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TALLRITE BLOG
You can write to me at blog2-at-tallrite-dot-com |
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| August 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Linkmania, who run the voting system which I've used to measure approval/disapproval ratings and trends over the past three years, seems to be imploding, so
I have discontinued the weekly chart, at least for now.
To my readers' immense relief, obviously. |
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ISSUE #107 - 28th August 2005 [200]
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In most of the developed world, taxis are paid for by means of a meter making charges set by a regulator. That means all taxis charge the same, so that they are competing not against each other but with other forms of transport (trains, buses, legs). And everywhere users deem them to be too expensive. The charging methodology seems perverse in a capitalist society. If a taxi is not getting enough work, why should it not simply drop its prices, or vice versa, as happens in every other business? Similarly, why should it not, albeit at the risk of being lynched by other cabs, be allowed to reduce its prices as a means to jump the taxi queue at, say, the airport? Perhaps a case can be made for a regulator to set a legally enforced maximum fare in order to protect consumers. But there is no case at all for a legally enforced minimum fare if a willing taximan and a willing passenger wish to undercut it. Retail price maintenance was abolished for most consumer products years ago, and indeed is generally against the law if manufacturers (such as book publishers) try to enforce it. So how would a variable fare work? It seems to me, the innocent one, that the advertising sign on the roof of each taxi should incorporate a simple LCD board which displays in large letters the percentage discount (if any) that the driver is willing to offer at any particular moment in time. If you like the number you hail him. When booking a taxi over the phone, the control room would quote you the percentage. Then you merely pay the metered fare minus the percentage, plus any tip you feel like giving. Such a system would provide important benefits. It would
Ireland's regulator, Ger Deering, said on 22nd August,
But allowing individual taxi drivers to vary their own fares downwards will achieve his objectives with a more dramatically beneficial effect for all parties then any tinkering with the fare structure. Low cost taxis will generate more business and more profit and more convenience all round. How many times must Ryanair teach us the same low-cost lesson?
I've always believed Time magazine must be staffed by teenagers because its reportage and analysis never seem to get beyond the adolescent stage. My mind was not changed when, cleaning out my bookshelves the other day, I came across an unopened copy dated 27th September 2004 (I've never subscribed but unsolicited free copies occasionally arrive in the mail). It is apparently a European issue because the cover differs from what the Time website carries for that date, which is a juvenile apologia for Dan Rather's infamous defence of a forgery about George Bush's “military” service (remember the story?). Interestingly, the back page Essay is also different (I've transcripted it here), perhaps because the European essay would outrage an American audience. For it is a puerile proposal by Simon Robinson, an Australian who is Time's Africa boss based in South Africa, that because the US has huge influence on the global stage, the inhabitants of the whole world should be allowed to vote in US presidential elections as if all of non-America were a large 51st State. The idea is that everyone would then love America and all its works and there would be no further need for the Yanks to threaten or invade anyone. Moreover, once Cubans, Saudis, Darfuris and North Koreans were to participate in a free-for-all US election they would demand - and be granted by their respective despots - similar privileges in respect of their own national governance. The concept is so laughable, it's hard to know where to begin.
But then Simon the Africa editor lives in the cocoonish comfort of South Africa, so perhaps that is why he is so out of touch with the working of thugocracies in the rest of that continent and elsewhere. He should be moved to a slum in somewhere like Khartoum or Brazzaville. If there is one area, however, where a universal franchise might indeed have some merit, it is in the selection of the UN Secretary General, who could for good measure be renamed World President. To listen to the wails of the pro-UN faction, this is a position of arguably even more international importance than America's president. And by definition he is supposed to represent the entire globe. Koffi Annan is trying, vainly, to get some lacklustre reforms adopted (like enlarging the Security Council), but amongst them is nothing so radical as ensuring that the UN boss himself has a universal mandate. Why, Koffi might not even get elected as World President. That would be a risk too far, one that he's not prepared to take. But it probably wouldn't work anyway because those pesky North Koreans etc still wouldn't be allowed to vote in case they got ideas above their station. So Simon and the rest of the Time Magazine crew, let's just grow up and leave the job of electing an American president solely to Americans.
Al-Arabiya TV, launched in 2003, aired a Hamas-produced propaganda film on 22nd July, which glorifies homicide-suicide and shows how Palestinian children are being deliberately seduced into the “martyrdom” cult as part of the jihad against the existence of Israel. Indoctrinating young boys and girls with a desire to kill themselves and as many others as possible represents mass child abuse at its purest and most degenerate. It is no surprise that many of them grow up and fulfill the fantasy, which has been instilled in them at so young and impressionable an age and then assiduously fostered throughout their childhood and adolescence by perverted, malign adults. Needless to say, no-one ever suggests that old men past their useful economic life should sacrifice themselves; only the young in their prime, those who would otherwise be the seedcorn of a successful democratic Palestine State. And of course candidates for suicide are never to be found among the sons and daughters of the said perverted, malign adults and numerous other fire-breathing suicide-advocating orators. You can read the transcript of the programme, but it is more compelling to view the vile TV clip here (with English subtitles).
Whilst browsing recently in the stationery department of Easons,
which is one of Ireland's major bookstore chains, I noticed on display
near the cash desk, amongst a lot of back-to-school paraphernalia, a
hardback file for sale. Coloured purple, it carried a picture of a
green and yellow turtle with the inscription,
“Men are like turtles - they're slow!” For example, how about Women, Gays, Pensioners, Blacks, Asians, Innuit, French, Poles, Cubans, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Bhuddists? I don't think so. Especially not Women.
We live in a very politically correct world where humour is strictly circumscribed. They never did respond - what a surprise!
Engineering a Physical Rose, Theoretical & Cool For years, many youngsters, goaded on by propaganda in print, TV and movies, have looked upon technical pursuits as something grease-monkeyish or geeky/nerdy but definitely not cool. Cool are
When, for example, was the last time you watched a movie or TV storyline about engineers, physicists or chemists which did not deride these occupations? Then think about all the films starring people in the “cool” types of job listed above. You just can't escape from yet another hospital drama, anguished writer or sexy lawyer. We all like to be viewed as cool by our peers. So if young men, who happen to have a fascination for uncool technological subjects, apply themselves to scientific studies, they do so only with a measure of trepidation. And if it's women, they run screaming in the opposite direction (I exaggerate of course). But maybe, in Ireland at least, this may be about to change. Last week the 47th annual Rose of Tralee pageant took place in (you guessed it) Tralee. I last wrote about this event three years ago and my observations still hold true. But this year there was an interesting difference; well two actually.
Nevertheless, the Institution of Engineers of Ireland was quick to award her its August 2005 Engineer of the Month title in recognition of her contribution to raising the profile of the engineer in Irish society. This was surely a first, both for the crusty (yet now as a result slightly more cool) IEI and for a Rose. Then there was the captivating winner herself, the Physics Rose of Mayo, 22-year-old Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin (‘Little Eve’ O'Sullivan).
Most disarmingly of all, when quizzed on TV during the Rose of Tralee competition about her theoretical physics, which she is passionate about, she said it's really not that hard and she clearly finds it lots of fun. All you have to do is set your mind to it. Listen to that girls (and boys), she's talking to you. Am I detecting that technical studies, such as physics and engineering, are becoming slightly less uncool with the example being set by these two young beauties? Vested Interest Disclosure:
Quote: “They taught a technology that we had never seen that killed many Colombians. ... We want them in Colombia. We want them to pay their jail term in Colombia. ... We as a community of nations, and especially democracies like Ireland and Colombia, should confront terrorism with the strictest and most expeditious and most rapid and most politically full actions.” Francisco Santos, Colombia's vice-president, They skipped bail and absconded back to Ireland “The Taoiseach has said this whole issue is a matter for the gardaí and the Irish courts and I think Mr Santos should respect the legal system in Ireland. It's a matter for Ireland, not Colombia.” In response, Catriona Ruane of the Bring Them Home Campaign ____________________ Quote: “Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ.” Pope Benedict XVI addressing 800,000
young Catholics
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ISSUE #106 - 21st August 2005 [146]
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Does Protestantism Stand for Anything? I've never really understood the enduring attractions of Protestantism, though have infinite regard for the vast majority of its adherents. It seems to me that if Jesus Christ is the man whose behaviour you wish to emulate and teachings you wish to follow, rather than Buddha's or Mohammed's or Confucius's, then why would you choose to do so via a church other than the one that Jesus founded? That is, of course, the Roman Catholic church from which the various other Christian faiths split over the intervening two millennia. Needless to say, there have been plenty of practices, wrong or otherwise, by Catholics that would drive any sane person away, whether it was Martin Luther's revulsion at the sale of indulgences or Henry VIII's fury at being told he had to stick to his irritating till-death-do-us-part wedding vows. But that expresses the essence of non-Catholic Christianity. It is not “for” anything; rather it is a protest movement, hence the name Protestant. Yet for how many centuries do adherents want to continue protesting, claiming their identity in terms of what they are not rather than what they are?. Institutions such as the Church of England and Church of Scotland seem to me to be prime examples of a religious movement with neither purpose nor direction, and an unerring eye in being led by a succession of weird dilettante Archbishops of Canterbury who embody such principles (1961 Arthur Ramsey, 1974 Frederick Coggan, 1980 Robert Runcie, 1991 George Carey, 2002 Rowan Williams). If you want an example, just look at the recent funeral of Robin Cook at St Giles Presbyterian Cathedral in Edinburgh. By all accounts, he had a wonderful send-off, with some grand ceremonies and uplifting eulogies, in the presence of hundreds of mourners, including senior British cabinet ministers and both of his wives. Christianity at its finest. But
wait a minute. Wasn't Robin Cook an avowed atheist? And wasn't
one of the eulogies delivered by a fellow-atheist, his racing buddy the
buffoon John
McCririk? And didn't Mr McCririck use the occasion to lambaste
Tony Blair for not being there? And wasn't one of the readings given
by a Muslim, The officiating minister was the distinguished Right Reverend Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, whatever that means (you can listen to him sermonising here). But was he not paying attention at this religious ritual?
It's because Protestantism itself doesn't stand for anything. Anything goes; do whatever you want; its teachings are important only if you like them; divorce is not allowed but you can do it; ditto abortion; forgiveness is available without even asking; there is no hell for wrong-doers only heaven for everyone, good bad, believer or non-believer. By God, fetch me a clergyman, I think I'll become one.
Pope Honoured by 193(?) Countries More than 400,000 Catholic youngsters from 193 countries visited Cologne last week for the Pope's bi-annual World Youth Day. This is interesting because 193 is the total number of countries in the world, including iffy ones like the Vatican and Taiwan. Are we really to believe, therefore, that Catholic youth have gone to Germany to see the Pope from such holiday resorts as North Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Burma? If so, we need to re-think our condemnation of those thugocracies, for their leaders are clearly enlightened respecters of personal intellectual freedoms.
A battle has long raged in Ireland concerning so-called “below-cost selling”. This has been illegal since 1987 when an indigenous supermarket chain, H Williams, went bust, allegedly because its dastardly foreign competitors were selling some goods below cost. Always ones to gang up against consumers in order to protect their (bankrolling) producer friends, the ruling party Fianna Fáil under its corrupt leader Charles Haughey as Taoiseach introduced the new law, called the Groceries Order which bans below-cost selling of packaged groceries. Ireland's Competition Authority points out (pdf, 320kb) that
It also provides some interesting comparisons Despite constant farm-gate prices, grocery prices have inflated by nearly 10% in the past five years, compared with a 10% drop in household goods, clothing and footwear. Groceries prices covered by the ban went up by 7½% whereas those not covered went down by 5%. It could also add that those most vulnerable to high prices are the poorest in society who can least afford them. Moreover, from a purely liberal point of view, why ever should retailers be forced to sell goods at a higher price than they want to? Those in favour of the ban include, unsurprisingly, small shopkeepers' organizations such as RGDATA (pdf, 300 kb) who are understandably worried about losing business to supermarket chains. But they also include left-leaning anti-poverty groups and charities who you would have thought would welcome downward pressure on grocery prices. Instead they say, in effect, ah yes, but what if low prices end up causing high prices. No I don't understand this train of reasoning either, but as I've previously noted, the Left is always weak on logic. Some have latched on to a 500-page report issued in 2000 by the Competition Commission in Britain, where below-cost selling is permitted. It says in Paragraph 2.390 (pdf, 876 kb)
This represents an extraordinary non-sequitur. Apparently, if the out-of-town supermarket cuts the price of, say, bread, a small corner-shop will be forced to follow suit in order to retain the custom of its less-mobile shoppers - who cannot get to the supermarket anyway. And to compensate he will have to raise the prices of non-bread goods to ensure he gets the same revenue from a typical shopping-bag of items. In other words, his customers will be experiencing the same spend, just distributed differently. Moreover, there is a ridiculous assumption that corner-shops are operating in the same market as the out-of-town supermarkets and megamalls. Their real competitors are the convenience store down the street, against whom they can compete on equal terms, in a market that is actually growing faster than the supermarket market. If this is the best the pro-ban lobby can do, punishing the whole consumer population by banning below-cost selling, it is the wrong way to solve what amounts to a mobility problem. If society is to help less mobile people, the simplest way is to give them some kind of tax-funded allowance that covers their specific increase in costs caused by below-cost selling, not to thwart the efficiencies of the market place which generate growth in personal wealth and thus in tax revenues. As for the other canard of the pro lobby, that the ban keeps prices down, then why fear its removal? Because it's sole raison d'être is of course to keep prices high and enjoy the extra profits resulting. Examples are given of English villages with no shops, allegedly all down to below-cost selling by predatory supermarkets. Again, no logical link is provided, but neither is any evidence that the less-mobile inhabitants are suffering. Moreover, how do you explain the thousands that cross to Northern Ireland to avail of the lower prices for their weekly shopping? Small shopkeepers and other interest groups are of course right to fight tooth-and-nail to preserve the ban. The livelihoods of some may indeed be in jeopardy. But in the battle between producer and consumer, there is never a sound business or moral case for a government to protect a particular group of producers (relatively few in number) at the expense of consumers (relatively many). The protection should be balanced the other way round. Unfortunately, no political party ever puts consumer interests at the top of its agenda. Producers always come first, more's the pity. That's why the ban will remain in Ireland. I hope I'm wrong.
Well not in the conventional shooting and bombing sense, though it sometimes comes close. You may remember the three so-called cod wars between two democratic NATO allies, Britain and Iceland, over the period 1958 to 1976. They were arguing about fishing rights in the Arctic and North Atlantic; it was all a cod. When disputes between democracies stretch diplomacy until it approaches the limits of Clausewitz's classic dictum, “war is diplomacy by other means”, democracies use their imaginations to “wage war by other means”. So it was with the cod wars, where we saw trawlers' nets being cut, boats being (carefully) rammed, and even some chary pot-shots. A few injuries did occur, though as much as by accident (ramming is hazardous for the rammer) as by intent. Now
another inter-democracy intra-NATO war
is raging in the Arctic, Their imaginative “war by other means” means
The list of imaginative war crimes is endless. For a liberated imagination is one of the features unique to a democratic society. As for resolving the matter, one ingenious pundit suggests building an ice rink on the island so that a year's ownership would be the trophy for the winner in an annual series of ice-hockey matches. Personally, I would encourage the two countries to jointly offer the island as a safe haven for undesirable Islamists in democratic countries that will not deport them home because of persecution threats. Last week I suggested Nauru for this rôle. Hans Island could be an even better (or indeed additional) choice. What Mark Humphrys should really be saying is that wars between democracies are, well, imaginative and kinda fun.
I know that most of my readers fly first class; no Ryanair or Easyjet for that class of person. However I hate to disabuse you. You're not really flying in style. To do that you have to be the Sultan of Brunei. A spy in the US Air Force says he toured the Sultan's latest personal aircraft after it had just been remodeled in Waco, Texas. The Sultan bought the Airbus A340-212 brand new for roughly $100m and had it flown to Waco from the Boeing factory where the interior was completely removed. Then he had the US defence contractor Raytheon install $120m worth of improvements inside and out. And yes, he says, the sinks are indeed solid gold and one of them is Lalique crystal. The spy said he had gained entrance into nuclear weapons storage areas more easily than getting in to see the Sultan's latest toy (with his concealed camera).
Quote: “We could have a constitution within a couple of days if we cut the phone lines between Baghdad and Tehran” An
unnamed source involved in ____________________________ Quote: “Take the military option from the table. We know from experience that it's for the birds ... No one [is] interested in letting Iran become a nuclear power, but that the ongoing dispute must be resolved by developing a ‘strong negotiating position’ through peaceful means and not through military aggression. For that reason I can definitely rule out that a government under my leadership would participate in that.” German
Chancellor Gerhardt Schröder, He
does not explain how a declared eschewal of force Iran had difficulty replying, because it was laughing so much ____________________________ Quote: “This land has been special - holy - for our people since Abraham and the days of the Bible. But land is not more important than life. Nor is land more important than peace.”
Rabbi Dr Ron Kronish, director of the
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ISSUE #105 - 14th August 2005 [143]
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IRA Stand-Down and Sinn Féin Bona Fides Even the most hardened cynic (ie the Rev Ian Paisley) must in his heart welcome the IRA's recent statement that it is ending its armed campaign, dumping arms and will henceforth pursue its goal of a united Ireland through exclusively peaceful and democratic means. It's certainly an improvement on the status quo and is fully endorsed by Sinn Féin. Nevertheless, these are of course only words so far, and as Condoleeza Rice recently retorted to Sudan's dictator Omar el-Bashir when he mumbled about stopping the crimes against humanity being perpetrated in Darfur, “action, not words” are what count. So far, the only action has been on the British side: the release from jail of a ninefold IRA killer (Sean Kelly), the dismantlement of surveillance watchtowers, and a start to disbandment of the Royal Irish Regiment. The main actual action promised by the IRA is the dumping of arms, though they certainly won't be dumping all of their arms or they would have said so. Nevertheless, it is supposed to be done in a verifiable manner so might actually happen. But their main promise is a commitment not to do something (kill, maim, steal etc), which is harder to measure, other than through the lapse of time. Hence Mr Paisley's statement that he wants to wait two years to see if the good behaviour holds. There will, however, another way to measure whether IRA - and thus its political bedfellow Sinn Féin - are truly committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic activity. Back in 1995, Gerry Adams famously warned, of the IRA, “they haven't gone away, y'know”. And they haven't. Nor will they, at least not until the Mafia also go away, because both outfits have metamorphosed from political beginnings into major criminal enterprises earning lucrative returns. What are the volunteers now expected to do? Go back to delivering milk, plumbing, tilling the land for EU subsidies? No more big money, no more excitement, no more deference every time they enter a pub? There's just too much at stake. So criminal activity will certainly continue. Claims will probably be made that the activities have been perpetrated not by the IRA itself but by “rogue elements” or “freelance individuals” who just happen to be IRA members, and this may even be true. However we will know the bona fides of Sinn Féin by its reaction. Its sincerity will be proven when it dissociates itself from and condemns future crimes of any sort committed by IRA members, just as the Protestant parties do in respect of crimes committed by loyalists, and co-operates fully in the authorities' fight against crime. This will be a very tough call for Sinn Féin, to effectively turn its back on its lifelong friends, but if they pass this test it is hard to see how anyone can refuse them full political recognition and participation. But initial omens are not good. The three Irish peace missionaries to Columbia (Sinn Féin/IRA members Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan) who in 2004 were convicted in Bogotá of training FARC guerillas and are on the run from 17-year jail sentences, suddenly turned up in Ireland last week. Mr Monaghan, sporting a scruffy beard, hair dyed orange and a lot of new wrinkles, gave a comical TV interview and then joined the other two in hiding. Despite their protestations that they had been in Columbia (with the help of their false passports) only for eco-tourism or peace-propagation or whatever, they are now convicted terrorists with Interpol arrest warrants on their head, who need to be locked up. So far Sinn Féin is the only party that is categorically saying they should be left alone. But if they continue not to double-cross their three terrorist-colleagues, there is little hope they will condemn future IRA crimes either. Mr Paisley and Dr Rice are right to wait to see whether painful actions will match easy words.
The Freedom Institute drew my attention to an 18-point guideline for police raiding the homes of Muslim suspects in southern England. Whoopee, as your average Islamic terrorist might say. Consider these extracts.
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First
there was the lovely Engineering Rose of Queensland, Michelle Emery.
With a background in telecommunications, she's an honours graduate in
Electrical Engineering and plans to return to university for further study
(though to pursue something called
“health
studies”, which sounds worryingly do-goodish, ). 
Aged
only 22, she already sports a first class honours
degree in Theoretical Physics no less, and plans to continue her post
graduate studies in
Bio-Physics. She is also the holder of numerous academic awards and
scholarships for her scientific prowess, in such esoteric fields as mathematical modelling.
In addition, she earned a student placement at the European Nuclear
Research Centre (
As
Mark Humphrys never tires of 
this time between Canada and Denmark, another irksome
Scandinavian. The eye of this latest storm is 
