The bank bailouts have been called a 'financial coup d'etat'  by our premier economist David McWilliams.  Another €730M this month to bondholders who were non-guaranteed. That's far more than the cost of the long awaited national children's hospital (which it is now hoped will be financed by selling lottery tickets).

Does this government have their priorities right? Who should get our immediate attention: wealthy, fat German businessmen or our sick children? There's simply no contest, apparently.

Despite many protests (such as the town of Ballyhea showing up in Kildare Street) the systematic embezzlement of public funds continues unabated.

Protesting is dead. The reason for this, (more…)

I have reported previously on the contretemps that had arisen from the United States having an air base in Ecuador. Well, the controversy continues.

Apparently, President Correa's ultimatum (to reciprocate with a base for Ecuador in Miami!) has not been addressed by the White House, and so the U.S. military has been notified that they must leave when their lease expires next year.

Although the base in Manta is not of any great strategic importance to the U.S, it must be felt as a stinging slap in the face for U.S. military diplomacy, if that's not an oxymoron . With 730 military installations and air bases in more than 50 countries, this can only be characterised as the beginning of the beginning.

::

¶

Can you get through the Great Firewall of China? I tried it earlier today.

Since I am not currently in China it's impossible for me to know for sure what is and isn't available through the InterWebs.

However I do have some Skype contacts in Western China and they report that almost everything we take for granted (YouTube, Wikipedia, etc.) is mysteriously missing from their network. Reminds me of the bad old days of AOL! (more…)

Shadows of crap 

Reading an article about the legality of data-mining someone's trash, it occurred to me that an excellent method of corporate espionage would be to provide a bogus waste disposal company.

You quote rates slightly below the competition, and in between collection and dumping, your troupe of hired monkeys will sift through the detritus of banks/companies/legal offices. Then you can act on your findings.

Potential profits will accrue from:

• blackmailing law-breakers, liars and adulterers
• placing prescient put options on stocks and shares
• selling juicy stories to the gutterpress
• making jewellery and nick-nacks from junk
• auctioning weird stuff to perverts

All we need is a truck and some overalls. And a sense of adventure. Yay!

Or wait, maybe I'll start an ice-cream business…?

::

From their Facebook invitation:

BLASPHEMY IS A VICTIMLESS CRIME
Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel
7:30pm Tues 16 June 2009

The Limerick meeting is the fourth of several being held around the country, organised by Atheist Ireland, an advocacy group for an ethical and secular Ireland, and co-hosted in Limerick by the Mid-west Humanists. Speakers will include

• Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland and co-writer of I, Keano
• Larry Maher, chair of Mid-west Humanists
• Lothar Luken, Cork poet, writer and member of Humanist Association
• Local politicians will be invited

Website: www.atheist.ie

::

Come, blow my organ, or some such inanity, I guess. But I do love this instrument. It has a childish sort of provenance perhaps, firmly rooted in the old milk/straw relationship, nonetheless the Bubble Organ produces easily the most cheerful sounds you'll hear all week. You'll thank me.

::

I'm jumping on the Face of Jesus bandwagon.

A lady reported seeing the face of Jesus in a photo she took at the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Bock has already had a go at it and displayed a little too much scepticism, I felt. He doesn't seem to believe it's really there.

I, on the other hand, not only saw the face immediately but was inclined to think the lady hadn't gone far enough! I was so excited by this miracle that in my state of heightened consciousness, I felt I could make out nearly all of the Apostles (including Zeus) peeping out from the rocks too.

Earlier today I went to the trouble of highlighting the apparitions for unbelievers. Some may take you a while to grasp, but when you see them, you won't be able to see anything else. Not even all the people laughing at you. And that has to be a good thing, surely?

::

Way back in June you may remember a Father Con McGillicuddy complaining that Prof Richard Dawkins at the World Atheist Convention had described the Catholic church as 'an evil institution'. His response in the Irish Times letters page relied on that old canard about the 'institutions of death provided by famous atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu and others' — as if somehow atheism has a sacred text which tells you what to do.

As there are Christians who kill, there are atheists who kill. The difference is that there is no atheist creed to instruct the non-believer — he may kill for universal human motivations such as greed, power, lust etc. Whereas the religious killers may do so specifically because of his religious beliefs. Religion makes you do what you're told, not what is right.

I won't rehearse in full the voluminous refutations that have already been offered by atheists time and again to people like the pious Father McGillicuddy, since they never seem to land. If being told that Hitler thought of himself as a good Christian doesn't suit the superstitious padre, then no doubt he'll simply dismiss the fact out of hand. But don't take it from me, here's Der Führer — quoted in entirety (more…)

Some stories just seem to stick in your mind.

I first heard the writer Roger Rosenblatt tell this anecdote in a brief NPR segment for KQED radio in San Francisco back in 1999. Ten years later he reused it in a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College. And thank goodness he did, otherwise I'd never have found it again.

When I was a boy of 12 — knowing then that I wanted to be a writer — I was already exhibiting signs that I dimly perceived would qualify me for the pursuit. I used to memorize certain lines from movies, which I would store in my head, awaiting an opportunity to slip those lines into ordinary conversations. People would be conducting a perfectly sensible chat, and I would be crouching like a lion in the brush, anticipating the moment when I could insert a line from a film. I do so to this day. You may imagine what a delightful social companion I am.

The lines I chose where never the garden variety, such as "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" or "Frankly, my dear…" and so on, but rather ones that an idiosyncratic attraction for me.

For many years, there were two lines I had never been able to slip into any conversation. The first of these, I never did get in. It occurred in Earthquake, one of the disaster films of the 1970s, in which a man was stalking a young woman to do terrible things to her. One would have thought that an earthquake would have been enough to divert his attention, but he was, as they say, focused.

At the height of the quake, he finally cornered his quarry and was about to jump her, when George Kennedy, playing a cop as he always did, appeared, threw the attacker to the ground and shot him dead. Consoling the shaking woman, Kennedy told her: "I don't know what it is. Earthquakes bring out the worst in some guys."

The other line was more unusual and exotic so it presented a much greater challenge. It was spoken by Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson in one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies of the 1940s, when Watson was attempting to impress a couple who were unfamiliar with Holmes's exploits. "Haven't you heard of the giant rat of Sumatra?" asked Watson, referring to one of the great detective's most famous cases.

"Haven't you heard of the giant rat of Sumatra…?"

Decades passed, and I never came close to a moment when I might work that line into a conversation. Then, in the late 1970s I was writing for the Washington Post, and I had all but given up on my quest. One day, some friends and I went out to lunch, and it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the creation of Mickey Mouse.

There was some chatter at the table about Mickey, to which I had been paying scant attention. Suddenly, one of the guys sat up with a quizzical look and asked, "Has there ever been a bigger rodent?"

Naturally, following Roger's admitted failure, I became obsessed with trying to smuggle the George Kennedy line into some conversational exchange with co-workers. One night when a 4.6 quake finally hit the city, I was alone. Sadly, the next morning I couldn't conceive of any device that would casually introduce the phrase. I have all but abandonded hope. Perhaps you may carry the torch?

::

Rather than publish the usual long list of "must-have essential" software, I thought I'd just focus on one piece at a time. Since Google recently announced they're wrapping up Google Desktop search, today is the turn of Everything.

It's an unfortunate product name of course, since searching the internet for "everything" doesn't really produce any meaningful results — utterly ironic, given that Everything is the finest desktop search agent you'll come across. (more…)

There's plenty of talk this week about mortgage debt forgiveness — or relief or restructuring, call it what you will — this has got a lot of people very fired up. It's the disease of the week for the talking heads and pundits on the panel shows.

Decent hard-working taxpayers will probably be skeptical of any scheme using  the term "forgiveness", and rightly so. Many pre-Tiger people worked hard for their money, saved up a healthy deposit, and paid off their heavy mortgages with no help or forgiveness from anybody — why should today's debtors be any different?

I wouldn't dare offer a solution of my own or even any analysis, not being any kind of an expert on morgages, debt financing, or other such animals. What I can tell you is a little something you may not know about the most important item: the very money itself. (more…)

A little while back — before the tail-end of the Tiger became the financial crisis, and latterly the 'economic reality' — I wrote something on voting systems. I think I've always been intrigued by the idea of proportional representation's single transferable vote. In essence, this is an attempt to solve the problem of 'one man, one vote'.

Instead of 'your guy lost, tough luck', STV in PR tries politely to ask you if you have any other preferences. It doesn't work perfectly, but then again all voting systems appear to be deeply flawed for some reason — the reason being of course (more…)