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TALLRITE BLOG You can write to blog@tallrite.com |
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ISSUE #21 - 15th December 2002 [135] |
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President Bush recently fired his Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who was also automatically US governor at the World Bank and of the International Monetary Fund. Few who followed his puerile tour of Africa in June with do-gooder rock singer Bono, when they ridiculously dressed up for the cameras in African tribal attire, will be surprised. This was not a man with sufficient gravitas to inspire confidence, and that’s exactly what he didn’t inspire. It also showed that Bush, the “retarded monkey moron”, has the cojones to take nasty decisions against his own when he feels he has to. Let’s see whether he’s also brave enough to fire Trent Lott as Republican Majority Leader in Congress for praising the 1948 racist presidential platform of Congressman Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party, followed by a mealy-mouthed non-apology apology. Incidentally, the new Treasury Secretary, John Snow (63), was formerly head of SCX Corporation, America’s third-largest railroad freight company, was
and (according to the Wall Street Journal) will get, for life,
Therefore, I am sure he will be content with his new salary of just $157,000 a year.
Not long ago in a subscription-only service, I stumbled across a diatribe against France and its alleged perfidy since 1939. It was triggered by reports
This is the same country
In response to the war on terrorism, France
France was also the “Friend of the Serbs” throughout the war or the Yugoslav succession, and in particular the friend of their despot leader Milosevic, now on trial in The Hague for war crimes. And whilst telling everyone
else how to behave, they elect a president who is alleged to be
neck-deep in corruption, though perhaps they had no choice seeing that
the other candidate was a neo-Nazi ! I cannot find much to argue with in the above. See what you think. Let me know.
Amnesty International’s Ambiguity over Torture Last week I mentioned Tony Blair’s graphic and compelling dossier (197 kb) on Saddam’s “crimes and human rights abuses”. Highly readable and cogent, it makes extensive use of data from Amnesty International, the hitherto thoroughly respected NGO which for several decades has been commendably exposing human rights abuses around the world, such as torture, imprisonment without trial, summary execution etc. Amnesty have, however, expressed outrage at the temerity of the British Government to denounce Saddam’s eye-gouging etc, as this is a task which Amnesty evidently believes should be reserved solely for itself and its ilk. The British and Americans, who are in a position to take direct action to remove the offending Iraqi regime, should not criticise it as a means to garner support for an attack. Only NGOs such as Amnesty who are incapable of taking such action may censure. This brutally betrays Amnesty’s real agenda. They don't want change. They want the torture to continue because otherwise they will have nothing to criticise and thus no reason to attract further donations. Their own continued existence is their number-one priority. Amnesty member Sarah Baxter wrote a devastating and enraging indictment of this attitude in last Sunday’s Sunday Times (8th Dec). To give you a flavour, it begins,
Absolutely recommended reading, which would surely make you reconsider your continued support of Amnesty International. Read it here if you are a Sunday Times subscriber, otherwise here.
It’s the Lies that Get Them - Every Time Poor old Cherie Booth, Queens Counsel barrister (the highest kind there is), part-time judge, mother of four, wife of the British Prime Minister, daughter of a reprobate actor. She has recently been exposed for a number of ill-judged actions.
All pretty embarrassing stuff, but nothing earth-shattering. So why is she in trouble ? Because when the story broke, she lied about the whole affair, then prevaricated. In public life, that is the ultimate sin for which it is very difficult to gain the public’s forgiveness. It is never the original sin that causes the problem :
With such a history to look at, why do public figures lie if caught, when admitting it is so much easier and instantly forgiven ? I don’t know.
Prince Obolensky, born in 1915, was a Russian aristrocat and émigré to Britain, sent there for his own safety by his father. He was educated at Oxford where, apart from his academic achievements, he distinguished himself as a rugby player par excellence. Nicknamed “Obo”, he played many times of England but is best remembered for a classic solo try he scored in 1936 against the (then as now) virtually unbeatable All Blacks of New Zealand, leading the way to their first defeat by England, with a scoreline 13-0. This was the first time England had conquered the All Blacks, and they have rarely done so since, apart from last month. View the Obolensky try, as recorded by the Pathe News service that used to screen news bulletins at the cinema prior to every movie. Click here, or if that doesn’t work, here. The video clip is 1.2 Mb so be patient, it’s worth the wait.
========== CHRISTMAS NOTES This will be the last issue of the Tallrite Blog
The Reverend
Lee Rayfield, vicar of Maindenhead in England, recently got into hot water when he
used his weekly sermon to make a scientific
analysis of Santa Claus’s annual trek round the world to deliver
Christmas presents to children. He concluded that with only 31 hours
available to deliver the necessary 378
million presents to 91.8 million homes in the UK alone, the reindeer would
have to travel at 3,000 times the speed of sound. This would
vaporise them in four milliseconds and Santa himself would be killed by an
acceleration force of almost 2,000 tons. There was the sound of small children wailing up and down the land as they learnt of the demise of their beloved Father Christmas. Eyes were dried only when they learnt that Father Christmas does his stuff by magic, and has no need of the laws of physics. The Reverend duly apologised for his apostasy.
The Reverend was not the only one to have a go at poor, beleagured Santa. According to the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game, both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year.
Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa’s
reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolf to Blitzen, had to be a
girl.
Some who feel uncomfortable with the above Godly injunction, the stuff of many Christmas cards and homilies, prefer to see it translated from the original Aramaic as “Peace and Good Will to All”. Leaving aside the feminist thing that objects to the use of “men” to mean “men and women”, the reason for the desired change is obvious. The original requires us to earn our peace through goodness; the other gives us infinite latitude. But not everyone is taken in. Earlier this month, more than 8,000 sailors and marines left the US naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, bound for the Gulf region. As the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman led the battle group out to sea, a voice on a loudspeaker said, “Peace on Earth to men of good will. All others stand by.”
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ISSUE #20 - 8th December 2002 [55]
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Britain is at the moment congratulating itself for not suffering from the constraints of the €uro as it deals with the current slowdown. For when you surrender your own currency in favour of the €uro, you are no longer able to adjust interest rates or float your exchange rate; moreover under the Stability and Growth pact you must restrict your borrowing to just 3% of GDP. This reduces your wiggle room considerably. If you over-spend you must either raise taxes, cut costs or both. Of course, it is exactly during a downturn or recession that you :
Under the €uro, you suffer from the first two on the list, but can’t do the next four. Therefore the downturn can be more savage that it otherwise would be. Britain’s chancellor Gordon Brown boasts that sterling’s fiscal rules, unlike the €uro’s, take account of the state of the economic cycle, so that he can borrow more freely when the economy is weak. The Economist concludes that by doing so, he helps boost demand – one reason why Britain has fared better in the global slowdown that has the €uro area. But this is a short-term view of the situation. €uroland countries are indeed right now suffering directly from their lack of fiscal freedom during a recession, but this in fact is the €uro’s strength. For a bitter lesson is going on. In future, finance ministers will know they must set aside funds in the good times to tide them through the inevitable bad times without borrowing, devaluing or inflating, and at the same time must seek ever-better value for money through efficiencies and modernisation. For isn’t that exactly what you and I must do in our lives ? If our incomes are suddenly cut, we also must find ways to reduce our daily expenses, whilst seeking new ways to boost our earnings. And meantime, we will dip into the savings we have prudently accumulated to help us through the difficult period. The options of borrowing with abandon, much less devaluing and inflating our way out of trouble simply don’t exist. The beauty of the €uro is that it has taken currency control out of the hands of venal politicians who are therefore forced to manage the finances responsibly over both the short and long term, and to be honest with the voters. No wonder so many of them are squealing !
In helping to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, Tony Blair has produced two graphic and compelling dossiers that are well worth reading -
In response to Iraq’s requirement under UN Resolution 1441 to produce a full statement of its WMD by 8th December, Saddam has now tried to trump both these puny efforts with the issue of his own massive dossier comprising 529 megabytes, 11,900 pages. It apparently covers Iraq’s entire biological, chemical, nuclear and missile activity. (He has also apologised to Kuwait for raping it in 1990 though says nothing about releasing the many Kuwaiti prisoners-of-war he still holds). In releasing his mega-dossier, Hussam Mohammed Amin, who is the head of Iraq’s “National Monitoring Directorate” said that Iraq was “empty of any weapons of mass destruction”, although the document did contain some activities which were potentially for dual military and civilian use. This statement means you don’t even need to read the report, doubtless an extraordinarily tedious burden. This sounds a very curious and dangerous tack for Saddam to take because it makes America’s task so easy. As everyone knows, America alleges that Iraq does hold WMD and that it has proof of same. It seems inconceivable that America holds absolutely no such proof at all, that it possesses not a single shred of evidence of Iraqi WMD. Therefore, with Iraq declaring that the dossier says it is WMD-free, America has only to point the UN weapons inspectors to a few of the known sites to prove to them, to the UN and to the world that
President George W Bush needs no more than that to launch his war, with or without a further UN resolution. The end-game is very close.
Last week I wrote about the pogrom mounted against Christians in Nigeria by some Muslims who took offence at a newspaper article saying that the Prophet Mohammed might have wanted to marry one of the contestants. The pageant has now been concluded in London. By a wry irony, it has been won by Miss Turkey, the gorgeous Azra Akin, a Muslim, seen here being congratulated by last year’s Nigerian winner Agbani Darego . She deserves our best wishes.
Until maybe 20 years ago, “Catholic Ireland” was virtually one word, such was the pervasive influence of the Church throughout the land. It was, in effect, an old-style theocratic state. How things have changed. The country is now fully secularised with the Church playing no role at all in how the country is run, and being regularly castigated for its failings, particularly in relation to child sex abuse. In fact you can say anything you like about the Catholic Church provided it is bad. Extraordinarily, Irish broadcasters are not, however, allowed to say that the Catholic Church does any good at all. The relevant Broadcasting Act prohibits the broadcast of “any religious advertisement which addresses the merits or otherwise of adhering to a particular religious faith.” The small Irish Catholic newspaper (circulation just 27,000 and no website) recently wanted to run an advertisement on the Irish airwaves, which said,
RTÉ, Ireland’s state-owned licence-funded national broadcaster, together with the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland which regulates privately-owned broadcasters, have refused the ad because the words I have highlighted suggest - shock ! horror ! - that there might be a good side to Catholicism. Perfectly acceptable are
But nothing remotely positive about Catholicism. Fordham University in New York recently hosted a conference entitled “Anti-Catholicism : The Last Acceptable Prejudice” which contrasted Western societies’ acceptance of anti-Catholic hostility with their strong outlawing of anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and homophobia. There is no logic to accepting one form of bigotry but not another. Meanwhile, Ireland has indeed reached a sorry state when a statement of Catholic goodness cannot be broadcast - at least not if it is made by Catholics. Meanwhile, the mainly-Catholic Philippines reports that its 100,000 policemen are to undergo spiritual renewal seminars and will each be given a pocket-sized Bible or Quran. This will apparently provide “spiritual cleansing of policemen, rid the service of scalawags and misfits and bring them closer to God”. Horses for courses, I suppose.
Ireland is not the only country with childish confusion over religious issues. Every day in the USA, teachers and over 60 million schoolchildren, along with thousands of citizens at meetings of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, American Legion and many other fraternal and patriotic organizations, recite the Pledge of Allegiance (to the flag). It was written back in 1892 by a socialist journalist, Francis Bellamy, in a family magazine called The Youth Companion, and contains the phrase “one nation indivisible”. The pledge was codified into Public Law by the US government in 1942 at the height of World War II. Then, in 1954, in a wave of religious fervour and McCarthyism, and in a
deliberate ploy to differentiate God-fearing America from the godless
communists of the USSR, two key words were added, so that the whole phrase
now reads, “one nation indivisible under God”. One American wit has proposed that the phrasing should be altered to, “one nation indivisible under Canada”. A thoroughly appropriate response to such a ridiculous controversy, don’t you think ?
Last week’s Sunday Times ran a story on the back page saying, “Smoking related diseases kills 120,000 Britons a year and hospital treatment for the 360,000 people a year made ill by it costs about Ł1.7bn”. Do the sums. Even if the tax on a packet were only Ł1 and those sick people smoked only one packet a day, it would mean that they pay for their own medical treatment in just 13 years. But
Therefore, a truly successful
anti-smoking campaign would have dire consequences on the exchequer which
would necessitate compensating tax rises for all and/or cuts in services
such as hospitals. Oh, and see my letter in this week’s Sunday Times, transcribed below for your convenience: THE SUNDAY TIMES, 8th December 2002http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-506196,00.html Smoke in our eyes NO CURE: You report that 360,000 Britons per year require hospital treatment at a cost of about Ł1.7 billion. Even if the tax on a packet were only Ł1 and those sick people smoked a packet a day, it would mean that they pay for their own medical treatment in just 13 years. But cigarettes take far longer than 13 years to make smokers sick, not every smoker gets sick, the tax is far in excess of Ł1 per packet, and smokers die disproportionately younger than non-smokers, thus drawing less in pensions. A successful anti-smoking campaign would have dire consequences on the exchequer and would necessitate compensating tax rises and/or cuts in services such as hospitals. Tony Allwright ____________________
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ISSUE #19 - 1st December 2002 [62]
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Harmonise Taxes
To me, the crowning achievement of the European Union is the creation of the common market under which people may freely trade their goods and services without regard to the national borders that otherwise separate them. Willing buyers and willing sellers can trade without interference. The common market has been a remarkable success despite some of the EU’s trade distorting policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and numerous protectionist devices for individual industries like insurance, that directly punish the EU’s citizens as well as people throughout the third world who are prevented from freely trading with the EU. Free trade under a transparent legislative environment that ensures open competition always results in the same thing : lower prices and higher quality for consumers. Because it is only through lowering prices and/or raising quality that producers can survive when their competitors are constantly snapping at their heels. With this therefore as a central pillar of the EU (notwithstanding the distortions mentioned), is it not curious that several EU countries are agitating for what they call tax harmonisation ? Countries such as Italy, Germany and France with corporation tax rates of 35-40% are annoyed at Britain (30%) and especially Ireland (15% about to go down to 12˝%), because the latter two use their lower tax rates to attract foreign direct investment away from the former three. “Unfair !” they cry, “we should have a level playing field !”
Meanwhile, Ireland and Britain are still growing providing employment for (nearly) all, while Italy, Germany and France are stagnating if not in recession with heavy dole queues. Taxes are the charges that governments impose on their citizens for providing services - roads, schools, hospitals, defence, welfare payments, rubbish-collection etc. While the EU governments thoroughly agree that companies and indeed citizens should be subjected to the rigours of open competition, is it not curious that they feel they themselves should be exempt by harmonising taxes ? If, in the real world, a new shop opens that undercuts the existing shop, the existing shop must either find ways
As indicated, the result for the consumer is always lower prices and higher quality. Governments should take the same approach. Cut their costs and improve their services so that citizens feel they are getting value for money. In other words, give their citizens lower taxes and better services. Tax harmonisation is but a ruse whose sole purpose is to protect ruling politicians from their own incompetence at the price of their citizens.
In 2001, the lovely Agbani Darego of Nigeria won the Miss World competition, the first time a black from Africa has done so. As a consequence, Nigeria, a West African federation of 130 million people, comprising 31 states of which 12 are governed under Sharia law, was selected as the venue for the 2002 competition. Thus it was that early this November, 92 beautiful young contestants - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists - from all over the world flew in. Another eager 21-year-old woman, from Nigeria, who had recently graduated from a journalism course at the University of Lancaster in England, penned an article for Nigeria’s This Day newspaper. Isioma Daniel suggested that had the Prophet been alive he would have approved of the pageant and might have selected one of the 92 as his bride. This offended many Muslims and sparked a three-day rampage against Christians which
The competition was rescheduled for London and the 92 contestants gratefully flew out of Nigeria. Meanwhile, the Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Zamfara State, Mamuda Aliyu Dallatun Shinkafi, issued a fatwa (religious sentence of death) against Ms Daniel, remarking that “the Holy Quran has clearly stated that whoever insults the Prophet of Islam, Mohammed, should be killed.” He went on to liken her to the British author Salman Rushdie who for over ten years has been subject to a fatwa imposed by Iran’s late Ayatullah Khomenei for offending Muslims in his book, the Satanic Verses. Understandably, Ms Daniel resigned her job and fled to the USA. The editors of This Day then issued an extraordinarily grovelling apology for publishing the article. But where is the apology for the monumentally criminal anti-Christian pogrom that killed 220 ? As is sadly becoming all too familiar, no senior Islamic voice is raised against those who commit atrocities in the so-called name of Islam. At the same time, there are many, many wonderful, humane, God-fearing Muslims in the world who lead lives that are an example to all; I have been privileged to know many of them. Yet the silence of Islamic leaders leaves many people to conclude the criminal acts of a few do indeed accord with the teachings of Islam, which puts into question the whole “Islam is Peace” mantra. With one crucial difference, it seems to me that Islam, which came into being 600 years after Christ, shares many characteristics with Christianity of several centuries ago. In European cultures, the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian Church used to reign supreme.
Pretty nasty things done in the so-called name of God. The one crucial difference, however, is that this despicable behaviour is not backed up by the four gospels. Christ did not tell us to kill our enemies or non-believers. He unequivocally told us to love our enemies, forgive those who trespass against us, turn the other cheek, try to convert (but not murder) pagans. By contrast, we are constantly told that the Quran supports the killing of infidels. Nevertheless, I would like to think that in time a peace-loving version of Islam will emerge, just as it did with Christianity. But let us all hope it doesn’t take the centuries it took Christianity.
I am currently editing the memoirs of an elderly Irishman who has led a very eventful and colourful life and met many interesting people. He recalls a little-known First World War event told to him by a number of ancient mariners he sailed with in the 1930s. The Royal Navy was involved in a very shameful affair, if understandable under the circumstances, involving a German U-boat that had caused many Allied casualties. When you read it, it will be clear why the Navy did its best to suppress it. It became known as the Baralong Affair, after the main ship responsible for what happened. Click here for the whole story; it’s well worth reading. Note : you will find a toolbar at the bottom for flipping pages.
Do you sometimes get e-mails that tell you things like
Click here to find the truth about all this nonsense.
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Gift Idea |
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FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
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What I've recently
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 +++++
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 +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
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. +++++
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. +++++
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. ++++++
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. +++++
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. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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