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| Unpublished
and Published [P!] Letters to the Press and Cybercomments, during 2009 |
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letters and cybercomments in other years,
click on 2006 or 2007 or 2008 or 2010 or 2011 or 2012 or 2013 |
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December 2009
November 2009 October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009 April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
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| December 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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My sister the warlady Letter to the Sunday Times on 30 December 2009 Sir, / It's as well that of the Thomas sisters Nikki is flying Tornados with Janine doing the writing and not the other way round (“My sister the warlady”, New Review, December 27th). With Janine's euphemisms about "saving lives", "reconnaissance work", "warning off" the Taliban by buzzing them, she makes her sister look like a combination of ambulance driver and social worker. Nikki the weapons instructor is obviously made of sterner stuff as she takes the fight to the enemy, otherwise why else is she flying a warplane armed to the teeth with bombs and guns. Although this heroic young woman undoubtedly helps to protect the evacuation of wounded British soldiers, her main job is to kill the enemy from the air, which she has evidently been doing with aplomb in both Iraq and Afghanistan for the past few years, which is why she is still in the job and promoted to Squadron Leader. When the Taliban run for cover as she flies low over them it is not, as her sister imagines, the sight and sounds that frighten them. It is the knowledge that they are in the Tornado's crosshairs and a single finger - whether coarse and hairy or elegant and varnished - can cause their instant vaporisation. You go, girl! / Yours etc, |
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Do you think residents of the Republic shopping in Northern Ireland are unpatriotic? Comment (p11) in the Irish Times on 5th December 2009 in response to a poll question (answer as at 10th November: 42% Yes, 58% No) Isn't it great how, in this vicious recession, so many tens of thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen are going north to do their shopping? In truly patriotic fashion, they are thereby helping their beleaguered fellow Irishmen and Irishwomen, who otherwise survive only thanks to the (unwitting) munificence of the English taxpayer, in that most benighted corner of this island to weather the cold economic winds ... Or have Ulstermen and Ulsterwomen suddenly stopped being "fellow
Irishmen and Irishwomen"? ... It's all very confusing |
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| November 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Melanie Philips on BBC Question Time
Comment in the Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 27th November 2009 Well done on QT, Melanie. In particular, you defended the Iraq war brilliantly, and also were brutal about the global warm-mongering scam. But I couldn't help noticing that Dimbleby, despite his promise to the contrary, did not permit you to answer your critics on global warm-mongering. No doubting on which side of the argument the BBC lay. Nevertheless, you have to give credit to the BBC for even inviting you, given your stream of anti-BBC rhetoric in this blog. |
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Fake religious images with
explosives Letter to The Economist sent on 23 November 2009
Is this the same newspaper that discussed the notorious Danish cartoons at length during 2006 yet never once published, for example, the one showing Mohammed with explosives in his turban? Why the sudden bravery in publishing fake religious images with explosives? |
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A fifth columnist, by Presidential appointment?
Comment in the Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 11th November 2009 "Greg D @Logdon" writes, "I agree that radical Islam poses a deadly threat to the West ... Iran does not threaten the West directly. It threatens Israel." Hello-o-o-o! Israel is an intrinsic part of "the West", just as Japan and Australia are. You don't have to be in the west to be part of "the West". This term refers to those countries which embrace and uphold democracy, freedom, individual human rights and capitalism and whose people are as a result wealthy and content. Do not ever think that the destruction of Israel will not be followed by equally vile attacks on other countries of "the West". |
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Do you think the requirement for fuel suppliers to include 4%
of biofuels in annual sales will have a significant impact on carbon
emissions? Comment
(p5) in the Irish Times
on 10th November 2009 in response to a poll question The Greens love making grand gestures, irrespective of the
harm they do. Biofuels, unless grown locally |
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The deep green sophistry of
‘religious’
equivalence Comment in the Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 2nd August 2009 Global-warm-mongering is of course a religion, or at least a cult. Have a look at Climate Changeology Cult |
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| October 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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drop too much P! Letter published by the Sunday Times (Irish edition, print-only) on 25th October 2009 To justify the proposed reduction of the drink-drive blood-alcohol limit from 80 to 50 mg per 100ml, you report that according to HSE research “at least 18 drivers killed in crashes between 2003 and 2005 had a blood alcohol level of between 50mg and 80mg” (“Rural rebellion on drink-drive limit”, News, last week). On its own, this statistic proves nothing. The same research also concludes that 165 drivers were killed with zero alcohol in their system. A few months earlier the HSE told us that over 1990-2006, 65% of road deaths were unrelated to alcohol. You could therefore conclude that sober drivers are more dangerous than drunks. The truth is that no-one has ever demonstrated any increase in accidents attributable solely to a blood alcohol level of between 50 and 80mg. The proposed reduction from 80 to 50mg is all about ideology and self-preening and has nothing to do with road safety. |
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Just surrender and be done with it Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic Blog on 6th October 2009 I like the way Bruce Thornton, Victor Hanson's buddy, puts it: Taking no for an answer seems to have become Mr Obama’s “presidential trademark”. He asks and asks, but always gets the same answer.
I guess I am glad not to be an American - I couldn't take the embarrassment! I squirm on your behalf. |
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Perverts' defense association Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic Blog on 6th October 2009 Tom Shales and Anne Applebaum are merely exemplars of the growing respectability, among certain (largely celebrity-obsessed) parts of the liberal West and media, of grown men raping under-age pre-pubescent girls. As I write in my latest Tallrite Blog, it seems that child rape - whether as a “joke” (Letterman) or planning a brothel (ACORN) or actually doing it (Polanksi) - is becoming just a further expression of the West's rich cultural heritage. How square the rest of us must be. Shouldn't we all just lighten up and get with the latest fashion? Are there enough teenage children for everyone? |
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| September 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Punitive responses continue the cycle of violence Comment in the the Irish Times on 26 September 2009 to an article by Breda O'Brien Ghandi is often trotted to show how non-violence can defeat a global empire. It is a false example. Ghandi succeeded only because of the inherent civility and morality of the British Imperialists. What would have been the outcome, does Ms O'Brien imagine, had Ghandi's adversary been the Stalinist Soviet Empire, An AK47 spray and bye-bye Ghandi and all his supporters. But no-one ever wants to praise the British for their peaceful acquiescence to Ghandi's wishes. |
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Holocaust Humor Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic Blog on 23rd September 2009 Funny how these "brave" "cutting edge" "comedians" and others love having a go at Christians ("piss Christ" etc) and Jews (Tommy Tiernan). Yet when did they last put Mohammed into a bottle of urine or proclaim that they would have love to have killed twice as many Mohammedans as the Crusaders did? Wonder why their silence? Interestingly, even atheists seem to be off-limits for "comedians". You'll never find them sneering along the lines of "You believe what? That the world just popped out of nowhere, just like that, caused by no-one, but one day you'll figure it all out, and meantime you're just going to go on believing your own particular brand of fairy story? Oh, and what's that? There's no such thing as free will? What mushrooms are you eating?" |
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Would you welcome the introduction of a new postal code system? Comment
(p2) in the Irish Times
on 22nd September 2009 in response to a poll question Yes, postcodes please, but ONLY if they are all numerals, like in America, or failing that all letters. The worst of all combinations is the mix of numerals and capital letters you have in UK and Canada. Why? Well, they were designed for an ancient world of handwriting that no longer exists. In the digital age, everyone types, and many if not most touch-type. But just try touch-typing a typical UK postcode - eg NW71AH - as fast as you touch-type the rest of the address. You can't, your fingers will be tied up in knots with all that jumping around the keyboard with shift-lock and numpad. |
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Libel Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic Blog on 15th September 2009 Stalin was responsible for at least 24½ million deaths, through slave-labour camps, man-made famine and executions - each category exceeding Hitler's paltry six million Jews. See this chart, which I constructed using data from, inter alia, Bryan Caplan's Museum of Communism. Good luck to Yevgeny Dzhugashvili with his lawsuit. Though it being Russia, he being a Stalin and the Imperial Czar being Putin, he'll doubtless win. |
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Just who is the racist? Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic Blog on 15th September 2009 Of course, what Richard Cohen skilfully dodges as regards the "birthers" is that Obama has never to this day produced his original birth certificate and has spent a reported $100k on lawyers to prevent its release. What he has provided is a Hawaiian, computer-generated "Certification of Live Birth" which not even Hawaii accepts as a birth certificate, which in Hawaii is called a "Certificate of Live Birth". Since Obama was born in pre-computer 1961, the latter would have been filled in by hand or typewriter. Moreover, there is some evidence, albeit not conclusive, that he was born in British Kenya. Secondly, it is a bit rich for Cohen to moan that Republicans are getting personal about Obama, making plain that they don't like him. Inasmuch as Democrats did precisely this relentlessly and to a far nastier degree to Bushitlerburton (sorry, George W Bush) for seven long years, surely it would be racist NOT to get personal! If you do it to the white guy but not the black guy, then surely you are indeed a rabid racist. |
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| August 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Time for Tesco to change its tune on Unicef (on
page 2) Comment to the Irish Times on 27th August 2009 I
agree that Tesco, having been alerted that their slogan is already in
long-term use by UNICEF, should simply withdraw it, which would be an
elegant solution to the dispute. They have no excuse.
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Obama "Birthers" (Again) Letter to the Sunday Times sent on 13th August 2009 Sir, - Andrew Sullivan's adulation of and self-abasement before President Obama and horror that some Americans might actually oppose him or his policies are, frankly, becoming embarrassing. His disparagement of the "birthers" by misrepresenting their argument is the latest illustration ("Obama still isn't president in the south", News Review, p4, August 9). He surely knows that the Hawaiian birth document released by Mr Obama is but a computer-generated "Certification of Live Birth" (which Mr Sullivan incorrectly refers to as a "certification of birth" and "the original birth certificate") which even Hawaii, though it issues such certificates, does not accept as proof of birth in Hawaii. He also shoots down the straw man that birthers think Mr Obama is not a US citizen. Of course he is, just like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is. Their only issue is whether or not Mr Obama is a "natural born citizen" as the US constitution demands, in the face of some admittedly flimsy evidence (such as a relative's eye-witness account of his birth) that he might have been born in Kenya. Yet Mr Obama resolutely refuses to release his original Hawaiian "Certificate of Live Birth", issued at birth, which is the one thing that would permanently shut the birthers up. Two classified ads in Hawaiian newspapers may be good enough for Mr Sullivan but they are not proof. So the question remains: why will Mr Obama not release his original, 1961, pre-computer birth certificate? There has to be a reason. Mr Sullivan seems to realise the hopelessness of his defence, hence his parting non-sequitur that all birthers must be racists. Yours etc,
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Obama 'Birthers'
P! Letter published (with some edited out words) in the Irish Independent on 12th August 2009 Sir, - In his tale of personal horror at the very idea that some Americans might oppose President Obama or his policies, David Aaronovitch demonstrates exactly why the "birthers" have gained such traction (Birther' attacks on Obama are born of hatred and fear, Opinion, August 11). He describes how the birthers are questioning whether Mr Obama was, as the Constitution demands, born in the US. This is due to some flimsy evidence (such as a relative's eye-witness account of his birth) that he might have been born in Kenya. But Mr Obama resolutely refuses to release his original
birth certificate, which is the one thing that would permanently shut the
birthers up.
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What Obama and My [ie Chuck
Norris's} Wife Have in Common 35th comment on an article in Human Events by Chuck Norris on 4th August 2009 The Hawaii document everyone is providing links to in this thread is NOT President Obama's birth certificate. It is a computer-generated “Certification of Live Birth”, a different document altogether and one which for certain purposes even the State of Hawaii does not accept as a birth certificate. |
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Obama's gesture to the Jews Comment in the Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 2nd August 2009
Not content with insulting Jews, Mary Robinson then
insulted the Irish people by aborting her term as president before full
term simply because Koffi Annan made a better offer at the UN.
Actually anti-Semitism in Ireland is closely linked to anti-Unionism, especially in Northern Ireland. Thus the Star of David and the Union Jack fly together in one part of town while the Tricolour and Palestinian flag fly together in another. Though this bigotry is less explicit in the South, the Republican movement has long been antipathetic to Jewry, and during WW2 surreptitiously supported the anti-Jew Germans. Thus Prime Minister De Valera famously signed his condolences on the death of Hitler in 1945. More recently, a statue has just been reinstated in Dublin to the IRA's Seán Russell, killed during WW2, which is the only such monument in the EU which glorifies a wartime Nazi collaborator and stooge. So unfortunately, Mary Robinson's disgraceful behaviour doesn't attract much criticism in Ireland.
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| July 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Do you think the G8 commitments on climate change mark a new departure in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Comment in the Irish Times
on 10th July 2009 in response to a poll question The G8 commitments mark a new departure certainly, in the sense of committing even more of taxpayers' money to the cause. But it won't make the slightest difference to the march of the climate. Firstly, the world's average temperature has been cooling throughout this century, not warming. A non-existent problem is being addressed. Secondly, it is beyond the laws of molecular physics and almost every other brance of science to claim that the tiny proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere generated by human acitivity (just 12 parts per million) can have any global effect on the climate in the face of all the other natural forces that rain down on us from space. Not least from the sun, which is 300,000 times bigger than earth. The only evidence that global "warming" is caused by anthropomorphic CO2 is the anthropomorphic emotions this wild idea generates.
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| June 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Do you think Bernard Madoff's 150 year sentence is excessive? Comment in the Irish Times
on 13th June 2009 in response to a poll question You've got to hand it to Bernie. Once the law was on to him, he knew the game was up for him personally. The gigantic nature of his frauds, plus his advanced years, meant that he would never get out of prison alive. So he obviously brought his family together (wife, sons, brothers) and said words to the effect, “I'm dead meat whatever happens, but there's no reason why the rest of you should have to go down with me, even though you were in those frauds up to your own slithery\ eyeballs”. So he pleaded guilty, making the preposterous claim that no-one but he perpetrated the frauds or even knew about them. The guilty plea meant there would be no cross-examination and therefore the roles of family members, and for that matter his staff, would never be exposed or even threatened. Meanwhile, he and his family had made sure that the bulk of their enormous, ill-gotten wealth, measured in billions, was squirrelled away out of the sight and reach both of the authorities and of his hapless victims. Smart, eh? And utterly amoral.
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Should the entire primary school infrastructure be taken into public
ownership? Comment in the Irish Times
on 13th June 2009 in response to a poll question Absolutely not. When was this government - or any government anywhere - able to run schools, or indeed any business? That is where their competency most definitely does not run. If the schools are to be wrenched from the religious orders (a move of very dubious merit), they should be auctioned off to the highest bidders prepared to run them on a private basis. If the State is then to continue providing “free” education, it should simply issue vouchers to parents, who would redeem them by sending their kids to the newly privatised schools of their choice. This will of course never happen because the teachers unions, that organization dedicated to its members' interests at the expense of children's and which all political parties are terrified of offending, will never permit an action which so blatantly favours children's education. |
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The modern heresy of true
science Comment in the Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 1st June 2009 The “science” that purports to prove global warming is caused by anthropogenic CO2 is indeed bunkum. Just have a look at the excellent layman's guide to the molecular physics involved (http://tinyurl.com/2zmvhl). To summarise, CO2 molecules warm the world by vibrating when hit by infrared rays from the sun bouncing off the earth. It’s the vibrations that give off heat. But the molecules are tickled into vibrating by only 8% of the infrared spectrum. Moreover, human-caused C02 in our air is effectively a trace element (3% of atmospheric CO2) of a trace element (400 ppm in the atmosphere), getting even tracer as altitude increases. When you do the sums, you find that the man-made CO2 molecules are 2 Angstroms wide and spaced about 1,200 Angstrom apart. Let’s now draw an analogy. Suppose I pick up my (t)rusty Kalashnikov and start machine-gunning pinhead targets two millimetres in diameter. I will find it very hard to hit many pinheads if they happen to be scattered 1-1½ metres apart. Especially when all but 8% of my bullets are duds. But that is, essentially, the hypothesis of Al Gore, the IPCC and their fellow global warm-mongers about the greenhouse effect – that those infrared bullets are colliding with tiny yet vastly-spaced man-made CO2 molecules, so consistently that they warm the earth up. No wonder he stays silent about molecular physics and screens out hostile questioners and audiences whenever he proselytises in public.
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| May 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Should the world fear North Korea's latest sabre rattling? Comment in the Irish Times
on 28th May 2009 in response to a poll question North Korea's improved nuclear weapons, its renunciation of the 1953 armistice and the unpredictability of Kim Jong Il its dictator make for a very dangerous combination indeed. With the two Koreas now technically back in a "hot" war, does Seoul wait for a bomb to arrive from the North or does it pre-empt and invade? In either event, dreadful conflagration could follow, sucking in both China and America, the respective allies. And what will Iran do as it watches how the the novice Barack Obama reacts to the North Korea developments? For example he did nothing after North Korea's provocative missile test during his recent European Tour. Yet without a very robust reaction to North Korea, Ahmadinejad will rightly conclude he has nothing to fear from the US with his own continued development of nuclear weapons. Once he has them he will of course use them and we all know against whom. It will, in turn, oblige the neighbouring Sunni states to acquire such weapons for their own defence against the Iranian Shi'ites. In such a scenario, the pressure will be overwhelming on Israel alone to "solve" the Iran nuclear problem. Its only option will be to bomb their nuclear sites, and risk the wrath that follows. So yes, the world should indeed fear North Korea's latest sabre rattling. |
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Should the Government freeze the assets of religious orders that refuse to pay more compensation to abuse victims? Comment in the Irish Times
on 27th May 2009 in response to a poll question The Government voluntarily landed itself with 90% of the compo tab due solely to the utter ineptitude of [Education] Minister [Dr Michael] Woods, his negotiators and the Cabinet of the day. Nevertheless, a signed contract cannot under the law be unilaterally invalidated, which is what in effect the freezing of assets would be attempting. “A Son of the Red Saltire British Indian Ocean Territory“” says that “There are two guilty parties : The religious orders and government.” This is too easy going. Every - EVERY - adult played his/her part in these hideous abuses, in addition to the two mentioned. The Guards and "Charities" who rounded kids up, the legal profession who sentenced them, the parents who allowed their unmarried pregnant daughters to be taken away, the lay teachers and other staff of the various institutions, as well as those who worked for their suppliers and contractors. But above all, the adult public at large who knew exactly what was going on, and either actively approved or by staying silent tacitly approved. What were they thinking as they saw those crocodiles of shabby downcast boys traipsing through the town? To discipline their children, mothers and fathers used to threaten to send them to these institutions, knowing the terror it struck in their kids' hearts, or else made such threats as a "joke". They all KNEW. Thus no-one over 60 or 70, other than the abused, is innocent of collusion, just as in the 1940s no German was innocent of collusion with the Nazi regime and its death camps. If the assets of the religious orders are to be frozen, it would be logical to also freeze the assets of all non-abused pensioners for their collusion which made the whole abuse tolerable to society. Finally, let's have no more snivelling from such pensioners about medical cards, Christmas bonuses and so forth. They should hang their heads in shame for their active or passive collusion which created the fertile environment in which the clerical child abuse could flourish.
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Superheroes are starting to bug me Comment to MacLeans, Canada's top-selling news magazine, on 16th May 2009 Enjoyed this [Mark Steyn] article. The proliferation of movie superheroes is most peculiar, and the way that these days they never encounter bad guys who resemble any actual bad guys like, for example, the ones that Daniel Pearl or Theo van Gogh met up with. But at the end you erroneously attribute to The Incredibles that famous epigram, “when everyone’s special, nobody is”. In fact it was WS Gilbert who coined the original in The Gondoliers back in 1889 when he has Don Alhambra del Bolero, the Grand Inquisitioner of Venice, convincing gondoliers Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri to sing along with him that,
Regards, |
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Comment in the
Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 12th May 2009 Gaza is the model we must perforce look at when contemplating the creation of a second Palestinian state (the first being Jordan). For Gaza is, to all intents and purposes, already a 100% Palestinian state, with its own elected government and - thanks to lavish funds from the EU, US and various Arab states - an income far beyond what it is actually able to earn. And not a Jew in sight. If ever there was a laboratory to experiment with how Palestinian statehood might look, Gaza is surely it. And what a horror. For its own people and for its neighbours, especially Israel under relentless rocket attack. Even mighty Egypt is horrified, which is why it continues to imprison Gaza's population rather than open its crossing at Rafah and risk having Gazan Palestinians run riot within Egypt. Moreover, there is no sign of any mollification in the way Gaza is governed, or the anti-Jew propaganda spewed over the airwaves or indoctrinated into schoolkids. In other words, Gaza is not transiting to some better place. If anything, it’s getting worse. What you see in Gaza today is what you will get in a new Palestinian state. Unless and until Gaza becomes civilized, no-one but no-one should support the creation of a Palestinian state. That means you, Barry.
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Lazy journalism exposed by online hoax Comment in the Irish Times on 7th May 2009Well done, Shane, a magnificent experiment that has exposed journalistic laziness across the globe. Though not, of course, within the Irish Times ;-] |
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| April 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Do you think the US is less vulnerable to terrorist attack Current Poll: 50%:50% The Appeaser-in-Chief, who
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| March 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tolerant, except for an opposing view P! Published in the Irish Independent on 3rd March 2009Sir, - Gary Brown objects to David Quinn's objection that, on "Today With Pat Kenny" on 23 February, no dissenting voice or hard questions were heard in a four-person panel-discussion in favour of same-sex marriage (Gay marriage rant is outdated, February 28th), asserting that "people are more open-minded and tolerant". Except it seems when it comes to opposing views. Has this "tolerant" man no sense of irony? - Yours etc |
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Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic
Blog on 2nd March 2009 The farce of the “international community” If you want to learn more about the devious Trócaire, try Unworthy Charities, Trócaire Fisked not Fixed and especially Trócaire and Child Labour.
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Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic
Blog on 2nd March 2009
That's cos those lazy Americans use only one side of the supersoft paper. They could halve global warming by using both sides as we enlightened Europeans do. |
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Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic
Blog on 2nd March 2009
"Our schools don't just need more resources; they need more reform." The seeds of failure are right there in that sentence [of Obama's], which no-one in business would ever dare utter. "More resources" must never precede "reform", otherwise you hear "thank you for the resources" and the "reform" never happens. "Reform" must always be demanded first, the "more resources" only delivered AFTER the reform has been delivered. The "more resources" should always be used strictly as a bribe, perhaps doled out piecemeal, a little bit of "reform" followed by a little bit of "resources" and so on. But then President Obama has never run anything substantive in his life (apart from his brilliant campaign) so how can he have ever learnt this elementary lesson? He obviously hasn't |
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| Published in the Economist on
12th March 2009 A
City on a Hill P! Sir, - I must protest at the photograph of California’s
governor in your article on the
Perhaps the photo was used to illustrate that he is,
indeed, falling to his left under the |
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| February 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Comment in the
Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 27th February 2009 An American addition to the Islamists' armoury? In a Spectator article entitled "Down with Saudi Arabia", Mark Steyn identified Charles Freeman as what the Irish would term a sleeveen way back in March 2002. Does Obama know what he is doing (ie vindictively anti-Semitic) or not (ie incompetent)? |
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| To the Sunday Times (UK
edition), 19th February 2009 Barack Obama as an exemplar of competitiveness and ethics Sir, Christina Lamb is absolutely right when she says "There is no conflict between being competitive and having a proper sense of right and wrong". (What's wrong with winning?, February 15th). But she then cites Barack Obama. Would that be the highly competitive Obama who won the US presidency against formidable opposition? Or the Obama
Yours etc, |
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| To Mark Steyn,
international columnist, on 10th February 2009
Mark, - Congratulations on your stellar performance in front of Ontario's Standing Committee. In a couple of the commentaries to which you link, much is made of the name of the Irish bar to which you later repaired with some of your admirers, the "Pogue Mahone", as this is also the alias used by Richard Warman when posing in cyberspace as a neo-Nazi. Your readers should also be aware that this is an Irish phrase which is properly written as "Póg mo thóin". It translates as "Kiss my arse" (or for you North Americans, "Kiss my ass"). How appropriate. - Sincerely, + + + + + + + The above letter immediately triggered following post by Mr Steyn.
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Comment in the
Spectator-hosted Melanie Philips Blog on 8th December 2008
How did they [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Melanie, I am with you on this topic. Details here |
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| To the Sunday Times (Irish
edition), 4th February 2009
Sir, - I am surprised - and a little disappointed - to see Brenda Power join the media bandwagon that says the "Bodies" exhibition in Dublin has no scientific and or artistic merit, solely because the provenance of the bodies has not been proven to their satisfaction ("It’s not big or clever to deny people their dignity in death", February 1st, 2009). I have news for the media: the provenance situation does not, as they appear to believe, prove that the bodies are from executed prisoners, which is their pure conjecture. Also, in her otherwise solemn lecture on dignity in death, what was the relevance of her smutty little joke about men thinking with their penis not their brain ("The concentration of male blood vessels, for example, conclusively settles the debate over which organ men use for thinking")? - Yours etc, |
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| January 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Comment in the Irish Times
on 24th January 2009 in response to a poll question,
“Is George W Bush the worst
president in US history?”
Yes dammit, he WAS the worst ever. When was the last time any US president overthrew two vicious dictatorships, replaced them with democracies however flawed and liberated 50m people? I am appalled that he has finally achieved victory in Iraq - yes, victory. Al Qaeda and the other murderous insurgents have been defeated and humiliated. Their deaths were for naught. This new democracy, the only Arab one in the world, is finally at peace and rebuilding itself. So, thanks to that wretched W, we now have to look elsewhere than Iraq for our quota of fascist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-Semitic murderous regimes. Ah well, at least Hamas and Hezbollah still give us cause for hope and inspiration. |
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Comment in William Sjostrom's Atlantic
Blog on 9th January 2009
Some bigots you just can't please On 7th January, Amnesty did me the (dis)honour of inviting me to join their anti Gaza war protest in St Stephen's Green on 9th January. FYI, this is what I replied ... QUOTE Why Amnesty's sudden excitement about Gaza? You've had eight long years to organise protests in St Stephen's Green, harangue foreign ambassadors, make demands of the Government, while Hamas has - in the hope of killing civilians - rained down thousands of rockets on Israel. Which by the way long ceased being "the occupying power" in Gaza. You also seem very relaxed about the Hamas war crime of launching attacks while shielding behind women and children and within schools, mosques and hospitals. As you surely know, civilian casualties that result from such behaviour are attributable under international law to the party that is using civilians as shields, not to the attacking party. I would have thought Amnesty would be delighted that Israel is finally trying to neutralise the Islamicist fascist anti-Semitic misogynistic homophobic murderous organization that is Hamas. I can't understand why you would be so keen to defend them (unless - which I can't imagine - you feel equanimity about killing Jews). Needless to say, I will not be joining your misplaced campaign. UNQUOTE |
Sir,
I was astonished to see on the cover of your edition of November 14th what
appears to be the prophet Mohammed being driven into the skies by explosives
under his feet.
“”
‘’
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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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