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Under a glorious blazing sun, Ireland's biggest public demonstration of the year took place last Saturday 8th June.  But if radio, TV and newspapers are your source of information you would scarcely have known that it was coming, nor that it had taken place. 

That is because it was a pro-life rally whereas Ireland's media are wildly enthusiastic for abortion and more abortion, and don't want people to know there are other widely held viewpoints. 

The organization of the crowds was superb as was their behaviour; the visuals and sound systems were top-class.  Big screens and speakers meant that wherever you stood you could see and hear exactly what was happening in the massive stage that had been set up. 

Packed into two sides of Merrion Square, the turnout looked huge, though estimates vary. 

This is all a bit academic, but it is important to demonstrate that the estimates of the media and the police are undoubtedly far too low, because it illustrates their prejudice on the subject.

The reason for Ireland's vigorous pro-life campaign is that its government, a coalition of a rightish party Fine Gael and a strongly leftist Labour party, is gung-ho to introduce abortion into Ireland for the first time ever, supposedly only to save the life of mothers.  However, Fine Gael made a pre-election promise not to introduce abortion, but under pressure from Labour its leadership has made a complete U-turn.  By

the Coalition is doggedly pushing through its legislation. 

I won't use this post to argue the pros and cons.  I only want to tell people what I can remember about the rally. 

Four speakers stood out as far as I was concerned.  It was not only the content of what they said, but the clarity, passion and brevity with which they delivered their message, which I imagine were the result of much coaching and rehearsal. 

But the coolest thing of all was this “SpiderSkyCam” drone, powered by eight rotors with an HD camera in the middle, which buzzed and hovered overhead in the bright sky taking video and stills of the event, some of which feature in the video above.  Contracted in by the rally organisers, it buzzed around and up and down the crowd throughout the meeting, controlled by some unseen technician, while giving some of us a crick in the neck.   

It would be handy to deploy one of them to the Cabinet meeting room to eavesdrop on the abortion “deliberations” such as they are.

The purpose of the rally was to get the attention of the ruling politicians, to demonstrate that there is a huge pro-life constituency passionately opposed to the proposed legislation and that there will be a bitter electoral price to pay if it is passed.

Time will tell how successful the overall pro-life campaign will be. And how many tiny, innocent lives will be saved - or snuffed out. 

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Rugby referees have at their disposal four grades of punishment for errors or foul play.

1. For minor infringements, a penalty kick is awarded to the opposing team.
2. For particularly cynical infringements, the offending player can in addition be sent off for ten minutes (yellow card). 
3. Where the infringement has prevented the scoring of a try, a penalty try is a further sanction.
4. For the worst of offences, the referee will wave a red flag, sending the player off for the rest of the game. 

In addition, however, a player may be cited, meaning further action is warranted, in respect of behaviour that has been viewed on television, whether or not the referee has spotted it or imposed his own punishment.  If cited, a player is called up before a panel of rugby judges, the evidence is reviewed, he is allowed to present his defence and a verdict reached.  If guilty, further punishment is often administered, usually a ban for a fixed period, which involves shame for the player involved but also, for a professional, loss of earnings. 

Recent such bans have highlighted a curious anomaly in regards to punishments meted out to top European rugby professionals:

Meanwhile ...

The reason I am bringing these recent cases up is to highlight the difference is punishments that the citing committees award for what might be termed virtual violence as compared with actual violence. 

No-one doubts that virtual violence needs to be vigorously stamped out, as it were. As does actual violence.  Young children (and their mums) must never be given the impression that such behaviour is acceptable, or else rugby's reputation will crash and fewer and fewer will play it. 

Nevertheless, it is exceedingly odd that spitting and rudeness should be deemed to be FOUR TIMES as serious as the stamps and kicks that in these particular cases could have broken, respectively, a leg, some ribs and a skull, and in the latter case have even caused brain damage. 

I would think that mums would far prefer to see their precious sons spat and sworn at than kicked in the head. 

Rugby alikadoos seem to believe the opposite.

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Russell Brand Diagnoses “Severe Mental Illness - 27th May 2013

A third rate “comedian” decides he knows
what drives certain types of people to murder.
There seems to be a lot of this particular affliction around.

The renowned international psychiatrist, Islamic scholar and philosopher Russell Brand concluded on 26th May in his Sunday column in the Sun tabloid newspaper that the Jihadist beheaders of Drummer Lee Rigby are in fact “severely mentally ill”. Why? How so?

Because they’d just murdered a stranger in Woolwich, London. QED. The act is the diagnosis.

Absolutely nothing to to do with Islam at all because, as he gravely informs us,

“the main narrative thrust of ... the Koran is:
Be nice to each other because we’re all the same”.

Nice? All the same? Who knew?

No doubt the eminent Dr R Brand listened intently to decapitator Michael Adebolajo’s own words:

“Allahu Akbar [Allah is the greatest]”
while slicing up his victim. 

And later, in front of a bystander's cameraphone,
“Surat at-Tawba through .. many, many ayat  throughout the Qur’an that ... we must fight them as they fight us ... We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. The British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Ayat means proof or evidence.

Surat at-Tawba is the Koran’s 9th chapter which takes precedence over all the others and contains this classic line in 9:5:

“Slay the idolators wherever ye find them, even in Woolwich”,

which just about sums things up.

But perhaps Dr Brand is right. For surely you would indeed have to be “severely mentally ill” to swallow such guff. 

Meanwhile, world leaders seem to feel the need to utter their own inanities, which only go to show that they too share symptoms of being “severely mentally ill”:

Meanwhile, Drummer Rigby remains dead.

Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, Second Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers,
brutally assassinated in broad daylight on a London street on 22nd May 2013.

R I P

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Frances and the Unknown Hakka Woman Who Saved her Life - 27th May 2013

On 25th May, the Saturday Live Programme on BBC Radio 4
invited my sister Frances to recount an incident in her youth
when a woman stepped into the road to halt her car – and saved her life. 

This is Frances' story.

Spoken as broadcast ....
 

And as written ...

My thanks are to a Chinese peasant who saved my life in June 1966.

I was driving slowly home, up the Peak in Hong Kong, during a tremendous rainstorm – not a typhoon. In Hong Kong we were used to typhoons but this was just heavy and non stop rain. In town the 12-ft deep storm drains were overflowing and water was fountaining up through the tarmac. Time to go home .

In low gear I crawled up the Peak but just as my flat appeared ahead, a Hakka woman (identifiable by her unique headgear, as depicted) stood in front of my car remonstrating that I should stop. She pointed to the road surface. It looked like bubbling pastry and she signed that I must not proceed. I have great respect for the Chinese (the fishermen always knew more than the Met Office which typhoons were the most dangerous) so I smiled, nodded my thanks, reversed my car down the hill and tucked it into a sedan chair path – these follow the lay of the land so survive bad weather well.

I arrived home absolutely soaked through and put on the kettle for my desperately needed cuppa tea. I never got it – the gas went off. The road I had just walked over had become a giant landslide.

Would the weight of my little Singer Gazelle have been enough to initiate that landslide ? Who knows. We were cut off for weeks until a sort of Bailey bridge could be built to reconnect us to the town and had to have our food delivered by helicopter. But I was alive.

There is no way I can ever thank that wonderful woman but I am forever grateful.

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When Did Nazi German Surrender? - 8th May 2013

An eyewitness account (sort-of) of those momentous days of surrender

Today, 8th May, 68 years ago, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally, bringing to an end, after six long and painful years, the European part of the Second World War. 

Or was it yesterday the 7th?  Or tomorrow the 9th? 

All three as it happens, as my 98-year-old and still sprightly father Walter, a dental surgeon, relates in the recent reissue of his memoirs.  A squadron leader with the RAF, he was part of the Normandy invasion of Europe, storming across France, Belgium and Germany, striking terror into Nazi hearts, with a dental drill in one hand and a forceps in the other:

Q U O T E

Shortly after my orderly Harrington and I had settled near the northern German town of Lüneberg into our spacious, comfortable Luftwaffe quarters (recently vacated by the hastily departing Germans), we heard, to our delight, the news on the radio from the BBC that Germany had signed an Act of Military Surrender at Rheims in France on 7th May 1945, thus bringing the European war to an end.

However we also learnt that Germany had already, three days earlier on Friday 4th May, signed another unconditional surrender, of its forces in northern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. This ensued after Hitler had blown his brains out in his Berlin bunker the previous Monday, and proved to be the first of three surrenders.

At 1830 hours on the Friday, in a large tent at Lüneburg Heath in northern Germany, Field Marshal Bernard Mont-gomery (“Monty”) accepted the unconditional German surrender . It was signed for Germany by Admiral Hans Georg von Friedberg of the navy and General Eberhard Kinzel of the army, both of whom committed suicide a few weeks later by taking cyanide, and by Major Fritz Gustav Friedl of the Gestapo who was tried for Holocaust war crimes and later killed in a car crash.

At the time we ourselves, as mentioned, happened to be billeted outside the town of Lüneberg only a few miles away. That evening, just 2½ hours after the surrender to Monty, I received a signal informing me officially of the order to cease hostilities as from the following morning and directing that work “should continue as usual”. I have kept that signal form carefully as a treasured memento (illustrated below). I recollect as a schoolboy in the 1920s visiting a war museum in France with a party from my south London school, Rutlish, and seeing a similar order among souvenirs of the Great War which had ended in Europe on 11th November, 1918.

It is noteworthy that the Americans continued fighting right up to the formal cessation of hostilities at 0800 hours on the Saturday. We reckoned that many of them – especially the newer arrivals – regretted that they could no longer kill any Germans.

An interesting story emerged in 2012 concerning the date of the second surrender in Rheims on 7th May 1945, known since and commemorated every year, as VE-Day, for “Victory in Europe”. (Actually, depending on what country you are in, VE-Day is commemorated on the 7th or the 8th or the 9th of May. This is because, as explained below, the third surrender was signed late on the 8th which, further east, was already the 9th due to the time difference.)

Edward Kennedy, then the forty-year-old Paris bureau chief of the Associated Press news agency, was one of seventeen journalists secretly flown by the military across France in a C-47 transport plane to witness Germany’s second surrender in Rheims to the Americans and British at 0241 hours on that fateful morning of 7th May 1945. As a condition of this privilege, they were sworn to secrecy under a news embargo that lasted for the following 36 hours.

This was because US President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had privately agreed to keep the historic ceremony covert until the following day, when the Soviet Union would accept the capitulation of German forces in Berlin. As a symbol of Allied solidarity and a sop to the USSR’s tyrant Josef Stalin, the Big Three wanted to announce the end of the war together and declare 8th May to be VE-Day. Thus the third surrender, almost identical to the second, was indeed signed in Berlin on that day, just before midnight, which for the Soviets was of course just after midnight on 9th May. Hence the three VE-Days.

However Kennedy ruined their cunning plan for the surprise announcement that they wanted to make only after the third surrender.

Having forewarned the US military censor of what he was about to do, he then rang AP’s London office to dictate a story on the (second) surrender on 7th May. This broke the embargo and ensured that the bombshell exploded on the front pages of every newspaper subscribing to the agency’s service the next day. Many consider this to be the greatest scoop of all time.

Kennedy was promptly thrice denounced and excoriated –

But Kennedy was unrepentant, pointing out that the embargo had been imposed solely for political convenience, not to save lives or protect military secrets. Moreover, Germany itself had alr eady announced the surrender, at 1403 hours on 7th May in a radio broadcast from the city of Flensburg then under Allied control, which was 670 km from Rheims. Kennedy argued that from that moment the embargo was invalid: the news was out and no harm could be done by declaring it to the world. He found it absurd to bottle up an announcement of such magnitude and import.

At the time, however, his arguments fell on furious deaf ears. Kennedy was expelled from France by the Allied authorities and his career with AP was over. He died, still reviled by the establishment, in a car crash at the age of 58 in 1963.

However, in 2012, 67 long years after his momentous scoop, AP suddenly had a change of heart. Its CEO Tom Curley issued a posthumous apology, to the joy of the intrepid reporter’s sole surviving daughter Julia. Curley declared that Kennedy’s dismissal was a “great, great tragedy” and hailed him as a reporter who did the “right thing” and “stood up to power”.

My colleagues and I had no idea about these machinations, but certainly the capitulation ceremony to the Soviets never made big news, no doubt because Kennedy had effectively neutered it.

We enjoyed a tremendous VE-Day celebration that Monday evening of 7th May. The fireworks (mostly signal rockets) and miscellaneous pyrotechnics were fired in such profusion that we must have emptied the magazines. Unfortunately we could find very few stores of liquor to empty.

U N Q U O T E

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Quotes for Issue 223 “”

Quote: “Please, as a 16-year-old who has no say in his death sentence, who has no choice in the pain he is about to cause and who would take any chance at even a few more months on this planet: appreciate what you have, know that there are always other options and help is always there.”

Donal Walsh, 16, while dying
at home in Kerry of a tumour in his leg,
pleads eloquently  for fellow teenagers
to desist from suicide. 

Quote:  “Abortion is a crime against humanity ... Since Boston College has not withdrawn its invitation and Mr Kenny has not declined it, I shall not attend the graduation.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley is boycotting a graduation ceremony at
Boston College, a Jesuitical (and thus supposedly staunchly Catholic) institution,
because it has invited as its keynote speaker
Enda Kenny, to whom it will also award an honorary degree. 

Mr Kenny is Ireland's Taoiseach (prime minister)
and the invitation reflects the college's long association with Ireland.

The Cardinal is taking this action because
Mr Kenny, who presents himself as a practicing Catholic,
is “aggressively promoting abortion legislation” in Ireland,
which has hitherto been abortion-free.

Quote: “We wanted to send more reinforcement to Benghazi. ... The people in Benghazi had been fighting all night. ... But he told me he had not been authorized to go. The vehicles needed to go. ... Lt Colonel Gibson [commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa] was furious. ... I had told him to bring our people home. Apparently no one had been authorized to go.”

Gregory Hicks, former top US diplomat in Libya. 

He was testifying on 8th May in front of
the House Oversight and
Government Reforms Committee,
concerning the seven-hour Jihadist attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi on
the eleventh anniversary of 9-11,
which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens
and three other Americans. 

The Obama/Clinton administration refused to send military help
that fateful night, then lied about the cause of the attack
- and the President went to bed.

As a result of his refusal to support the Obama/Clilnton lies
about what happened, Mr Hicks, a career civil servant,
was demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer.

Mr Hicks is a registered Democrat, who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries
and for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.  Yet he chose to speak the truth.

Quote: “This land [the Gaza Strip] has never once been a Jewish land. Palestine is for the Arab Islamic nation.”

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Islamic scholar and cleric, based in Qatar,
made famous by his popular TV show
and widely respected in the Muslim world.

Truth, objectivity and overall morality  have never been this cleric's
strong points.

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ISSUE #222 - Quarter 1, 2013

Cyprus Gas Is All Gas - 23rd March 2013

Don't believe what you hear about a gas bonanza

Cyprus is in economic turmoil, short of a mere €16 billion, 65% of its annual GDP.   The EU has promised to lend it €10 bn but only on condition it raises the other €6 bn in cash from its own resources.  Seemingly it has nowhere to turn for instant cash but to raid Cyprus bank accounts to confiscate both the life savings of innocent citizens and the supposedly ill gotten-gains of Russian multi-millionaire oligarchs. 

This will of course - if it has not already done so - ruin the reputation of Cyprus as a centre for international financial services and sound banking, if not a sunny haven for shady money.  So a major source of future revenue has instantly dried up, leaving tourism as the only export market. 

But there is a small glimmer of hope whereby the confiscation may not  have to be as draconian (up to 10% of deposits) as feared.  For Cyprus apparently has a big, offshore gas field waiting to be developed, and plenty more in the offing, with hundreds of billions of €uro waiting to be reaped. Securities on this could be sold for cash, in return for a slice of the lucrative future revenues. Russia's giant, state-owned Gazprom, the biggest gas company in the world, is being mooted as one potential investor. 

This gas securitisation idea is being heavily hyped, and I have not come across a single dissenting voice.

Personally I had never heard of Cyprus's gas bonanza before, which made me suspicious and prompted me to have a closer look. 

As a result, I am therefore now a single dissenting voice.  Here's why. 

The Cypriots tell us that they have excellent offshore gas reserves: 7 TCF so far, equivalent to two million barrels of oil, with an upside potential of 60 TCF.  (TCF stands for trillion cubic feet.) 

The only field identified so far is called Aphrodite, after the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation; obviously the Cypriots are hoping a bit of that action will emanate from beneath the waves.

The subsea Aphrodite is seen as a multi-billion €uro windfall that, simply by selling future production, will become some kind of saviour. 

This is foolish.  Not only are there political difficulties (powerful Turkey disputes Cyprus's sovereignty over the offshore area in question and has already sent a gunboat), but the technical difficulties and the cost of bringing to market gas that is 200 hundred kilometres offshore in 1,700 metres of water depth are immense. Such a project,

would easily stretch to ten years and maybe €5 billion paid upfront before a penny of revenue. The map below shows the route of the 1,800 km Trans-Med pipeline that the Cyprus Government is suggesting (anything to avoid Turkey).

However the whole concept is a mirage anyway. 

7 TCF would be an immense gas field. 

By comparison, Ireland has one great field, Kinsale, with 1½ TCF that has been producing for 30 years, and another, Corrib, with 1 TCF which will have cost €2½ billion and twelve years to develop by the time gas first appears in 2015. 

In the 1990s, the company I then headed discovered the Philippines' biggest hydrocarbon field, Malampaya, which lies offshore the sparsely populated island of Palawan in 846 metres of water.  It is 530 km from the nearest viable market being the island of Luzon where Manila is located (click to enlarge the chart).  When discovered, the reserves were estimated by my team to be 1.1 TCF of gas (since upgraded to 2.7 TCF), and development entailed a record-breaking 24” subsea pipeline to Luzon along a seabed fraught with faults and instabilities.  Malampaya took nine years to appraise and develop, at a cost of $4½ billion (€4 bn). 

I mention Kinsale, Corrib and Malampaya to put Cyprus's Aphrodite in some perspective. 

Backing up the declaration of Aphrodite as a “discovery”, are seismic surveys and just a single exploration well.  It is designated “A-1 Discovery” on this chart, which was published on 6th December 2012 by Noble Energy, the American oil and gas company which made the discovery.

Note also the words “DST Pending”. DST stands for Drill Stem Test, which is a rather rudimentary method for testing the rate at which the well will produce oil and/or gas and/or water, in actual practice as distinct from theory. In other words Noble are bragging about “5-8 TCF” based on just that one well that they haven't even tested.  Nevertheless this seems to be the grounds on which they and the Cyprus Government tout about reserves of seven TCF and even, taking into account similar structures in the area, a possible/probable sixty. 

This is fanciful talk in the extreme. 

When perhaps a dozen wells have been drilled (at a typical cost of €40 million each), or perhaps even the four more that the chart indicates are planned, it will be time to take seriously claims of 7 TCF. 

Until then, chatter about Cyprus gas is nothing but gas, combined with wishful thinking.  Don't put your money there.  Serious investors are certainly not going provide cash against the long, vague shot of production revenues perhaps a decade hence. 

Other than raiding bank deposits, there is no quick fix that is going to produce €6 bn for the hapless Cypriots. 

Therefore, if it fails to do so, either it goes bankrupt and tumbles out of the €uro and back to a worthless Cypriot Pound. 

Or the EU blinks first and ponys up the extra €6bn in order to save the (nevertheless doomed) €uro for a little longer.

This is the outcome I would bet on.

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The EU Common Agricultural Policy rewards farmers for no discernible reason

On 19th March I was invited to become part of the audience for the Prime Time TV programme that Ireland's state broadcaster RTE puts out twice a week. This was to partake in a discussion about the EU's most expensive, longest running subsidy, the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, to which I have long been viscerally opposed, as the programme makers know.

You can view my contribution here, where it appears in minute 5 of the second item, titled “Farm subsidy questioned”. 

This is essentially what I said (with links to my sources):

The CAP is abomination which

That’s why

And that’s not to talk of the Third World livelihoods that the CAP destroys due to

The sooner the CAP is abolished the better, with part of the huge sums saved redeployed to retrain farmers to learn new, marketable skills that customers actually value.

There is no shortage of food in the world for those able to pay for it, which certainly includes the countries of the European Union.

No-one really challenged what I said.  The farmers were too busy squabbling among themselves about how to divvy out the CAP spoils. 

That tends to make another point.  The prime crop in EU farming today is not farm produce but farm subsidies - how to maximise them and get the biggest share, which is always the case when big money is being given away.  Subsidies are like narcotics - destructive and degrading in equal manner; recipients quickly become junkies who lose their sense of pride and those who distribute them the drug dealers. 

Even in this lively TV discussion about farming, so pervasive was the narcotic that not a single person talked about actual farming, only the subsidies. 

Imagine if that energy went into actual, you know, farming. 

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Quote (19th March): “OK, so props don't ever join the referee ranks because it's a lot of running. But would it be so harmful to perhaps get a prop on the pitch to officiate at scrum-time only? He could then leave the field until the next scrum. He wouldn't have to run anywhere, he'd get free pies on the touchline, and we'd have a scrum official who'd really know what was going on.”

A commentator's suggestion at the recent Wales/England
6-Nations championship decider (won 30-3 by Wales),
which was heavily punctuated by inscrutable penalties at scrum time.

The problem is that rugby referees are never props (who hate running)
and therefore never understand the mysterious, nefarious machinations
grinding within the dark recesses of a heaving, wheezing, sweat-laden scrum.

Hat-tip: Graham Hunt in Perth, Oz

Quote (19th March): “Sure what could go wrong? It is the day after St Patrick’s Day, a roomful of Paddies, a free bar and the future king of England. It’s going to be messy.”

From compassion to blood sacrifice

George Orwell, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, his seminal though subtle diatribe against global tyranny, introduced the world to many new words that have since entered the English language: Big Brother, thoughtcrime, newspeak, memory hole, duckspeak, unperson ... doublethink. 

He defines doublethink as, among other things,

“the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.

He even has a shorthand word for this - blackwhite, denying the evidence of your eyes by declaring and believing that black is white or vice versa. 

I wonder how many other Western countries are as conflicted about suicide as Ireland, which seems to have developed not Orwell's doublethink but its own treblethink on this troubling subject. 

Judging by Irish media over the past few weeks and months, huge numbers of Irish, in full sanctimonious flow, seem to believe that death by suicide is, simultaneously,

1. a terrible thing that must be prevented by all means,

2. a wonderful thing that must be accommodated by all means,

3. a dreadful worry that can be alleviated only by blood sacrifice.

Examples:

1     A Terrible Thing

It is a terrible thing to lose a loved one who has died at his/her own hand. 

Yet death by suicide in Ireland has become so prevalent that Ireland's main opposition party, Fianna Fail, is proposing a new 7½% tax be levied on alcohol sales (excluding pubs and restaurants) in order to fund €86 million worth of suicide prevention services.  Its report, “Actions Speak Louder than Words: A Structural Approach to a Societal Issue”, advises that Irish suicides have increased by 30% over the past decade, a huge heartbreaking tragedy that took 525 lives in 2011, most of them young males. 

This death toll is almost thrice that of the roads (186), another major killer of predominantly young males, but one that receives far more attention and funding than suicide, and has positive results to show for it in terms of reducing the deaths.   Fianna Fail's attempt to tackle suicide is an honourable one which if adopted will undoubtedly likewise make a real difference. 

Those considering suicide do indeed need to be identified, helped, counselled to support them in dealing with these self-destructive thoughts.  Prisoners who present a self-harm risk are routinely put on suicide watch, which includes regularly checking of their cells as well as removing all items that might be used to cut, strangle or poison. 

Suicide is permanent, life's problems are temporal.  No effort is too great to save such people from needlessly extinguishing their most valuable attribute - their lives - when actual solutions can be developed. 

2     A Wonderful Thing

We have probably all imagined ourselves in some dreadful situation where we might long for the sweet release of death. 

Locked-in Syndrome holds particular terror - who can forget “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby who ended up this way after a stroke in 1995.  Though fully cosmos mentis with all his senses intact, he awoke unable to move his body apart from his left eyelid, which he used, one blink at a time, for rudimentary communication and to laboriously write his book, letter by letter.  Had he wanted to commit suicide, he would of course have been unable to do so, other than to request someone else to end his life. 

But that someone else would then have been prosecuted for unlawful killing or worse, for while the law permits suicide, helping someone to commit suicide is illegal. 

For Irishwoman Marie Fleming and many others in her sad situation, it's not locked-in syndrome but terminal multiple sclerosis which since 1986 has been slowly paralysing her bodily functions and will eventually suffocate her.  So she would like to be the mistress of her own destiny and die at a time of her choosing, before her suffering and fear become unbearable.  But though in full possession of her mental capacities, she is already confined to a wheelchair and so to kill herself would need someone to set a system up, such as a poisonous drink.  Once again, that person - in this case her loving partner - would be liable for prosecution. 

There is much sympathy for her predicament, for who would not want to help a suffering yet coherent relative who desperately wanted to go to a better place.  But the ban on assisted suicide is there for a reason - to affirm the sanctity of human life but also to avoid creating situations where vulnerable people feel obliged (or maybe are encouraged) to have themselves killed, perhaps to relieve kinfolk of a burden or to release a legacy. 

Marie Fleming and many like her would consider it a wonderful thing to be allowed to commit suicide, with help if necessary, as a way to conclude her journey on this earth in a dignified and gentle manner.  And public opinion is firmly with them. 

But though the law is not with them, judges are hinting to public prosecutors that they should use discretion in bringing prosecutions in such cases; ie don't. 

3    Dreadful Worry

The third angle to suicide relates to unwanted pregnancies.  In most of the western world, abortion is available more or less on demand, despite the fact that it is usually against the law. 

For example in England, abortion up to 28 weeks was legalised in The Abortion Act of 1967, even though the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act remained in place, rendering abortion illegal under pain of life imprisonment. 

The two Acts were reconciled by saying that abortion is permissible only if the life or health of the mother is at risk, including the risk of suicide. 

The suicide provision has been the single biggest factor that has led to abortion-on-demand even up to birth itself - currently 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales being 20% of all pregnancies.   Lord David Steel, the author of the 1967 Act, is today horrified at the floodgates he never realised he was opening and urges Ireland not to follow his much regretted example. 

Though no-one can objectively prove that someone will commit suicide, it is sufficient in UK law for two psychiatrists to vouch that without abortion a woman is suicidal.  This is a massive loophole, as all it takes is to find a group of pro-abortion psychiatrists to sign the paperwork and the path is clear. 

Indeed, there is no scientific or empirical evidence that abortion prevents suicide.  For example, a recent review of all maternal deaths in Ireland's main maternity hospitals from 1950 to 2011 has found not a single case of a woman taking her own life because she was pregnant. 

Nevertheless, advocates for abortion argue that it is a great mercy for a woman to be allowed to abort her baby if it means she avoids suicide brought on by dreadful worry over her unwanted pregnancy.  Such people, however, never argue that suicidal tendencies should be given the same help, counselling and if necessary suicide-watch that is accepted practice for others - even lowly imprisoned criminals - who seem at risk of self-destruction. 

Only for pregnant women is suicide to be averted through infant blood sacrifice. 

In Ireland where the 1861 Act also remains in force (as a relic of British rule), there is a huge push to legalise abortion in case of threat of suicide, as in England. 

But other than concern over the mother's possible suicide, is there an unthinkable alternative reason for this drive?  Surely it cannot be that risk of suicide is merely a Trojan horse designed to introduce a regime of abortion-on-demand?  Even though this is precisely what has ensued in England and all other abortion-friendly jurisdictions where grounds for abortion include suicide, or even mental health.

Treblethink

So there you have it.  Thousands of otherwise rational, well-meaning people indulge in suicide treblethink -

“the power of holding three contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting all three of them”.   

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Excuse. 

What would George Orwell have written?  Would treblethink have entered his vocabulary?

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Paddy Jack, in Dublin's Temple Bar Farmers' Market,
where he serves horse steak sandwiches in Ireland's only horse meat outlet. 

He his referring to Do or Die, his pet racehorse
who is being trained to compete. 

But if on the racecourse Do or Die fails to Do the business he will Die
- and be served up on Mr Jack's stall. 
Though for sentimental reasons not to Mr Jack himself. 

Quote (12 Feb): “Nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime.”

President Obama explains in his 2013 State of the Union address
that his proposed litany of more spending, new programs and new bureaucracies
will not increase America's $16½ trillion deficit “by a single dime”! 

Yes, really!

The odd one out is of course the red hat and the dress, that is to say the lady. 

Because she is the oldest of the four. 

She is also the only one who in recent months has not decided to voluntarily resign ahead of time in favour of a successor.

The reason is obvious.  She still does not trust her heir, a spring chicken of a mere 64, to take over her job and execute her/his duties effectively. So unlike the other three, she is sticking to her original vow, to serve until death, or in the case of Archbishop Williams until statutory retirement age. 

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Dutch MEP Peter van Dalen,
in response to the reported persecution of
a hundred 100 million Christians around the world,
demands that Ireland as current EU “president”,
take concrete action.

Ireland's response?  Waffle, of course

World Will Frac - 6th February 2013

A technological revolution in hydraulic fracturing (“fraccing”)
of hydrocarbon-bearing shales
is leading to an unstoppable energy revolution, which will in turn
lead to entirely benign revolutions in global economics and geopolitics.

A year ago, I wrote in some detail a post called “Truth About Fraccing” (tinyurl.ie/frac) which

Just to recap, fraccing (hydraulic fracturing) entails pumping water down a well and into reservoir rock that contains hydrocarbons (gas and/or oil) at such a high pressure that the rock splits open.  This exposes much more of the rock to the wellbore and thus makes it easier for the hydrocarbons to flow into it and up to the surface. 

This post explores what fraccing is going to mean for the world at large - how it will affect in an almost wholly benign fashion both global economics and geopolitics. 

Just as fraccing is unleashing undreamed-of volumes of hydrocarbons, so the consistently high oil price in recent years, firmly in the hundred-dollar-a-barrel category, is unleashing undreamed-of fraccing technology.  (Click on the interesting oil-price chart below for better detail.)

This unleashed technology has three legs that together are yielding results that are truly startling:

Then there is increasing unease, if not panic, in the West at how

1. 1  its consumption has steadily exceeded its ability to find new hydrocarbons, allied with ...

3. 2  the extent to which it has therefore become increasingly dependent on foreign sources for its insatiable thirst for oil and gas, sources which are largely hostile to the interests of the West, which is in effect nevertheless funding them. 

This chart of America's trillion-dollar dependency illustrates the point; it is typical of the West in general. 

These three elements - oil price, technological advances and foreign dependency - are the factors that have led to a fraccing boom, currently evident only in a few parts of the US, but one that is going to sweep the world. 

That is because fraccing is, simply, making available huge quantities of hydrocarbons within the Western countries themselves, changing the energy picture dramatically.  

This tabulation, which appeared in World Oil magazine last August, uses data published by the Energy Information Administration, a US Federal body which collates and analysises energy information.

It shows for a large array of countries the estimated reserves of gas recoverable mainly through fraccing, which add up to 6,622 trillion cubic feet (TCF), a truly astounding figure.  One TCF is the equivalent in energy terms of about 170 million barrels of oil; thus 6,622 TCF equates to over a trillion barrels, worth some $100 trillion at today's prices. 

These numbers need to be put into context.

First Oil:

BP tells us that the world's oil reserves are currently 1,653 billion barrels, which is sufficient to keep us going for another 54 years. 

However, of this 1,196 bn bbl lie beneath the countries of OPEC, while 859 of them ( 52%) are in the Middle East and North Africa, which I will refer to as MENAf.  (OPEC's oil income in 2012 alone was a very juicy trillion dollars.)

Then Gas:

The world's gas reserves amount to 7,361 TCF (BP's figure again), which is 64 years' worth. 

Of this, 3,156 TCF, or 42%, are within MENAfME/NAf

Oil Plus Gas:

Combined into barrels-of-oil-equivalent (BOE), global reserves are therefore 2.9 trillion BOE, good for half a century or so, of which roughly half comes from MENAf. 

MENAf is of course the location of oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, which have been

They seek overtly or covertly the conversion of the infidel world to an Islamic caliphate, under the Koranic injunction to convert, enslave or kill (eg 9:5).  

MENAf countries can behave this way because they are so wealthy, thanks to the West's inability to keep up with its thirst for hydrocarbons.  Thus the West is funding its own enemies, and by the way providing most of the technology and expertise to extract the MENAf's oil and gas. 

Thus the trillion BOE that the EIA estimate is yet to be liberated (through fraccing) from shale gas reserves represents an addition of some 38% to global reserves. 

That is a massive increase by any reckoning, but its impact is even greater because scan the tabulation above and you can see that huge volumes are going to come from consuming countries themselves in Europe, N America and elsewhere. 

But that is not still not the full story. 

This EIA chart shows in dark red where the expected shale gas reserves are to be found.  Just as interesting, however, are the areas that are left out of the reckoning.  These are principally the already hydrocarbon-prolific regions of Russia, the Middle East, Malaysia, Indonesia, not to mention the world's entire offshore acreage.  Oh, and the OIL that fraccing will liberate from shales is not mentioned at all. 

So even if the EIA's estimates of shale gas are wrong by factors, it still looks inevitable that the global stock of oil and gas is set to increase dramatically.

But what exactly does this mean?

Firstly, the volumes to be released through fraccing - and therefore the associated revenues - are so vast that fraccing itself will become an inexorable force.  Frankly, money talks, and no amount of lobbying, bogus scare-tactics or political sanctimony is going to stop the fraccing. 

In due course, the fraccing issue will morph into how to set standards and rigorously enforce them, a far more constructive (and indeed necessary) approach than blindly banning the technology.

As shale gas availability spreads globally, gas prices will tumble.  Fraccing has already trigged this in the USA. 

Dramatically lower gas prices will encourage industry and individuals to adopt it in place of dirtier fuels - notably coal, wood, turf, oil - and to seek innovative ways to use it.  Only last year the world's first major gas-to-liquids plant was commissioned, in tiny but gas-abundant Qatar.  Called Pearl, it converts gas into fuels similar to petrol, diesel or kerosene, suitable even for commercial airliners.

It will, moreover, be only a matter of time before abundant gas drives down the cost of all competitor energies.  This process will probably not excessively favour the corporations that extract and market energy, whose increased volumes will be offset by lower unit prices - for example, Shell is already hurting in the US.  But conversely, it is likely to be a bonanza for energy-intensive industries, such as the manufacture of steel, aluminium, cement, glass, and of course transportation.

Above all, however since every one of us relies on energy for practically everything, the coming price-drop is going to amount to a massive global, across-the-board stimulus.  But a stimulus without debt - that doesn't need to be repaid by future generations.

Surely this must amount to the only viable solution on the horizon to the global economic crisis that is engulfing the globe, seemingly with no end in sight. 

Moreover, since so much of the new, fracced energy is going to come from within consumer and other West-friendly countries, the West's huge and precarious dependence on MENAf is going to reduce fulgurantly - as well as reducing transportation costs. 

In turn, MENAf oil revenues (by far those countries' principle source of income) will be slashed as they lose not only export volumes but also in unit prices.  This will much reduce their ability to cause trouble and sponsor Jihad.  It will cause them to focus at last on the on non-oil, regular part of their economy, in a manner that can only benefit their populations - and the rest of the world.

In summary, fraccing is triggering an energy revolution whose effects will be almost wholy benign, for individuals, industries, countries, global economics and geopolitics.

And yet an awful lot of people oppose it fanatically; but that is no mystery.  They remain in the dark over what fraccing actually entails, its opportunities - and yes - risks, because the industry does so little to explain itself.  It is therefore entirely reasonable for ordinary citizens to adopt the precautionary maxim that “if you don't know, say no”, when they are operating in a void.  Moreover it is into that very void that activist objectors eagerly leap, with a far more articulate message than the industry's . 

The answer therefore is for the industry to go out and get its own message across with similar skill and enthusiasm as its opponents.  In other words to evangelise. 

This and previous posts, along with associated lectures I have given, are my own modest attempt to address this.  If you would like me to speak about fraccing at meetings (no charge), just drop me a line at blog2-at-tallrite-dot-com. 

I repeat.  Modern fraccing represents an entirely benign revolution that all humanity should embrace. 

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Policing Gay Boudoirs - 6th February 2013

Confusion about who must and who must not
indulge in gay sex in the brave new world of gay marriage

Same-sex partnerships/unions/marriages throw up new problems that make such “institutions” increasingly ridiculous, because of the necessity that gay-sex be performed - or not. 

Same-sex civil partnerships, with all the associated tax-breaks, are available to couples (though for some reason not threes or fours) if and only if they actually practice their gay sex; there is no room for celibacy. 

This can be the only explanation why such partnerships are not open to couples who eschew sex, such as the Burden sisters, two elderly spinsters who share their family home jointly inherited from their parents.  When one of the ladies dies, the death duties the other must pay will force her to sell the house and move out.  Were they bound within a civil partnership, the surviving sister would simply inherit, tax-free, her “partner's” half.  But such a partnership - and the associated fiscal advantages - are not open to them because no gay-sex is involved.  Likewise, why shouldn't a pair of (celibate) bridge partners or a man and his sons be eligible for the civil-partnership tax breaks? But they're not.  No sex, no tax breaks. 

What about equality?  And surely we all are supposed to have human rights?

Well, no we don't. 

Unless my buddy and I are prepared for some gay gymnastics in the boudoir (or maybe on the kitchen table) we're not going to get the breaks created for single-sex couples in a civil partnerships. 

Unless ... and here is where it gets (even more) weird. 

The Church of England have been wrestling for decades with what to do about its gay clergy.  It eventually - grudgingly, gradually over many years - accepted that they existed, that many of them were in gay relationships and some in civil unions.  But, goaded by its conservative wing mainly in Africa, the Church drew the line at elevating gay priests to bishophood. 

It was convulsed, therefore, when its American wing, the Protestant Episcopal Church, decided to break this taboo and promote Gene Robinson in 2004 to become Bishop of New Hampshire.  For Bishop Robinson is not just gay but openly living with fellow-gay Mark Andrew, and by all accounts enjoying a gay old sex life.  By the way, the bishop started out marrying a woman in 1972 who bore him two children, but then divorced her in 1986/7 in favour of Mr Andrew. 

The new couple were “married” in both a civil partnership ceremony and in a formal church service in June 2008, with Rev Robinson declaring that he “always wanted to be a June bride”.  (In impeccably correct fashion, the administering priest was of course a woman.) 

Predictably, when the Reverend became a Bishop six years later, the Anglican community outside American (and much of it within) were outraged, with Bishop Akinola of Nigeria leading the backlash.  Schism was threatened. 

But as is generally the Anglican way, the Church of England over time slowly learnt to bend with the wind and accept what they deemed unavoidable.  Thus it is that on 20 December, in the face of fierce opposition (again largely led by Nigeria) it decided that gays in civil partnerships CAN now be elevated to bishophood. 

On one condition.  That they and their partners practice celibacy.  

So what is a poor gay married CofE bishop supposed to do? 

And pity the Inland Revenue inspectors and Church Sextons (a propitious job title?) whose job is to police the gay-sex of their respective constituents, ensuring that it is simultaneously taking place and not, as the case may be.  How they accomplish this vital task on behalf of wider society I know not, but someone's got to make sure the ridiculous rules are being upheld. 

Nevertheless, it seems the only chance for my non-gay buddy and me is for one of us to become an Anglican bishop and then get “married”, or the other way round.  Provided we can dodge both the taxman and the sexton, we get the tax-breaks without the boudoir, er, unpleasantnesses. 

But with one-man-one-woman marriage now obsolete and the old-fashioned constraints of the phrase rendered meaningless, don't get me started on marriage between Amy and her fairground ride ...  

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Gaza Ghetto - 6th February 2013

No logic or reason informs the arguments of Israel-haters and/or Jew-haters
(if indeed there is a difference)

This is a cartoon from the Facebook page,  “Israel is a War Criminal”, to which I couldn't resist responding.

“Yeah right”, I wrote sarcastically. “Those damn Jews kept lobbing so many rockets at the poor innocent Nazis that they had no choice but to round them up, ship them to concentration camps and gas them”.

Sanya Petrovic Fukerkov took the bait: “You think the Palestinian rocket fire is the bigger problem than the Israeli system”

I answered her with actual data, and since it took me a bit of time to collate them, I though it worthwhile to store the results here on my Tallrite Blog so as to have it on record.

Eventually the discussion thread petered out when my opponents tired of calling me names and inventing “facts”.   

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Fai Chun - Year of the Snake - 6th February 2013

Hey, it's just a snake

Professor Lap-Chee Tsui is the Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong University, my first alma mater.  He created this Chinese calligraphy of Fai Chun as a greeting to family and friends to commemorate the Year of the Snake, which begins on 10th February 2013 and runs until 31st January 2014. So please accept this greeting from me to you.

In case you want to create your own Fai Chun, it's easy.  Here's how.

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Anybody Here Seen Kerry? - 6th February 2013

Unfortunately, we're going to see rather too much of him
for the next four years

Now that the Senate has endorsed John Kerry as Secretary of State for the next four years, in what has to be one of the Buffoon-in-Chief's worst thought-through senior cabinet appointments (in a field of ferocious competition), it's time to recall the Democratic Presidential convention of 2004.  After Mr Kerry gave a typically ponderous vainglorious speech preceded by a childish “reporting-for-duty” moment, he was endorsed as presidential candidate, to face (and lose to) George W Bush who was seeking re-election. 

During his campaign, he constantly bragged about his military record in Vietnam, but this was thoroughly debunked by his own comrades in arms, the so-called Swiftboaters, who refused to subscribe to his baloney. 

So I couldn't help mocking him. 

Have a fifty-second listen.

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Horseburger Groans - 6th February 2013

Groan

“I've eaten one too many of those equine burgers; I reckon I can't take another - I am horse de combat”.

If, following the horse-in-burger-meat scandal, you are groaning from one too many horseburger jokes, and would like to groan some more, I have collected all the ones I could (easily) find.  You can find them on one of my Light Relief pages. 

Groan. 
 

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Issue 222’s Comments to Cyberspace
Period August 2012 to February 2013

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Quotes for Issue 222

Quote (19th March): “OK, so props don't ever join the referee ranks because it's a lot of running. But would it be so harmful to perhaps get a prop on the pitch to officiate at scrum-time only? He could then leave the field until the next scrum. He wouldn't have to run anywhere, he'd get free pies on the touchline, and we'd have a scrum official who'd really know what was going on.”

A commentator's suggestion at the recent Wales/England
6-Nations championship decider (won 30-3 by Wales),
which was heavily punctuated by inscrutable penalties at scrum time.

The problem is that rugby referees are never props (who hate running)
and therefore never understand the mysterious, nefarious machinations
grinding within the dark recesses of a heaving, wheezing, sweat-laden scrum.

Hat-tip: Graham Hunt in Perth, Oz

Quote (19th March): “Sure what could go wrong? It is the day after St Patrick’s Day, a roomful of Paddies, a free bar and the future king of England. It’s going to be messy.”

Comedian Patrick Nulty at a €1,000-per-plate testimonial dinner
in London for Irish rugby star Brian O'Driscoll,
attended by, inter alia, the Duke of Cambridge

Quote (19th Feb): “Ah no, I'll let someone else eat him. I know him too well!”

Paddy Jack, in Dublin's Temple Bar Farmers' Market,
where he serves horse steak sandwiches in Ireland's only horse meat outlet. 

He his referring to Do or Die, his pet racehorse
who is being trained to compete. 

But if on the racecourse Do or Die fails to Do the business he will Die
- and be served up on Mr Jack's stall. 
Though for sentimental reasons not to Mr Jack himself. 

Quote (12th Feb): “Nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime.”

President Obama explains in his 2013 State of the Union address
that his proposed litany of more spending, new programs and new bureaucracies
will not increase America's $16½ trillion deficit “by a single dime”! 

Yes, really!

Quote (7th Feb): “My concrete question to the Irish presidency is: what are you doing to tackle the problem of growing Christian persecution?”

Dutch MEP Peter van Dalen,
in response to the reported persecution of
a hundred 100 million Christians around the world,
demands that Ireland as current EU “president”,
take concrete action.

Ireland's response?  Waffle, of course

Quote:  “Statistics are like a bikini; it shows a lot but not the whole thing.”

Scott Johnson, the Australian coach of Scotland’s rugby union side,
before on 2nd February it lost (again) to England not just in points scored, 18-38,
but on almost every other statistic measured during the match,
as indeed in most matches for the past thirty years
Hattip: Graham Hunt

Quote: “For every hundred crimes committed in Britain today just one criminal will end up with a conviction in a court of law.”

Chris Huhne, Minister of Justice, in 2008
bemoaning the easy ride 99% of criminals get.

Chris Huhne in 2013 became part of the unlucky one percent
when he was convicted and jailed
for perverting the course of justice over ...
a speeding ticket. 

Quote: “We don't have to pay England to be our friend, so why do we have to pay Egypt?”

Senator Rand Paul objects to America sending
F-16s and cash to Egypt under the rule of its
anti-Semitic, holocaust-denying, dictatorship-creating
president Mohammed Morsi

Quote (Facebook, Philip O'Sullivan): “Despite spending six centuries buried under a car park, he still has better teeth than most of the guests on the ghastly Jeremy Kyle show.”

The best comment so far With regard to King Richard III

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ALUMINIUM ANNIVERSARY
(Skip to Issue #221)

14th July 2012 is the Tallrite Blog's tenth, ie Aluminium, anniversary. 
Where did it all go wrong?

I seem to have written 1,611 posts during this time. 
Here is the list of that first issue's already eclectic contents ...

ISSUE #1- Sunday 14th July 2002 

Organic Food

Nice Treaty Referendum

The Football Association of Ireland and Sky Television

Kyoto Protocol

Is The Economist Anti-Semitic

ISSUE #221 - Quarter 3, 2012

Sick of the Welfare State? - 30th September 2012

Yes I am!

In a moment of foolishness, I accepted a generous invitation from the world's oldest (325 years) debating society to speak in its first formal debate of the new academic year. 

It was my fourth appearance at Trinity College Dublin's Philosophical Society, which was founded in 1687 when James II sat as the last Catholic monarch on the throne of England and Ireland, and is usually known simply as “The Phil”.  It holds weekly debates with a celebrity usually invited as a speaker. 

To give you a flavour of this, the previous week it had hosted Hugh (Blackadder, Dr House) Laurie and Whoopi (“rape-rape”) Goldberg.  The latter remarked that to be honoured as she was with a medal by The Phil making her an honorary patron (matron?) was a greater thrill than her existing Oscar, Grammy, Tony, Bafta and two Emmys combined. 

Since my first appearance four years ago in a debate about drugs, I have offered myself as sacrificial lamb whenever The Phil might be struggling to find someone to speak on the unpopular side of a controversial motion (drugs, God, gay marriage, Israel, capitalism, patriarchy etc). The unpopular side is always the fun side where you can rant and make jokes, if only because the other, politically correct side is always so deadly earnest and po-faced.  At the same time, there is a chance that a few students will pick up and think about your underlying message. 

The motion this time was that “This House is Sick of the Welfare State”.

In a raucous debate in a room of some two hundred members, I maintained my enviable unbroken record of always ending up on the losing side, though this time I was in the unfamiliar position of speaking FOR the motion.

The shouted voice-vote outcome at end was about 4:1 Nays to Ayes. 

The meeting was ably chaired by RTE's newsreader Bryan Dobson, who had barely finished reading the 6 pm television news, when he had to rush on his bicycle from the studio to the university.   

Speakers from the two sides alternated.  Those against the motion were

Those in favour of the motion:

I was the third speaker in favour of the motion, the fifth overall.  Here's what I said.  It received a noisy response, yet despite the 4:1 defeat a lot of students questioned me afterwards in light of my scaremongering over their (never-to-be-achieved) State pensions.  I told them to save money and make babies instead.   

At the end of the speeches and prior to calling for the voice-vote (as mentioned, the Nayes prevailed), Chairman Robson explained that as an RTE employee he was statutorily forbidden to comment on political issues, on pain of a twenty guinea fine plus five years in jail (or possibly the hangman's noose).  Therefore he rounded off the meeting by making jokes about each speaker, in a vain attempt of offending each of us equally.  He was particularly obsessed by Dr Butler's Italian suppositories innuendos of a sexual nature, as indeed were we all. 

The evening ended agreeably with copious points of Guinness, in honour of Guinness's newly invented and entirely spurious Arthurs Day.  (Indeed the whole of Dublin and other Irish cities seem to have gone mad that night, judging by the alcohol-fuelled patronage of young people at the hospital A&E departments.)

As for my other three appearances at The Phil, this is how I reported on them.

Late Note (2nd April)

The Daily Mail blames Welfare State payments for incentivising a non-working foul father on permanent dole, Mick Philpott, to burn down his own (council) house with six of his children inside, all of whom died. 

Guido Fawkes agrees: “The more children you can’t support, the more cash you are paid.”

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Why There Is No Peace With Israel - 9th August 2012

Only one side wants it.  Only one side is open to a two-state solution.  The other side wants a one-state, Judenrein solution.

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Apartheid Walls - 24th July 2012

Security walls keep out bad guys in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Morocco. 
So why do people consider only Israel's, which keeps out suicide-bombers,
to be an “apartheid” wall?

We all hear incessantly about the so-called “apartheid wall” that Israel has built, and is still extending, between it and the West Bank, even though for 95% of its length it is a fence not a wall and even though suicide and other attacks decreased 95% after it was built.  Israel's purpose is to protect itself against such attacks, and yes in parts it wanders outside Israel's 1967 demarcation line (which has never been a recognized international border) and into disputed territory (which has never been “Palestinian territory” because Palestinian leaders repeatedly refuse a Palestinian state, most recently in 2000).

Nevertheless, the wall is a manifesto of Israel's policy of apartheid, colonialism, occupation, aggression, and general nastiness towards innocent Palestinian civilians. 

So how come we don't hear about the walls in:

1. India: Has a barrier along its line-of-control with Pakistan stretching a thousand kilometers.  80% of the barrier is on disputed land.
   

2. Saudi Arabia: Unilaterally began construction of a 1,800 km barrier on disputed land after confrontation with Yemeni soldiers and tribesmen.  It is also building an 800 km barrier to protect itself from Iraq.
   

3. Morocco: Built a barrier in the 1980s against Algerian infiltration in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. The barrier stretches 2,700 kilometres. 
   

4. Turkey: Annexed the province of Hatay, populated by Turkish. Syria claims the province, showing Hatay as part of Syria on their maps. In the 80s and 90s Syria supported the Kurdistan Workers Party in their campaign of terror for a Kurdish state in Turkey. Turkey fortified their frontier, constructing a high fence the length of the border and laying over 500 miles of minefields.

5. Cyprus: At the same time the UN was condemning Israel's security barrier, the UN itself was constructing a barrier in Cyprus in order to preserve peace and security.
   

6. Northern Ireland: In 1994 there were 15 barriers; a decade later there were 37 barriers. 
   

7. Germany: In 2007, a twelve kilometre 500-tonne steel fence was constructed for €12m around the the site of a G8 summit in Heiligendamm, incorporating a solid steel underground to prevent tunnelling.
   

8. Spain: An armed double fence completely encircles Ceuta, a city on the south coast of the Mediterranean, which belongs to Spain but is surrounded by Morocco (much as Gibraltar is surrounded by Spain).  Its stated purpose is to stop illegal immigration (into Spain and hence the EU) and smuggling.

Now have any of you heard the term Apartheid being applied to India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Cyprus, Germany, Northern Ireland or Spain, for erecting a barrier, just like Israel, for the purpose of security?  I thought not. 

Hattip: I lifted these facts from David Newmark and from Barry Williams on Facebook, and embellished and illustrated them with my own research.  I have reproduced the story here for non-Facebookers and because it is just too valuable to get lost. 

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Quote (14 July): “If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Manifesto of a Manager - 14th July 2012 (tenth anniversary)
Alternative Permalink: http://tinyurl.ie/manifesto

The duty of a manager is to support those who work under him/her,
while getting out of the way and letting them get on with it. 
Managers should be measured by the success or otherwise of their subordinates. 

When working overseas as a senior manager of a large department in a major multinational company, I developed certain beliefs and a particular management style.  I shared these regularly with my staff, did my best to adhere to them and found them to help me become effective.  They were in essence a kind of manifesto. 

When I say they were effective, I mean that my staff would deliver the goods - so that I wouldn't have to.  And the credit rightly went to them. 

The manifesto was divided into three elements,

1. 1  Objectives and Roles,

2. 2  Carrots and Sticks and

3. 3  Trust,

Others might find this helpful. 

1  Objectives and Roles

Support of staff is paramount to a successful enterprise

We must together set and agree objectives that are :

My role in adding value is to

Your role in adding value is to

A couple of clarifications

2  Carrots and Sticks

In trying to get things done, I strongly believe in the efficacy of carrots and the counter-productiveness of sticks ...

Mistakes and bad work

        all of which can be addressed by me (and by you)

We must ensure that the human key fits the business-requirement lock.

Note: In the very rare event that bad work is deliberate, in other words a staff-member is purposefully sabotaging the operation (and perhaps endangering life), this becomes a criminal matter to be referred to the civic authorities. 

3  Trust

As your manager, I have to and will TRUST you

I ask you to :

I am totally on your side (which is that or our joint employer) and have no hidden agenda

Alternative Permalink: http://tinyurl.ie/manifesto

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No Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian Arabs - 14th July 2012 (tenth anniversary)

The Jews or Israel are no ethnic cleansers. 
Rather, hundreds of thousands of them are ethnic cleansees from Arab regimes.

The letter below appeared in the Irish Examiner on 12th July, and encapsulates so clearly the origins of the Palestinian “refugees” that I have transcribed it to this blog.  This is not only to share it with people who might not read the Irish Examiner, but also in order that I can easily find it again at will whenever the question has to be answered, as it arises so often.  I would like to think that the author, Dermot Meleady, is an Irish Gentile rather than an Israeli or a Jew. 

To: The Letters Editor,
Irish Examiner

The accusation that the state of Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs is thrown about with great abandon, most recently in letters from two of your correspondents, Charles Murphy and Kevin Squires** (10th July 2012), despite there being little historical evidence to substantiate it. 
[**Note: Kevin Squires is from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign]

The displacement of 650,000-700,000 Arabs took place, according to the best historical sources, in four stages.

In the first, the UN General Assembly resolution of Nov 1947 to divide Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state was immediately followed by an upsurge of Arab violence against Jews accompanied by Jewish self-defence and retaliation. In this phase, which lasted until late Mar 1948, the Arab upper and middle classes, numbering about 75,000, fled the country to avoid the violence.

In the second phase, lasting from Apr to Jun 1948, the Jewish armed forces began to win the upper hand over the Arab irregulars and, from May 15 onwards, had to face also the invading armies of five Arab neighbours. About 300,000 of the Arab population fled due to fear and at the urging of the Arab regimes’ radio stations. None were expelled by Jewish forces in either of these phases, nor was there any Zionist policy aimed at doing so.

The third phase took place during the fighting of Jul 1948. About 100,000 of the Arab population fled, of whom about 50,000 were expelled by Israeli forces for military reasons from towns along the fiercely contested Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road. Yet no general expulsion directive was given, and the Israeli military was ordered to treat the Arab population with dignity.

The fourth phase involved the flight of another 200,000 Arabs during the fighting of Oct-Nov 1948, of whom a minority were expelled, the rest as before fleeing to avoid the violence. Large numbers of Arabs stayed on.

The real ethnic cleansing was that of the Jewish civilians driven out of east Jerusalem, where there had been a Jewish majority as far back as 1863. That is not even to mention the 900,000 Jews forced to leave the Arab states from 1948.

Dermot Meleady
Clontarf
Dublin 3

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Let's Roll - Again - 14th July 2012 (tenth anniversary)

Why are Western media virtually ignoring the exemplary courage
of Chinese airline passengers and crew
who attacked and overcame Islamist hijackers of their flight,
in an echo of Flight 93 on Nine-Eleven?

“Let's Roll!”

Who can forget those courageous words of Todd Beamer as he prepared to die a terrible, violent death, while leading strangers to unflinchingly face the same fate, as they all did what they knew was right? 

Todd Beamer, an unassuming family man with a pregnant wife at home, was on a business trip flying on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark New Jersey to San Francisco on the morning of 11th September 2001, when destiny struck.  Four indescribably depraved Muslim males attempted to hijack the plane, with the intention of crashing it into the White House, as the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were similarly attacked that sunny morning, all in the name of a mythical malign character they called Allah. 

But Mr Beamer was having none of it.  He rallied fellow passengers, including Mark Bingham and Tom Burnett, all of them strangers to each other, to fight back.  They had heard about the World Trade Centre and knew what was going on.  Self-reliant to the end, on Mr Beamer's command of “Let's Roll!”, they rose up and assailed the hijackers.  We will never know the detail of what transpired, but the end result was that the hijackers' mission was aborted.  The plane crashed-landed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.  The heroism of Mr Beamer and his colleagues had successfully thwarted the mission.

This story is well known, but at each retelling one marvels again at the manly virtues of those individuals. 

Yet how many have heard of the Chinese Todd Beamers, Mark Binghams, Tom Burnetts?  For example:

If you are following the Western media, you would find it hard to know that in early July six indescribably depraved Muslim males armed with steel bars and conflagration materials attempted to hijack Tianjin Airlines Flight GS7554 flying north from Hotan (“A”) to Urumqui (“B”), in China's northwest.

As the  hijackers, all Uighurs aged 26-30 years, attempted to storm the cockpit ten minutes after take-off, the above passengers and others rose up, attacked them with their fists and managed to overpower them.  It was an air hostess who spotted that the hijackers' walking sticks were in fact offensive steel bars (reminiscent of “The Day of the Jackal”), and she too counterattacked.  The aircraft returned to Hotan where the hijackers were apprehended.  A couple of them were badly injured, so were a number of the valiant passengers who resisted them.  

I picked this story up as the very last news item (p 21, paywall) in the Sunday Times of 8th July.  I have not seen much of it elsewhere in the Western media - a couple of desultory mentions by the BBC and that seems to be more or less it. 

Other than that the Chinese anti-hijackers lived to tell the tale, I cannot see what in essence is the difference between their “Let's Roll!” behaviour and that of Todd Beamer and his colleagues. 

Is there a reluctance to admit that Chinese can be just as heroic and self-sacrificing as white men? 

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Gummy Smile - 14th July 2012 (tenth anniversary)

A historical suggestion for a wedding gift for the blushing bride

Let me share an interesting little dental anecdote that will appear in the second edition of the memoirs of my 97-year-old father Walter, a retired but still spry dental surgeon, ex-RAF. 

It concerns what was a century ago a not uncommon dental practice within the UK (and probably elsewhere).  It had however largely ceased by the time he had qualified in London in 1937.  As such it applied more to the generations of his parents, grandparents and their forebears than to his. 

In those halcyon bygone days it was not unusual for people to go to the dentist to have all their teeth removed at one time.  Several might already have been lost, and others be badly decayed, but it inevitably involved the removal of healthy teeth as well.  The belief was that all the teeth would eventually go rotten anyway, involving pain and cost, so you might as well get rid of them all in one go.  It was nevertheless a step which, in an era of limited (and costly) anaesthesia, required considerable personal courage and left the unfortunate patient with a mouth bleeding heavily from both jaws.  

He or she would leave the surgery with a towel or other cloth clutched to the mouth and stagger home to sit out the pain and the blood.  Afterwards, rudimentary dentures might or might not be inserted, with perhaps ivory teeth in a “palate” carved from wood.  Alternatively, the patient would spend the rest of his or her life restricted to soft food and thick broths, unable to chew properly. 

One of the most extraordinary aspects of this practice related to new brides. 

Often the young woman’s father would, as a wedding present no less, pay to have all her (remaining) teeth extracted before the ceremony, so that her new husband would never be burdened with dental bills.  Again, the girl’s fortitude in facing up to such a horror can scarcely be imagined; yet it was considered to be an act of generosity on the part of her father.  It was rarely heard that the groom would go through a similar ordeal; moreover the toothlessness of his new bride as she sashayed down the aisle with a bright gummy smile did not seem to deter him.  

My dad comments that he was very glad never to have been never asked to carry out such unnecessary butchery. 

Nevertheless, we should not let these treasured old customs just die away; they are part of our rich cultural heritage.  So girls, when your big day approaches, why don't you surprise your family and friends by adding total tooth removal to your wedding gift list?  Or perhaps drop a hint to the old man.  I am sure your gallant fiancé will be delighted with his lifetime avoidance of extortionate dental bills.  And soup after all is such a tasty and nutritious lifetime diet. 

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Issue 221’s Comments to Cyberspace - 14th July 2012 (tenth anniversary)

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http://tinyurl.ie/g0 or

http://goo.gl/OlXp or

http://url.ie/djgf

Gift Idea
Cuddly Teddy Bears
looking for a home

Good to report that as at
14th September 2009
he is at least alive.

BLOGROLL

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 What I've recently
been reading

“The Lemon Tree”, by Sandy Tol (2006),
is a delightful novel-style history of modern Israel and Palestine told through the eyes of a thoughtful protagonist from either side, with a household lemon tree as their unifying theme.

But it's not entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as

See detailed review

+++++

This examines events which led to BP's 2010 Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. 

BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability.  

Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia.  

The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. 

However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. 

It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. 

As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history.

Note: I wrote my own reports on Macondo
in May, June, and July 2010

+++++

A horrific account of:

More details on my blog here.

+++++

This is nonagenarian Alistair Urquhart’s incredible story of survival in the Far East during World War II.

After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939.

From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. 

After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison.

Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,

Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life.  Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book.

There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document.

+++++

“Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies”

This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP.

With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. 

Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. 

ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is.

+++++

This much trumpeted sequel to Freakonomics is a bit of disappointment. 

It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations.  For example:

The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions.

And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks.  Weird.

++++++

A remarkable, coherent attempt by Financial Times economist Alan Beattie to understand and explain world history through the prism of economics. 

It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as

It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains.  For instance:

The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. 

However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. 

+++++

This is a thrilling book of derring-do behind enemy lines in the jungles of north-east Burma in 1942-44 during the Japanese occupation.

The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India.   

Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. 

He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. 

The book amounts to a  very human and exhilarating tale.

Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan.

+++++

 
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