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TALLRITE BLOG
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May 2008 |
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ISSUE #176 - 25th May 2008 [422+605=1027]
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Lisbon - Someone Should Make the Case for Change Within the past week or so, Ireland has kicked off its campaigning for and against ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by popular referendum, scheduled for Thursday 12th June. This is evidenced by a proliferation of posters on lamposts everywhere. Within central Dublin, I counted roughly two YES posters for every NO poster, and outside Dublin you see even fewer NO posters, though you can't hide from the lampstands festooned with YES posters. On the other hand, the NO posters are twice as varied. I have been struck by the utter insipidness of the slogans on these posters, which amount to little more than platitudes. Indeed most of them are so meaningless you could apply the YES posters equally to the NO campaign and vice-versa.
What is striking is that none of these posters and almost no-one on radio, TV or print, seems to want to quote directly from the actual Treaty of Lisbon in support of their arguments. This is understandable because the text is, as I have pointed out previously, so impenetrable, and deliberately so in order to obstruct comprehension. There is also a curious dynamic in play. Apart from the incessant, vacuous slogans, the Naysayers are a lot more vigorous in voicing their objections to specific bits of the treaty than the YESsirs are in explaining exactly why Lisbon is good for Ireland. It's all very well for the YESsirs to proclaim - incessantly - that Ireland has gained huge benefits and profits Ireland through membership of the EEC/EU, which no-one disputes. (Indeed as a Naysayer I am wildly enthusiastic about both the EU and the €uro). But this is an argument for the current EU not the post-Lisbon EU, which will be a very different animal. The other main campaigning approach used by the YESsirs is to try to shoot down the Naysayers' objections, calling them myths or whatever. So the YESsirs tell the voters they shouldn't worry about the Naysayers's fears of
Of course, some of the Naysayers arguments are so difficult to refute that they have to be ignored. For example, Ireland will (supposedly) be safe from EU tax-meddlers and army recruiters because it will retain its vetoes in these two areas. However, if these vetoes are so important, why is the surrender of vetoes in 32 other areas (including international trade) something to be welcomed? Indeed, Britain thinks it will lose no fewer than 61 vetoes. Surely vetoes are either worth having or they're not, and it's not easy explaining why it's in Ireland's interest to give away this crucial element of its decision-making. So the YESsirs stay quiet. In other areas, they skate over the hard bits. For instance, Lisbon will turn into law the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is full of good stuff like
(And needless to say, not one of these rights is accompanied by any duties. Rights without duties? Pure Utopia!) But the hard bit is that the EU Court of Justice will rule on these rights and definitions and the constituent countries (eg County Ireland) will have to meekly obey. So, distant unelected judges can decide, for example, what dignity means, when life begins, whether the rights of marriage/children extend to partnerships of gays, triples or other combinations. They could thus oblige County Ireland to embrace euthanasia, embryo technologies and fatherless conception, without regard to the wishes of its people and with no right of appeal to Ireland's own (now demoted) Supreme Court. But, frankly, all this should be irrelevant. Under any system of justice worth the name, it is up to those who want to make the change to make the case for change. This the YESsirs are patently failing to do. Of course, unless voters are prepared to take them at their word, their task is insuperable because it is almost impossible to back up statements with relevant clauses from the impenetrable treaty. Quite apart from those mindless, platitudinous posters, it's true that there is a ton of Lisbon explanations in websites, newspaper columns and leaflets, and a consolidated version of the relevant treaties - of Rome (1957), Maastricht (1992) and Lisbon (2008) - has been produced. But who is to say they are not all stuffed full of lies and distortions designed to push a particular view of Lisbon? How can you know the information is correct? After all, none of these documents are what the various EU ministers have signed. So we keep coming back to the text of the actual treaty which the 54 of them have signed. If you can't understand it in its totality, and I guarantee you can't (which is why the authorities have made no hard-copies freely available to the public), then it would be mad to vote “Yes”. It would be no different, no less insouciant, no less irresponsible than signing a blank cheque. Ireland's current EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy confesses
But he doesn't set forth how a 269 page treaty can be “explained” in a few pamphlets even in the unlikely event they are honestly and competently written, for which there is no guarantee at all. And if they can, then why didn't the ministers sign the pamphlets instead of the treaty? Vote “No” or tumble into an unknown black hole.
The British parliament last week shamefully approved a new piece of legislation, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which
This appalling and morbid bill, combining both killing and creating, emphasises the secular amoral direction in which modern Western society in some countries such as Britain is wandering. Moreover, experience shows that once something is permitted, the scope of this permission steadily expands. When Britain first introduced abortion in 1967 it was principally in order to “save the mother's life”. Nowadays it can be merely to “save the mother's lifestyle”, in other words abortion on demand. Likewise, reasons for divorce have drifted from strict criteria such as proven infidelity to unproven incompatibility, which is effectively divorce on demand. So we can expect, for instance, that the stricture that human/animal embryos be destroyed at 14 days will be steadily loosened and the role of biological parents in their children's lives will be similarly suppressed over time. Much of this new legislation, moreover, flagrantly breaches
the vaunted
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, destined to become law once the Lisbon
Treaty is
But this is of no concern to British legislators because the court of last resort will no longer be the House of Lords, but the far-away judges of the EU Court of Justice, who can be relied upon to rule in favour of the modernist secular consensus that privileges abortion, divorce, gay adoption and suchlike. One of the more ghoulish details that came to light during the British debate is that for late-term abortions, the living child must first be killed - the polite word is foeticide - by lethal injection to the heart before being removed (sometimes piecemeal) from the womb. If it were killed after delivery, the abortionist would lay himself open to a charge of murder.
As from 18 weeks, many doctors agree that babies are sentient, that is to say conscious and able to feel pain. Scanned pictures show them thumb-sucking and the kicking in typical baby fashion.
Nevertheless, this way of killing the 24-week old baby got me thinking about capital punishment in the US, which is usually also carried out through lethal injection, as this is considered the most humane way of taking a life. Strapped down on a gurney in sight of an array of witnesses, the murderer is given a series of three injections via an intravenous catheter spiked into his arm.
You are supposed to die within a couple of minutes of the final dose, but the whole grim procedure takes between five and eighteen minutes. But over the last couple of years, following some botched executions, fears have arisen in America that death by lethal injection might in fact inflict “substantial unnecessary pain” and “result in a terrifying, excruciating death”. This would put it in contravention of the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments”. As a result, a seven-month moratorium was imposed across the US last year until a Supreme Court decided this month that executions could resume. The USA is indisputably the world's technological leader in pretty much any sphere you care to mention, which includes pharmacology. I have no expertise in killing people, but I would warrant that the three-injection approach, notwithstanding the misgivings, is indeed the most humane that anyone has been able to dream up, even though the journey to death might last a few minutes longer than the guillotine or the gallows or the firing-squad. If on the other hand a single injection directly into the heart were more humane, you can be sure the American Supreme Court would insist on it in place of the triple injection into the arm. Since it doesn't, you would have to conclude that were execution by cardiac injection ever tried, it would quickly be classified and outlawed as “cruel and unusual punishment”. So if this is unacceptable as a means for permanently removing convicted multi-murderers from the face of the earth, why is it OK for killing innocent, sentient 24-week-old babies? No amount of euphemisms such as termination, woman's choice etc can hide the ugly fact that the deliberate slaughter by cardiac injection of thousands of unborn children, fully capable of feeling pain and perhaps even fear, is “cruel and unusual abortion”.
Last year, I shared with you the essence of what I modestly called my (ahem) new crime novel, a colourful story set in Ireland and the Czech Republic, which involved armed robbery, amputation, screaming schoolgirls, a commandeered bicycle, post-traumatic stress disorder and a liberal dose of pimping. Somehow, at the last minute I seemed to have been pre-empted in my storyline so had to abandon my work of fiction. So I am now having another go. My latest crime novel will take place mainly in Limerick (aka Stab City for its numerous murders). How about this as an imaginative if preposterous narrative? A winsome blonde, by now in her mid-40s, let's call her Sharon, goes to work for a much older boss, PJ, who is a wealthy property magnate. He has two grown sons in the business, but is separated from his wife. Sharon and PJ have an affair and in due course she shacks up with him. Most conveniently, after a few short years his wife dies. Sharon then wonders what would be the easiest way to get her hands on her boyfriend's wealth and dreams up a cunning plan. She decides to marry PJ. But he is not eager because this might complicate his inheritance, since his two sons also work in his business which he wants to pass to them and a pre-nuptial agreement to protect their interest would not be valid in Ireland. He does however agree to pretend to have married her in Italy, and on their return they host a fancy wedding celebration for forty guests, including wedding cake and champagne. Meanwhile marries him anyway, using an obscure Mexican website, proxymarriages.com (now defunct) to facilitate the process. For a thousand US dollars she procures a valid Mexican wedding certificate, without the inconvenience of having to involve - or indeed inform - the lucky groom, and no further expense for a white gown or honeymoon. She uses the certificate to procure a Irish passport in a her newly married name. Then, again via the internet, using the mysterious internet name of LyingEyes98, she contacts an Egyptian poker-dealer and hit-man in his mid-50s who lives in a ménage à trois with both his first wife Lisa and his second wife the fuzzy-haired brunette Theresa in Las Vegas, where he works at the snazzy Bellagio casino. He employs the (very Las Vegas) name of Tony Luciano for his proper job and HitmanForHire for his moonlighting. Sometimes describing herself as “the devil in the red dress”, she offers him a triple contract on her new husband and his pair of sons, stipulating that the sons' deaths be “accidents” and her husband's a “suicide”. The boys would by chance end up poisoned in a country pub and their distraught father would then “jump” off the roof of his holiday penthouse apartment in Spain. The whole family needs to be eliminated to avoid any difficulties over the substantial legacy to be inherited by the grieving widow. A €70,000 package deal is agreed and she sends her HitmanForHire (later to become yet another of her amorous conquests) a down-payment of €15,000 in cash via FedEx. The Egyptian flies to Limerick as a tourist in order to carry out his assignment and checks into a modest hotel on the outskirts. But he evidently forgets to read the small print in the contract, because when he goes to visit the first of the sons, Robert, instead of killing him he offers to spare him, his brother and his dad, in exchange for €100,000. Oh, and as a sideline he can't resist the temptation of breaking into the family business and stealing some computers and other items. However Robert then further spoils the narrative by informing the police who set up a surveillance operation and sting. In due course, the plot unravels, the Egyptian and Sharon find themselves in court charged with all kinds of crimes and the news media get wind of the story. Do you think anyone would buy my book? What's that? This isn't fiction? It's actually true? No, not again! ... Incredible!
If you haven't already seen it, you have to watch this exhilarating five-minute video of Yves Rossy, the Jet-Man, soaring at 300 kilometres per hour over the Swiss Alps, with the help of his £123,000 strap-on carbon-fibre wings and four model-aircraft jet-engines.
Issue 176’s Comments to Cyberspace Just a few, varied contributions over the past couple of weeks.
- - - - - - - - - - U S - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided’. We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
George W Bush in Tel Aviv to celebrate Israel's
60th birthday, Quote: “Actually we like Mr Obama. We hope he will [win] the election”
Top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef
Another reason for Americans to vote for Hillary or McCain. - - - - - - - - - - B U R M A - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Our message is to the military rulers. Let the United States come and help you, help the people.”
In the wake of
Cyclone Nargis, Asia's
deadliest since 1991,
The junta refused. They prefer direct
cash infusions, no questions asked, - - - - - - - - - - B R I T A I N - - - - - - - - - - Quote (Prime Minister's Questions, 21 May, last question): “Does he [the Prime Minister] agree with me that Labour is working?”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown (Labour) faces
another tough question, Quote (Minute 22): “It's important to me that the Irish people are deciding the future of Britain. Now that's a turn-up for the book!”
Britain's veteran, maverick, socialist, former MP Tony Benn
(Labour) - - - - - - - - - - B U S I N E S S - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “I am not getting a bonus. I felt it would be inappropriate in the context of the very disappointing opening of Terminal 5 in March ... despite the fact it was a record year in terms of our financial performance.”
Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways,
Mr Walsh's honourable precedent will make him
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ISSUE #175 - 4th May 2008 [383+646=1029]
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I get a little weary about the Orwellian double-speak that is so popular in these politically-correct these days. People should be more honest.
People are especially cautious when they dance around the first two of these propositions. Fear of being called a racist is almost guaranteed to shut down any discussion; it's even considered vaguely racist to draw attention to someone else's racism if he happens to be non-white (eg accusing Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe or Barack Obama's Jeremiah Wright). The true meaning of racist has been lost in the genocidal fury and criminality of the 20th century, for all it really means is that someone prefers his/her race over another, or put another way it means that in your view no-one else's race is better than your own. It may not be true (and probably isn't!), but you'd be odd if you didn't deep down feel it. Why would anyone think his own race is inferior to another's? Meanwhile, Hitler's legacy is such that people are terrified to use the word anti-Semitic with its Holocaust overtones, even when the evidence for anti-Semitism is overwhelming. For example, it's bad enough to label Hamas as anti-Semitic even when its founding covenant specifically fosters hatred and murder of Jews, but few want to use the word against anyone else.
But there is one undoubted old anti-Semite wandering round the world sowing
Jew-hatred wherever he can. He is the ex American president responsible for
allowing, unchallenged, the launch by Iran of Islam's current war on the West. Back
in Instead the marker was ... do what you like; America will always be too timid to respond or to fight back. And so it continued, with ever-worsening Islamic attacks on Americans and their interests, until 9/11 finally provoked America to retaliate and call a halt. Jimmy Carter's insouciance has cost thousands of lives since he left office. You'd like to think that was due merely to his incompetence, ignorance, cowardliness (and perhaps greed, because his Islamist friends - the Saudi royal family, the bin Laden family, the Sheikh Zayad Centre in UAE to name but three groups - contribute mightily to his Carter Center and lifestyle).
But his behaviour on the world stage since leads to a different conclusion
that may or may not have had an influence on his negligence in
Did all that please him? After all, he recently came out with his notorious “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” book, outrageously suggesting that Israel's efforts to protect itself from death-cult neighbours amounts to legalised subjugation of citizens purely for reasons of race. This is unsubstantiated calumny of the highest order.
Nowadays he is trying to
conduct negotiations with the Hamas Politburo, which is sworn to
Israel's annihilation. And of course it is Israel he will blame for
any violence in Gaza, criticising it for not talking to Hamas, whilst
levelling virtually no disparagement at Hamas who are uniquely responsible
for the eight thousand rockets fired from Gaza which provoke the self-defence actions of
Israel. Oh, and Israel is also at fault
Mr
Carter is appeasing
Jimmy Carter is a disgraceful old anti-Semite. If you're not convinced, have a look at this shocking video. But, hey, if you think I'm hard on Dhimmi Jimmy, you should hear this recent rant by Mark Steyn on Pundit Review Radio. And to gain further understanding of this man's malignant view of Jews, have a look at this “Comprehensive Collection of Jimmy Carter's Errors”.
Last month the Irish Times kindly published a column by me, entitled “CND still on the march to nowhere”, which points out that in its fifty years of existence the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has achieved nothing at all. Moreover, it has always concentrated its ire on the nuclear weapons of the West, while tending to ignore the deadlier menace posed by rogue nuclear powers from the Soviet Union to Iran. In this context, I quoted President Ahmadinejad's infamous phrase about “wip[ing] Israel off the map”. This threat has been widely reported including by Al Jazeera - no friend of the West - since he uttered it in a speech in Farsi to 4,000 students in October 2005 at an anti-Semitic conference in Tehran entitled “The World without Zionism”. In the letters pages, I am accused of “factual error” in repeating the phrase, and in support of this am referred to
The objection levelled at me is twofold. One, the original clarion call comes in fact from that noted old pervert the late unlamented Ayatollah Khomeini, whom Mr Ahmadinejad was merely quoting, albeit approvingly, during his speech. Secondly, a more precise translation from Farsi would read
The speech goes on to excoriate three other Satanic regimes which - to the president's approval - have since vanished: those of the Shah, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein (though he strangely neglects to thank America for two of the disappearances).
I actually have no reason to doubt what Ms Norouzi and MEMRI say, as I don't speak Farsi. But she is being very naive if she thinks that calling for the Israeli “regime” to vanish from the page of time is somehow different from wiping Israel from the map.
Because since the Ayatollah's day, the Israeli “regime” has vanished - at least seven times. That's the wonder of Western liberal democracy - the people can make regimes vanish if they don't like them. Here are Israel's regime changes over the past three decades.
So when Mr Ahmadinejad repeats his hero's demand that the “regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” he must either be absolutely delighted that this has happened so often, or else he means something else altogether more sinister. Along the lines of “wiping Israel from the map” with soon-to-be-acquired nuclear weapons, perhaps. Or, to lift another stirring phrase from the speech: “This stain of disgrace [ie Israel] will be purged from the center of the Islamic world – and this is attainable”.
Foolish would be the Jew who believes the totalitarian Iranian theocracy bestows its seal of approval on Israeli parliamentary democracy, as Ms Norouzi and similar apologists would seem to suggest.
National Forum on Europe Should Recuse Itself from Lisbon Last month, I reported on the blatant manner in which a so-called “open discussion” on the Lisbon Treaty, hosted in Dublin Castle by Ireland's taxpayer-funded National Forum on Europe, had been rigged to favour the YES side. There had been a very similar - and similarly rigged - meeting three days earlier. How were these meetings rigged?
The plot thickens when you have a closer look at the NFE. It's website proclaims that
I had difficulty reconciling these high-sound phrases with what I had witnessed at Dublin Castle. So I had a look at the NFE's very small membership, and suddenly all became clear. For full membership of the Forum is limited to
There are just 32 appointees of the Oireachtas plus another 13 MEPs. I did a little bit of research to find out where they stood on Lisbon. And what a surprise (not).
As you can see, of these 45 members, fully 84% support the Lisbon Treaty and only 16% oppose it. With such a conspicuously one-sided make-up, it is thus clear that as far as the Lisbon Treaty is concerned, the National Forum on Europe is structurally incapable of fulfilling its objective to be “a politically neutral public space”. So I have written to the Forum, pointing out the dishonesty of the Lisbon “debate” it is sponsoring. I have called on it, with immediate effect, to recuse itself from all future involvement in the ongoing debate about the Lisbon Treaty. I will let you know if it even deigns to reply (which I doubt). That said, I believe the efforts of the NFE will anyway prove in vain. The weight of argument and a sceptical public opinion seem to moving inexorably in the direction of the NO side. The onus, after all, is not on the NO camp, but on the YES advocates to make the case for change to the fair-minded jury which is the Irish electorate, and they're making quite a hash of it. The biggest, most convincing single argument to vote NO remains that the Treaty is (deliberately) utterly unintelligible, a point taken up by many different commentators since I first raised it. It's still difficult even to get your hands on a hard copy, undoubtedly because the YES camp don't want to make it easy for you to read it.
They all want you to download a PDF file and if you want a hard copy you have to wear out your own printer churning out its 272 pages, which of course they know you'll never do. The Institute of European Affairs is about the only outfit that publically offers you a hard copy not of Lisbon but of the so-called “Consolidated Version of the Treaties” - but for €25 while stocks last. This document purportedly combines the Lisbon Treaty with the Treaties of Rome (1957) and of Maastricht (1992), but I wouldn't trust that this has been done accurately or honestly - otherwise why isn't the Consolidated Version the one that's being signed and ratified? However, to my surprise, I discovered that you can get the Treaty and the 346-page Consolidated version completely free of charge just by phoning Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs on +353-1-478.0822, and within a couple of days a clunking two-kilo package arrives on your doorstep. Knowing the lengths most politicians are taking to smuggle the treaty past the electorate, that's what I call non-joined-up-government.
Strada, Colchester - Restaurant Review I have spent many years of my working life toiling and living in faraway places: the jungles, deserts and oceans of Africa, the Far East, Australia, the Middle East - even Europe. Apart from the obvious advantages of seeing the world, learning about other cultures, enjoying unfamiliar experiences, soaking up the sun etc, this lifestyle has also meant that my wife and I have got to know a lot more people than we might otherwise have done. But most of them remain scattered across the globe, so it can be difficult to maintain friendships at the same intensity as during the particular years when we happened to live in the same place at the same time.
Located on Colchester's North Hill, Strada is a lively, cheerful Italian trattoria, one of a small chain dotted across England. We were a dozen or so people, who hadn't been together since we all lived in Doha (Qatar) in the 1970s, and the cosy ambience was ideal for fostering chatter about times past and what had happened to whom in the intervening decades. We all started with the same thing: shared baskets of very thin shards of wood-oven-toasted bread, spread and infused with garlic, rosemary, pesto and tomato. It was mouth-watering and appetite-inducing. With some bottles of red Sicilian Torre Solada, a robust red, and a crisp Verdicchio, my personal favourite white from Castelli di Iesi on Italy's east coast, plonked on the table, the conversation soon flowed as we broke bread together.
We were less uniform when it came to the main courses. I had probably the most delicious polenta con funghi I've ever tasted - circles of delicately-seasoned polenta, sautéed with sliced porcini and chanterelle mushrooms in a slightly scented sauce of mascarpone, garlic, marjoram and madeira. Further down the table I spotted:
The banter died down a little as we eager patrons gave our full attention to the generous contents of our large plates and demanded more bottles of wine. By the time of desert, our appetite for culinary adventure and variety had as it were deserted us. So, having studied the menu in great detail, only two items were ordered, along with a lot of long spoons of the sort usually reserved for supping with the devil. These enabled everyone to dig in, like pigs at a trough, to salvage a tiny experience of the bread-and-butter pudding and the ice-cream with butterscotch sauce. Tasty but not memorable. We ended with a selection of espressos, Irish coffees and Grappas, probably the most foul liqueur ever made. The bill came to around €50 per head all-in. There was a great buzz around the place throughout the evening, the interior decor was colourful, the lighting subdued without being dull, and flowers and candles adorned every table. All that was missing was Pliny the Elder. All of us agreed Strada had been a great choice of venue for such a get-together and at a reasonable price. I would score it about 70% overall. You can find
Strada at 19-20 North Hill, Colchester C01 1DZ, England, Or you can tune in your Tom-Tom to 51°53'24.17"N by 0°53'46.81"E.
Rousing Music and Mighty Message Want to sound important and impress people? Click here for some rousing music and an uplifting message. Now you must put yourself in the starring role. In this URL, http://www.tallrite-blog.youaremighty.com/, simply delete tallrite-blog, replace it with your own name and copy the revised URL into your browser. Then, once you've sat back to enjoy your new product, send the URL to your girl-friend, boss or whomever it is you're trying to wow!
Issue 175’s Comments to Cyberspace The Irish Times gave me a rare opportunity to respond to a reader who had accused me of a “factual error” in a column I had written decrying CND. My rebuttal was rebutted a few days later, so I have in turn rebutted the rebuttal of my rebuttal in this week's post entitled, “Wiping Israel from the Map”.
Ouote: “You know, over the last several weeks since she fell behind, she's resorted to what's called kitchen sink strategies. She's got the kitchen sink flying, and the china flying, and the buffet is coming at me ... [and] you've always got to measure if somebody throws an elbow at you, and after three or four times of gettin' elbows in the ribs, you know, at what point do you sort of say, ‘OK, you know, we, we, we've gotta put a stop to that’?”
Barak Obama moans about Hilary lobbing Quote: “I've actually filled up my own gas tank.”
Mr Obama explains how he is just as Is there no limit to this unfortunate millionaire's humiliation? Quote: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president we will attack Iran. In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”
Hilary Clinton, when asked what she
would do
I trust this will be on foot of a cast-iron unanimous vote Israel must be much comforted. Quote: “[I used to work for her when I was a police commander.] Kate Hoey is bonkers - they make a perfect couple.”
Brian Paddick, defeated LibDem
candidate for London Mayor, Quote: “Don't tell people about your problems because 90% of them don't care and 10% are glad you have them.”
Ollie le Roux, South African prop-forward and
philosopher, Quote: “The guy is just like Shakespeare - he makes plays.”
An American commentator sees similarities with the Bard Hattip: Graham in Perth
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to Tallrite Blog As always, “ill-informed and objectionable” - Comment by an anonymous reader |
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wherever he gets the chance and always has done, since
1979, at least where Muslims rather than Jews are concerned. Other
than paying the Jizya tax, his behaviour has all the attributes of
abject dhimmitude - kowtowing to Islamic masters. And if Jew-hatred does not run through every vein and
sinew his body, then he makes a very convincing simulation of someone for
whom it does. 
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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