Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

From Giving
Democracy The Bird by Ted Rall

... Travel to other countries and you'll find that a society's freedom is inversely related to the number of guys wearing camouflage, brandishing big guns and pulling people over at roadblocks. Blurring the distinction between policing and soldiering, as do the military police in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Jordan, is a defining characteristic of repressive states. ...

You go for it, too, Kim! Lock 'em down. Labor propose lock down powers. Any excuse will do.

And, Wayne, don't let a crummy deadline get in the way of attending to the little chap's needs. Cut it short (TDB, that is), if necessary, there's more than enough.

A tip to the visually challenged - if your TDB text is too small, just do CRTL+ (if you are running Mozilla.)

Another thing - I hope you don't mind the occasional link distracting away from your excellent work. :)

PS - the Keating piece is in Financial Review, also.

In the early hours of this morning, Wayne encountered the 'blue screen' a couple of times while composing his Daily Briefing. Thus today's Briefing is shorter than usual.

And a change - a list of links at the top of the Briefing that takes readers directly to the articles covered, for those very short on time.

Adam Smith, you made a good point about the usefulness of RSS feeds.

However I think you've missed one of the best features of TDB - that is the summary and selection of articles which Wayne does. This saves me from reading dozens of articles of little worth or which are repetitious. A good editor wades thru the available material and selects the best of what's out there. This saves me, the reader, valuable time. I could read dozens of RSS feeds, but don't have the time.

An obvious problem with Wayne's approach is the subjectivity involved in Wayne's summaries and his judgement in determining what is worthwhile. But over time I expect to get an understanding of Wayne's judgement and skill as an editor and then I'll be in a better position to make my own assessment of whether it's worthwhile continuing to read TDB.

For the moment I think TDB is excellent and provides me with a very valuable service.

I use these comments section to supplement TDB and point me to things Wayne may have missed.

Good luck with TDB.

Sorry to be negative but The Daily Briefing is nothing more than a copy and paste job from RSS feeds from other news sources. I get about 30-50 feeds coming in to my inbox everyday from ones that I have setup and could put together something like TDB in about 15-20 minutes. Indeed today nearly every source Wayne has in TDB I've already read from my RSS feeds.

I've come to like reading Webdiary and hope it continues but when I see the readership scrambling over themselves to help Margo find a way to make Webdiary a financially sustainable enterprise I just can't sit back and say nothing.

Margo get somebody to teach you or one of the team how to setup these feeds and pay Wayne to write a proper piece for us every day instead.

Adam Smith, if you are intelligent, and if you give TDB a fair go, you will realise there is lot more to it than cutting and pasting RSS feeds.

Give it a fair chance. Then give us your informed opinion.

Cheers.
A long time TDB subscriber.

ed Hamish: Hi Iain and welcome to Webdiary. Very pleased to to see a TDB subscriber join the commentariat. Required protocol however is a full name, or an approved non de plume. See Webdiary's Ethics, and in particular:

So, do it already Adam! Here's the challenge - post underneath TDB each morning your version, and we shall see how it looks by comparison. At the bottom of the post, tell us how long it took you, because I'm spending at least 60 hours per week on this.

For the record, I don't use RSS feeds, and yes, anyone can set them up, just as anyone can trawl the hundreds of sites I go to each week for themselves. But that will bring you nothing more than indiscriminate information overload, at the cost of time some people do not have to spare. What TDB offers - and presumably this has been the reason for it building up a subscriber base and attracting Webdiary's interest (although Margo can speak for herself) - is a 25 year background in journalism that is used to shift through that wall of words, choose some of the better ones, then provide a summmary with context, background and analysis. For many users of the service, the summary is enough, or it helps them decide they want to read the full article, or that they don't want to waste valuable time on it. TDB also follows debates, discussions and ideas as they evolve, and brings a range of different perspectives to them from widely varying sources. There are debates now coming into the open - conservative discontent with Bush and the Republicans for example - that TDB has followed for 12 months.

It is always a dangerous thing to think that everyone is just like you Adam, and can do the things you do. I service my own motorbike and sometimes wonder why everyone doesn't do the same - but the well-populated trade of mechanics serves as proof that they do not. The subscriber list for TDB contains the names of some of the country's best journalists, two magazine editors, academics, lawyers, political staffers, busy at home parents with children, some of the smartest people I know, a judge and a Senator. All had a free trial and bought a subscription. They have one thing or two things in common - hectic lives, and the lack of time or background to be as media savvy and well informed as they'd like. It works for them. I have never thought for one minute that the service would work for everyone, least of all for people who don't need it.

If it doesn't work for you, move on. That's a judgement you are perfectly entitled to make, as others have made before you. But you are not entitled, on the basis of ignorance (you don't know me, nor how I spend my days), to suggest I'm doing this is some lazy, ad hoc way that doesn't bring professional skills and judgement to bear.

And for the record, once facilities are in place I will also be running a blog on Webdiary, and, as time allows, writing stories. I look forward to doing both. Patience Adam. And perhaps you ought to make haste slowly when you rush to judgement.

Family Court Justice Alastair Nicholson [has] said: "Our liberties and our democracy are under a more serious threat than that posed by terrorists as a direct result of the reaction of our leaders, the media and, in turn, the public, to that threat."

READY, AIM, FIRE!

Speakin’ of loss of civil liberties and extreme authoritarianism by guns with guns… one still needs to know whether Australian Police Chief Keelty will attend the Balinese firing squad executions of Australians.

And whether he will play any further role in it, togged up in full dress braid, perhaps brandishing his trusty service revolver.

Official or unofficial Howard government business does, after all, require a telegenic coup de grace.

Come to that, what about any other Australians who have either contributed to the “investigation” of the so-called Bali Nine (eg, A-G Ruddock) or publicly approved some form of judicial murder anywhere, eg, the PM and Mrs Howard?

Should they get ringside seats?

And perhaps some nasi goreng in lieu of popcorn?

One imagines that big elements in Australian narcotics industry, each effectively protected by the removal of these paltry players, won’t come.

Or will they?

Peter “no blindfold, thanks” Woodforde.

I think Webdiary guidelines should check whether U Saugan is following them. It seems a little bizarre that one of our AFP should be so prejudgmental about some alleged offender. If she is then could she help us with the definition of "scum" and how the word pertains to those one has a professional relationship with, especially when objective analysis for "solving" of crimes requires degrees of psychological assesment of the highest professional and objective level, as does the interpretation of collected forensic data require unbiased analysis of possibilities and probabilities.

The AFP I know have the highest standard of the above and the intellect to manage it. I don't think that comment sounded like one from someone a member of that group, professionally.

ed Hamish: As Peter Woodforde pointed out, U Saugan slipped through the net. It's there, but we shall not be engaging with said (presumed) prankster again.

U. Saugan slips Hamish’s net…

“Mr Woodforde. I'm a Federal Cop and if the boss can't make it to Bali, I'd happily go along and watch some scum get what coming to them. Have a nice day and rest assured, I'm out there looking after your best interests.”

This is a chilling and slightly intimidatory thumbs up for a “no courts” Australian version of either arbitrary or “judicial” execution, ie, murder.

Is it a wide-spread prejudice, or perhaps just ordered by the executive?

The whole Bali Nine caper is a bit like the Moran killings in Melbourne, which have seen little or nothing in any courtroom. A bit like the Hilton bombing.

Or the killing or Sally-Ann Huckstep, Shirley Briffamn or all the other talkative prostitutes who might have locked away some bad bastards.

And like the posting, it’s the sort of thing which induces mistrust of coppers, Hamish. From one aspect though, ie, that of Webdiary’s bona fides, you’d hope “U. Saugan” really Is a copper, rather than one of the web’s nut bags in Net-disguise, or e-fancy-dress.

One has relatives coppers, y’know, and know none of them would visit Indonesia or anywhere for the dubious pleasure of viewing or participating in killing somebody, “scum” or otherwise.

But if it gets your dick hard to shoot someone in the head, whether or not for a corrupt courts system, then go for it.

While on the ‘plane going over, and if you’re interested in reading, why not have a look at Sr Helen Prejean’s books The Death of Innocents and Dead Man Walking
link here
The airline might even show the movie of the latter as an in-flight show if you can’t get the books from the library at Weston Creek.

But you could borrow it from one of your brother or sister officers.

They’re good studies of courts, policing and execution for those, like yourself, interested in the capital punishment style of murder.

On the other hand, why not simply just fly to the USA and volunteer for the Republican Party to murder Sr Prejean, in [my] best interests? They will lend you a gun.

It’s about time the old Klan barometer swung back from Nigras and Commies to Kikes and Cathlix. The Republicans might even lend you a sheet and a cross to burn on a hillside.

If the killing of anybody is in my best interests, then we must have let the Imperial Japanese Army and the rest of the Axis march in sometime between 1942-1945 when nobody was looking.

Arbitrary execution of “scum” by an Australian federal police officer, or any other variety, is what too many people must endure globally.

Ben Hall was “scum” and, in [my] interests, they shot him about three dozen times, lying asleep in his swag on the Lachlan Plains.

About as brave as the average firing squad member, them Queen’s troopers of 1865.

Or the slavering dirt who lined up to watch Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh lethally injected and keep his mouth shut for the Bush League.

It ain’t in my best interests. Check ya Glock at the door, mate, and please don’t get brain spatters on those nice big shiny boots.

I’ll keep yez in my prayers.

Mr “Best interested and kept frightened” Woodforde

Mr Woodforde. I'm a Federal Cop and if the boss can't make it to Bali, I'd happily go along and watch some scum get what coming to them. Have a nice day and rest assured, I'm out there looking after your best interests.

TDB is a welcome and time saving addition to Webdiary that provides diverse material with the potential to spark off a lot of good debate. It isn't perfect, or completely balanced, but so what, what info source is, and by whose 'objective' standards?

Give it a few weeks to settle in and find its place, before dismissing it outright.

And don't forget, all you critics, if you don't like what you are reading here then Webdiary gives you the opportunity to contribute your own original posts, as well as comments. How many other blog/media sites do that?

Keep it up Wayne and Margo, et al. I look forward to Wayne's more in-depth pieces on specific issues.

Nighty night. (Don't let the new IR laws bite.)

Don't quite see where TDB detractors are coming from.

It's only a distillation or summary of what could be relevant issues for concern for Wayne's conception of what the WD readership is. In a sense we visit "Wayne's world", as a kick-off point that helpfully obviates the need to trawl through to page 28 of the "Daily Tabloid" to dig out any worthwhile informational treasures buried under the mound of preceding fertiliser.

For that I, at least, am grateful.

Hi, as a TDB subscriber, who worked in IT for five years, I just wanted to quickly address Adam's points.

Firstly, I don't read TDB for the simple descriptions of what is going on. As you rightly note, most major stories are fed to me almost instantaneously through RSS feeds on our browsers.

Rather, I read TDB for the analysis and commentary on the news, and for Wayne's exceptional ability at finding pieces which aren't available anywhere else. TDB gives me access to around 20 magazine article length pieces of commentary, criticism and debate every day - and looking through my old TDB briefings, most of these are NOT available from RSS feeds.

To wit, I read yesterday through my Guardian feed that John Banville had won the Booker. Great. But did that feed provide me, three months before he won the Booker, with a rare, beautifully written meditation on death and aging (similar themes to his novel) written by John Banville in his local Irish paper? Did it even give a link to this piece?

Of course it didn't. Likewise, a recent debate on education, and a number of articles, in the Australian was linked to by TDB - along with the information that the person writing the debate piece following the article was the Liberal Party hack who wrote the very report cited in the article, who was friends with the editor! This is the difference between information and analysis - and that is what RSS feeds can't give you.

I am a typical starving student, who can use RSS - yet I still consider TDB one of the best investments I have made. As, by the way, do all but one of my friends who I referred to TDB. As for value to Webdiary, well, I read Not Happy John!, and I knew of Margo's Webdiary - yet I never visited the site and had a look around until today, when I got the link to it in TDB.

Wayne, keep up the good work. Good luck with your new venture.

Cheers,

TDB subscriber, and newly minted Webdiary reader.

ed Hamish: Welcome to Webdiary Ryan!

Adam, on reflection, it was quite wrong of me not to have noted that part of the expressed reason for your comment was a desire to ensure that Webdiary is well served and getting good value. I respect and share that concern, and wish, for example, that I was already providing a lively blog for Webdiary. But, everything in good time.

So, I would like to state publicly, that if at any time Webdiary (its management and/or its wider community) feels that I am not offering good value, I will be happy to move on, or to re-negotiate the agreement we have entered into. I come from good country stock, who earned every dollar they ever made by honest toil. I am prepared to do what I must to ensure that Webdiary will always be able to say the same for me.