing) expenditures, even if clever accountants meant they could largely avoid paying much on their income. A particular innovation of the Australian model was to reserve GST revenue to the States, ostensibly making it available for service delivery (schools, roads, hospitals) to the communities that had paid it. We can quibble over how much in % terms each state pays and gets, the competence of the state governments as service providers, and the difficulty businesses face in complying with their collections and remittance obligations — but still I think the macroeconomic argument has proven its validity ten years on. still I think the macroeconomic argument has proven its validity ten years on.; The excise legislation is more than 100 years old as excise has been levied on a number of commodities since 1901. 1901 - that means even older than the oldest Public Accounts Committee in Australia
• · · · · Over the past ninety years the High Court has been divided in its approach to the definition of 'duties of excise'. Initially such duties were confined to taxes on the production or manufacture of goods. This definition was gradually extended to include taxes on goods imposed at any point in the distribution process. Over time the Court came to accept that exceptions should be made for taxes on alcohol, tobacco and petrol, and hence the States have been permitted to tax these goods. The plaintiffs were charged under the Business Franchise Licences (Tobacco) Act 1987 (NSW) with selling tobacco in NSW without a licence. The Act provides for a licence fee, which includes a set amount, plus an amount calculated by reference to the value of tobacco sold during the 'relevant period'. The 'relevant period' is defined as 'the month commencing 2 months before the commencement of the month in which the licence expires'. The plaintiffs argued that the licence fee imposed by the Act was an excise and hence invalid due to section 90 of the Constitution. A majority of the High Court (Brennan CJ, McHugh, Gummow and Kirby JJ) agreed. - The case that made GST possible What is an excise duty? Ha and Hammond v NSW ; The states have been urged to undertake their own Henry-style reviews of their tax systems and act on the findings, rather than blame Canberra for their economic woes States urged to review tax
• · · · · · Accountability, flexibility and transparency have become, in recent decades, the mantras of management in Australia and New Zealand as the public sector attempts to become more like the private sector. Driven by economic rationalism, by managerialism, by the election of right-of-centre governments and the movement of left-of-centre governments to the right, and by a different expectation of what governments can and should do, public administration has morphed into new public management (NPM). Governing the Government: The Paradoxical Place of the Public Accounts Committee; Back in 2002 my old Public Accounts Committee celebrated centenary and its courageous chair Andrew Tink knew how to deliver a speech ... When Lieutenant James Cook arrived at Botany Bay at the end of April 1770, he brought with him two future Parliamentary Committee witnesses who would turn out to be crucial to the British Government’s decision to settle Australia. Those future witnesses spent their short time at Botany Bay examining everything in sight and making copious contemporaneous notes of whatever caught their eye. They were of course, Joseph Banks and James Mario Matra who along with Captain Cook himself wrote in their Journals about the sandy soil, strange vegetation and even stranger animals. The Role of Parliamentary Committee Witnesses in the Foundation of Australia, Mr Andrew Tink MP

CODA - STUART WASHINGTON - blast from parliamentary past writes well. It reads like an airport spy novel: an unsolved murder in a Tokyo red-light district, exotic tax havens around the world, and thousands of defrauded investors in Britain. Add to that some $118 million tipped in to Astarra Strategic Fund by Australian investors which, almost three months after authorities blew the whistle, is still not properly accounted for. The investigation by regulators is understood to include every possibility - from the $118 million being "misplaced" to misappropriation. "misplaced" to misappropriation. Authorities were alerted in September in a letter from the Bronte Capital blogger, John Hempton, about the improbably smooth returns achieved by Astarra Strategic, which advertised itself as an investor in hedge funds.

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Economics Blogger and Blog Rankings by Scholarly Impact
Franklin G. Mixon Jr. (Mercer University, Department of Economics) & Kamal P. Upadhyaya (University of New Haven, Department of Economics and Finance) have published Blogometrics, Eastern Economic Journal (2010), vol. 36, pp. 1–10. Here is the abstract:
This study gathers information on a wide array of economics bloggers and blogs in order to develop a ranking of economics bloggers that is based on citations to their academic research. This ranking is used in an iterative process that next presents a ranking of economics blogs that is based on the ranking of economics bloggers, and finally a ranking of economics departments that is based on the ranking of economics blogs. The ranking of blogs included in this study is positively correlated with an external ranking based on their productivity (popularity), whereas the department ranking presented here comports quite well with department rankings in Coupé (2003) and Roessler (2004) that are developed with more traditional measures, such as the impact of the scholarship of an economics department's faculty.

Here are the Top 10 Economics Bloggers by Scholarly Impact:

1. Gary S. Becker (Chicago), Becker-Posner Blog

2. Gregory Mankiw (Harvard), Mankiw's Blog

3. Richard Posner (Chicago), Becker-Posner Blog

4. Nouriel Roubini (NYU), RGE Monitor

5. Paul A. Samuelson (MIT), Inside the Economist's Mind

6. Nicolai J. Foss (Copenhagen), Organizations & Markets

7. Justin Wolfers (Pennsylvania), Freakonomics

8. Daniel Hamermesh (Texas), Freakonomics

9. Richard B. Langlois (Connecticut), Organizations & Markets

10. Steven D. Levitt (Chicago), Freakonomics
Here are the Top 10 Economics Blogs by Scholarly

France is considering a tax on Google to support old media companiesAmazon, Google and taxes, oh my! from Don't Mess With Taxes

Will the rich flee the U.S. to fairer tax climes?

People in positions of power are more judgmental, but are guilty of "moral hypocrisy", according to scientists. "Moral hypocrisy has its greatest impact among people who are legitimately powerful.

"In contrast, a further experiment demonstrated that people who don't feel personally entitled to their power are actually harder on themselves than they are on others, which is a phenomenon we call 'hypercrisy'. Powerful people more guilty of 'moral hypocrisy', study finds

This isn't entirely a tax justice subject - it's much more generic than that - but if you can see past the stilted IMF-speak it's interesting anyway. This is another IMF working paper, entitled "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis" whose introduction notes: lobbying is bad for you

"A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis report

As a first step, Congress may extend the estate tax. There are faster methods, too Four ways to tax Wall Street’s rich

Land of Bankers - who are now all coming to head banks in Western Australia Quality of life in the UK is lower than former communist states

"It is difficult to imagine the scale of the consequences for the economy and society if major banks had been allowed to collapse. The Treasury was justified in using taxpayers’ money to safeguard savings and stabilise and restore confidence in the financial system.

"But the big question is what all of this will eventually cost the taxpayer. This will take time to answer. What we do know is that how the eventual sale of RBS and Lloyds is managed will be crucial to protecting the public interest. The structure of the UK banking system has changed beyond recognition. When it comes to selling its stakes in the banks, the government has to be mindful of the proceeds for the taxpayer but also of the implications for competition in the UK market, so that customers get a fair deal.

"As the crisis begins to subside, lessons must start to be learned. The authorities need to put formal arrangements in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the support provided to banks in order to inform future policy makers."
- Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 4 December 2009

The National Audit Office has concluded that the public support provided to UK banks by the Treasury was justified, given the scale of the economic and social costs if one or more major banks had collapsed. In providing that support, moreover, the Treasury met two of the government’s principal objectives: protecting depositors’ money in banks and maintaining the stability of the financial system.

The final cost to the taxpayer will not, however, be known for a number of years.

Bankers 1

Bankers 2

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Sadly my brother in law, Eva's Franto passed away today and will not able to celebrate this year the fall of the wall ...

Exactly 20 years ago from today, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev crossed a former fortified border on Monday to cheers of "Gorby! Gorby!" as a throng of grateful Germans recalled the night 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall gave way to their desire for freedom and unity. Merkel lauds Gorbachev on Berlin Wall anniversary

The wall's 1989 fall remains a miracle Putin nostalgic for days as spy in East Germany but still not craving for truth
It's 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which split not only the city, but also the world and the KGB

Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, says he feels nostalgia for the former East Germany, recalling with fondness his five years as a KGB agent in Dresden. Mr Putin said in an interview with the NTV channel on Sunday that he had good memories of his 1985-90 posting in the city that included learning German, excursions to the mountains and contacts with his East German counterparts.
I still remember this warmth and cordiality. I am very thankful for this. In this respect there is some feeling of nostalgia. feeling of nostalgia.

• Putin Putting KGB first [ I saw the fall of the Berlin Wall; The Curtain Of Silence - If there is an element of truth in the saying that blood talks louder than words ... then I swam across the Iron Curtain ; Googling on the Wall ]
• · Remarks by world leaders and dignitaries attending the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall Wall Recalling ; The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 transformed not only Germany, but changed the world and put an end to fears of a nuclear holocaust between the then Soviet Union and the USA. Berlin was not the only city where celebrations were held for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
• · · Remembering 20th anniversary of Velvet Revolution Limerick felt exotic compared to rural Wicklow when I was growing up but then I went to Czechoslovakia ; After the Wall
• · · ·There was a universal demand for independent, reliable news and information. Everyone I met despised state-controlled propaganda. They craved truth. There are lessons in this for the promotion of human rights and democracy today. Berlin Wall's Lessons For Today; The 1989 revolution has its unforgettable images, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, and its famous figures - Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Mikhail Gorbachev. The man who opened the Iron Curtain
• · · · · Hammer-wielding souvenir-hunters Berlin's love affair with freedom ; The data from Freedom in the World, the annual report on the state of global freedom published by Freedom House, give vivid evidence of the degree of change. Lessons ;
In Praise of Unsung Heroes As a wet-behind-the-ears movie reviewer I discovered an obscure book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), by then-relatively unknown novelist James Agee. Non-fiction, utterly so, his 428-page magnus opus depicting realism was prefaced by soul-etching photographs of dirt-poor cotton tenant farmers in the Depression era as taken by award-winning Fortune photographer Walker Evans. Some there will be who have no memorial . . . But their righteousness hath not been forgotten

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British banks have just five working days to show they have "got it". On Saturday, they must submit to the regulator – the FSA – their planned bonus awards, widely estimated to total £6bn. Prince Andrew may have said in an interview that he regards this sum as "minute in the scheme of things", but, as the economy still falters and unemployment rises, it was clear last night that the banks will grant themselves their billions in an increasingly hostile atmosphere Stop the fat-cat bonuses! George Soros turns on the bankers

In an economic crisis like this, billionaires like George Soros can't just sit idly by
Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor, interviewed George Soros, the fund manager, about the state of the world economy, relations between the US and China, his investment performance and regulating bankers’ compensation. This is a transcript of that interview.

In an economic crisis like this, billionaires like George Soros can't just sit idly by Those earnings are not the achievement of risk-takers ... These are gifts, hidden gifts, from the government. Soros said there was a need to regulate payments to employees, even if that meant banks found it difficult to retain talented risk-takers...
That would push the risk-takers who are good at taking risks out of Goldman Sachs into hedge funds, where they actually belong, because hedge funds take risks with their own capital, not with deposits and not with government guarantees.
Soros also said he believed the decline of the U.S. dollar would be limited by its tie to the Chinese currency. "As long as the renminbi is tied to the dollar, I don't see how the decline in the dollar can go too far.
There is a general lack of confidence in currencies and a move away from currencies into real assets ... There is a push in gold, there's a strength in oil and that is a flight from currencies.
Soros said the rally in the U.S. stock market would continue for the rest of the year, but warned that the hope of a rapid recovery in the U.S. is misplaced.

• Transcript: George Soros interview; [George Soros – one of the riches men in the world, the convicted insider trader, the man who single handedly brought down one of the biggest bank in Hungary, the man who back’s far left groups like MoveOn, the man who bragged that he bought the 2008 presidential and congressional elections – and heart throb of MSNBC, is mouthing off again – and this time about Wall Street Profits in the Financial Times. Soros gifts’ from the state; Google soros; George Soros Shares Latest Insights on Economics and Politics]
• • Former Czechoslovak and Czech president Vaclav Havel will become an honorary citizen of Bratislava Havel & Blava ;Vaclev Havel To President Klaus: Don't Hurt Our Reputation = Vaclav Havel, man of words and unshakable determination, had a question Havel, Still a Man of Morals and Mischief

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A New Zealand taxman smashed his car through the building where he worked for 25 years because he was fed up with "incompetent management and workplace bullying".
David Jerrold Theobald, 47, drove through two sets of glass doors and smashed a third at the Christchurch Inland Revenue building before coming to a stop. Taxman ; Different The round pegs in the square holes,

It began in the biggest bestseller of all, The Bible. Adam and Eve set up life in a tax-free earthly heaven called Eden The idyll memoir
It began in the biggest bestseller of all, The Bible. Adam and Eve set up life in a tax-free earthly heaven called Eden.

Two decades have passed since the publication of Peter Mayle’s international bestseller A Year in Provence . Translated into 22 languages, the book was adapted for the radio and, in 1993, turned into a BBC1 series with John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan. Its effect was to establish memoirs of life in sunny idylls as an important literary genre. But how have such books fared since?

You never know who might learn from your story: Anne Frank's famous diary is one of history's greatest stories, and memoirs from icons such as Marilyn
But often our most significant moments are fleeting. So we rely on memories -- and the tradition of storytelling -- to keep them alive.
Life is full of unique experiences and memorable events
My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize: The Fabricated Memoirs of Jeff Martin




This book has almost no political content whatsoever Lance Allred
Emissary between the land of rice and beans and the land of cholent and kugel ; Reading this life is like gorging on a chocolate sundae
Here’s an unintended consequence of the proliferation of memoirs from “ordinary” people: We now run into characters from our favorite books in our own everyday lives. Last week, for instance, we had dinner at Delancey, a new Seattle restaurant with wood-fired pizzas, salads fresh from the farmers markets, and raspberry popsicles so bright and pretty my toddler cried when his was gone. The man behind the lovely little place is Brandon Pettit. We know and like him, in the same two-degrees-of-separation way we know a lot of Seattle’s food community. But we know him on a far different level - how he met his wife, the details of their first kiss, that he snores when he has a cold – through the eyes of wife Molly Wizenberg, chronicled in her bestselling memoir, “A Homemade Life.”
Real-life encounters with the stars of memoirs
So when is it best to write a memoir and when is it better to just write a novel “based on a true story?”
.

• With Grit, Nothing Is Impossible Humour those accounts of roof-fixing [I have always despised bullies and - wait a minute - these people are public servants, not public masters They shouldn't strike terror into people's hearts, but they do.'; Nations are not monuments. They are not made of stone. They are works-in-progress made — and remade — each and every generation out of the hard work and hope of our men and women Save the World, Pee in the Shower! ]
• · Series of terse vignettes that recount the highlights of the rather extraordinary (Wentworth) It was clear within the first couple of dozen pages which ones had a story to tell, which had momentum and a compelling voice Impatient CEOs are all of a Twitter, but it doesn't work like that; Caroline Shahbaz, a self-styled ''white witch''
• · · CONFESSIONS OF ANOTHER BLEEDING HEART: Brumby’s speechwriter departs with a few bon mots for the comrades. It should come as no surprise that when a speech-writer quits that he would have a little bit to say. We really enjoyed long-time Labor staffer and current speechwriter to Victorian Premier Brumby Joel Deane’s parting email which he sent out to his brothers and sisters in arms in the Premier’s office and beyond today …Governments—unlike the timeless eternity of the public service—have limited life spans and need to behave accordingly: agitating for progress, focusing on defining issues and moments, and realising that, although politics may be, as Bismarck said, the art of the possible, that does not mean, as Havel pointed out, that we should stop striving for the impossible We all want our names in stone ; Transparency International – Czech Republic
• · · · The person most likely to rip off a business is a manager Who's the fraud suspect? Try the boss ; Ex-UBS AG banker Bradley Birkenfeld, who assisted U.S. investigators probing about $20 billion in taxpayer assets hidden overseas, was sentenced to more than three years in prison for conspiring to help wealthy Americans evade taxes. Taxes Italy begins to tighten tax screw= The wheels of the Italian tax system grind slowly. Sometimes they do not grind at all, if the country's reputation for tax evasion is any measure. But when the wheels do turn, they can grind exceedingly fine, as Sophia Loren discovered ; The Italian tax authority has opened an inquiry into allegations that members of the Agnelli family Best of the Web: Italian tax authority drives Fiat family probeSix beers of separation

• · · · · Ms Jennie Granger has recently commenced in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet as Deputy Secretary, Office of the Co-ordinator General, on secondment from her role as Second Commissioner of Taxation. Ms Granger has extensive experience in implementation and service delivery from her distinguished career in the Australian Taxation Office, which will be invaluable in her role of oversight of implementation by the States and Territories of the Government’s nation building package Ms Jennie Granger ; I am not a politician, and there is a limit to how much of the political game I am willing or able to play. Hopefully, if the citizens of Connecticut are not ready to abandon capitalism and can embrace a candidate who represents a real change, then I think I have a chance.Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry is pushing for the Australian Taxation Office to take over all taxes, fees and charges imposed by every level of government to improve the efficiencyof Australia's $350 billion tax system as a
key reform of the Henry review.; It has often been said that tax evasion is a national sport in Italy, but now financial inspectors have announced a purge that has millionaires quaking on their yachts and in their seaside villas
• · · · · · 'Investigative journalism at it's best' is the tagline for the ABC's Four Corners. If the reaction on Twitter is anything to go by this weeks edition 'Fear in the Fast Lane' fell spectacularly short in it's expose of internet related crime Four Corners reveals first-hand how wireless connections are an invitation to thieves ; Fast Lane - We Warrior
CODA FOR the first time in its history, advertising on pay-TV failed to show significant growth in the first six months of the year
History

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This would have been considered parliamentary coincidence especially in the NSW Parliament ... it is my Godson's birthday today Happy Birthday Alex - Olek ... and the newspapers are filled with godfathers of a different kind!

Producers of real crime television hit Underbelly have approached the NSW Parliament for permission to shoot scenes for the new series within the Legislative Chamber. The Daily Telegraph has learned that representatives of the show approached the parliament last Friday, the day that Michael McGurk was murdered. The new show will cover the period of the Wood Royal Commission into corruption in the NSW Police force Underbelly producers ask to film new series in State Parliament ; THEIR timing is impeccable

Best government money can buy Point of Order: When someone like John Hatton shares with you something of value, you have an obligation to share it with others
The plot is worthy of a master storyteller like Frederick Forsyth.

On a September night, a businessman is gunned down at point-blank range outside his luxury mansion as he gets out of his black Mercedes carrying a bag of groceries. The stench of corruption and talk of explosive secret tapes in the wake last week s murder of standover man Michael McGurk, has brought back bad memories for many people, especially those who have worked for the bear pit, sandpit, of NSW Parliament during the roaring 80s and 90s.
The parliamentary inquiry into the murder of lender of last resort' Michael McGurk holds dangers for Kevin Rudd because it could spread its tentacles to the federal arena. Labor Party figures are being smeared every day and the stain is steadily spreading, forcing NSW Premier Nathan Rees to decide three days ago to hold an inquiry, despite previously saying such a move would be absurd'.

• The parliamentary inquiry into the murder of lender of last resort; Michael McGurk [Mr McGurk had many involvements in the property development industry, and for several years was closely associated with Bob Ell, the man behind Leda Holdings, which had a proposal before Shoalhaven City Council to extend the Stockland Nowra shopping centre. Shoalhaven City Council ; 'The man in black' or Johnny Cash, as friends call him was wearing his customary designer black threads as he chatted business at -J the Chop House in Bligh Street Sydney and Wild Men of it]
• · John Hatton stretched the limits of the role of an Independent Member of the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Assembly further than any politician preceding
him. John Hatton; John Hatton, Independent South Coast MP, raised matters of police corruption in the NSW Parliament for many years, leading to the Royal Commission.; Stateline
• · THE captain of the Socceroos, Lucas Neill, and the former NSW planning minister Craig Knowles, have been caught up in the aftermath of the murder of Sydney bagman Michael McGurk. Michael Rushford flew to New Zealand via Fiji and returned with a new passport and a new identity - Michael Loch McGurk A murky past with many identities - Michael Loch McGurk was a man with a lot of enemies ; The life of Michael McGurk made him an ideal victim for an Agatha Christie mystery. Except it was all too real. Kate McClymont and Vanda Carson look below the surface. He'll go to his grave with a lot of secrets AMONG Michael McGurk's more unusual business interests was a shareholding in Doughboy, a pizza company run by former premier Neville Wran and Mr Wran's long-term business partner Albert Wong. Gold How a quiet bush block turned into a goldmine ; Wran connection ; Sea of links ;
• · · THE developer Ron Medich stands to gain millions from a western Sydney site he bought 13 years ago for a pittance from the CSIRO, confidential documents obtained by the Herald show. Mystery Widens ; Google Hunt for clues;
• · · · As John Della Bosca faced the press gallery at Macquarie Street yesterday, the story threatened to become as much about what was said as what was not ... THE woman whose affair with John Della Bosca led to his resignation yesterday has been named as comedy writer Kate Neill ; Ms Neill was named by Channel Seven and Channel Nine as the woman at the centre of the controversy. They showed footage of Ms Neill appearing on a television show, apparently under the pseudonym 'Harmony'. Invoke Fatal Attraction's Glenn Close character for a creepy version of payback for their ugly parting. Feminist Eva Cox said it was understandable the woman had wanted to protect her privacy Why would she want make her identity known?" Professor Cox said. "The Labor Party would herd her out of NSW ; Fatal Attraction's Glenn Close character
• · · · · Barry O'Farrell looks destined for glory but he's playing his cards cautiously. David Marr caught up with the Liberal leader. O'Farrell resides within his electorate at Roseville with his wife Rosemary O'Farrell and their two young children. His wife Rosemary is the daughter of former National Party member Bruce Cowan. He lives around the corner and down the hill from the picture theatre he rarely visits. Young Will, 10, goes to the local public school. Tom, 15, is up the line at Barker. O'Farrell is full of careful praise for the high schools of Ku-ring-gai but the boys are going to Barker to absorb Christian values. Out of the ordinary; In 2000 Russell Cope, former New South Wales Parliamentary Librarian, sounded alarm bells when discussing the significance of early book collections in Australian parliamentary libraries. Many of his observations apply equally well to the types of book collections I have already mentioned. He writes:

Many countries would today consider such collections from the nineteenth century and even earlier as valuable national resources with a claim to cultural and heritage importance in a country not notably wealthy in library collections. In Australia this might very well be the case if these collections were better understood by researchers and even by librarians. It does not seem overstating the situation to say that the collections of the parliamentary libraries acquired in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century represent their major contribution to social, cultural and intellectual resources of the nation Their significance transcends the limited parliamentary context: they are truly national assets in their own right. ;
• · · · · · There is the ghostly man who walks through the floor, a silent horse drawn carriage out the front and down the road a baby cries at night. Anyone who claims there is no spirit left in the New South Wales Parliament should try spending a night there alone, The Daily Telegraph reports Be afraid ... perhaps the ghost of Mark Latham isn't the only political ghoul out there; Librarian Mark D'Arney killed himself after blowing the whistle on the discount sale of 3000 historic books from the State Parliament's library Death of a whistleblower; Sad Memories

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Media Dragon is celebrating more than Sikh Bohemian wedding anniversary or our arrival in antipodean Sydney all those years ago (circa 1980), this September Media Dragon has had over 60,000 visits, between 2006 and 2009 AD, from mischievous readers clicking their mouse in more than 100 countries. We are proud of our global readership and thank you for your continued support. Six degree of separation - 60,000 Visitors from More than 100 Countries!

PS - Media Dragon sends a welcome home to Steve, TL and Travis

Light is the best antidote Internet has never been more dangerous Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall: 10 harsh truths about corporate blogging
Internet has never been more dangerous ... The proliferation of malware online keeps setting new records and security experts are worried. Between January and June this year, the number of fake antivirus programs detected grew by 585%, according to a report released by the Anti-Phishing Working Group...

Is it possible that you've ever made a customer angry enough to blog about your "friendly" service? When working with business and government institutions, I always set up a Google Alert, which searches the internet 24/7 looking specifically for these sorts of comments ...
Most organizations have a blog simply because they feel they should. Many...fail to "get" blogging and have poorly visited blogs with few comments. Because their blog fails to perform, they conclude that blogging is an ineffective...However, it does not need to be this way. Corporate blogs can be a powerful communication tool that builds brand awareness and nurtures a sense of engagement.

• Paul Boag - The One Degree with 360 Degrees of Opportunities ; Phishing ; [Web 2.0: the new tools for democratic conversations - a snapshot of initiatives in government, Information Victoria, Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development, September 2009. This paper provides an overview of developments in the use of interactive online communications described as Web 2.0 and when applied in government, better known as Government 2.0. Web 2.0 ; IT modernisation: an exercise in alignment - This report, based on interviews and a global survey of 170 senior executives, concludes that while firms recognise the importance of modernising IT systems, they do not always implement such projects effectively...with respect both to drivers of IT modernisation projects and benefits of such projects. It also investigates the impacts of the current economic upheaval on organisations' modernisation efforts PDF IT ]
• · MURDOCH's announcement that the free ride is over has certainly generated some debate. What this signals is a substantial shift in thinking about the price of content on the internet. What was missing from Murdoch's announcement – and others like Fairfax Media chief Brian McCarthy's statement that monetisation will have to happen – is just how newspapers will make the transition online ; The world in 2025 ... Thus, began the fierce endeavour of the State to squeeze the population to the last drop. Since, economic resources fell short of what was needed, the strong fought to secure the chief share for themselves with a violence and unscrupulousness well in keeping with the origin of those in power and with a soldiery accustomed to plunder. The full rigour of the law was let loose on the population. Soldiers acted as bailiffs or wandered as secret police through the land. Those who suffered most were, of course, the propertied class. It was relatively easy to lay hands on their property, and in an emergency, they were the class from whom something could be extorted most frequently and quickly ... Is this too fanciful, do you think, too apocalyptic? Well, this is not a dark prediction, proceeding from the recesses of some futurologist's "heat oppressed brain" but a direct quotation taken from The Cambridge Ancient History , pp. 263-264, in the section that deals with the decline of the Roman Empire. [In 2008, the IRS project team established a presence in the Second Life virtual world with the goal of exploring the potential use of this environment for recruitment and training purposes] Decline of the Roman Empire
• · · Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other. -Laurence J. Peter
Chuck Collins, heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune, is looking for 1,000 rich people to sign his online petition seeking to raise immediately reverse the Bush tax cuts and increase the top tax marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35% on household incomes of more than $235,000. In a prior effort, Mr. Collins worked with William H. Gates Sr. and George Soros in getting 4,702 signatures on a petition opposing repeal of the estate tax. Soros ; Banker bonuses minute, says duke
• · · · Crimes ; Fourteen years after Peter Savage, 16, was bashed and stabbed in a street at Lidcombe, police have charged a man with murder and expect more people to be ... Savage Story
• · · · · RU OK? Day, Launched on 10 September, World Suicide Prevention Day, the new RU OK? Initiative that aims to lower Australia's suicide rates. The main message is to communicate and connect with people by simply asking "Are you OK?" It also aims to promote awareness of information and support by raising the profile of existing organisations that provide these services. The inaugural RU OK? Day will be held on November 29 RU OK? Day, - Whatever Works as in Woody Allen; Have you noticed that we are being bombarded by a flood of work by neuroscientists and behavioral economists, aided by such things as clever research design, the use of improved technologies for measuring brain activity, and the admission by Alan Greenspan that markets acted in ways he had not anticipated? The work shares several common counter-intuitive conclusions that: (1) human behavior is much less rational than has been assumed, (2) this renders much of conventional teaching in fields such as economics and management obsolete, and (3) it makes suspect much of what we do as managers Are you ready to manage in an irrational world?; Every politician knows that ideas have consequences, so whether it is Beijing, Bangkok, Brussels, Beirut, or Buenos Aires, policy makers seek the advice and counsel of scholars from think tanks who understand this reality and are able to shape policies and Politics with their ideas
• · · · · · Michael D'Ascenzo - Leaders that make a difference ; The Merit Protection Commissioner and Ethical Decision Making. A publication on how to use the APS Values and Code to make ethical decisions in the APS Leadership Forum in 2009; Authority versus persuasion, Eric J Van den Steen, Harvard Business School Working Paper, 5 August 2009, 22p. In directing employees, managers often face a choice between invoking authority and persuasion. In choosing between persuasion and authority the manager makes a cost-benefit trade-off. This paper studies that trade-off, focusing in particular on conflicts that originate in open disagreement focusing in particular on conflicts that originate in open disagreement

CODA:

[T]he truly dismaying shrinkage of the book review issue published at the University of Michigan—which is ostensibly, almost ostentatiously, committed to the importance of the book-review enterprise—is symptomatic of a truly national disease. In the remainder of this brief and informal Essay, I will first offer some data substantiating my concern and then offer some of my observations as to the baleful consequences of what the data reveals Book Reviews

UK-HRD began as a moderated e-mail-based discussion forum for training and human resource development specialists. It now provides a virtual meeting place for around 1,000 people who have already subscribed. When you subscribe a digest of the questions asked, and answers provided is compiled and e-mailed directly to you every working day. Some of the subscribers are very experienced - even experts in their fields - so visitors are tapping into a valuable and indispensable resource. The discussion forum is growing constantly.This web site complements the discussion forum


This site might be an interesting starting point for new internet users in the domain of HR. Included are a database of HR products, the research center, an agenda of seminars, HR articles Workforce online

This is a tremendous site offering the visitor a chance to sample and trial HR software 360-degree feedback

HRM Guide is a series of linked web sites containing hundreds of free human resource management-related articles and features. Stimulating stuff

Job satisfaction:
* European heaven. It's where the English are the police, the French are the cooks, the Swiss are the bankers, the Italians are the lovers and the Germans are the engineers.

* European hell. It's where the English are the cooks, the French are the engineers, the Swiss are the lovers, the Italians are the bankers and the Germans are the police.
Job satisfaction:
and More Green or Emerald is on the other side ...