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'It doesn't serve the people to have an ethics commission responsible to the body of government it reviews. It's counterintuitive.'

'Anonymous comment to an Eye on Miami blog entry about the desire of the Miami-Dade County Ethics Commission to strengthen its powers and responsibilities

An excellent idea for a grass-roots campaign to get some control of corrupt government employees in India.

Gandhi smiles on anti-bribe scheme

Ashling O'Connor, Mumbai
The Times
10 April 2007

IN the secret language of corruption in India, an official expecting a bribe will ask for Mahatma Gandhi to "smile" at him.

Below is an op-ed piece I wrote this week for the North Haven Post about the unethical conduct involved in my town's budget process. Nothing was done illegally or in violation of the town's mediocre ethics code. My question here is, What can be done about this sort of deviousness, which most town residents do not understand, which the town's political leaders almost unanimously deny, and which the newspapers present only (at best) with 'both sides of the story,' taking no editorial...

This is an excellent article by Tom Freidman which really highlights something that I consider to be very important in the development of any sort of effective ethics program - namely SIMPLICITY. Often it is the really simple things combined with a bright idea that bring the greatest change for the better... Tell me what you think - read it here:

"Every lie is an exception we carve out for ourselves."

--Bill Curry, columnist for the Hartford Courant, former councillor to President Clinton and gubernatorial candidate in Connecticut. From his March 11 column on the Libby trial and lying among politicians.

According to an article in the Tennessean, the Tennessee House passed a bill that would allow lawmakers ten days to correct 'errors' in their campaign finance disclosure forms once the Registry of Election Finance warned them of problems.

For example, if they intentionally left out donations and got caught, they could add them in and nothing would happen. The argument is that...