Fred Shapiro’s The Yale Book of Quotations is a great source of information. Whenever I was searching for quotes online, Google Books kept returning pages from this book.

When I saw it on the shelf at Borders, I bought it. The best thing about it is that it gives references so you can look up the original source and see the context.

Online you have Fred Shapiro himself. He takes readers questions at the NYT’s Freakonomics blog.

The people who read Fred’s posts can also be a good source of information (we’re well into Web 2.0 now). When I posted a comment with what I’d found out about the spurious Socrates quote Garson O’Toole shot back with a complete account of where it came from — along with a reference to a source in Archive.org.

***

I saw your tweet on Cameronism. I’ll get back to this and the JFK stuff.

This supports the idea that the only real revolution in education will happen when parents and teachers enter into a partnership and do the things that need to be done for kids to learn.

Are there any resources you’d recommend on the web for 1 – I often want to look up the origins of sayings. I just love knowing this and mulling it over.

I was going to do a rather half baked post on 3, but haven’t managed to yet. Managed a tweet but. “Contrast conservatism in UK after over a decade of labour http://bit.ly/bUmwdl with conservatism here after a decade of Howard.”

What do you think of JFK’s speeches. I’m an admirer of great speeches and he’s the only person famed for what people think was great oratory who leaves me totally unmoved. He seems too focused on being clever, has lots of snappy paradoxes or perhaps there’s a more precise term for it. “Let us not negotiate from fear, but let us never fear to negotiate”. I’m sorry but I think that’s contrived and silly.

And yet so many of his famous lines conform to that formula – including ‘ask not what your country can do for you . . . (yawn) but what you can do for your country’.

Still the punters seem to have liked it in the fullness of time.

That however doesn’t change the fact that all religions do. And unlike Jacques I don’t see any different between a “religion” and a “religious organisation”. They are both just another name for weirdo tea-parties, and shouldn’t get any tax breaks.

Personally I could point out a million evil things done by people in the name of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, the 3 largest religions in the world. Scientology is no better or worse than any of them.

As far as special laws to deal with organised crime, most states in Australia already have them, and they are routinely abused on a daily basis by the police who lobbied for them. Personally I find such laws that target innocent people much more repugnant than religions like Scientology who are primarily taking advantage of people’s stupidity.

Fischer is meant to have recited all moves from 22 games (ie over 1000 moves) he played in a Blitz tournament (5 minutes/game for all moves)

1. tracking down where quotes and catchphrases come from (I enjoy doing this in the same way some people enjoy doing crossword puzzles);
2. political rhetoric;
3. David Cameron’s reinterpretation of conservatism; and
4. the rhetoric of John F Kennedy.

I don’t claim any special expertise in any of these topics. And I have no special interest in the works of George Bernard Shaw except as a source of pithy quotes and as a contributor of Fabian thinking.

When writing papers, tracking down primary sources is my favourite form of procrastination. I don’t need much of an excuse to head off to the NLA, the Hancock basement or Fisher Research in pursuit of an obscure book or journal article. I hate using a secondary source for a quote or citation.

great read. Is this an ongoing topic of interest?

We may agree on this – I’m not sure – but it’s perhaps worth spelling some things out further.

Our report argued that there is a wide range of activity that should be thought of as neither strictly private, nor as ‘official’ communication from the agency, but professional discussion. Before elaborating on that, let me give you an example of a use for ‘official’ blogging that is very powerful but not really in evidence.

Sitting on the board of a government authority I frequently observe questions coming to the board that could do with wider discussion. Most recently the body I was on was considering how to measure it’s own performance. Wouldn’t that – and many other issues of a professional and not party political nature – be a good thing to open up on a blog? The board is well disposed to this idea, and no doubt we’ll learn as we go, but this is a different kind of engagement than the kind you’ve discussed above.

It’s not just fitting up an existing routine (like a PC inquiry) with some additional tools – as worthwhile as that may be. It is taking advantage of the technologies that now exist to do what the new APSC guidelines call for with their reference to “Web 2.0 provid[ing] public servants with unprecedented opportunities to open up government decision making and implementation to contributions from the community.”

Of course although other things being equal any public decision maker would be keen to involve the community more rather than less, I think the example shows is not not Web 2.0’s capacity to enhance democracy. At least in this instance the issue is fairly technocratic rather than democratic. But just as a proper public inquiry can – at considerable cost and delay – improve the basis of decision making – web 2.0 now allows the holding of (what one senior Cth public servant described as) mini-inquiries on many matters of importance as one goes along. We should take up the opportunity it gives us to make more informed decisions and to simply proceed on many matters in a more informed way.

Turning to the issue of professional discussion – as opposed to ‘official’ and ‘private’ discussion, it is clear to those of us who practice in this medium that participation on blogs is extraordinarily useful for ‘knowledge workers’. It helps test ideas, and make connections both between ideas and between people interested in the same subject and able to offer something to each other. There will undoubtedly continue to be constraints on senior public servants as to how they can and should express themselves in such forums. But the current default rule is silence. Public servants read blogs – and plenty of them come to this site – but except for a very few pseudonymously identified participants, nary a comment is made. It’s a pity don’t you think?

A year or so ago an academic who keeps a blog was seconded to the public service and it was made clear to them that they were not to continue blogging for the duration. The alternative would have been to have said to them that they had to bring the blog within the PS code of conduct while they were in the PS. The particular blog in question had lots of stuff on it which was simply informational – abstracts of important newly released articles from the field. Other stuff was administrative, and some of it was opinion. Some of the opinion was professional opinion and so it might have been appropriate to tone some of it down, but much of it was useful discussion on professional points.

Regarding the “evil” side of it, if you compare some of the monastic orders from all over the world and the very strange self cleansing ordeals that these people go through, it would be difficult to write a rule that separated Scientology weirdness from other weirdness. If you want to claim that religious dogma is brain washing then that rules out nearly all religion, more or less. Then again, we outlawed opiates, so it would be reasonably consistent to outlaw the opiate of the masses (and no doubt equally self-defeating).

During the 2001 census 70,000 Australians classified themselves as ‘Jedi’ for the religion question. The ABS reclassified these as ‘no religion’.

Yes apparently proof of religion requires either self detonation or a bloody crusade, followed by oscillating between hypocritical claims of victimhood and regular public demonstrations of intolerance. You seem to keep making the mistake that the purpose of the law is to protect the weak when repeated practical observations indicate otherwise.

While not wanting to interpose myself in a dialogue between you and Nicholas, surely the proposition that public servants must confine themselves to using blog forums only for “the publication of papers by agencies and their staff, and their participation in expert forums” is unnecessarily narrow and constipated.

Surely at least suitably qualified and experienced public servants can be trained and trusted to recognise situations where they may make statements with the potential of being seen as partisan or extending beyond existing government policy, and to adopt strategies and follow procedures which ensure that they avoid doing so.

Some research in which I was engaged last year suggested that the Commonwealth might avoid any such danger by having consultation blogs moderated by non-public servant consultants, partly in order to provide a sort of “cut-out” or circuit breaker where the consultant could easily be “disowned” if necessary by government if he/she said anything too embarrassing or unauthorised. However I think that’s an unduly nervous, defensive position. It shouldn’t be too difficult for any moderately experienced, intelligent middle-ranking public servant to recognise and avoid situations where one might say such things, and the potential benefits of engaging in a real and interactive way with interested members of the public are likely to outweigh any slight risk.

Finally, I think that confining blog interaction to designated “expert” fora would drastically restrict their potential utility as fertile ground for creative thinking, which is far more likely to emerge from a reasonably free-flowing (but carefully moderated) conversation between interested community members with diverse expertise and interests, with occasional careful interventions by appropriate public servants to keep the discussion “on track” and productive. The public servant/moderator’s role will generally be to seek to solicit and clarify input from members of the public, not to express the public servant’s own views. It shouldn’t generally be a difficult distinction to keep in mind. One obvious procedural rule to avoid the sorts of dangers you fear could be that, where a public servant moderator perceives that the discussion is being derailed by misconceptions about existing government policy or practice, he/she is obliged to refer the matter upwards for approval before responding and correcting the misconception.

Even somewhat independent agencies such as the Productivity Commission are likely to place some constraints while promoting engagement between their professional staff and external experts, given the benefits of a disciplined approach (supported by their legislation) to releasing draft reports and discussion papers. For those agencies more intimately involved in the deliberations of ministers, extra care will be needed to ensure the trust and confidence of ministers is not endangered. The effect of lost ministerial confidence might be quite counterproductive, with ministers restricting their deliberation to ‘trusted’ political advisers and giving excessive weight to interest groups rather than rational analysis in the public interest.

I mentioned during the program that I have always supported the publication of papers by agencies and their staff, and their participation in expert forums. Even senior officers should be giving public speeches from time to time to explain the background to government policies and programs, without crossing the line of their non-partisanship. Technology change means such exchanges may often these days be via internet blogs of various sorts. I also strongly support the idea of placing data banks on line to allow outsiders to explore them without offence to privacy etc (as the ABS does with its various data cubes).

I hope this clarifies my position.

We’ll see Ken. My guess is that conservatives will be the first to break this convention. They’re more relaxed about such things. Always have been. Always will be.

There have been Australian inquiries into Scientology before; most notably in Victoria in the 1960s.

The High Court at the time overturned a ban on the consideration of Scientology as a religion.

Scientology is actually useful in one sense: it brightly illuminates the distinction between a religion and a religious organisation. I believe that freedom of religion is important. I am far less amenable to lending religious organisations any additional protection or privilege under law. In particular I see no good reason for them to enjoy substantial tax privileges.

During the 2001 census 70,000 Australians classified themselves as ‘Jedi’ for the religion question. The ABS reclassified these as ‘no religion’.

Yet Jedism meets the legal tests for a religion. It involves moral teachings and a belief in supernatural agency. Supposing I form the New Jedi Council of Planet Earth (Australia) Pty Ltd and declare myself to be the new head of the Jedi Council. All my business and personal dealings become church business. Once a week I put on the silly kak-coloured robes, make swooshing sounds with an LED-lit plastic sword, and spout inane trivialisms in broken backward sentences. Am I not entitled to the exemptions and protections of law?

Suppose we recognise that the tax-free status of religions is a silly hangover from the dark ages and abolish it. Am I then OK with the CoS? No. Their cynical and perfectly legal exploitation of this ancient rort is not the worst of their crimes. Their consistent abuse of litigation, slander and occasional outright criminal conspiracy makes them a dangerous organisation who should be classified alongside bikie gangs, mobsters and terrorists; equally and absolutely entitled to their rights but also subject to careful scrutiny, robust skepticism and generous lashings of satire and social opprobrium.

I’ve outlined my own understanding of the gravamen of the main allegations typically levelled against Scientology, and as far as I can see they don’t involve commission of crimes. No doubt some individual Scientologists have committed crimes, possibly even motivated by their own understanding of the church’s teachings. But to what extent are any such crimes “organised” or endorsed by the church itself? That’s the case that needs to be made by people advocating an inquiry, and they need to make it by giving examples of criminal behaviour IN AUSTRALIA that appears to be officially endorsed by the church. Last week’s Four Corners program certainly failed to make any such case, and as far as I can see Senator Xenophon hasn’t made it either.

If Scientologists are committing crimes, arrest them.
Otherwise this religion is no more retarded than all the other ones.

They are committing crimes. In an organised fashion. We shouldn’t put up with organised crime and we certainly shouldn’t lend them the financial advantages of religions (not that religions deserve those, but that’s another matter).

I resent the implication that I am somehow against religious freedom. I am not. Many folk keep to the Scientology hokum under the name ‘freezone’. If they want to believe in aliens, I don’t care. But one of the legitimate purposes of government is to prevent organised crime. And the Church of Scientology doesn’t smell of roses if you look into their many, many, many, many crimes.

You’re right. I’m hesitant about whether pressuring families not to contact excluded members ought to be unlawful. Your family counsellor example is an obvious objection, although there may well be a significant difference between a counsellor “suggesting” that a patient keep away from family members behaving in a way likely to damage the patient, and a church which coercively excludes members who maintain contact with excommunicated family members. Similarly with your “green” household example. What the Scientologists do is much more coercive.