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TALLRITE BLOG
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ISSUE #164 - 28th October 2007 [557 + 231 = 788]
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“Death to the Two-Tier
Health System” A debate has been raging in Ireland for the past couple of years or so about the poor quality of the state-provided healthcare system. Similar complaints are heard from the UK to Canada to France - litanies of substandard service coupled with financial constraints. I am not going to contribute to these tales of woe for the simple reason that on the very few occasions I have had to avail of Ireland's public hospitals (and indeed, many years ago, Britain's), I have been very happy with the experience. But I have no doubt the negative stories are true - people wouldn't routinely lie about such things. In Ireland, much of the blame is laid at the door of the so-called “two tier” health system, that is the public system and the privately insured system, which run side by side. A recent tragic case involved a 40 year old mother who was sent by her GP for a colonoscopy but since she was a public patient she had to wait seven months for it. It eventually revealed she had bowel cancer which by then had become fatal. She died last month. A man who was given a similar referral was diagnosed within three days, received timely treatment and therefore survived. The mother relied on the public system, the man was privately insured. In essence, private insurance not only gives you a better bed in the hospital (to my mind a trivial gain) but allows you to jump the queue of public patients to get attention of medical consultants, specialist analyses and necessary treatment, faster. There is a very simple explanation for this:
If you can't afford insurance, this already feels unfair. It is exacerbated when the same consultant works both in the public sector (for a fixed stipend) and the private sector (for patient fees), the moreso when private patients occupy beds in public hospitals. Public patients end up feeling like second class citizens, which to some degree they in practice are. But if, as they contemplate a seven-month waiting list, they suddenly front up the money, they miraculously find they can see the very same consultant tomorrow. Talk about an upgrade to business class. For these kinds of reasons there is a large lobby, which in the mantra of free healthcare for all regardless of means, calls for the abolition of the two tier system, in favour of a single system of which everyone from hobo to billionaire would avail depending solely on medical need. Then, only then, would equity prevail with the poor no longer dying young while the rich prance on to their dotage. It is an appealing picture, but like all utopias fundamentally flawed and intrinsically totalitarian because it prevents people spending their own money as they might wish (eg on health). It is, furthermore, designed to hide the defects responsible for the existing poor performance of the public sector. If you go to the supermarket, you are confronted with a choice of dozens of types of bread for which you personally and unencumbered can make your selection. Why, then, would anyone think that when it comes to life and death issues - arguably of greater import than bread - people should be permitted no choice at all? That the state alone should be empowered to make such a choice and to choose in every instance itself? For that is what the utopian one-tier system would entail. Private healthcare gives better outcomes (and it certainly does, otherwise no-one would use it) for the simple reason that it is incentivised to do so. It is run as a business. Patients are customers who pay (whether personally or via their insurance) for their procedures. The bigger the number of sick patients, the more revenue. The more revenue, the greater reinvestment and expansion, and the better quality of care available. It's the simple capitalist mechanism. When I put this to a very senior (very wealthy) doctor and a medical journalist a couple of weeks ago, both haughtily told me that healthcare was not a commodity like bread that could be bought and sold. It is somehow above tacky trade. And the hobo-to-billionaire mantra was repeated: “death to the two-tier health system”. But healthcare is a traded commodity.
Indeed, the doctor himself is a walking example. All his life he has
traded his undoubtedly excellent medical skills to the benefit of his
patients, for €uros he can now count in the millions. And it is a
thoroughly honourable exchange which benefits both him and his All the evidence, not just in the supermarket, is that where quality is rewarded, quality goes up. This is the source of the great embarrassment caused to state health systems - which do not reward quality - when they operate side by side with private ones that do. But rather than the state trying to emulate the private one, and in fact compete with it, many simply prefer to eliminate the private, so that care is dumbed down for everyone and poor service is no longer embarrassing because that's the only service there is. If the state wants to provide free healthcare to some or all of its citizens, that is no case whatsoever for it to own and run hospitals. The state should simply buy such care on the open market, obtaining the best value for money, making hospitals compete for lucrative contracts, and giving public patients the power to choose between providers.
Indeed, in Ireland this actually happens on a limited scale, via a hugely successful body called the National Treatment Purchase Fund launched in 2002. If you are a public patient who has been waiting more than three months for your operation, the NTPF will pay for a private facility to do carry out your procedure - cataracts, varicose veins, hernias, gall bladders, prostate operations, tonsils, plastic surgery, cardiac surgery, hip and knee operations - you name it. 75,000 patients have been delighted with their treatment. Yet the NTPF, far from being seen as a successful role-model for an entire health system, is viewed with resentment and suspicion by the public health service. Extended to encompass all health care, something like the NPTF would truly give rise to a single-tier system, but one reaching for the the highest levels of care, not engaged in a race to the bottom. But, for current employees of state-run institutions, it would also mean the end of
Each individual's salary, pension and job-continuity would be determined solely by his/her skills and effort. Just as it is within the private sector of health or of any other enterprise which has to pay its own way by persuading satisfied customers to part with their money. And that is what is really behind the call for “death to the two-tier health system”, because the existence of the private sector threatens the sinecures of those hundreds of thousands who work in the public. It is nothing to do with the welfare of patients.
News From Iraq Can Also Be Good
Reports of bad news from Iraq are endemic. This is not to say that bad news itself is endemic, only that the conventional print and TV media seem so singularly loth to report good news that you could be forgiven for thinking that there is none.
But sometimes you do come across snippets of the positive, so I would like to share this little one.
According to conservative radio jock Hugh Hewitt (minutes 10-12 in this audio clip), the White House recently reported the following as of 18 October, with regard to a 93 sq km sector of north-west Baghdad with a population of a million people, a sector controlled by the US army -
US forces are partnered by ten Iraqi army battalions and two national police battalions across the security districts of Mansour and Katayama. These areas are commanded by highly competent patriotic Iraqi brigadier generals who are consistently demonstrating their unbreakable will to deliver security, reconciliation and reconstruction to NW Baghdad. But that is not to deny that dreadful news is happening in parallel, most recently the murder of 24 Iraqi police officers and recruits in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad. I wish I had a better handle on the balance of positive and negative news.
Five Times More Fun Than Soccer If you want to know why soccer seems, to rugby enthusiasts, such a dreary game, have a look at these statistics. Last year I, being a nerd, collected, calculated and analysed them for the Soccer World Cup (and wrote a post, “World - (Yawn) - Cup”).
In the table below, I compare the results of these two sets of analyses in a world exclusive revelation. They are divided into
The thrill of these matches, at least from the spectators' point of view, comes from making scores. In soccer, that means goals - though obviously not penalty shoot-outs because they're not football. In rugby it's mainly tries (five points), but to a lesser extent penalty goals and drop-goals (three points). Of course, near-misses and valiant defences can also exhilarate, but ultimately it's actual scores we want to see. Moreover, near-misses occur in roughly similar proportion to actual scores - so again, more scores mean more near-misses mean in aggregate more fun. Thus a good measure of the excitement a game generates is how long you have to wait between scores. You can see how soccer and rugby contrast with each other in this table showing what happened in the 2006 and 2007 respective World Cups.
So in the final analysis, it's 51 minutes versus nine. You can therefore see how, broadly speaking, rugby is five times more fun to watch than soccer. So why is soccer not rugby the world's most popular ball game, and by a mile? I have no idea. It makes no sense to me at all. Meanwhile, I await the next World Cup with bated breath - the Seven-a-Side Rugby World Cup, to be held in a single stadium over a single long weekend in February 2009 in Dubai. In this fast, furious and foreshortened version of the game, scores will mount up at an even more astonishing rate, measured more in seconds than in minutes. Be there!
New Wine for Seniors California vintners in the Napa Valley area, which primarily produce Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio wines, have developed a new hybrid grape that acts as an anti-diuretic.
It is expected to reduce the number of trips older people have to make to the bathroom during the night. The new wine will be marketed as ...
“PINO MORE”
I heard it through the grapevine. [Groan - Ed].
Issue 164's Letters to the Press Neither letter published this week, despite my usual witterings.
- - - - - - - - - - J I H A D - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “There is a tendency ... to believe [the Iranian regime] are as they are because we have provoked them and if we left them alone they would leave us alone. I fear this is mistaken. They have no intention of leaving us alone.”
Tony Blair, warmongering as ever, Quote: “The US administration is like a madman running around with a razor blade.”
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in
typically feisty form, - - - - - - - - - - E U R O P E - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “[It is] a vote for climate change, a vote for environmental policies, a vote for the Common Agricultural Policy, a vote for social Europe, that is a vote for the Reform Treaty.”
Bertie Ahern, Ireland's Taoiseach (prime
minister),
It is of course, as Mr Ahern noted last June,
Fearful of further popular rejection,
Poland's former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, one of the indistinguishable “potato twins”, pulls a gun on his rival Donald Tusk in a parliamentary corridor. Or so Mr Tusk, in a pre-election TV debate, alleged occurred in the 1990s. Mr Tusk soundly defeated Mr Kaczsynski in the election last week. But how does he know it wasn't
Quote: “I hope you won't be giving grants to too many one-legged Lithuanian lesbians.”
Tory would-be prime minister David Cameron
“I thought we just have, haven't we?” Meanwhile, one-legged Lithuanian lesbians are outraged. - - - - - - - - - - I R E L A N D - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “That's bullshit. Nobody saw me. I had a balaclava and gloves!” Killer and serial thug Leigh Crowe,
However, this rum defence did not stand up in his trial. Happily, Mr Crowe was sentenced to life for
manslaughter The murder/manslaughter law works in curious ways. Quote: “I do wish I did come to Dublin more often - to evangelise the heathens.” Rev Ian Paisley,
First Minister of Northern Ireland and rabid Protestant, - - - - - - - - - - R U G B Y W O R L D C U P - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “The [England world cup rugby] squad spent yesterday in recovery mode, the physios kept busy nursing bruises, many of them caused by players pinching themselves.” Daily Telegraph journalist Mick Cleary,
Quote (heard in a Sky News interview): “Blimey, it can't happen to us, can it, what happened to them [Australia and France]. Can it?” England rugby coach Brian Ashton
Quote : “They say in politics a week is a long time, but in rugby, I tell you, 80 minutes is a fantastic thing.” Jake White, manager and coach of
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ISSUE #163 - 18th October 2007 [527+236= 763]
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We have all been alternately
The litany of Burmese grievances is familiar to us all; the fuel price hike is just a symptom.
The Junta is a vile regime, whose only saving grace is perhaps that it does not have aggressive designs on its neighbours. The generals merely wish to consolidate and hold their own power in perpetuity and thereby to continue pillaging the national treasure for their individual personal enrichment and pleasure - as this wedding of Than Shwe's daughter illustrates.
The world community is outraged by the Junta's latest antics against the monks, but outrage is pointless unless you also take action. And there's the rub. The US has imposed sanctions on Burma since 1990, directed mainly at the individual generals, but they have had little effect. The generals, few educated beyond primary school level, are just not interested in foreign travel, so barring them from shopping in New York doesn't do much. Meanwhile, China and India have been delighted to carry on trading, and they have kept the regime economically propped up. So the soldiers have remained ensconced in power, Ms Suu Kyi locked up, and democracy a distant dream. China has long been Burma's de-facto defender. Stronger action by the Security Council has up to now been firmly vetoed by China, egged on by (of course) Russia. For obvious reasons, these two states are distinctly uncomfortable at the thought of having to encourage democracy anywhere. However, the latest crackdown has embarrassed even China, to the extent that the UN Security Council at last, unanimously, “strongly deplores [Burma's] use of violence against peaceful demonstrations”, as does the UN Human Rights Council (the original text said “condemns” but China and Russia negotiated this down to the weaker “deplores”). However, the UN statements are pretty toothless. The two Councils urge the Junta to fix Burma's political, economic, humanitarian, and human rights issues, talk to Ms Suu Kyi, blah, blah, blah, but with absolutely no action to follow should the generals do nothing. There is a brutal truth about Myanmar that few want to acknowledge. Justice will only visit Burma once the generals are gone from the scene forever. But they are never going to voluntarily relinquish their power. It's going to have to be prised from their clenched fingers, and there are only two ways to do this.
Thus, the wider world needs to find the means to encourage China to shunt the Junta aside, without bullets or bombs, so as to allow the democracy to flower in Burma that it's people voted for in 1990. But China is such a massive and growing economic power, whose economy is irretrievably linked through vast trade with the West and the rest of the world, that it is hard to dream up non-trade ways to encourage it to do what it has to do. However there is one point of weakness, and that of course is the 2008 Olympic Games, to be hosted by Beijing, a project to which the Chinese dictatorship attaches enormous prestige. People have called for a boycott, or a threat of a boycott, as a means to create pressure on China. But this is fraught with its own difficulties. America boycotted the Moscow games in 1980 in protest at the Soviet Empire's invasion of Afghanistan. But
Nothing was achieved except ill-will and a lot of very unhappy athletes prevented from competing globally during the five year long spat, not to mention millions of sports fans forcibly precluded by American and Russian leaders from seeing a truly global competition. Talk about punishing the innocent. This time around, a boycott of Beijing will only be effective if supported by large numbers of countries (ie EU plus USA). But who can seriously see that happening? And again, innocent athletes will be the main casualties, although in the unlikely event that a lot of Western countries do indeed participate in the boycott, the would-be Olympians will be joined in misery by the Burmese Junta. But there is another way; another more democratic way involving personal empowerment. Let the games go ahead. Let no athletes be denied their chance to prove they're the world's best. Instead, it is the spectators who should boycott the games. No individual who believes that Burma ought to be liberated should attend these games, or they should at least threaten not to. Banners and bumper sticks that say “Free Burma”, are very nice but achieve zero. But here is a way that regular folk can effect real change. For, from the Chinese perspective, worse even than a few countries not showing up in Beijing will be TV pictures, beamed across the world, of empty stadiums whilst the contests proceed, and everyone knowing why. This would be the ultimate, unthinkable humiliation for the Communist dictatorship in China, where “face” is such an important part of national culture, history and psyche. And it would be made grimmer by the knowledge that no Government had done it; just ordinary free people with honourable principles. If we can all convince the Chinese leadership that a popular boycott of the Beijing Olympics is really going to happen next year, they will move heaven and earth to prevent it. Or more particularly, they will move the Burmese Junta out of Rangoon and into obscurity, to make way for Ms Suu Kyi or whomever the beleaguered Burmese people elect to govern them.
Agricultural Protectionism and Confiscatory Subsidies Last week I had the dubious distinction of being invited on Irish TV's weekly Questions and Answers programme to make a contribution from the floor about importing Brazilian beef. This is a hot topic because Brazil with 200 million cows potentially represents a major threat to Ireland with only 6m. So the agricultural lobby argues that Brazilian beef should be banned because it is “unsafe”, being riddled with foot-and-mouth, mad-cow disease, blue-tongue and God knows what else. In May, the the Irish Farmers' Association visited Brazil and reported back that there is unrestricted movement of infected cattle and a lack of traceability, therefore Brazilian beef is not safe and should be banned from Ireland. However the European Commission promptly rubbished their report, pointing out that the IFA had visited only two States which are already banned from exporting beef to the EU, and a third which is only partly authorised. In addition, the IFA did not visit any slaughterhouses, laboratories or veterinary offices. Therefore, the IFA have no basis for their conclusions. Invoking “safety” is an old and familiar ploy designed to shut down discussion, but safety standards can be looked at in two ways.
But often there are additional standards imposed or adopted within a given environment. For example, in Ireland, following an admirable lead set by one of its smaller chains, all supermarkets, very many butchers and even some restaurants now provide DNA traceability of all indigenous meat back to the originating animal.
The “safety” argument advanced by the Irish lobby places a lot of emphasis on traceability and other qualities in the second category. But desirable as such qualities are, they do not really make the difference as to whether or not your fillet steak will make you sick or kill you. That's the job of the first category. Meeting statutory minimum standards (category 1) should not be confused with attaining maximum standards (category 2). The reason for objecting to the importation of Brazilian beef boils down to a very familiar refrain: protectionism, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with the interests of the consumer and everything to do with those of the agricultural community, though they number just 5% of the EU's population.
Provided Brazilian beef meets the same minimum (not maximum) standards required of any other beef import, and so long as its country of origin is clearly labelled so customers can choose whether they want to buy it or prefer more expensive and arguably better Irish meat, there is no case for banning such imports. To do so would have consumers propelled into the wider trap of EU protectionism under the disastrous Common Agricultural Policy, which
That's the vicious cycle EU citizens and politicians should be trying to break in the interests not of the EU's 5% of population who are employed on farms but the 95% who are consumers.
José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, recently observed that the CAP budget has long been reducing as a proportion of the EU budget
So this year it's at 35% - but this is still a whopping €45 billion out of the total EU budget of €126.5 bn. Moreover, Mr Borroso's future “reductions” are not really reductions at all as the table below shows, but merely represent hefty increases in the EU's non-CAP budget.
There is only one solution for the CAP that is both equitable to all parties and ethical, and that is for the EU to kill it off in its entirety without further delay whilst opening up its food markets to the developing world. Most of the massive savings should be returned to taxpayers in tax cuts, but a goodly chunk should be set aside to re-train agricultural workers in other, marketable skills and to help them find alternative employment. This will enable them to regain their pride by generating their own wealth whilst contributing to the EU's. At present most of them subtract from it. It should then be up to each individual state to decide how to manage and fund the maintenance of its countryside in accordance with taxpayers' desires. That's not Brussels' business.
Chatting Whilst Asteroid Collides Reuters must have too many journalists with too little stuff to report. What else explains the story I have converted into a chart?
Go looting? Why?
Set in a leafy and expensive suburb of south Dublin, here's an extract. Is it a page-turner, or what? The movie rights are available for the right price.
Except that this rattling yarn's not mine and not fantasy and I've not written a crime novel. It's entirely (save the last seven italicised paragraphs) culled from evidence given by the now one-legged Mr Chawke, Garda Burke and Sgt Gettings at the trial last week of Frank Ward. But the tale is so thrilling, it belongs in the realm of fiction not fact. Don't you love the bit about the screaming schoolgirls and the commandeered bicycle? You couldn't make it up.
Issue 163's Letters to the Press Two letters; one published. The Sunday Times wrote to say they would publish the other one, but in the end didn't. Maybe it's too off-message.
- - - - - - - - - - J I H A D - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.”
Quote: “I can't think of a worse fate for me and my constituents than being handed over to the weak and ineffective Palestinian Authority right now ... If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority.”
Nabil Gheit, mayor of Ras Hamis, Quote: “The [Irish] anti-war movement [is] not a peace movement but a strident anti-American one ... Rather than an organisation which wishes to see the peaceful resolution of conflicts around the world through discussion and compromise, it is a collection of misty-eyed old Soviet Union sympathisers who have now befriended Islamic fundamentalists.”
Alan Shatter, opposition member of the Irish
Dáil (parliament), Thankfully, a visa was denied on security grounds. Quote: “Right now, I could kill George Bush. No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that.”
Betty Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1976
It's the second time she has publicly
proclaimed
- - - - - - - - - - E N T E R T A I N M E N T - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Hairiness. I like an animal. Hairy back, hairy everywhere. I don’t understand why a woman would want to be with a hairless man. If I was going to go for someone smooth, I may as well be a lesbian.”
TV cook Nigella Lawson, daughter of British
former chancellor Nigel, Quote: “I'd like to thank the press from the heart of my bottom.”
England's rugby
forward Nick Easter pays tribute to the media,
The media had been
consistently (and understandably
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ISSUE #162 - 7th October 2007 [433+194=627]
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Hunts
Vindicated from Nazi Slurs
Nearly four years ago, out of the blue, the Paris office of an outfit known as the SWC, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (named after the famed Nazi-hunter), issued a withering letter to Mary McAleese, the president of Ireland inferring -
The SWC demanded that the Museum's pieces be displayed on the internet so that Holocaust families could reclaim them, and that the president withdraw a recent award. This sudden assault, addressed with stunning impertinence to an elected head of state, was quickly picked up by the world's media and received international publicity, much to the detriment of the museum and the memory of the Hunts.
The Hunt Museum
was convinced the allegations were false and malicious. Nevertheless,
it felt obliged to refute them. For its part, the SWC - which has
no expertise in the restitution of looted art - refused to divulge
The museum set up a number of independent committees to investigate, which turned out not to be very satisfactory. So it eventually appointed, under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, an internationally renowned expert on art looted by the Nazis, Lynn H Nicholas.
Within weeks of the original story breaking, however, this blog - which was privy to impeccable sources - published the true facts of the case, in two posts:
Summarised these facts were - and remain:
Last month, the Royal Irish Academy at last published Ms Nicholas' report, which is concise (21 pages) and to the point. And I've read it so you don't need to. She vindicates pretty much everything that was revealed in my earlier two posts. But she adds another titbit.
Ms Nicholas calls for further research of the museum's pieces, most of which are undocumented, but then this applies to most artefacts in most museums in the world. (Meantime, the museum has put all its collection on display on the internet.) She castigates the performance of
various committees set up to investigate
But she reserves her main ire for the SWC's Dr Shimon Samuels, left, who signed the original letter, has fronted the anti-Hunts campaign ever since and has refused to co-operate with any attempt to verify or refute his allegations.
He of course does not accept these criticisms, won't apologise and vows to continue the fight. “The show is not over”, he says. But it clearly is. Ms Nicholas concludes her report tellingly:
In other words, John and Gertrude Hunt and the Hunt Museum are fully vindicated from the Nazi slurs - as this blog illustrated three years ago. I'm disappointed not to see it listed in the references: Ms Nicholas might have saved herself some legwork! In the meantime, one might expect that the charlatan trio - Arthur Beesley, Ciarán MacGonigal and Erin Gibbons - who aided and abetted Shimon Samuels, would hang their heads in shame. But I doubt it.
Last month, Al Qaeda issues a 26 minute video (10 Gb) of a long rambling speech by someone in Islamic robes and a big black beard, identified as Osama bin Laden. Much of the speech, transcribed here, is devoted to berating America for not fleeing Iraq despite having elected a Democrat Congress and Senate, and for various other sins such as not obeying Kyoto, not listening to Noam Chomsky, too-heavy taxes and interest rates, the genocide of Red Indians and Japanese. There have been acres of print and internet comment, but I have to wonder whether anyone has actually watched the video (which does take some forbearance). During the first few minutes, the man's mouth moves (though barely perceptibly), he nods his head a few times, he raises his right arm a couple of inches once or twice, some fingers occasionally twitch, his right hand sets aside a sheet of paper from his script (note that Osama is/was left-handed). Then, around the two-minute mark, all movement ceases until the 13th minute when a bit of minor gesturing and page-turning by the right hand resumes for another couple of minutes, along with some lip-movement. Then all movement stops - totally - for the rest of the tedious performance. The speech itself is delivered as a droning monologue, with even less inflexion and emphasis than if you select the View/ReadOutLoud option for a PDF document using Adobe Reader. The last video authenticated by the US State Department was made public in December 2001, just after the invasion of Afghanistan. True, a video surfaced in October 2004 in which a supposed (right-handed) Osama in effect advised the Americans to vote for John Kerry, and one or two others since. But they have all been blurry, or stills or virtually motionless or historic footage; none truly authenticable. Likewise, several audio tapes have also been released by Al Qaeda, all of them scratchy to listen to and discern, which is why everyone relies on transcripts and translations. Why are these fifteen recordings of such poor technical quality? For years, now, anyone with a laptop, microphone and webcam can record audio and video of almost professional quality, undreamt of just a decade ago. But with OBL recordings so few and far between, it is inconceivable that these productions would be other than of the highest calibre, designed to frighten the infidels and inspire the faithful. There is only one explanation: Osama bin Laden is dead. His ideas may live on, but he is never coming back, ever. In late 2001, he met his maker and no doubt 72 virgins in Tora Bora, either vaporised by one of Rumsfeld's infamous bunker-busters or else a victim of illness - either kidney failure (Pakistan's assessment) or lung disease (Egypt's) or both. No other rationale makes any sense whatsoever. All “recordings” since 2001 are fabrications, as I (and many others) have long argued. The man in the latest video, hidden behind his bushy, improbably black beard, no doubt with a bit of judicious make-up and face sculpting, could be anyone - except the dead OBL. Face analysis is just one demonstration of this. The careless oversight of the actor's obvious right-handedness is but another. Moreover, the Arab world is doubtless as replete as the West with skilled impersonators of the ilk of Rory Bremner, well able to fake OBL's voice, though evidently not his rhetorical flourishes. Electronic voice identification systems are up to 1% inaccurate, which leaves plenty of scope to find a suitable mimic and still fool the experts. Why the US government chooses to perpetrate the myth of OBL's continued existence is a mystery to me. Surely they don't think that's a prerequisite to motivate the troops or get the American public to back the war? Nevertheless rest assured, Osama bin Laden is long gone. His “recordings” are irrelevant.
McCanns & Portuguese Police Brilliance Others have written
with much greater eloquence
And few can doubt the truthfulness of her distraught parents, Gerry and Kate, when they say their little girl disappeared during the evening of 3rd May last, whilst they were dining not a hundred metres away in a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal. But I want to talk about the brilliance of the Portuguese police. Paradoxically, their incompetence has been stunning to behold. Their response to the disappearance was desultory at best - until the world's media descended on Praia da Luz, forcing them to put up a semblance of investigation and search.
These are just some of the more remarkable activities of the police that we know about. And the more the “investigation” continued, under the scrutiny of the international media, the more a laughing stock the Portuguese police became. And the more the Portuguese tourist industry - and not just in Praia da Luz - was damaged. It all became too much, so finally the police executed a master stroke. Under intrepid Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, they declared both Gerry and Kate as formal suspects for having killed Madeleine, using the Portuguese legal term “arguida”, and subjected each of them to days of intensive interrogation, seeking confessions. Mr Amaral was not so fortunate as when he tried the same stunt with Leonor Cipriano, mother of little Joana, who like Madeleine suddenly disappeared, in 2004 from nearby Figuera. Ms Cipriano confessed to murder, but not until she sustained heavy bruising having mysteriously “fallen down the stairs” in the police station during 48 hours of continual interrogation. Though she retracted her forced confession next day, she was nevertheless convicted and is currently serving 16 years for murder of her (unfound) daughter. But then she is a penniless single-mum with half a dozen children from as many fathers and no connections. An easy target. Nevertheless, the pressure on the McCanns was finally more than they could bear, so they reluctantly left Praia da Luz and returned home to Britain with their other two children. And the beauty of the “arguida” status is that they are forbidden under Portuguese law from speaking publicly about the case. So from the Portuguese position, the McCanns are gone, unlikely ever to return and cause further embarrassment to the Portuguese tourist industry. And they are gagged. Mr Amaral has since been demoted to inspector and taken off the case because of the bad publicity arising from the Cipriano case, but the pernicious seeds he has sown will flourish without him. The police in Priaia da Luz will continue with interminable “investigations” for years into the future, never of course getting anywhere, and the McCanns, forever “arguida”, will be forced to remain dumb. A brilliant, if heartless manoeuvre, driven purely by the desire of the Portuguese police to hide their own undoubted incompetence.
Week 162's Letter to the Press Just the one letter, on an Irish issue, which was published (for the first time in two months). There has been uproar in the west of Ireland because Aer Lingus, recently privatised but for 25% retained by the State, has decided to replace its Shannon/Heathrow route with a new Belfast/Heathrow route.
- - - - - - - - - - I R A Q - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “We may differ with our American friends about tactics … But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude. To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern world … We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light.”
Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq,
This quote is taken from a superb essay by
Bartle Bull, - - - - - - - - - - L O O T E D A R T - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Research provides no proof whatsoever that the Hunts [an art-collecting immigrant couple in Ireland] were Nazis, that they were involved in any kind of espionage, or that they were traffickers in looted art.”
Lynn Nicholas, an internationally recognised expert See this week's lead post - - - - - - - - - - I T A L I A N D E M O G R A P H Y - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Bamboccioni”
How
Italian finance minister Tommaso
Padoa Schioppa describes Bambini means babies; bamboccioni means big overgrown babies.
It's one reason there is a dearth of real babies, - - - - - - - - - - S P O R T - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Australia will get over [it]. New Zealand won't. In Australia, rugby union is a side dish. It isn't in New Zealand. Rugby is the country's heart and soul, its identity. The All Blacks' brand is No.1. The land of the long white cloud is now the land of the long black cloud. New Zealand is in mourning.” Rugby correspondent
Greg Growden Quote: “Those decisions were right and we are quite happy with the situation we have ... I think we had a blip.”
Philip Browne, chief executive of the Irish
Rugby Football Union, The chief executive has since acquired the nickname “Blip Browne”. Quote (subscription only): “Ireland represents nothing to me. If they are out of the World Cup I don't care. I'm just happy that we won the four matches and we are still in the World Cup.”
Patricio Albacete, one of the Argentina team which defeated Ireland,
Nor are the Irish fans. Quote (Hattip - Graham in Perth): “I would love to gather all the fans together to say goodbye for the last time but they would crush me with their love.”
Ex-manager of Chelsea, José
Mourinho,
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Now, for a little [Light Relief]
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
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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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