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TALLRITE BLOG 
ARCHIVE
This archive contains all issues prior to the current week and the three preceding weeks, which are published in 
the main Tallrite Blog (www.tallrite.com/blog.htm).  
The first issue appeared on Sunday 14th July 2002

Sinking Prestige

For anyone with but a modicum of knowledge about dealing with offshore oil spills, the bumbling approach of the authorities to the leaking, 26-year-old tanker Prestige over the period 13th to 19th November has been a laughable charade.  

The situation was, of course, not helped by the many countries involved.  The 82,000 tonne vessel, carrying 70,000 tonnes of fuel oil, was :

It was extraordinary to note that, as she floated stricken, 

The logical procedure was to tow the Prestige shoreward to calmer waters where containment and transfer could safely take place.  

But, in the best NIMBY tradition, France, Spain and Portugal each vetoed bringing the tanker any closer to their coastlines.  

Instead, for no scientific reason that anyone has put forward, it was towed 60 miles offshore into ever worsening weather, leaving a trail of some 10,000 tonnes fuel oil behind it to contaminate sealife, birds and 50 km of landfalls.  Unsurprisingly, the added mechanical stress of the towage in bad weather resulted in the ship breaking in half and sinking, bringing 60,000 tonnes of fuel oil down with it.  

It now lies under 3,600 metres of water.  The one saving grace is that the temperature at this enormous depth will be zero Celsius or colder.  So it is possible the fuel oil will solidify or thicken such that leakage is minimised over the long years ahead.  But any non-disastrous outcome will be no thanks to the non-planners who issued the orders.  

Meanwhile, lawyers are gearing up for litigation as everyone starts blaming everyone else and looking for compensation.  The complex international of web of responsibilities means this will be a wonderful earner for the legal profession for many years into the future.  

On the ecological front, the good news is that the birds and fisheries will with time fully recover, as they did in just a few years after the Exxon Valdez disaster.  

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Jail for Andreotti

The sentencing of 83-year-old Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister of Italy, to 24 years in jail has sent shockwaves though the Italian political classes and beyond.  Scion of the Christian Democrat party, he is convicted of contracting the murder in 1979 of a muckraking journalist to stop him publishing some of Mr Andreotti’s dirty deeds.  

Italy’s “Clean Hands” campaign of the early 1990s swept much corruption from Italy’s political landscape.  Judges and prosecutors snared dozens of politicians and their financial sponsors in corruption trials that terminated the careers of a generation of political leaders and sank the Christian Democrats as a party.  Italians by and large welcomed the Clean Hands campaign as a much-needed civic revolution, but by now had thought it had run its course.  

Italy’s current prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, founder of Andreotti’s rival Forza Italia party, (says he) is outraged, “Andreotti is the victim of an administration of justice that has abandoned every formal scruple and totally denies the right of people to have a fair trial”.  

Well he would, wouldn’t he ?  Throughout his own 1½-year tenure of the top job, he has been fighting corruption charges of his own and pushing through new laws that make it easier for him to escape a proper trial, much less imprisonment.  The last thing he wants is for “Clean Hands” to raise its ugly head again, for fear it points in his direction.  

Moreover, if a flaky country like Italy can administer savage punishments to its once untouchables, there is no excuse for the judiciary in any country not to apply the full force of anti-corruption law to the politically powerful and wealthy.  And there is no shortage of European candidates, from countries big and small.  For example, Chancellor Kohl of mighty Germany and Taoiseach Haughey of tiny Ireland spring to mind.  

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Misunderestimating Bush

At the recent NATO summit in Prague, Canada’s communications director, Françoise Ducros described President George W Bush as a “moron”.  To Bush’s relief, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien accepted her apology but refused her offer to resign.   Gregory Weinkauf of the Dallas Observer calls him a  “retarded monkey”.  The internet joke circuit abounds with jokes about his dumbness and there is even a website called www.presidentmoron.com.  

How W must be enjoying these epithets which emanate mainly from the West’s disgruntled intellectual Left, from people sometimes called champagne socialists.  For they demonstrate the Left’s continuing misunderestimation of the President.  This allows him to happily out-manoeuvre them at every turn, while he demonstrates some of his formidable leadership attributes : 

Until the Democrats learn to respect his abilities, they haven’t a hope of turfing him out of the White House in 2004.  Meanwhile, what must they feel like, being defeated by a retarded monkey moron ?  

Misunderestimate him at your peril.  Saddam is one who should heed this advice.  

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Stripping for Peace

On 14th November, fifty women from West Marin in the USA were serious enough about PEACE to spell it out, wearing nothing but the afternoon rain.  Making their bodies a figure of speech, they wanted to “show solidarity with the people of Iraq” and “to commune in their nudity with the vulnerability of Iraqi innocents.”

They hope President Bush and news media take notice.  Not just salacious males.  

One wonders what the good Muslims of Iraq feel about being represented in this prurient un-Islamic manner.  

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Medication by Beer

We have known for some years that red wine is a healthy supplement to our diet, diminishing heart disease, improving the cholesterol count, reducing blood clots.   

If this were not good news enough, Scotland is now considering adding vitamin B1 (“thiamin”) to beer to to cut down on alcohol-related brain damage.  A study costing £1m has said it will work and that’s good enough for me.  No doubt Glasgow of a Saturday night is full of willing volunteers.  

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Ghost House

Read about the widow who waited in vain for her husband to return from the American Civil War.  Follow these instructions carefully.  It’ll take less than a minute.  

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Well, the four-minute bin Laden audiotape broadcast on Al Jazeera TV last week seems to be genuine according to US officials.  In it, the speaker praises the recent attacks in the Middle East and Bali and hits out at President Bush and Washington’s international allies, singling out Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Australia as countries that should “take heed”.

With all their science, including the voiceprint technology that helped lead to the capture in Karachi of Ramzi Benalshibi last month, it is unlikely the unnamed US officials are wrong.  

If so, this is the first confirmation we have had of Osama bin Laden’s survival since he released a defiant hour-long videotape way back last December.  You have to wonder, therefore, why he produced no more than an audio tape of a mere four minutes, rather than another lengthy video tape ?  

It’s most probably because he is indeed 

He’s still out there; he’s still a threat; but clearly he is no longer a happy camper. 

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Fallacy of Gordon Brown’s Five €uro Tests

Gordon Brown has been Britain’s Chancellor (Finance Minister) since Tony Blair’s Labour party came storming to power in 1997.  A major reason for Labour’s landslide victory was the disarray and disunity within the ruling Tory party over whether Britain should join the common European currency, the €uro, egged on by rampant opposition to the €uro among the media and general public.  

But as soon as Labour took office, the €uromood changed to one of considered curiosity, and one of Mr Brown’s first acts was to declare that Britain would consider joining the €uro if and when five so-called “economic tests” were met.   These are : 

1. Does the economic cycle of “Euroland” converge sufficiently with that of Britain ?
2. Are €uroland markets flexible enough to cope with economic shocks ?
3. Will Britain’s adoption of the €uro improve investment opportunities in Britain ?  
4. Will the impact on Britain’s financial-services industry be positive ?
5. Will adoption of the €uro be good for employment and growth ?

Think of each question.  Apply it to your own country.  

But Mr Brown presented these tests - and continues to do so - as things that are  measurable, objective, that will yield specific, unique answers, that are therefore not subject to political whim.    

Now if you were to set yourself some sort of measurable target, whether as something you really wanted to achieve or to avoid, wouldn’t you want to know whether over time you were getting closer to it or further away ?

Yet there is no desire or effort whatsoever by Labour or any party or anyone else to determine progress towards meeting these economic tests.  It is amazing that five long years after they were defined, no-one still has any idea if Britain is any nearer to them.  

Mr Brown’s position has simply been that at some point in the future an assessment will be made on the basis of which a €uro referendum will or won’t be called.  Most recently, the Queen’s Speech of 13th November said that “a judgment on the five economic tests would be made by next June”.  

These “economic tests” are of course nothing of the sort.  They are merely a (not so) cunning ruse devised by Mr Brown as a cover for making a €uro decision to be driven solely by political considerations.  

The economic and business merits and demerits are playing no rôle whatsoever in the British Government’s decision-making.  There is, of course, nothing wrong in taking positions based on politics and ideology as your sole criteria, though you should at least be honest about it.  

But what is extraordinary is that both the opposition parties and the media seem more than happy to go along with the subterfuge of the five economic tests.  Here is a golden opportunity to show up the venality of the British Government, yet they are either too blind, too stupid or too timid to exploit it.  

Why ?

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Blockbuster Memory

How long would you take to thoroughly learn a 600-page book off by heart ?  Learn as in able to recite it from memory, cover to cover.  Learn it so exhaustively that you could recite any page when given the page number. And know how many words there are in the book, how many full stops.  Not only that, but recite it in a foreign language of which you cannot speak or read a single word.  Oh and recite the whole book backwards as well.  All 600 pages.  

Mehyar Hussein Boor from Iran achieved this feat in just six months, studying 2½ hours a day.  At the tender age of ten.  He’s now eleven.  

The book ?  The Holy Quran, written in classical Arabic.  

Mehyar, who now gives lectures on Islam and the Holy Quran in Iran and abroad, recently competed against 70 contestants for the “Dubai International Holy Quran Award”.   

Each competitor must answer five queries from the judges and recite passages from the Holy Quran.  Seventy marks are given for memorisation and a further 30 marks for quality of recitation.  The winner receives 250,000 UAE Dirhams (= US$68,000), followed by Dh150,000 for second place and Dh100,000 for third place.

Mehyar, who was the youngest contestant, reached the final six though was not a winner. 

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Michael Jackson’s Plastic Surgery

Before you consider plastic surgery, have a look at what it’s done to the talented Michael Jackson.  He is so distressed by the publication of this and other photos of him attending a court case (where he is being sued for $21 million for allegedly backing out of two millennium concerts) that he has been skipping court appearances.  

Feb 03 Note : The above link seems to have been removed. Click here instead for a video clip.  

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Killing Your Own

He has bombed his own people. He has gassed his own people. He has a horde of weapons of mass destruction.

Let’s roll out the red carpet. Come on down, Vladimir Putin.  And a special round applause from Russia’s Chechens and theatre-goers.       (With apologies to Loman Ó Loingsigh)

Oh, and at a recent press conference in Brussels, he said that people who want to become Islamic radicals, such as impudent French reporters, should “come to Moscow for circumcision” and that “nothing on you will grow again”.  

What a charming man.  

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Stand Aside Pamplona

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There are countless westerners in the US and (especially) Europe who are virulently opposed to the concept of a war against the Iraqi regime for any reason.  Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor of Germany, is but one. Others include US citizens, UK parliamentary backbenchers, Australian Unions, US celebrities, religious organizations.  But such anti-warriors seem to share three telling characteristics which together expose the sterility of their arguments.   

The first is a singular lack of appreciation of how the world has changed since the Twin Towers attacks last year. That dreadful event, 

show the unrelenting face of organized, Islamic-centred terrorism that is already engaged in a merciless and savage war against the free, democratic world. 

Next, the anti-warriors never ever come up with a coherent alternative strategy for dealing with the terrorism, other than 

They also bandy around speculative figures such as “tens of thousands of civilians will be killed” without a shred of evidence, not least from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Kosovo. 

Thirdly, they bring up 

as two classic - but utterly non-sequitur - reasons for doing nothing about him today.

Saddam's track record of : 

demonstrates his malevolence beyond all reasonable doubt. He cannot be allowed to continue, because it is inevitable he will sooner or later use, or allow to be used, his WMD to terrorist ends. 

Security Council members are to be congratulated for their rôle in disarming Iraq by backing the recent UN Security Council resolution (you can find the full text here).  Those who are actually providing tangible support should be even prouder.  Such behaviour will help make the world a safer place for all. 

Meanwhile, read this chilling post-2004 letter from Saddam Hussein which starts, “Dear Madam President Clinton” .  Share it with your friends.  It might further stiffen spines when considering whether or not Saddam must be stopped.  

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Flying Guantanamo Class

View these four grim photos that have just emerged of prisoners being transported by air, presumably Al Qaeda suspects on their way to Guantanamo Bay.  Hooded, restrained, sitting/lying on the floor, under military police guard, you really do not want to make this trip yourself.  

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Somewhere within the vast landmass of China live a man and woman and their  twelve-year-old son.  The family were kidnapped by the Chinese Government in December 1995 and have been held incommunicado ever since, under “protective custody” say the Chinese.  The boy, then five, is the cause of this.  His name is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and seven years ago the Dalai Lama identified him as as the eleventh Panchen Lama of Tibet. 

The Panchen Lama personage originates back to the Fifth Dalai Lama who in 1642 gave the title “Panchen Lama”, meaning Great Scholar, to his teacher the Abbot of Tashilhunpo Monastery in order to consolidate power.  Since then, the Panchen Lama, held as the protector of all the world's living beings, has been second only to the Dalai Lama in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhist religion, culture and politics.  Reincarnations have followed the death of either.  

The tenth Panchen Lama died in 1989 aged 51, of a heart attack say the Chinese, of murder say many Tibetans.  A lengthy search in accordance with Tibetan Buddhist tradition ensued, and eventually in May 1995 the Dalai Lama decided that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is the latest reincarnated Panchen Lama.  

The avowedly athestic Chinese, who have occupied (and brutalized) Tibet since 1949, were furious because they wanted to make their own nomination so as to obtain greater control over Tibetan Buddhism.  Upstaged, they nevertheless went ahead and enthroned six year old Gyaltsen Norbu as Panchen Lama  in December 1995, and have been promoting the unfortunate child as an icon with pictures of him hung throughout Tibet.  

This battle of grown-ups over two young children is truly depressing, a reminder of the Chinese government's oppression of the Tibetan people and their religious freedom for over 50 years. It is hard to see 

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Nigeria Picking Fights

Nigeria, known as the Giant Of Africa for its giant population of 130 million, has had a relatively peaceful relationship with its neighbours for most of its 40 years of independence.  Its only significant conflict was the Biafran civil war of the 1960s.  Since then the military, notwithstanding repression and corruption under its various military dictatorships, has nevertheless done itself considerable credit in the role of UN peacekeeper in a number of West African countries, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, as well as elsewhere.   

This new found influence and respectability has perhaps emboldened the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in his foreign policy.   

For in the space of a few weeks, he has started picking fights with two of his nearest neighbours - Cameroon on its eastern border and the tiny island country of Sao Tome and Principe to the south-east.  

Over oil.  

Both incidents illustrate the old unjust adage, Might is Right.  Though to be fair, in the case of STaP, you could say right is right.  

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American Tale of Two Shoplifters

In the coming 12 months, expect a terrible revenge !

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Why Must US Action on Iraq Go Through the UN ?

The Americans are bending over backwards to secure a workable United Nations Security Council resolution that will support an attack on Iraq in the event weapons inspection fails to disarm Saddam.  

In the end, America’s threat to exclude non-supporting countries from any role in a post-Saddam Iraq may be sufficient to secure a satisfactory resolution, though this is not certain. 

But answer this, “why should America go through the UN anyway ?”.  No-one else does.  

They just decide to act and then act.  But everyone every time thinks America should go through the UN. 

The UN is not a supreme body; it is a collection of States trying to resolve things through talks.  

Should they all carry the same legitimacy and weight ?  And insofar as America sees its move against Iraq as part of its own self-defence, is anyone entitled to tell it not to proceed ? Another country may disagree that America is under threat, but does the simple fact of disagreeing give it the same authority over America's security needs as America itself has ?

The UN cannot prevent American action against Iraq, which remember will merely be the enforcement of the UN's own binding resolutions on disarmament.  If it fails to support America, the UN will therefore be failing to enforce its own resolutions, which is to advertise their worthlessness to the rest of the world.  

Moreover, no resolution will ever condemn America's behaviour in Iraq or anywhere else, no matter how outrageous, because America would obviously veto it.  (Same goes for Britain, China, France and Russia).  

So why does America even bother with the UN ?  

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Generation and Disposal of Solid Waste

There is a widespread belief that consumerist Western societies are drowning - or will before long drown - in a sea of solid waste.