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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

SEPTEMBER 2002

ISSUE #10 - 29th September 2002 [21]

The Abiding Fear of Saddam’s Senior Lieutenants

There can be very few today that doubt that, within months if not weeks, Iraq will be attacked and defeated by America, with or without the support of allies or the UN.  And fewer still on any side who do not view the prospect with a degree of dread, whether or not they support such action.  

How are people thinking within Iraq ?  There are probably four groupings.  

1. Saddam Hussein himself, 

2. the senior functionaries that are loyal to him, 

3. those members of the populace (and armed forces) who support him and 

4. the rest who in their hearts do not.  
   

There must be real fear among the groupings C and D, who can hardly relish being at the receiving end of US military technology and soldiery once more.  Grim accounts from the First Gulf War (for example, troops buried alive in the trenches by American bulldozers) will still be fresh in memories, propagated and embellished no doubt through story-telling and myth-making.  Yet they will know that the conflict will come to an end, the situation will stabilise, and most of them will believe that life could hardly get worse and with foreign investment could well get a lot better.  So the fear will be overlain with an element of hope.  

With Saddam himself, there is probably no fear at all, nor doubt that the outcome will be another humiliating defeat of America's imperialist armed forces by the glorious Iraqi heroes.  Saddam has been Iraq's sole, brutal, unbridled dictator for more than 30 years.  As eloquently portrayed by pundit Dale Franks, he has surrounded himself with sycophants who have been telling him for so long what a wise, mighty and invincible ruler he is that he has undoubtedly ended up believing it.  Those who once dared express contrary views, or bear unwelcome news, have long since been dispatched.  And going by Tony Blair's recent 55-page dossier on Iraq, some departed this life in truly horrific ways (eyes gouged out, limbs broken).  

So when he asks his trusted lieutenants, such as Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz or Foreign Minister Naji Sabri "what is your opinion, will our army be able to defeat Bush ?", the answer will come back, "certainly, Sir, without a shadow of doubt the Americans will be routed".  A violent death or a trial in The Hague are so far from Saddam's detached reality that they hold no fear for him.  

That leaves group B - Saddam's closest advisers, military chiefs, Ministers such as Tariq and Naji.  These are the people who today are eaten up with the deepest possible apprehension and dread.  For they are - 

They must therefore be contemplating the two stark choices now facing them : 

Think about this when you see these individuals talking defiantly on TV - their faces are but facades that hide true terror.  Each of them knows his personal game is up.  

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Smoking in the UN General Assembly 

The UN General Assembly is so adept at reaching agreement on important issues that it cannot decide whether its meeting chamber should be smoking or non-smoking.  

The chamber displays big signs saying "Smoking Discouraged", whatever that means.

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Who Pollutes the Seas with Oil ?

Everyone knows the answer to this one - it's the oil companies with their offshore exploration and production activities, isn't it ?  Every year, they pour 39,000 tonnes of oil into the world's oceans.  

Well, er, actually no.  According to a new report from the US National Academy of Sciences by 14 respected US scientists, engineers and researchers, this 39,000 tonnes amounts to only 3% of marine oil pollution.  Oil industry transportation (pipelines, oil tankers, etc) accounts for a further 12%.  

These figures compared with the total amount of oil pollution in the sea, which is 1.3 million tonnes a year, the size of a small oilfield.  The US contributes about a fifth of this.  

But the biggest human polluters are not the oil industry at all - they are consumers, which include you and me.  Consumers are responsible for - 

These all add up to 38%.  The runoff is particularly damaging due to the environmental sensitivity of the receiving waterways, bays, and estuaries.  

Surprisingly, the biggest single polluter, contributing 47%, is however, nature herself in the form of natural seepage from subterranean and sub-seafloor oil deposits.  

In the USA, the oil companies in total contribute just 4½% to marine pollution compared with 15% worldwide.  

The findings of the report are summarised in a hard-to-read table, but here is a an easy-to-read summary of the summary.  

We should always be prepared to challenge received wisdom, in this case about the oil industry's polluting performance.  

This is especially so in anything concerning the environment where a whole industry, for the sake of its own survival and growth, is dedicated to convincing us that things are bad and getting worse, when the converse is usually true.  

Note : 1 kilotonne of oil = 308,000 US gallons = 7,330 barrels

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The Inkjet Printer Cartridge Rip-Off

Last week's Economist had a long (subscription-only) article featuring and praising the inkjet printer.  It is truly a marvellous invention, printing out colour documents accurately, quietly, speedily.  And for the amount of technology it's not expensive - you can buy an excellent one in Ireland for only €150-200; less in lower taxed countries.  

But this of course is a ruse.  The business model followed by Hewlett Packard, Canon, Epson and the rest is to sell the printer as a loss-leader and make their money on the replacement ink cartridges. Because the black and the colour cartridges for that €150 printer will cost you €35-45 each and you need two of them.  In other words, with two refills you have shelled out the original purchase price.  

However, the manufacturers are so greedy they have spawned a new industry in refilled cartridges and refilling kits.  Sites like www.inkypinky.net or www.printcartridge.net will charge half as much for refilled cartridges, including delivery.  If you use refill kits from sites like www.cartridgeco.co.uk or www.universal-inkjet.com the cost is halved again (but it's a bit messy).  From personal experience, refilled cartridges work as well as new cartridges, and not only are you saving money, but you are also minimising environmental waste. 

I have no personal interest in any of these companies - I just want to share the information in case readers are getting ripped off like I used to be.  

Gillette are pulling a similar stunt with razors where a simple sensor blade now cost over a €uro.  But I haven't heard of anyone selling reconditioned blades cheap !

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Finland/Russia Border Raids

A family of seven foxes are reportedly living in the Finnish Ambassador's garden in London, feeding on live ducks from a nearby pond and invading the Russian Embassy next door to chew up tennis balls.  The Finns say their embassy is Finnish soil, that the foxes are therefore Finnish, and huntsmen in Red Coats with packs of hounds will not be admitted.  For his part the Russian ambassador graciously says he will desist from launching reprisal raids despite the long history of border disputes between Russia and Finland.  

The UN Security Council is breathing a sigh of relief.  

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Blondes Are Dyeing Out

According to the UK's Daily Express (unfortunately no online version), the World Health Organization has reported that the blonde gene is dying out and in 200 years natural blonds and blondes will be extinct.  This is due to two factors :

So if your spouse/partner is a natural blond/e, treasure him/her, and cut off a lock of hair for posterity.  

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The European media, and also some in the US, teem with anti-war, anti-US, anti-Bush sentiment.  Let's go with the flow for the moment.  

George W Bush proclaims that - 

But he has no definitive proof and plenty of people say this is all exaggerated out of all proportion.  

Nevertheless, Dubya wants and expects the world to support him and help him attack Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, but only Tony Blair is sufficient of a warmonger to make the offer.  Everyone else believes that disputes should be resolved peaceably, through UN negotiations, not by blood-letting.  Chancellor Gerhard Schöder of Germany has been staking his re-election on it.  

So, who are the good guys ?  The would-be negotiators or the would-be warriors ?

This raises at least four interesting questions :

1. Tony Blair's recent speech to his Trades Union Congress and Bush's to the UN General Assembly the day after the September 11th commemorations effectively dare the UN to live up to its charter and give meaning to its numerous unrequited resolutions on Iraq. 
   
   So, should Iraq be forced to honour its UN obligations, which you may recall it agreed to as a condition for halting the march on Baghdad during the first Gulf war 12 years ago ?
   
   

2. Until kicked out of Iraq four years ago, the UN weapons inspectors found that Saddam did indeed have - and hide - WMD (and it seems scarcely credible that he would have ceased his WMD programme once the inspectors had been got rid of).  His record in invading neighbours and gassing even his own citizens is well documented.  Wouldn't it therefore be more logical to place the onus on Iraq to prove its claim that it has destroyed its WMD (easily done via unfettered weapons inspection) rather than on the US to prove it hasn't ?  
   
   

3. New Zealand's much-feared All Blacks rugby team used to believe in "getting the retaliation in first".  This is not very sporting, but is it not more sensible to stop Saddam before he makes yet another aggressive move, rather than wait until a suicide bomber detonates a nuclear bomb in Paris, say ?   The stakes will be played in thousands, perhaps millions of human lives. 
   
   

4. Suppose the Iraqi people were given a free choice (not that they ever have been asked what they want) :  

If you answered 'yes' to the four questions, then, sorry, you are a war monger who believes the world should be made a better and safer place for Iraq and all mankind.  In my view, those who answer 'no' favour - under a thin veneer of hypocritical "caring" - subjugation, corruption, and wanton murder and don't care if the world gets more dangerous. 

There are no pain-free answers, but personally I am 100% with B&B. 

Footnote : 

Iraq's recent letter to the UN Secretary General agreeing, under American-inspired pressure, to re-admit weapons inspectors includes this statement :

"In targeting Iraq, the United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism, which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children and seeking to impose their domination on the whole world, not only militarily, but also economically and politically." 

In other words, America is nothing but a huge Jewish plot.  Pure 1930s anti-Semitic Hitler-speak.  

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Is Osama bin Laden dead, seriously injured or alive and well ?

In my opinion, bin Laden, not having been verifiably heard from since the release of an hour-long videotape way back last December, must surely be either dead or badly wounded.  

Think of it from the viewpoint of bin Laden himself and his supporters.  They have not been beaten, but they have suffered dire setbacks - 

If you were bin Laden, you would surely want to reassure your followers around the world that you were alive and well and that the fight against the Great Satan is continuing and will ultimately be successful.  Likewise, if you are hiding or are a 'sleeper' in a distant country, as thousands of Al Qaeda operatives apparently are, you would be desperate to receive such reassurance in the face of all the depressing publicity coming from the conventional media.  But because of the widespread nature of the Al Qaeda diaspora, coupled with the relentless monitoring of telecommunications and suspects, this reassurance cannot convincingly be transmitted by word of mouth, by clandestine bits of paper, by e-mails etc.  Leakage and traceability would be impossible to prevent.  

Really, the only way to get such a message across is by using the media, for instance a videotape again, as bin Laden has so effectively done in the past.  Another stirring and defiant speech, perhaps holding up today's copy of a popular Arabic newspaper, is all that would be required.  

And not only would this help immeasurably the morale of his supporters, but it would enrage President Bush and the West.  Truly a double whammy.  

For example, shortly after Bill Clinton sent missiles in August 1998 to attack al Qaeda in Sudan and Afghanistan following the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, bin Laden's defiant voice came crackling across in a radio transmission, "By the grace of God, I am alive !".  Just think how thrilling that must have been for his thousands of supporters.   

Why hasn't he done something like this since last December ?  

Because he's dead, that's why, or so badly injured that sight of him would provide the opposite of the effect desired.  

There is no other explanation.  

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Jemimah Khan as Islamic Ambassador

I see that the youthful and glamorous former socialite Jemimah Khan, 

is contemplating becoming an ambassador of Islam to the western world.  Jewish by birth, raised as a Christian, now converted to Islam, and an internationally recognized  and popular face, there can be few who rival her head-start in such a rôle.  

Likewise there can be little doubt of the need for Islam to explain itself better to Christians and Jews in the Western democracies.  

Since the September 11th atrocity, Muslims have been relentlessly portrayed by western media as extremist, intolerant and implicitly - if not explicitly - supportive of terrorism against Western  targets.  The media are undoubtedly partly to blame for these distortions, but Muslims in general do little to help their cause.  Very few Muslim leaders have stood up publicly - 

It doesn't help that Islam has no clear hierarchy in the way that Christianity, for example, does.  There is no-one like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury  who can speak for Islam as a whole or even for individual Islamic sects.  

Nevertheless, this does not excuse the shameful silence of the vast majority of Muslim clerics to denounce dirty deeds done using Islam as an excuse and a cover.  

Let's hope Jemimah can do something to redress Western perceptions of Islam.  

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Windmills Kill Birds

There has recently been some debate within Ireland about the country's plans to install the world's biggest windfarm, comprising 200 windmills (or wind turbines as they prefer to be known) ten kilometres offshore the eastern coast of Ireland.  Much noise is being made about birds being killed by flying into the rotor blades.  In fact this is one of the principal objections to this clean, renewable energy source.  The others are noise (but modern windmills hardly make any), and visual pollution (debatable, but anyway when they're offshore they won't be so "in your face").  

Windmills do indeed kill birds - in Denmark 30,000 per year, in the USA 70,000, according to the published data. 

These unfortunate casualties should, however, be seen in the perspective of bird losses from other causes.  In Denmark, so the literature tells us, traffic alone kills over one million birds annually, in Holland over 2m, and in the USA 57m.  In the USA, another 97m birds a year die just by colliding with plate glass, while Britain's 9m domestic cats kill 55m birds (which is only one each every two months).  

If the objective is to save birdlife, therefore, tilting at windmills should be well down anyone's priority list. 

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A recent piece in the Economist, quoting academic studies from the Academy of Management (unfortunately both are subscription services), said that CEOs who were charismatic tended to do less well for their company's share price than non-charismatic CEOs, but were paid more.  

An exception is probably the charismatic Jack Welch (or as he was sometimes known, Neutron Jack, for his reputation for firing people while keeping the physical assets intact).  From 1980 to 2001, he was the famed and much admired CEO of General Electric, who raised its market  value by no less than $400 BILLION !  And he was certainly paid very well.  

He is now retired but things are not good on the home front as his wife Jane is divorcing him.  Not only that but the divorce proceedings have uncovered the retirement perks that go with his $9m per year pension, and this has enraged a lot of people, GE shareholders included.  The perks, which are "unconditional and irrevocable" include : 

Nice to know he won't have to touch much of his actual pension.  Or his life savings of a mere $900m !

Late Note - I've just learnt from The Economist that Jack Welch, under the burden of embarrassment, has agreed to forego some of his unconditional and irrevocable retirement perks.

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Gibraltar - How Not To Woo It

I visited Britain's 2½ square mile Mediterranean exclave, Gibraltar, in September whilst in Spain, driving along the beautiful Costa del Sol from the East.  You see the Rock from some 30 km away; it dominates the distant horizon behind the lesser hills that intervene.  The final 15 minutes are across a flat plain over which the Rock towers malevolently, as a permanent, insulting reminder to the Spanish that they signed it away in 1713 and have never got it back.  I can understand some of their anger and bitterness and why they believe it is rightfully theirs.  

Gibraltar itself is a pretty little place, worth a day's visit, though not longer.  

With just 30,000 people, Gibraltar is so small it is not unusual to see the Chief Minister, Peter Carauna, being driven in his modest limousine (registration number “G1”) or striding down the street to a cabinet meeting or whatever.  

You can drive - or, if hardy, hike - up the Rock, following a route that takes you past military battlements, tunnels, castles.  You can photograph the famous Barbary apes, sitting on the hills and walls, placid, unafraid, unaggressive, and reflect about the legend that so long as they remain, the outcrop will remain British.  Winston Churchill took this so seriously that when ape numbers began to dwindle due to the privations of the second world war, he directed that a few more be shipped in from Morocco.  

For most of its British existence, Gib has been an invaluable strategic asset, guarding the gateway to the Mediterranean, servicing the Royal Navy's vessels, garrisoning reinforcements for troublesome imperial outposts in Africa, keeping the Spanish wary.  

But it has lost its strategic importance for Britain in today's world where geopolitics, military technology and communications are so different, and where moreover Britain and Spain are close partners and allies within the EU, NATO and the WTO to name but three.  It now embarrasses the British Government who would dearly love to hand it over to Spain as Hong Kong was to China.  And so it would, were it not for the pesky Gibraltarians and their democratic tendencies, who resolutely refuse to countenance anything short of continued total Britishness that has been their patrimony for nearly 300 years.  They currently plan a referendum to reinforce this very point - which is enraging (democratic) Spain and which (democratic) Britain says it will ignore.  

You would think that if Spain wanted Gibraltar it would seek ways to woo the inhabitants.  But no, the converse.  Trade is impeded, telephone access restricted, even Spanish road signs to Gibraltar barely exist.  When I left Gibraltar I had to queue for over an hour because two desultory Spanish customs officials (at this "open" EU border) asked every car about cigarettes and whiskey and searched many, all in blatant go-slow mode designed to deter repeat visits.  

It will be a very long time before the Gibraltarians willingly fall into the arms of their Spanish suitors.  

See also my earlier piece contrasting Gib with Spain's own exclaves in Morocco (which Spain always says are totally different situations).  

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A most erudite website applies a new mathematical formula to estimate the length of a man's, er, most intimate possession, based on the size of his gloves, shoes and nose.  Apparently the formula has been applied successfully in respect of British politicians Charles Kennedy (3½"), Tony Blair (4½") and Ian Duncan Smith (a world-beating 5½").  Anyone know Bill Clinton's shoe size ?  

Those of a delicate or refined disposition should click elsewhere ...

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ISSUE #8 - 1st September 2002 [41]

World Population Trend - Disaster or Boon ?  

With the Johannesburg World Summit in full swing, we’re hearing a lot about the world population explosion and how this is responsible for people starving and how it will continue and get worse for ever. 

As few professional environmentalists or NGOs will admit, this long term view of the world is balderdash. 

So what’s happening ?  We need to understand the mechanism for population growth. 

It is not that people (as often alleged in respect of the developing world) are "breeding like rabbits".  It is because of a dramatic increase since 1750 in availability of food, medicine, clean water, sani