May 2009 Tallrite Blogs

Corporate Manslaughter to Lawmakers' Manslaughter

In 1987, a front-loading roll-on-roll-off vehicular ferry called the Herald of Free Enterprise, laden with vehicles and passengers, sailed out of Zeebrugge in Belgium on a routine crossing to Dover in England. It was 7 pm on a dark Friday evening in March. However, with the vessel barely beyond the confines of the harbour and sailing at a brisk 33 km/hr, the Assistant Bosun had not closed the bow doors. As a result water flowed in to the vehicle deck, quickly flooded it and within five minutes capsized the entire vessel onto her port side, with the tragic loss of 193 lives.

Herald of Free Enterprise, in 1984 The cause of the catastrophe was straightforward: the Assistant Bosun's inability to read Japanese.

Shortly before the ship sailed he had taken a nap, having first set his brand new alarm clock - a gift from his loving wife - to wake him in good time to close the bow doors. Yet because the instructions were all in Japanese he set the alarm wrongly and overslept. Could happen to anyone who didn't pay attention in Japanese classes at school.

To prevent such a disaster from recurring, the Assistant Bosun was fired and all other Assistant Bosuns were given intensive Japanese lessons. As a result, ferry operations resumed in total safety.

What's that? You don't think this would arrest such accidents? You think it's preposterous to blame the Japanese language? Even though had the Assistant Bosun understood the alarm clock instructions he would have woken up in time and closed the doors?

Well how about these as alternative explanations.

	There was no system, automated or human, to check that the bow doors were closed.
	Indeed there was, as the official enquiry concluded, a “disease of sloppiness, and negligence at every level of the company's hierarchy”.
	There was a rush to get going in order not to be late for the time-limited slot available in Dover, as waiting for another one would lead to major delays.
	During loading, the bow of the ship had to be ballasted down to lower the upper deck in order to make it level with Zeebrugge's loading ramp, as the two facilities were not designed for each other.
	Under time-pressure to depart, the ship had to set sail before she could fully de-ballast the bow-end, so she remained low in the water.
	And the speed at which she raced off - 33 km/hr - generated in the shallow water of the harbour a particularly big bow wave right in front of the lowered bow and the open bow doors. So the water simply poured in.
	The car deck was one big chamber with no watertight bulkheads which could have prevented sinking or capsizing by confining the flooding to a few compartments.
	The reason for the time pressure was that Dover was too small a port to comfortably accommodate current levels of ferry traffic. So if a ship missed its slot, it was in for long wait, which would then mess up the schedules for days ahead.
	This was a notorious and well known problem but, pleading poverty, the Dover Town Council had repeatedly rejected plans to extend the harbour so as to relieve the pressure, or alternatively to restrict the number of ships using the port.

I give this real life (and death) example to illustrate that, when industrial accidents occur, you can always find a quick and easy answer, in this case

“the assistant bosun couldn't read the Japanese instructions for his new alarm-clock, so he overslept and didn't close the bow doors when the ship set sail, which let the water in and resulted in the ship capsizing”.

But such an answer will always be wrong, and to take action on it will do nothing at all to prevent future accidents.

Leading to a given accident, there is always an array of much more complex factors, and many different people in diverse organisations, always difficult to discover and unravel. That series of red bullet points illustrates this - poor management of the ship, of the ports, of the council; sloppy systems design; inadequate maritime design; succumbing to time pressure; wilfully neglecting known problems. Responsible in varying degrees were the ship's crew, its officers and its owners/directors; the port managements in Zeebrugge and Dover; the leaders of Dover Town Council; the designers of the ship and of the port; the marine regulators.

Yet if a company's intention is to avoid future injuries in an activity for which it is responsible, it is these more complex issues it must explore and uncover and rectify, not the simple and easy things. The same goes if it is society as a whole that wishes to minimise accidental harm and death, which it surely does, and which is why an extensive official enquiry followed the Herald of Free Enterprise accident. Indeed, the only comfort that victims and their families might draw from an accident is that the lessons learned from it will help prevent the creation of future victims.

As I have often exhorted investigation teams, it is fundamentally immoral to allow such deaths and injuries to be valueless, to be in vain.

Actual accidents (and near-misses) provide golden opportunities because they prove - beyond any doubt - that part of a given system is seriously malfunctioning, and will continue to do so until put right. The challenge is to ferret out the malfunctions and fix them.

That is why I was concerned when I read last month that Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings, an engineering consultancy, along with Peter Eaton one of its directors, became the first company and individual to be prosecuted under the UK's new “Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007” , designed to impose tougher penalties for deaths in the workplace. Alexander Wright, 27, a geologist was taking samples inside a pit on a building site in Gloucestershire when the pit collapsed on him, killing him.

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Gerry Adams the Sanctimonious “Catholic”

Some people (eg me) are viscerally allergic to Gerry Adams and his cohorts in Sinn Féin. Nevertheless, I have always had to acknowledge that they, the odious IRA and I share the Catholic faith, for better or worse. However it has not stopped me wondering why the Vatican rarely if ever excommunicated the avowed murderers and apologists of these outfits, a sanction that in their sanctimony they would have hated.

The murders have stopped, thank God, but the sanctimony, it seems, lives on ...

Gerry Adams was baptised and brought up a Catholic. He still declares himself a practicing Catholic, religiously attending Mass every Sunday and receiving Holy Communion. And of course Catholicism is a de-rigeur distinguishing feature of Irish Republicanism, as compared to Northern Ireland's Unionists who are, of course, Protestants. The struggle is not about religion per se or proselytisation, one side is not trying to convert the other; but religion is the team jersey that the respective sides wear.

Republican sanctimony was revealed in a recent TV interview, called “The Meaning of Life” in which Mr Adams attempted to demonstrate his “Catholic” “spirituality”. In fact he exposed himself as a sham and a fraud, so bound up in his own hubris that he cannot see that his own words give the game away.

Gerry Adams

A few examples from the Q&A session, with my (sarcastic) observations in navy italics.

Do you believe in God?

It depends.

In other words, no.

Do you believe in Guardian Angels

Yes

This is a surprise, as it seems to be his only supernatural belief.

Do you believe Jesus was God?

I don't know. He was a mighty man, but it would be better if he weren't God.

You cannot be a Christian, never mind a Catholic, if you don't believe Jesus was God.

The Resurrection (of Jesus from death after his crucifixion)?

I don't know.

Again, the Resurrection is a founding tenet of Christianity.

Will you come face to face with your Creator after death?

I'm not sure.

Ah, so even theism itself is a doubt in his mind.

What do you feel about other Christian faiths?

I often feel Protestant, eg Methodist or Presbyterian.

You obviously don't feel Catholic, but neither are your beliefs Christian or even, apparently, theistic.

Do you go to Confession?

No; I have no need of a middle man.

	Especially one who might learn your dark secrets.
	Yet for Catholics, Confession of your sins to a priest, an annual obligation, is the only certain way to get them forgiven and so avoid hell. Moreover, you are not allowed to receive Holy Communion unless you have been to Confession.

Do you believe in the real presence in Holy Communion?

I don't know.

Such transubstantiation is another of the founding tenets of Catholicism, ie that bread and wine are transformed at Mass into the body and blood of Christ. If you don't believe it, you cannot be a practicing Catholic.

What do you believe when receiving Holy Communion?

The breaking of bread is symbolic; other than that I don't know.

So why do you receive it? To impress others?

Whom do you pray to when you pray?

To those who have gone before me.

But not, evidently, to God, so what's the point of your prayers?

What do you pray for?

I say children's prayers, the Hail Mary & Our Father - and in the Irish language.

No wonder God loves the Irish.

Do you believe your prayers are listened to?

Isn't that the big question?

	You pray only to unspecified dead people (suicidist Bobby Sands?), pray to no apparent purpose, don't believe your prayers are listened to, don't seem to believe there is even a God.
	So why bother?

Did you go to Mass during the Troubles?

Yes, and I resolved to remain a Catholic, even though the Catholic hierarchy supported internment and other anti-IRA measures.

What has that to do with your Faith? You either believe the Catholic truths or you don't. Priests' behaviour, good or bad, doesn't alter the truths.

Do you have any ground rules of what you would or would not do for the Republican movement?

Yes.

	But he gave not a single detail or example, in particular whether, in the name of Republicanism killing, knee-capping, bank-robbery etc are OK for a Catholic.
	Wonder why not?
	I don't remember Jesus advocating such things.

Were you in the IRA?

I was not and am not a member of the IRA.

Yeah, right, Gerry, we all believe you.

These are the words of a man who thinks it makes him look good if people think he is a Catholic, but has absolutely no conviction about Catholicism at all, or even Christianity or even the existence of God.

Moreover, every Sunday when he goes to Mass, he undoubtedly joins with the rest of the congregation in reciting aloud the Nicene Creed (“We believe in God ... in Jesus Christ the only Son of God ... [who] became man” etc). This public affirmation of Catholic faith is crystal clear about such matters.

Mr Adams is quite entitled to whatever supernatural beliefs or non-beliefs he wants. From a moral or legal point of view in a secular world, there's nothing wrong with being an agnostic or atheist (until you're dead). But his behaviour in regard to Catholicism, as revealed in this interview, is pure sanctimony. He is the epitome of someone for whom the great 17th century French playwright Molière coined the name Tartuffe.

Why am I not surprised? What else can you not believe about his words?

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Turkey: Obama's 60th United State

Successive US presidents (eg Bush I, Clinton, Bush II) have for decades overstepped the mark in demanding that the EU admit Turkey to its Club. Somehow they seem to think that America has a say, if not a right, in determining membership, though EU leaders continue to try to disabuse them of such a notion. Of course it is understandable that America would like to be nice to its NATO ally, especially at the expense of others than itself. To America, it is immaterial that Turkey is a country which

	is situated (but for a tiny chunk) outwith the geographical confines of Europe,
	with a GDP of $12k pp sits far outwith the economic envelope of Europe ($33k pp), and
	with 77 million Muslims is even more outwith the ancient Judaeo-Christian culture and Graeco-Roman historical legacies of Europe,

and that as such its admission to the EU would cause massive upheaval within Europe, changing its face and dynamic forever, and not for the better.

America has no business lecturing EU leaders on this issue. And this coming from me, an avowed Americaphile and EU sceptic.

The latest president has, as in so much else, continued his much disparaged predecessor's policy, by calling for the EU to admit Turkey. On his recent Apology Tour, he backed Turkey's application, saying

“Turkey is an important part of Europe ... the United States strongly supports Turkey’s bid to become a member of the European Union ... Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe's foundation once more.” [Once more?]

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was the first EU leader to tell President Barack Obama to mind his own f***ing business.

Washington wants to suck up to Turkey in order to strengthen the NATO alliance, a totally laudable objective. But there is more than one way to skin a cat. Instead of its long-standing campaign of strong-arming the EU to admit its friend, why not admit Turkey into the US instead?

There is plenty of scope and it would allow Mr Obama to demonstrate that America is truly multicultural and indeed “not at war with Islam” (even though Islam remains at war with it).

Moreover, Americans, if Mr Obama is typical, would probably not even notice they had gone up to 60 States because they don't know how many they have anyway (it's so hard to count those fifty little stars). Furthermore, the precedent of distant, non-contiguous States, large and small, becoming an integral part of the the Union, was established back in 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii were both granted statehood.

Not yet in office, and already Mr Obama had lost track of the size of his future empire. As this video clip shows, he bragged during his campaign that he had so far visited 57 States and that only two remained unvisited by the Messiah: the land of his “birth” (~~Kenya~~ Hawaii) and the land of his much-feared vice-presidential rival (Alaska), interestingly the two non-contiguous States.

So that makes it 59 US States in all.

Let Mr Obama admit Turkey as the 60th. I'm sure no-one will notice another big non-contiguous one.

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Pigs and Pirates
A modest - if odorous - proposal

Guest-Blogger Allen kindly provides technical information of use for those worldwide who are up to their chins trying to handle claims which

	relate to agricultural pollution problems relative to intensive pig production on land and/or
	relate to claims in respect of piracy and shipping off East Africa and Indian Ocean.

Memorandum

To:	Richard X
cc:
From:	Allen Y	Date:	9th May 2009

Subject:	Pig Slurry / a Sweeter Smell in Southern Netherlands / a Safer Sea off the Somali Coast
Dear Richard, Recalling how you speak in such depreciative terms of the manner in which the pig population of the Southern Netherlands contributes in a less than positive manner to the “scent” of the countryside not to mention killing fish in the rivers and, given your own close connections to the sea, I thought that I’d pass on a novel idea of an Irish friend who has been involved at various times with oil exploration, development, importation, shipping and distribution. His idea is to fit super-tankers and ordinary tankers and all manner of other merchant marine, passenger and naval ships with pig slurry tanks to be filled from suitable pig slurry storage systems at ports in countries around the world where there is substantial pig production and resulting slurry disposal problems. The ship-board slurry tank systems would be fitted with powerful fire-hydrant type pump and hose systems so that the slurry could be discharged at sea and in particular, discharged at other craft at sea that might be manned by persons unknown who are desirous to board without invitation and to take over the said super-tankers etc. There are parts of the world, eg the Somali coasts, the Gulf of Aden etc, where pigs and everything associated with them including pig slurry, are considered abhorrent by the local population for some inexplicable religious reasons. I believe that my friend’s idea would help you to become a national hero for eliminating the odour of pig slurry from vast areas of the Netherlands and a world-wide hero for solving all the piracy issues currently plaguing shipping on the Somali coasts, the Gulf of Aden etc firing only foul pig slurry but not a single bullet! There could even be a Nobel Prize for advancing the cases of a Greener Environment and Peace at Sea! When would you plan to start? Regards, Allen

Editor's Note: The same technique would work admirably at the security fence protecting Israel, except those Jews, no less than Muslims, won't touch the dreaded porcine waste. That's the problem with a shared heritage.

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