Rolfe's Random Review

Dress Codes for Yokels...

2011-10-01T13:35:00.000+01:00

Another Letter:

Sir, – According to a report in your newspaper, the European Parliament is currently focused on proposals that would require rural pedestrians to wear high-visbility jackets (Home News, September 29th). So at a time when the euro faces an existential crisis, our MEPs are busy drafting a dress code for yokels? That puts the emperor Nero in the halfpenny place. – Yours, etc,

Reality TV: A solution for the Irish Presidency...

2011-09-22T19:00:00.002+01:00

Had a letter in the IT:

Sir, – Given the clear difficulties in finding suitable candidates and the ongoing issue of funding the national broadcaster, should we not give consideration to a constitutional change that would allow the president to be the winner of a new reality television show called So You Want To Rule Ireland? Prospective presidential candidates would live as housemates in Áras an Uachtaráin and would be set collective tasks such as “Greet the new Japanese ambassador at the airport”. This would allow a much broader field of candidates and the unfortunate discovery of skeletons in cupboards, closets or underneath lonely beaches near Dundalk would lead to a ratings boost instead of an electoral crisis.

– Yours, etc,

Dubious Data Practices...

2011-05-19T08:11:00.004+01:00

According to this doc from the Data Protection Commissioner the Irish Insurance Federation uses a fairly strange definition of 'you' when deciding whether to give 'you' insurance or not. They have a database which to my mind has a fairly serious design flaw:

The entry in the Registry comprises the first three letters of the applicant's surname, the first five letters of the first name, the date of birth, together with the date and codes for the relevant insurer and the type of policy.

So If my name is "MICHAEL GOLDSMITH" and I share a birthday with a deeply unhealthy "MICKEY GOLDSTEIN " I can be turned down for life insurance because of him or his policy history. Not only that, if I make a data protection act request I will be given his information....

The really bizarre thing is that the Data Protection commissioner is aware of this but doesn't seem to find it odd...

Morgan Kelly and his proposal to default

2011-05-17T18:02:00.002+01:00

Sent the following to the Irish Times. Didn't get published. Ho hum...

Madam,

The Irish State was founded by a group of individuals who believed in demonstrating the reality of Independence by throwing the new nation into a ruinous trade war with Britain and its empire. A happy willingness to antagonize its neighbours and harm its own interests simply to prove the fact of Irish independence continued for more than half a century, with mixed results for people who lived here.

Ireland now appears to have gone to the other extreme and is busy sacrificing the nation to avoid upsetting anyone in Europe. Let us not make the mistake of assuming that our selflessness will be reciprocated by France or Germany, both of whom promoted the concept of the Euro, insisted that their nationals had critical positions in the running of it and are now blaming the users of their currency for the for the terminal problems it now faces.

The government needs to make a conscious shift back towards the self-centred politics of the thirties and forties. At an absolute minimum the it should start publicly making contingency plans to implement the "Kelly Option" and other equally radical scenarios such as approaching the United States and asking to join if a catastrophic loss of sovereignty becomes inevitable. Such plans do not have to be put into action to provide benefits. Their mere existence will strengthen our position and turn us from supplicants into participants in the current process.

David Rolfe

Enda kenny and the Siege of Leningrad...

2011-02-01T18:43:00.002Z

Had a letter in the Indo about this:
ENDA Kenny's comparison of Ireland's economic problems with the siege of Leningrad is bizarre. A far better historical analogy would be with the Treaty of Versailles. A single country is being accused of being solely responsible for a European disaster and is now expected to make financially unsustainable 'reparations' without any consideration of the long-term consequences for everyone involved.
Not only does Ireland now face a prolonged period of economic chaos ending in a default, but, like Weimar Germany, it has a deeply dysfunctional political system that is ill-equipped to handle the challenges it will soon face. The bottom line is that Ireland didn't invent the euro, but is expected to shoulder the blame for its failure.
It is now obvious that this country was run into the ground by an incompetent political elite, with not one single TD of any party attempting to stop the madness.
But while Ireland has an entire parliament building full of culprits, none of the architects and managers of the euro are being asked to explain why they stood back and did nothing while ludicrous quantities of debt flooded the periphery of Europe.
Until this issue of fiscal mismanagement is resolved, the future of the euro -- and the entire European project -- will remain in doubt.

2010-11-23T13:03:00.002Z

Yesterday's Green party press conference was bizarre in that the Green TD Paul Gogarty insisted on keeping a small child on his lap throughout:

Presumably he did this so there would be at least one person in the room who would believe them...

Theft of Sandbags...

2010-11-11T07:48:00.004Z

Apparently the economy is so bad that people are stealing sandbags intended for flood prevention:

“On Sunday morning, in the region of 1,000 sandbags used to provide defences in these coastal walls were discovered to have been dismantled and removed.
...
The spokeswoman said it was difficult to see how members of the public might have mistaken the sandbags as being available for general use as it was “fairly obvious that they were there to protect the gaps in the coastal walls”.

I sent the following letter to the Irish Times, which doesn't appear to have been published:

Madam,

Who in Dublin would have a need for a few thousand sandbags and be self-centered enough to put their own welfare before that of the public? Possibly Government TD's preparing their constituency offices for the aftermath of the next budget....

Airtricity claiming non-existant 26% discount?

2010-09-21T07:14:00.003+01:00

In today's Irish Independent Charlie Weston says that Airtricity is claiming to off a 26% discount off Gas and Electricity:

Yesterday the company claimed that the combined discount of 26pc would mean a bigger overall energy cost saving for households who sign up for both electricity and gas supplies with Airtricity.

In fact they are offering a 20% discount for Gas and a 6% discount for electricity with a 1 year lock in and a 100 Euro exit fee, but someone at the Indo appears to have decided to add the two percentages....

D B Cooper Was An Amateur

2010-09-06T21:39:00.004+01:00

Saw an interesting article about D B Cooper in Air and Space mag.

Added my 10c:

While everybody wants to believe that D.B. Cooper got away I think he died on the night. I'm a former skydiver with over 450 jumps, including one from a a Boeing 727 at the World Freefall Convention.

The first odd thing is that D.B.Cooper was apparently wearing slip on shoes. No skydiver in 1971 would have jumped wearing such shoes - landings were fast at the best of times and you needed ankle protection. Any experienced jumper who was planning this would have had footwear with proper ankle protection.

But the part which makes it obvious to my mind that Cooper wasn't an experienced jumper was that he didn't bring a parachute with him. Skydivers are understandably picky about equipment and any jumper planning a hijacking would prefer to bring his own equipment rather than rely on the government to provide it to him. Not only did he create a dependency his plan didn't need, he also telegraphed his intentions. If, instead, he had disguised the parachute as a bomb and then left a suitably fractured and psychotic suicide note before jumping out the back with the money it would have taken people days - if ever - to figure out what he'd done.

The third thing I'm not so sure about - apparently he was seen using paracord to tie the money bag to himself. You need to be extremely careful about attaching anything to yourself and especially an object that is loose or can move. Simply failing to secure the chin strap on your helmet results in agony as it beats against your skin in the 120kt airflow. Attaching a large object and then being able to fall cleanly and not tumble - which is essential for a safe opening - would require practice. Instead he was almost certainly an amateur who left the plane, lost his shoes, tumbled wildly while trying to open his borrowed parachute and then spent the rest of his life regretting it...

BOOK OF THE DAY: Climate Wars

2010-05-12T06:25:00.006+01:00

Since when has a review of a two year old book qualified as an 'Opinion' piece?

Having apparently run out scary global warming pieces for the moment the IT has presented a review of a two year old book in the slot that has been used before for this purpose.

Climate Wars was first published in 2008 as for all I know may well be a very readable and credible but hypothetical examination of the effects of a significant increase in Global Temperature. But given that it was published in 2008 why should a national newspaper of record use up editorial space on it now? Why editorial space instead of the book review section?

The review itself doesn't really add much, and seems to have been written before the publication of the book itself - some quick googling revealed that the text of the review has been around for ages, if it's URL is anything to go by:

http://coraifeartaigh.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/climate-wars.pdf

Given that ClimateGate has revealed that thanks to poor data management and politicized science the millions of euros invested in global warming research has failed to produce quality results and that we have no way of verifiying either the extent or cause of climate change I have to wonder if this book is still relevant.

More Climate Skeptic bashing at the IT...

2010-05-07T17:50:00.004+01:00

Following hard in the heels of John Gibbons attack on Bjorn Lomborg the IT's environment reporter Frank MacDonald makes no attempt to understand the arguments advanced by skeptics in an opinion piece which is just as full of venom and short of facts as Gibbons. The title - "A dialogue of the deaf with US climate sceptics" pretty much says it all, but neglects to mention that Frank is the one who's hard of hearing...

The key questions to ask here are:

Why does Frank think the Heritage Foundation are representative of US Climate Sceptics? What not speak to Anthony Watts or the Canadian Steve McIntyre? These guys are asking hard questions which climate scientists either won't or can't answer. Why ask a bunch of DC Republican lobbyists?

Any bets on whether any letters on this are printed? I think not...

When I put it to him that the World Meteorological Organisation had identified the past decade as the warmest since records began, followed closely by the 1990s, Lieberman dismissed these findings as “grossly exaggerated” – even though they were grounded in scientific measurements taken all over the world.

This head-in-the-sand approach is reminiscent of the Birthers, a daft grassroots movement that believes Obama has no right to be president because he “wasn’t born in the US”. It simply doesn’t matter that he has a birth certificate from Hawaii and can point to a contemporaneous birth notice in one of the local papers.

Ah yes 'grounded' in 'scientific measurements'! Given the ongoing arguments about data quality in this area this is something which deserves a discussion but doesn't get it. And why the comparison with the Birthers, an openly political movement with nasty overtones?

“We care about the environment,” said nuclear specialist Jack Spencer...

Ooooh! Jack Spencer is a nuclear specialist, which presumably makes him untrustworthy by definition....

Is Osama Bin Laden Alive And Well in LA?

2010-05-07T17:46:00.002+01:00

While visiting the UN Iran's excitable president Mahmoud Ahmadinejan advanced the novel theory that OBL is alive and well and hiding in Washington DC, according to the Guardian.

This is nonsense. The logical place for OBL is in LA, where he can pretend to be an Osama Bin Laden impersonator with impunity....All he has to do is dress normally but carry a stack of 8x10 headshots with him..

John Gibbons and Bjorn Lomborg

2010-05-03T10:06:00.002+01:00

The IT printed a deeply unbalanced opinion piece by John Gibbons the other day. John had a fairly serious go at Bjorn Lomborg, who has had the temerity to question the status quo on human induced climate change. While one expects opinion pieces to be opinionated one doesn't expect a national 'newspaper of record' to allow a writer to falsly accuse a public figure of lying about his academic qualifications. Gibbons gave the piece the title "Exposed: Climate change doubter with a PhD only in spin". John describes Mr Mr. Lomburg as "someone without even an undergraduate degree in a physical science", when in fact he has a Phd in Political Science.

John's argument is that people without 'relevant' qualifications don't have the right to criticise people who do. I sent the letter below to the IT, which didn't get published:

Madam,

The title of John Gibbons opinion piece 'Climate change doubter with PhD only in spin' (April 30) directly challenges the validity of Bjorn Lomburg's academic qualifications, yet nowhere in his article does he substantiate the serious allegation made in the article's title that Mr Lomburg is lying about his 1994 Phd in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen.

The fact that Mr. Lomburg does not hold a Gibbons-Approved qualification in climate science is not relevant and does not deny him or anyone else the right to question the reasons for climate change. I would be very surprised if the staff of your newspaper included anyone with postgraduate qualifications in Creationism, Canon Law or Eugenics, but thankfully that does not prevent your writers from casting a critical eye over such disciplines.

Carl Sagan once said that 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. The exteme sensitivity to criticism that climate scientists display, along with their documented use of dubious sources of information means that their evidence is indeed extraordinary, but for all the wrong reasons.

David Rolfe

The interesting thing is that no letters on this Opinion piece have shown up, which considering how provocative and inaccurate it is makes one wonder what goes on in the mind of the editor. It;'s a bit like the truly crazy report on the "Spirit of Ireland" scheme, which never got discussed on the letters page either despite being an announcement that coastal valleys all around Ireland were to be dammed and filled with Sea Water by vast shoals of windwills.

Morgan Kelly on the Irish Credit Bubble..

2010-03-18T11:47:00.003Z

Anyone who wants to understand what's going on here in Ireland should read this paper by Economist Morgan Kelly. A Quote:

Since the seventeenth century, financial innovation has consisted in banks finding new ways to lose money. However, while US, UK and European banks lost money in exotic derivatives, Irish banks lost money the old fashioned way, by making bad property loans.

Mother's Day Warning for expatriates

2010-03-15T11:31:00.003Z

Folks,

Did you know that Mother's Day changes depending on what country you are in? Last Sunday was Mother's Day here in Ireland. In the US it will be May 9th this year.

It took me a long time to figure this out after I moved to the US. I could never understand why my Mother would barely be speaking to me between the end of March and the US version of Mother's day...

Note also: This web site is wrong.

"Spirit Of Ireland" - Coming to a Valley near you?

2010-03-01T11:39:00.007Z

"Flooded valleys key to huge power plan"

It's not often you see a newspaper headline with such amazing potential to induce panic. But Frank McDonald, the IT's environment editor has succeeded with today's unquestioning puff piece about "Spirit Of Ireland", a suspiciously named scheme to make Ireland an exporter of energy. The piece immediately grabs ones attention by implying this is government policy:

PLANS TO build a new electricity generating system, combining large-scale wind farms with huge hydro-power storage reservoirs in valleys on the west coast, are at an advanced stage, The Irish Times has learned.
“Spirit of Ireland”, billed as a national project for energy independence, has been under discussion for several months with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, as well as other agencies.
It would involve identifying up to five coastal valleys from counties Donegal to Cork, building dams on their seaward side and flooding them with sea water. These would provide a hydro-power back-up for the wind farms.

Obviously this story is of considerable interest to anyone who lives in a coastal valley and doesn't own scuba gear.....But it gets better:

Fifty potential sites along the west coast were identified, but he said many of these were not suitable for environmental or geological reasons. “We’ve now reduced the number of sites to 10, of which five will be studied in micro-detail,” he added.

The bowl-shaped valleys, created during the Ice Age, are located in areas with some of the best wind conditions in Ireland.
“Many are in areas of low population density, where land is of marginal or no use for farming,”the project’s website says.

Presumably the population density will drop to zero and agriculture will cease once the place is flooded? Given that people's homes and quite possibly entire communities are going to be destroyed the obvious question is "Which Valley?":

Dr O’Donnell said he was not in a position at this stage to reveal which were the most likely locations. “There’s an enormous amount of geological investigation and mapping involved, and we have a total of 18 teams of people working on the project.”

Not to mention such issues as Property Rights, Human Rights and the wisdom of holding vast quantities of seawater inland where it can get into the water table. Or the number of turbines required - one estimate is the entire western seaboard saturated with windmills to a depth of 10KM..... Or how this is supposed to happen in a country where you can't run a gas pipeline 10Km without having to deal with violent and illegal protests...

An alternative to "PIGS"...

2010-02-17T13:39:00.003Z

Down at the IT today a Mr. O'Connor is unhappy with the use of the term PIGS to described troubled eurozone countries:

Madam, – Why does the Irish media insist on using the ridiculous and insulting “P-I-G-S” acronym in its financial reports, when referring to Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain? The term has been actively denounced by the Portuguese and Spanish press, and perhaps we should follow suit.

It seems the acronym is more aptly suited to the British and American bond and currency traders who coined the term. – Yours, etc,

JOSEPH O’CONNOR,

Ashtown,

Dublin 15.

So here's my suggested alternative:

Madam,

People who think the term "PIGS" shouldn't be used clearly haven't considered that any alternative could be much worse. If Britain's finances deteriorate to the point where it qualifies for membership of "PIGS" we might see a new acronym coined - "Fringe Europeans who Can't Keep their Economies Running Sustainably".

David Rolfe

David Fennessy 's Bodies: A Haunting and Iconclastic commentary on taxpayer funded art.

2010-02-08T13:21:00.007Z

I don't normally do classical music reviews, but after surviving the premiere of David Fennessy's aptly named new work 'Bodies' feel I have to. I have to wonder how much RTE knew about the piece before it was premiered - One imagines the conversation would have run like this:

The scene: An office at RTE headquarters. Mr Fennessy is explaining his
latest project to his sponsor.....

RTE: So how's it going ?

Composer: Great! I'm just putting the finishing touches now. I've added a selection of Japanese gongs to go with the Harp.

RTE: But don't you also have 8 double bases?

Composer: Yes - there's no point in doing anything by halves. Actually I think 8 is a minimum....

RTE: A Minimum? Won't it be a little ... basey?

Composer: Not really - the double bases are needed to balance the augmented percussion section in the room next door to the stage.

RTE: What?

Composer: The extra percussionists. They'll be in a room next to the auditorium and will be playing as well.

RTE: Ummm, won't that confuse the audience? Isn't one of the unwritten rules of Classical Music that all the people playing the music be in the same location as the audience? And the conductor for that matter?

Composer: But rules are made to be broken! Having all the orchestra actually in the orchestral venue is a pointless tradition that has long outlived its usefulness. With the piece I've moved beyond melody and harmony. They weren't adding anything. Not only that, I've eliminated the ludicrous requirement that the instruments complement each other when played. At one point I even have the Harp, the Japanese gongs, all eight double bases and the percussion section in the next room all going at once!

RTE: Isn't there anything conventional about this piece?

Composer: Well, at the very end the string section suddenly breaks away and starts playing harmoniously for about thirty seconds. It's a doomed yet beautiful act. Sort of a musical equivalent of the Warsaw Uprising. Then the piece ends.

RTE: So let's get this right - we've given you licence payer's money and you've written this?

Composer: Yes. Actually we'll need a bit more cash. Some of the musicians are demanding Danger Money to play it. They are concerned about the audience reaction.

RTE: But no normal person is going to want to listen to this...

Composer: So it'll fit well with your other stuff then?

RTE: Hmmm.. We do Property Porn, Reality TV shows about people who don't drink, Reality TV about schools nobody cares about, startlingly predictable current affairs programs...Yes, I can see a fit...

The above conversation may not have taken place but I swear to god the music is as described. If you don't believe you can see an interview of Fennessy on YouTube where he freely admits all this. Except the bit about danger money....

Those canny Northern Businessmen...

2010-02-04T16:47:00.003Z

You couldn't make this stuff up - would be 'Leader of Industry' and lover of Iris Robinson had this to say about his business venture:

"All I was thinking about was getting the business up and running. Where the money came from never entered my head. The council gave me the cafe for the first couple of months after I opened but this is standard practice for any new business. "

Yeah I know - what sane businessman would worry his head over (a) where his capital came from (b) what strings came attached and (c) when the owner would want it back....

DR

Guns in the US

2009-11-11T08:10:00.003Z

The IT had the now obligatory "aren't-those-yanks-dreadful-for-owning-guns" editorial last Saturday:

THE TRAGIC shootings in Fort Hood, Texas, have drawn attention again to the frightening availability of guns in the US – a staggering 97 guns for every 100 people. Although the killings took place on an army base, neither of the pistols used were army-issue. And the state of Texas, ranked 27th by a gun control lobby group in terms of the ease with which guns can be bought, has no requirement that handgun buyers obtain a licence or undergo any type of safety training. Police do not know how many guns are in the state or where they are.

I sent the IT a letter, which they didn't publish:

Madam,

Your editorial which criticised US gun laws overlooked a rather serious flaw in the law relating to firearms in Ireland. While ownership of a handful of guns is illegal, importing a boatload to equip a private army on a twenty year rampage of murder, mayhem and maiming will in practice be retrospectively legalised the moment you publicly announce your intention to stop.

Not only will you not be prosecuted but you will instead be thanked for your contribution to the bizarrely named 'peace process' and invited to participate in constitutional politics.

Did joining the Euro cause the crash?

2009-07-23T10:34:00.002+01:00

We appear to be seeing something of a pro-Lisbon propaganda campaign being launched. Today's IT reports that David O'Suillivan, the EU Commission's Director General For Trade made the bizarre claim that:

IF THIS country had remained outside the euro zone, the Irish punt would have “crashed through the floor” creating a far worse crisis than the present one, the European Commission’s top trade official has said

...

“The recent financial crisis and the recession it has provoked only further reinforce this argument. Without membership of the euro zone, the former Irish punt would have crashed through the floor, creating a major crisis for the economy well beyond this crisis we are currently experiencing.”

There's a slight problem with this reasoning - If we hadn't been in the Euro the retail banks wouldn't have been able to get their hands on Other Countries Euros to back their insane hundred Billion Euro lending spree. The recent property bubble couldn't have happened. In fact if we still had the Punt it might well have dropped like a stone, but it would have restored our competitiveness as it did so...

Defending Sean Russell...

2009-07-13T16:44:00.003+01:00

It never ceases to amaze me how people are still willing to try and defend the 'Useful Idiot' Sean Russell. The latest comes from a Mr Tom Cooper:

Madam, – The latest attack on the recently re-erected statue of the late Irish republican leader Seán Russell in Fairview Park is a most sinister development. ( “Vandals deface memorial of republican leader Seán Russell”, July 9th). Graffiti proclaiming that Russell was “Nazi scum” which was sprayed on the statue, is just as inaccurate as the reported date of his death....

I've sent this to the Irish Times:

Tom Cooper is no different than other defenders of Sean Russell's reputation in that he hides behind patriotism instead of addressing the facts. The fact is that Russell was not an elected leader and had no authority to represent Ireland, yet traveled to Nazi Germany and on his own initiative invited a violant fascist state that had proven contempt for the rights of small nations to militarily intervene in Irish affairs.

In order for Russell's plan come to fruition he would have needed more help from the Nazis than a couple of boxes of rifles. Any aid he received from them would come with enough strings attached to ensure that he would be their puppet should his tiny group somehow manage to drive the British out of the North and overthrow the Irish Free State.

Sean Russell was a man who despised the Irish Free State and who actively conspired against it. It's very easy to underestimate the threat he posed to Irish society because nothing ever came of it, but then nobody in Norway took Vidkun Quisling and his two thousand followers seriously until they received the same kind of 'help' from outsiders that Russell was looking for.

Attention Dishonest Scrap Merchants: Advice On How To Steal The Sean Russell Statue

2009-07-01T18:44:00.009+01:00

Just how stupid do the National Graves Association think people are?

Not only have they insulted and offended pretty much all of Europe by re-instating the unwanted statue of the Nazis's 'Useful Idiot' Sean Russell in Fairview Park but they expect us to believe the following:

It's made of Solid Bronze (possible, but would they have the money?)
It has motion sensors that will set of an alarm if it's moved (unlikely - no wiring)
It's head has a GPS tracking device so it can be recovered if stolen (utterly ludicrous)

So if you happen to be a financially distressed scrap metal dealer who could do with a large chunk of bronze to melt down make sure you wrap it in Aluminum foil before you nick it. It should weigh about 8.5 times the weight of a person the same height of the statue, so you'll need a crane that can comfortably lift 850kg.

It's very unlikely there is a motion sensor as they'd have had to dig up half of Fairview park to run the electrical lines.

As for the GPS sensor - apparently it's one that works in Solid Bronze. And there's some guy looking at a screen right now to make sure the statue hasn't moved. Yeah, Right!....

If you do happen to find yourself stopped by the Guards while in possession of this statue say that you found it in the park and you were taking it to Dublin Corporation's lost property section. Given that the statue is owned by the National Graves Association but has been carelessly left in a public park handing it in to Lost Property is a perfectly reasonable excuse.

Blasphemous Libel

2009-05-03T19:58:00.001+01:00

I sent a letter to the IT about this but it didn't get published:

Madam,

Fianna Fail has many of the attributes of a religion - irrational faith in its leaders, delusions of infallibility, a profound sense of entitlement, eccentric financial arrangements, unusual relationships with certain groups in society and a view of the past which is inconsistent with the historical record. Will they come 'out' as a religion when the libel proposal is made law?

David Rolfe
Leinster Road
Rathmines, Dublin 6

Lenihan rattled by McWilliams...

2009-04-23T13:38:00.003+01:00

In today's Indo our Minister for Finance attempts to reply to David McWilliam's opinion piece from yesterday. It's fairly clear that Lenihan doesn't want to hear any criticism, constructive or otherwise of his (mis)handling of the banks:

Informed and reasoned contributions to the debate about all the options available to Government are very welcome. Unfortunately, yesterday's contribution from Mr McWilliams fails on both scores.

He then totally fails to address David's point which is that NAMA and a blanket guarantee of bank liabilities can't co-exist without creating a huge moral hazard - If NAMA makes their previous sins go away and the guarantee gives them the financial credability of Ireland when borrowing money what incentive is there for them to act rationally? Bear in mind that nobody us suggesting that the protection for retail investors be dropped - just that once NAMA is up and running the bank should be on a viable footing and aren't supposed to need government backing.

I think that given the circumstances Mr. McWilliams has been pretty mild. Sooner or later Lenihan's going to have to answer questions like:

Why hasn't the managment of the banks been cleared out?
Why did the government voluntarily take non-voting preference equity which leaves them with *no authority* at the boardroom table?
How will NAMA value assets?
Why did he hack at the income of the middle class instead of confronting the unsustainable costs of the public sector?
Why isn't the government forcing the ESB and Bord Gais to reduce prices? Doing so would have a bigger practical effect than restoring the Xmas bonus.

Indo's advice to B of I stockholders: Put more money in!

2009-04-21T07:14:00.003+01:00

"Ordinary shareholders in Bank of Ireland will be happy to inject €1.5bn in fresh capital, predicts Paddy Stronge"

In last Sunday's Independent there was a wonderfully reassuring piece from banker Paddy Stronge, in which he explains that if you're one of the lucky investors in Bank of Ireland who've seen 90% of their value erased all will end up well if you put more money in. Seriously!

Apparently B of I can't sell its bad loans to Nama at a discount from what the bank thinks they are worth:

It would be unwise to rely on Peter Bacon to determine the appropriate valuations as he has not reviewed the individual loans to be transferred.
The bank's own detailed assessments, independently confirmed, are likely to be much more accurate.
However, if Nama were to somehow insist on unreasonable write downs of the loans, the bank's directors would be in an untenable position. They have a fiduciary duty to look after the interests of their shareholders.

Which means that Nama is just going to have to buy the loans at B of I's valuation, because otherwise B of I will, will, will .. do something. I wonder if they'll come with the rose-tinted crystal ball that was used to value them?

At this point, the bank will be in a strong position to raise new capital from its existing shareholders. The bank will need to raise €1.5bn from the existing shareholders before December 31, 2009, to ensure that the Government cannot exercise its option, under the recapitalisation scheme, to purchase 10 per cent of the ordinary shares of the bank at 20c a share.
The take-up by the Government of Bank of Ireland shares at such a low price would be a disastrous permanent dilution to be borne by the ordinary shareholders. Many shareholders have already lost more than 90 per cent of the monies they have invested in Bank of Ireland and there would be little chance of significant recovery in the share price if the Government were to exercise this option.

Leading to the logical conclusion that:

At that point, though it may seem difficult for shareholders who have already lost thousands, the final endgame is for them to commit further funds to the bank, thereby avoiding nationalisation and helping the share price to make solid gains in the years ahead.

ESB Creating 'Jobs' with your money

2009-04-16T19:24:00.003+01:00

Why are the media so uncritical of the ESB? We pay some of the highest electricity rates in Europe. I now pay three times what I was paying in California, and that was with Enron on the rampage.

Today the Semi State monolith announced it was going to 'create' 3600 jobs. Bear in mind that this will be done with taxpayers money. Why couldn't they just give the money back to their long suffering customers?

In the short term the ESB is doing the government a favor but is also improving its profile with the public, who are starting to ask questions about its punitive charges of over 14c/Kwh.

In the long term the ESB also wins because it makes itself larger, thus justifying its charges and can also hold these jobs hostage when a future government sees sense and tells it to reduce its prices.

If you doubt me on this hear it from Mr McManus himself:

Padraig McManus, ESB chief executive, said job-creation needed to be a priority for companies that had the resources to invest.

I'm sorry - what did he just say? Since when has creating jobs been a priority of private enterprise? Or is this a public enterprise engaged in a turf war?

By engaging in this kind of meddling the ESB is sending a clear signal to enterpeneurs that it will muscle in on them if they set up here. If you were going to invest in alternative energy and had a choice as to where you do business would you do it in a country where semi state agencies like Dublin Bus get away with using their state-backed monopoly status to strangle competitors at birth?

Vincent Browne Thinks 'Retail Deposits' Are From Supermarkets...

2009-04-15T16:50:00.003+01:00

Does anyone edit Vincent's stuff before it goes out? In today's Irish Times the great man says:

We got a glimpse of who the Anglo Irish depositors and lenders were, courtesy of Brian Lenihan on January 20th last. Anglo Irish had 300,000 retail depositors, of whom only 72,000 were Irish. The number of corporate depositors was 12,000, of whom 3,500 were Irish and 8,500 non-Irish.

So, to be clear, the beneficiaries have been these high-net-worth individuals, then the depositors who had deposits of over €100,000, retail depositors (mainly supermarkets of whom only a few are Irish) and corporate depositors (a large number of whom were non-Irish).

Which is fine, but I always thought that a "Retail Depositor" was someone like your or me who uses a bank. If, as Vincent says, the "Retail Depositors" are 'mostly supermarkets' then Anglo appears to have held a global monopoly on supermarket bank deposits as it held 300,000 of them....

"Idea's Campaign" Continues to get coverage from uncritical press

2009-04-02T08:35:00.006+01:00

Why haven't the press started asking the hard questions:

Who's actually behind this?
Who decides which ideas make the cut?
Why are there virtually no ideas that involve cutting expenditure being published?

Meanwhile the idea I gave to Mr McWilliams is now the second most popular one he has. Bizarrely enough nothing like it has been presented by the 'ideas campaign'...

Media failure to cover Civil Rights aspect of Picturegate

2009-03-26T07:35:00.005Z

Neither the Irish Times nor the Independent are covering the most alarming aspect of Picturegate today:

A garda visited the offices of Today FM yesterday afternoon looking for email contacts the Ray D'Arcy Show show had with the artist who painted the nude portraits of Brian Cowen that were hung in two Dublin galleries.

On his show this morning, D'Arcy said the show’s producer Will Hanafin had spoken with the garda who had told him that “the powers that be want action taken”.

Mr Hanafin said he was told that the Gardaí wanted the name and contact details of the artist so they could caution him and when he declined to pass the information on, he was told a warrant might be sought to get access to the show’s emails.

Gardaí visit radio station in Cowen painting inquiry - The Irish Times - Wed, Mar 25, 2009

Let's get this right shall we? The Gardai have been sent - by someone - to harass an artist for the non existent crime of 'Insulting the Prime Minister'. Even though most Gardai are educated men who in theory understand the law it was possible for someone in 'the powers that be' to give such an order and have it obeyed without question. None of the alleged criminal acts - obscenity, incitement to hatred or 'criminal damage' have a hope of holding up in front of a Jury. If the picture in question was of anyone other than Cowen this would not have happened.

Yet they still went to the offices of a national radio station and threatened the staff as if they were employees of a third world secret service.

This is the story of the decade. Never mind the economy. Our civil rights are being threatened by 'the powers that be'. One would expect blanket coverage by the two major newspapers. Instead we get silence. Why? What have the 'powers that be' said to them?

Irish Tax Authorities Enlist help of 'Legion of the Bouncy Castle'

2009-03-25T07:58:00.004Z

While doing my taxes I encountered this page on the government's tax website:

Yes, this is indeed real. In order to file taxes you have to approve an applet signed by the "Legion of the Bouncy Castle".... The fact that they are an open source encryption organization doesn't really excuse the fact the the revenue commissioners ought to have got their own cert...

Bear in mind this is from the people who told you to trust Electronic Voting.

So much for security...

More 'Ideas Campaign' Lunacy...

2009-03-25T07:46:00.002Z

They must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel:

Just think of all the customers your business will get if you do this:

Technology

Google, according to the front page of today’s Irish Times, is sending 5 cars with cameras on their roofs to record “streetscapes” for addition to Google earth and Google maps. This will allow for people to virtual tours of streets in towns and cities of Ireland. The cameras will pick up details of shop fronts and displays in windows etc.

If each business prominently displayed the business web address (website location) boldly on windows or door name plates, free advertising of that business would ensue and potentially generate extra “after hours” or international inquiries. So… start displaying your web addresses and watch for the Google cameras as they drive around capturing your details!

Some of them may even be from Wales:

Transport

Why not build a four lane bridge from Ireland to Wales, the building creates jobs, the maintenance creates jobs, creates jobs in customs, security on both sides. It speeds up delivery of goods from one country to another; no plane costs, no shipping costs, no waiting around for the truck to be loaded up etc.

The toll would say be €12 and €10 of that is divided evenly between countries with €2 being used for maintenance. It’s 64 km from Dublin to Wales. To summarise it, cuts cost for travel for ordinary people and business creates jobs in both economies both economies will benefit from money regains tourism industry will grow as it’s easier to come over and leave

(This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons)

What's amazing is that the supposedly sane people at IBEC are backing this nonsense...

Is the 'Ideas Campaign' a left wing plot?

2009-03-14T08:41:00.006Z

I hate to be openly suspicious and cynical but there's something going on here.

Like David McWilliams the people at 'The Ideas Campaign' are collecting ideas on how we are supposed to get out of this economic quagmire. This sounds like a great idea but there's some small print:

Each working day, we will be publishing new ideas to this website. We will only be publishing a small sample of what we receive. But we’re being very, very careful. If we see evidence of ideas that have confidential, sensitive information we will not publish them. Also, we are editing some of the contributions for sense, length and balance.

'A small sample of what we receive' - Editorial control is not a bad thing bug who are the editors? Nowhere on the site does it make clear who's in charge and who's deciding which 'small sample' of ideas is used.

'Editing for .. balance' - What constitutes 'unbalanced'? And here's where it starts to get odd....

You can't see all the ideas that have been submitted, So we've no idea what editorial filter is in use. So far they have released batch 1, 2 and 3 of people's ideas. And when you read them you start to wonder what's going on. While they cover a wide array of activities things which involve cutting government expenditure barely get a mention.

Some of the ideas so far are good, but may already have been tried to some extent:

Generic drugs are much cheaper than branded drugs and could save millions in government finances. Why not push for these obvious savings?

This one is long overdue but won't happen unless the government force An Post to relinquish its effective monopoly on knowing where everyone lives:

We need to immediately introduce a post code system. The only reason we don’t have one despite numerous studies and reports is to preserve the monopoly of An Post. A postal code will encourage competition in the postal and parcel delivery system. A post code system will be of major benefit to companies wishing to sell online, but also to Local Authorities, Government Departments and the emergency services.

Some are idiotic. We're going to save the economy by encouraging illegal immigration:

Tourism - We need to get more people into the country. And here’s how. Our planes are flying out to such places as America, Dubai, Russia etc. and some are coming back with 20-25% empty seats. So what we need to do is, in conjunction with our embassies around the world, give these seats away free of charge.

Those who get the seats will be responsible for their return trip home. Here is how the economy wins: people who avail of the free seats to Ireland have to stay somewhere (hotels), they have to eat (restaurants), they will socialise (pubs) and they will buy gifts (retail).

This is a simple measure; it only needs the willpower. These seats are empty - let’s fill them

This one is a 'Bit Irish' but might actually work:

Move St. Patrick’s Day to mid-May or late-September and stretch out the tourism season (and get it out of Lent!)

And almost none suggest the government should spend less money. The nearest I found was this:

Drop the minimum wage to make employment more affordable and to bring rates in line with mimimum wage across the border and cut out penalty rates for restaurants & entertainment industry at weekends and evenings.

The vast majority of posts are the kind of policy proposals you'd get from a Young Labour convention.

Not one single post advocates cutting public sector jobs. What's going on here? Who are these people? Well, the domain is owned and operated by an eCommerce consultancy called AMAS. The site itself is the brainchild of Aileen O'Toole, one of AMAS's directors. According to the Irish Time's piece announcing the project:

All ideas will be moderated by campaign staff before they go online, she said, to ensure only legitimate ideas were made public. “If this project is to have credibility, we can’t let ideas out there unless they have legs, unless they are achievable,” she said.

I hate to point this out but apart from a complete lack of ideas on how to cut expenditure the ideas that survived the moderation process include 'acheivable' goals like these one:

My idea is that the Government should ban the use of automated telephone answering services in all areas of the Public Service i.e. Departments, Semi-State bodies, Local Authorities and Government Agencies of every description.

The government should give a grant of €250 for a course of driving lessons to anyone buying a car.

With more cars on the road there will be more tax revenue for the government. Making drivers safer will also reduce road accidents and save the country money.

Given that we don't know what the editorial criteria are (or for that matter who the editors are) shouldn't we be cautious in listening to what they say, especially as the ideas that survive the moderation process don't seem to involve cutting the public sector?

Could it be that a group of people are trying to shift the focus to anywhere but cutting the public sector?

Fintan O'Toole wants to know how much money you make...

2009-03-13T23:43:00.002Z

Fintan has come up with a great idea to raise the standard of debate when it comes to the economy:

Those of us who take part in debates on the financial crisis should declare our incomes

Why? Because apparently everyone else is richer than Fintan. Not only that, but being rich makes them insincere and makes them argue dishonestly. So Fintan's fix is to make everyone disclose their incomes up front so we can tell up front if they are evil rich bastards:

IN A PERFECT world, the journalists, broadcasters and commentators who set the political agenda would be paragons of absolute objectivity. We would be able to completely separate our views from our interests, to put forward ideas that are not, even in their subtlest shadings of nuance or emphasis, influenced by our own private circumstances.

Most of us, I think, genuinely strive for that ideal. Equally, though, we are the first to point out the naivety of similar claims made by, for example, politicians. We never tire of telling Ministers or TDs that they live in a bubble because they earn so much more than most of those they represent.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been fairly prominent in debates on radio and TV about the current crisis in the public finances. I’ve been struck by the stark fact that every single person involved in those debates (including me) earns much more than the vast majority of those who will be affected by our prognostications. Every contributor is earning at least twice or three times the average wage.
...
All human beings have a limited perspective. We should stop pretending otherwise. In the first place, those of us who take part in debates on the financial crisis should declare our own incomes, and, where relevant, our pension arrangements.

It is not for us to judge whether these facts create perceived conflicts of interest, but for the listeners and viewers. Secondly, the range of voices in this debate needs to be broadened.

So if we want to argue with St. Fintan about why the public sector does rather better than poor schmucks like me when it comes to pensions we now have to produce a P60 and a balancing statement from the Revenue Commissioners. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried....

Giving David McWilliams ideas....

2009-03-09T21:32:00.005Z

David McWilliams spent the best part of a decade predicting the collapse of the housing market, and as a result is now being quoted by the same people who used to dismiss him. He's opened a forum for ideas on how we can get out of the miss the government has created for us so I've made a couple of suggestions:

Shut the Aer Corps

The Aer Corps is a waste of taxpayers money:

The Aer Sea rescue mission has already been outsourced
The Gardai have their own Aer Wing
The private sector can provide a dedicated Aer Ambulance service.
The executive transport function has been grotesquely abused. If government ministers need to travel privately then they can rent aircraft for the occasion and charge the costs to the activity concerned. NetJets and other companies would be delighted to have the government as a customer
Baldonnel would make an ideal second airport for Dublin and could be sold to the private sector
The Aer Corps does not have a credible air defence function - the existing Pilatus aircraft do not have the capability to intercept anything other than light aircraft in good weather. Ireland also lacks the political will and chain of command to order a shootdown so why not stop wasting money and buy the Army some SAM capability instead?

Impose Private sector standards on the government

In order to have any credibility when it comes to saving money the government needs to start with itself. It should immediately impose private sector standards on all its own activites. This would mean:.

Executive pay - All cabinet ministers pay to be comparable with those in similar size European countries such as Denmark or Belgium
Expenses - Receipts required for everything - Current practice of gratuitous per diems and allowances for non-existent hotel stays to end
No more extra days off - No more Xmas shopping days for civil servants
Benefit In Kind to be charged at market rates for parking in Dublin, education and canteen facilities
No more junior ministers. The Taniste to be a sitting cabinet member with other ministerial responsibility
Ministerial transport to be subject to benefit in kind if provided on a dailiy basis
The introduction of a defined contribution pension scheme for all public servants and the closure of the current defined benefit scheme to new entrants.
No use of government facilities by politicians for political purposes. No more pre-paid envelopes for political spam
No more use of Aer Corps transportation for matters that do not involve national security

Yet More Government Waste...

2009-03-02T22:06:00.003Z

The country's in dire financial straits. We'll have 400,000 unemployed soon. We've had an entire generation grow up who didn't expect to emigrate and and unlike the 80's there's nowhere for people to emigrate to any more. Given that the government has totally failed to act decisively up to now they must be planning some big radical move involving drastic expenditure cuts right? They must be pulling out all the stops, burning the midnight oil etc, etc? Evidence of this frenetic activity can be kept secret no longer:

Minister escapes injury as door falls off helicopter
Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen was fortunate to avoid serious injury this afternoon when the door of a helicopter in which he was travelling came off 500 feet over Killarney National Park.

The Air Corps helicopter was bringing the minister and one of his officials back to Dublin from an Irish Hotels Federation conference in Co Kerry when it was forced to make an emergency landing at a helicopter pad at Killarney Golf & Fishing Club.
It had been in the air for less than three minutes when the main door on the left hand side came loose and fell to the ground.

Martin Cullen, the minister for "Arts, Sport and Tourism" was clearly in fact on some secret mission to rescue the nations finances when some enemy of Ireland attempted to down his helicopter. After all, the alternative explanation that he's gallivanting around the countryside at a couple of thousand of euros an hour while the economy shrinks by the minute is clearly implausible....

On a practical note it's not the end of the world when a door of a plane or helicopter opens in flight (it's happened to me!) and the single biggest risk is that it will distract the pilot. Regretably it's clear that neither the Aer Corps nor Mr Cullen got the message that God wanted him to save taxpayers money:

Another helicopter was diverted from Cork to bring the minister back to Dublin this evening.

So now we're up to at least twice as many Euros as before.

The aircraft, an AW 139, will remain grounded until technicians from Air Corps HQ at Baldonnel examine it on the ground.

Please don't tell me they'll fly them down in a third helicoptor....

Newton Emerson outrages the IT's readership...

2009-03-02T21:49:00.004Z

Newton Emerson's did a tongue in cheek article on how working women are responsible for the credit crunch. The article itself was one of his weaker ones and the responses from outraged IT readers were to be honest more entertaining, but maybe that's what he had in mind all along. A typical response was Dr Julie Mullaney's:

Literary history tells us that satire is often a poor mask for the expression of populist prejudice, fuelling bigotry and discrimination, especially at times of social tension and unease. Such “satire” has real social effects – in this case promoting the denigration of Irish women, whose battle to take their rightful place in work has been hard fought.

Yep, that's right! Newton Emerson is Ian Paisley in disguise!

But she ends with a totally untrue statement:

Racist hate speech wouldn’t be tolerated in The Irish Times , so why is it OK to retreat into silly, sad sexism? – Yours, etc,

Actually it is. You can say pretty much anything you want about Jews or Americans without fear of criticism. This is what I sent to Madam Editor, without fear of publication:

Madam,

Dr Julie Mullaney is wrong to say that racist hate speech wouldn't be tolerated in the irish Times. On January 19th this year you published a virulantly anti-American Opinion piece by Finan O'Toole which includes such statements as "Bush and his neoconservative ideologues didn’t invent the barbarism long intertwined with US civilisation". You wouldn't normally allow any national, social or gender group to be described as 'barbaric' but apparently American citizens are treated on a 'seperate but equal' basis by your newspaper.

If only optimism was worth money....

2009-02-22T22:25:00.005Z

You have to admire the Independent's sense of humour. Every now and then the publish articles that are unintentionally hilarious.

Paddy Stronge, who might just have connections with the banking industry, was unleashed on the unsuspecting readers this weekend with the balanced headline:

Our economic 'big freeze' is already starting to thaw

It's line after line of hillarity:

We should realise, however, that we are actually very close to the bottom already, and then things will start to improve. Significant government investment, falling mortgage rates, bank recapitalisations, and a stabilising of house prices, all mean that the big freeze may actually soon begin to thaw.

Really? And there was I thinking the economy was in an uncontrolled graveyard spiral while our leaders dithered. But what does he base this optimism on?

Firstly, the Government is planning to borrow €18bn this year and pump it in to our economy. That is an investment of €4,500 for every person in Ireland. Much of this money has been allocated to improving school buildings and roads, so more people will be employed. Businesses will benefit from higher sales as those working on Government projects are tempted to spend.

The government is actually planning on borrowing 18 billion to fill a huge hole in tax revenues equivalent to around 20% of the budget. Yes, we're spending on existing capital projects but only because we've already signed the contracts. And as for 'tempted to spend'? The last builder I dealt with kept running out of credit for his prepaid phone.....

For the ailing property market, there is also a break in the clouds. According to recent reports, the decline in the asking price for houses in Dalkey, Dublin, is of the order of 40 per cent and real bargains are now available.
Many are beginning to realise that now is the time to plunge into purchases, while house prices and interest rates are at such low levels.

A 'real bargain'? In Dalkey? Given that the historical average house price is 3-4 times income 'real' prices in Dublin would be around €170,000. In Dalkey even now you'd be lucky to get anything for ten times that....

It's at this point we really start to wander off into fantasy land:

Ulster Bank recently announced a scheme where builders will pay up to 15 per cent off new mortgages if house prices are up to 15 per cent lower in five years. Under this arrangement, the purchaser of the property is protected from downward price movements, so the fear of overpaying is eliminated.

The builders will pay you if the price goes down. Ah! right. I can see that working. And will Ulster Bank guarantee that the builder will pay? No, didn't think so....

The stabilising house market will encourage builders to build again to meet demand. They will need employees, and so, the increase in those joining the unemployed should begin to slow down.
Once the building industry shows signs of life, there will be an improving, albeit slight, trend in government finances too.

"stabilising house market"? 1 in 6 houses were built in the last 6 years. One in six houses is vacant - allowing for holiday homes. So 'demand' to build new houses as opposed to shift the current inventory is a long way off, especically as the banks will sooner or later have to unload them for whatever they can get. And we're still clinging to this notion that construction drives the Irish economy.

Good news should also be around the corner for share investors. The recapitalisation of the banks involves the funding of preference share issues and not the issue of new ordinary shares

...which is actually catatophic for the taxpayers. How are the government going to explain to the electorate that we've given what is it 7 billion to the banks in exchange for non voting equity and have no practical power over the banks? And that nobody only planet earth except us was stupid enough to want preference shares in an Irish bank? You do realize they now play "Road To Nowhere" in the lifts at B of I? Actually the lifts may now be silent - Muzak corporation has gone bankrupt.

At some stage, the markets will realise that this course of action will support improving bank share values. Share investors should start to see the beginnings of an upward movement taking place in bank shares. Confidence will then begin to return to the financial markets.

Anybody who invests in bank shares for any reason other than they wanted to gamble wildly and couldn't be arsed to go to Vegas deserves to lose every penny. Sorry.

Dublin Bus: Get people out of their cars? We compete against the Luas!

2009-02-03T21:40:00.005Z

More Lunacy from Semi State bodies. This time John Lynch, the man in charge of Dublin's bus service, explains why having increased bus services in the past few years in line with the government's stated goal of encouraging public transport over private motor cars they are now cutting services:

These increases were delivered in a more competitive environment, including the introduction of Luas (tram) services, and the growth in private bus operators, and reflect the success of, amongst others, quality bus corridor development, enhanced commuter services in our cities and regions, and the improved quality of our fleet.

However, the economics of public transport are simple – if there are fewer people working, if there are fewer people shopping, if there are fewer people socialising and making discretionary journeys, there is less demand for public transport.

The key phrase, in case you missed it, is "a more competitive environment, including the introduction of Luas services, and the growth in private bus operators". Even though public transport is a classic example of a network effect and the Luas is in fact good for bus services Mr. Lynch appears to think that other providers are the competition he needs to worry about. And there was I thinking that his government mandated role was to compete against the automobile. Surely now, with many families realizing that they can no longer afford several thousand a year to own and operate two cars this is the time to be pushing the benefits of affordable public transport?

And don't think Dublin Bus is a customer focused organization either. For readers who aren't from Dublin and haven't alreadty encountered this Kafkaesque piece of customer service this is the procedure for getting change back when you get a bus ticket:

Q. How do I collect my change?
A. If you pay more than the exact fare on any bus, the driver will issue you with a refund ticket for the overpayment. This passenger refund ticket, together with your travel ticket, must be presented to Dublin Bus headquarters (59 Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin 1, Ireland) in order to claim refund for the overpayment. Note that we cannot refund without both tickets being presented.

The primary purpose of most semi state bodies in Ireland is self-perpetuation with occasional outbursts of empire building, and if the taxpayers somehow see a benefit then good for them.

A great of example of this is that until the music stopped a couple of months ago Irish Rail was promoting a truly lunatic scheme to build an underground railway between the capital's two main train stations. Which is a great idea if you ignore the fact that such a tunnel already exists....

Desperate Times In Dublin...

2009-01-26T21:58:00.003Z

The Indo, having spent several years acting as a cheerleader for the property industry has now lurched to the opposite extreme and is promoting desperate schemes to restore national prosperity:

ADVICE on how to beat the recession has come from the unlikeliest of places.
The Naked Cowboy, now world famous for playing his guitar in Times Square wearing nothing but his hat, boots and underwear, has jetted in to offer the despondent Irish public advice on how to beat the credit crunch.

While I don't doubt Mr. Burck's entrepreneurial skills I have two major reservations about all this.

Firstly I have to wonder whether naked cowboy busking is what the business school guys call a 'Scalable Business Model' - If all of New York can support one naked singing cowboy could one scratch a living in Ireland? Could we replace the jobs Microsoft provide with people doing this?

The second problem is that the Irish have already gone beyond Mr. Burck's old fashioned play-songs-and-make-money-while-looking-silly business and moved into the high concept and very Celtic Tiger area of Human Statues, in which people stand in Grafton Street and expect to get paid for doing nothing...

Not So Stupid After All...

2009-01-22T19:01:00.003Z

Imagine, for a moment that you are in a charge of a large public financial institution. Nice isn't it? Corner office, flash car, all the perks and benefits that go with being a "Titan Of Business".

But there's a problem. A fairly serious one. Actually a very serious one. And this problem has friends. And you know that when all your problems come out into the public eye things may get a bit .. legal. Not circuit court legal. We're talking about not having to worry about being housed and fed for a few years because the Minister Of Justice will be looking after that side of your life.

So what do you do? Obviously you hire really good lawyers. But then what? You could become a fugitive but that involves running away and leaving all your nice toys behind.

You could try being a visibly nice guy - visiting orphanages, hugging kittens, that sort of thing. But it's very unlikely to work.

Or you could go on national radio and do an interview in which you announce that Child Benefit and Pensions be means tested, along with pretty much every other program the government has for the less-than-very-rich. Of course doing this will make everyone, and I mean everyone, hate you.

But it will also make it really hard to find an unbiased Jury who are smart enough to understand the kind of financial shenanigans you were involved in...

Maybe that interview wasn't such a dumb thing to do after all...

Passing the Fintan O'Toole Morality Test...

2009-01-19T16:38:00.002Z

In today's Irish Times Fintan O'Toole argues that George W. Bush isn't the worst president in history because all US presidents are bad and the US is an irredeemably bad society. You really have to wonder about Fintan - does he really believe this stuff? If so there's clearly hope for us all as apparently having an arm's length relationship with reality doesn't prevent you from holding down a job at the IT. I penned the letter below but then decided to put it in my Blog instead...

Madam,

Fintan O'Toole argues that the historical treatment of
Native Americans by the United States was an act of
evil that permanently disqualifies the United States
from any sort of moral leadership. But if we are to
follow his reasoning who can assert such leadership?
Britain, France, Belgium and other former colonial
powers are obviously disqualified. Russia isn't going
to pass the test. Let's not even mention Germany. Or
Austria. Sweden might be peaceful and fun loving now
but applying the O'Toole test we have to count them
out due to a long track record of military adventurism
in neighboring countries. And while we're on
Scandinavia what about those vikings? That means we
can rule out Denmark, Norway and Iceland as well. We
have to pass on Central and South America due to all
those nasty Juntas, which involved the locals
oppressing each other, albeit with outside assistance.
Since South American generals kept their money in
Switzerland we 're going to have to make them
ineligible as well. Wait! The Canadians! No, they club
baby seals to death. How about Africa? Granted the
invention of the Kalashnikov and the demented national
boundaries dreamed up by imperial mapmakers haven't
helped but the place wasn't exactly a garden of eden
before the Europeans showed up, as the slavers could
rely on the Africans to catch other Africans for them.
What about China? No, the Dali Lama just objected.
Wait! Nepal! No, they have some weird stuff with
Maoists and a Royal family. We're going to have to
pass on Japan - all that 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' stuff.
Maybe somewhere in the Middle East? No.  Drew a blank
there. How about the Pacific Islanders? No - 'Not
Being Eaten' may not be an enunciated civil right but
they used to do it and it's probably covered by the UN
somewhere.

Coming back home Ireland doesn't count, because the
Irish spent several hundred years providing the
manpower to expand the British Empire before they got
down to the real business of fighting each other. De
Valera's signing of the condolences book when Hitler
died doesn't really help either.

The bottom line is that no nation passes the "Fintan 
O'Toole Moral Superiority Test" - and if we find one 
that does it's only because they haven't been given 
the opportunity to fail it yet.

A Scene Worthy Of Father Ted

2008-06-24T08:36:00.005+01:00

From Yesterday's Irish Times:

First unmanned service station opens
The State’s first card-operated service station for the public has opened on the Aran Islands.
The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív officially unveiled the facility on Inis Mór, which has one tank earmarked for biofuels.

It is the latest landmark initiative to be rolled out on the off-shore islands after last March’s launch of an electric bus.

Mr Ó Cuív also turned the sod on the island’s €40 million new port project, the single biggest investment in the islands in the country’s history.

“We are all aware of the challenges posed by climate change, and the need to find more sustainable energy sources and practices,” said Mr Ó Cuív.

“My Department has been working closely with Sustainable Energy Ireland over the past year and Terms of Reference have been drafted for a major energy needs survey of the islands, using the Aran Islands as a pilot, aimed eventually at developing strategies that will reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

“The station provides the islanders with diesel at present and I believe that one tank has been earmarked for biofuels, for when they become commercially viable on the island.”

The station will be unmanned and members of the public will be able to refuel and pay at pumps using special cards, details of which have yet to be revealed.

It's hard to find words for the stupidity of all this:

There's nothing even remotely exciting about the concept of an unmanned gas station. From my own personal experience both the US and Switzerland have pumps that are credit card operated.
Biofuels went from being 'the next big thing' to 'bad news' in the space of a couple of months when the implications of growing fuel instead of food became apparent.
But that's OK, because the station doesn't actually have any Biofuels...
..and if it did it couldn't sell them because the inventor of this scheme hasn't got round to doing the 'special cards' and clearly hasn't heard of Visa or Mastercard.

So what actually happened was the Minister traveled to the Aran Islands to bless a tank of Diesel that nobody can buy...

Why are the media ignoring the lack of a plan 'B'?

2008-06-19T21:22:00.003+01:00

It's nearly a week after the referendum and it's taken until now for someone, somewhere to state the blindingly obvious - A 'No' vote was always a possible outcome and for the political classes to say they didn't anticipate it is just unacceptable.

I sent a letter to the IT on this but they didn't publish - presumably because watching the pro- and anti- sides beat each other up is much more fun than pointing out that the nations entire political and media elite failed to see this coming....

Madam,

If Mr. Cowen really doesn't know what to do in the face of this entirely predictable crisis he might want to reconsider his career as a political leader. His public pronouncement that he has no idea has made the situation much, much worse by handing the political initiative to a freak show of nineteenth century nationalists, single issue obsessives and other unelectables. If this is the quality of leadership we can expect in the face of a predictable event what can we expect when faced with a real crisis such as a flu pandemic?

'Local Needs' Planning: Irish Government Prepares To Defend The Indefensible...

2007-10-16T12:58:00.000+01:00

One of the basic premises of the EU is the freedom of movement for capital and people - EU members can't deny people from EU countries the right to buy property or live anywhere they want in any member state.

But this being Ireland various local agencies have designed regulations that favor 'locals' over 'outsiders' when it comes to securing planning permission for property developments or even in some cases being able to buy property in one of the few remaining 'Irish Speaking' areas of the country. According to the Irish Times:

State defends 'local needs' planning rules to avert EU action
Jamie Smyth in Brussels

Charlie McCreevy: Irish language rule "discriminatory"
Photograph: The Irish Times

The Government has told the EU that local planning regulations based on criteria such as a person's bloodline or ability to speak Irish are "well balanced and proportionate".

It has also argued that such "local needs" restrictions, which exist in 23 county development plans in the Republic, are necessary to maintain the rural fabric of society, achieve balanced regional development and reverse rural population decline.

This robust defence of local planning regulations is contained in a Government dossier sent to the European Commission this month in an attempt to stave off EU legal action. The dossier, which has been seen by The Irish Times , also highlights Ireland's "dynamic property market" as a reason why the restrictions do not breach rules that guarantee the freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital.

About half of the State's local authorities include "local needs" restrictions in their development plans. The move restricts planning permission and sometimes ownership of homes to those who can demonstrate a local need - either that they are working in the area or already live in the area in a home which is not their own.#
...

From an EU perspective current Irish planning regulations are indefensible. If they allow Ireland to get away with them they'll undermine the entire premise on which the EU is based, as well as opening the floodgates to rather more blatent racism elsewhere in Europe. After all, if the Irish rules are legal what's to stop French property developers only selling to French citizens who can prove family residency before France left Algeria, Germans not selling to Turks or even an Irish developer marketing a block of flats in London as 'Irish Only'?

Presumably the government knows this. So why are they wasting taxpayers money trying to defend this when they should be passing legislation to outlaw the practice? Blatant political cowardice perhaps?

Ireland's contribution to racism in the US...

2007-10-07T23:02:00.001+01:00

One thing which never ceases to annoy me is the holier-than-thou attitude the Irish media has to all things American. This Saturday the Irish Times let Kevin Stevens write an Irishman's Diary (subscription required) article on the awfulness of American Racism. The first seven-eighths of the article reads like a Wikipedia entry on the dire predicament of African Americans prior to the civil rights movements. But rather than mention civil rights and the radical realignments of race relations that continues to this day Stevens jumps straight into a description of racially segregated neighborhoods:

As William Faulkner so acutely observed, the South suffered from a pathology of racism that left an indelible stain on its culture. But state-sponsored racism was not confined to the southern states. De jure segregation was in effect throughout the US not long before the tumultuous years of the 1950s. African-Americans were barred from many federal government jobs until the second World War. A California law, still in force in the 1940s, authorised the segregation in public schools of children of Japanese, Chinese and South-east Asian ancestry. And the American armed forces remained segregated until 1948.

Moreover, de facto segregation in the US continues to be a problem into the 21st century. Housing patterns, economic factors and "white flight" from urban areas have created segregated neighbourhoods and, consequently, segregated schools. And though poverty is now the critical factor, poverty and race are intertwined. Poor school districts, predominantly black and Hispanic, have poorer schools - which are still segregated, still separate, and still unequal.

And there the article ends. No kidding. Let's not mention civil rights. Let's not mention MLK. Let's not mention anything about the changes that have happened since the 60's. And since Mr. Stevens has apparently been hiding under a rock for the last two years let's not mention anything about the Duke University Lacrosse Team saga, which shows that Race Relations in the US is no longer the black and white matter (sorry!) he thinks it is.

This is a classic example of the Anti-American bias shown by the Irish Media, who are remarkably short sighted when it comes to racism. Do you know why the Irish don't have an open problem with Racism? The real reason, not the nonsense about us being the land of a hundred thousand welcomes? I'll tell you why:

Ireland doesn't have a problem with Racism because we haven't got round to it yet. The people on this miserable rain swept rock have only just finished sweating the last drops of innocent victim's blood out of the medieval intra-Christian religious hatred that's been the driving dynamic here since the time of Henry VIII. The Irish have been much too busy fighting each other to fight the immigrants, who weren't a factor until about three years ago in any case.

Real racism is alive and well today in Ireland. There are now at least two locations in Ireland where planning laws openly discriminate against outsiders on the basis of language or being related to one of the people who live there already. More importantly, nobody seems to find it strange or odd. But what really takes the biscuit and drives me to write this entry was a puff piece in today's Irish Independent. I've highlighted the interesting bit:

Irish investors get first pick in Chicago

Sunday October 07 2007
The best émigré story for some years must be that of Sean Conlon, the Chicago property developer who left Kildare some years ago to find fame and fortune in the windy city and did precisely that.

In fact he is now one of the the largest property developers in the Chicago region. It's all quite depressing for types like me, who are still celebrating the fact that we managed to get to university. While we were busy discussing critical theory and Marx, Mr Conlon and others were a little busier making money. I'm not bitter. Honest.
Well, here comes an money-making opportunity for the cerebral types out there -- those who know too much about Finnegan's Wake and not enough about overseas investment. Castlroc Estates, an Irish overseas company, is offering those of us who missed the property boat a chance to jump on board with PURE2o in uptown Chicago.
First the prices. With one- beds up to 95sqm (1,020sq ft) going from €160,000, this investment is likely to appeal across the board. There is a deposit of only 5pc to be putdown on the signing of the contract and with a two and a half years build time, completion is expected mid 2010.
Here's the bit I like. The project is not being released in the US until January 2008, so the Irish at home have the pick of units. You may think that's not so important now but you try renting an apartment that is 100 feet underground with no windows -- you know what I mean at the back of the class.

Once PURE2o is launched in January you can expect a price increase almost immediately and when you calculate where this development is in Chicago this will come as little surprise. The view from the units of the lake and park is spectacular and the developments are just a street off Lakeshore drive itself.

Let me get this straight. On Saturday I read yet another lecture on how racist the Americans are. On Sunday I see a full page puff piece on how an Irish property developer is building an development in Chicago which American Citizens (be they white, black or polka-dotted) can't buy on the same terms as Irish people and will end up paying more for apartments that are "100 feet underground".

Do the good citizens of Chicago know about this apparently racist business plan? I suspect not. Because if they did at least one Irishman would be rapidly developing an intricate knowledge of just how seriously the Yanks take racism......

Irish Property Prices and the Dot Com Bubble...

2007-07-13T07:06:00.000+01:00

From the Irish Independent, 9-Jul-07:

WARNINGS about the dangers of over-borrowing are nothing new. This newspaper has for several years been among the many voices calling for restraint and prudence. But the risks have become greater with the inexorable increases in interest rates and the change in the medium-term prospect of the economy to a lower level of growth.

It is necessary to emphasise that the forecasts are still optimistic and there is no need for alarm. Although we have to accept that the dazzling Celtic Tigers years have ended, we remain on course for the famous 'soft landing'.

'Restraint'? 'Prudence?' Are they smoking something? For years the Indo has been a cheerleader for the property industry, with the Irish Times not far behind. But then when you see the pages of industry paid Property Porn that both of them churn out each week it's hardly surprising that they have been tiptoeing around the very real prospect of a housing crash and accompanying massive negative equity that now faces the country, when they could avoid upsetting their readers by running more uncritical stories about novice Irish investors buying apartments in China. For the past few years every time someone such as the Economist or OECD produced a report warning that the Irish market was no longer connected to economic fundamentals they were poo-pood by the press and 'experts' from the property industry were called in to explain why 'things are different' in Ireland, the 'fundamentals are strong', etc etc.

All this reminds me of the mood in the days just before the dot com crash in San Francisco- Everyone was convinced The Rules' had changed:

The laws of economics just aren't relevant to us. We're different. And even if it does calm down a bit it won't turn into a slump.....

Even after the crash had started in San Francisco people who were right at ground zero simply didn't understand what was going on, as they had never seen an economic downturn before and either didn't know or (more likely) didn't want to accept what was happening. But then if you were a 23 year old wunderkind (no, not me!) on his second job outside college who was earning US$110K/Year you wouldn't want to either. At the time I was working for Organic Online, a boutique e commerce web site builder whose managers had spent 6 months picking out carpets and Aeron chairs for their prestigious HQ in the Baker Hamilton building when they should have been finding new business and preparing contingency plans for a downturn. Organic was run by Jonathon Nelson. Jonathon's Bio has this to say about the dot-com crash:

In 1999, at age 33, Jonathan took two companies public in less than a year: Accrue Software, Inc., a web measurement and analysis company that he founded in 1995, and Organic. Later, he guided Organic through its subsequent re-privatization.

'subsequent re-privatization'? What actually happened was that the company went from a capitalization of over a billion US$ to pretty much zero and vanished through the cracks in the floor of the stock exchange. When Organic had gone public Jonathon started showing up at the office in a stretch limo. By the time the stock price had halved from the flotation price it was a Lincoln town car and the day I decided to get the hell out of dodge he was showing up in a taxi (seriously). But even after we'd had three all hands meeting's in a row where the only good news was that we had x million remaining in the bank and two rounds of 25% layoffs people were still volunteering to be laid off because they 'needed a vacation and I can easily pick up a new job when I come back'.

Much of the same irrational enthusiasm has been present in Ireland ever since I moved back. I've spent the last 4 years hearing the exact same phrases uttered and have encountered the same blind faith that the future could hold no darkness. People have been paying prices that are completely out of touch with market fundamentals. I used to live in Walnut Creek, outside San Francisco. Property prices were high but then you were living in a region which if it had suddenly become independent would have become the 9th largest economy in the world. Serious wealth was being generated, even after the bubble, which to some extent justified the high property prices. Ireland simply isn't in the same league as the Bay Area. While there are a lot of multinationals around a lot of their operations exist because of tolerance of Ireland's favorable tax laws by GAAP and the US Internal Revenue Service. Were a radical tax shakeup to take place in the US or an isolationist 'America First' president to be elected the Irish economy could find multinationals shutting up shop overnight.

Ireland also has other peculiar factors that have allowed the run up in property prices to continue far longer than anyone thought possible -

A Cultural obsession with property ownership. This dates back to the Penal Laws which prevented the Roman Catholic majority from owning valuable property and the famine, which created an unwritten rule that you couldn't get married and start a family if you didn't own enough land to feed your wife and kids.
An expectation that the 'Average Joe' should be able to buy their own home.
A lack of manufacturing/engineering tradition. Because he Irish Republic never had much in the way of industry it's almost unheard of for someone who comes into money to invest it in anything other than property.
A history of economic underdevelopment. Ireland started off near the bottom of the European League. A period of economic growth was to be expected, and as a result the elite and media have been able to use the 'we're catching up' excuse instead of asking hard questions about sustainability.
No consumer credit system by US standards. As a result consumers may or may not be horribly over extended when it comes to debt. Nobody knows for sure - not even the people who lent them the money.
A government with an economic interest in high property prices. Up to 30% of the sale price of a house goes in tax.
No property ownership taxes. Which means that people have no incentive to size their house according to their needs and instead go for the biggest mansion they can afford.
An insistence on rearing ones family in a house with a garden as opposed to a large apartment. The vast majority of apartments are 1 and two bedroom. It's unusual for anyone with two or more kids to live in an apartment. But houses with gardens take up a hell of a lot more space, which means commutes get longer and it's harder to provide services.
A nation with a very poor track record of managing large infrastructure projects. We can't even organize a Barbra Streisand concert, let alone the construction of a couple of hundred thousand houses.

A pessimist would say that we've created a 'Perfect Storm' and that all hell is about to break loose. In fact David McWilliams has been warning of this for years, which I suspect has led to a drastic reduction in the number of dinner parties he gets invited to...

Conjuring Content Out Of Thin Air...

2007-07-09T22:16:00.001+01:00

You'd have thought that the problem with running a newspaper would be coming up with good, original and factual content for it. Apparently it's not something they struggle with over at at the Irish Independent where a complete absence of newsworthy information can be turned into several column inches provided the author doesn't actually speak to anyone who has the slightest clue what they are talking about and chooses to ignore the one source he does go to. This story appeared in last Sunday's indo:

THE Irish Aviation Authority calls them "go arounds". But there was nothing merry about flight EI 481 when it aborted its approach to Dublin airport last Wednesday. The wheels were down, we had crossed Dublin Bay and I was watching traffic on the M50 as we prepared to land.
Then a mighty roar came from the engines and the aircraft's nose went up. Its wheels slammed shut as we flew faster and faster, banking right and disappearing back into cloud. Passengers fell silent. The first thought that crossed my mind was that it was a near miss - and I just hoped hard that there was no light aircraft or flock of birds in our exit path.
Then the pilot announced what had actually happened. A jet had been slow to clear the runway on which he was due to land.
The episode was "absolutely routine", according to the Irish Aviation Authority. Its spokeswoman thought that such evasive actions are required at Dublin about once a week but said that the IAA keeps no statistics on the total number of them. She said that both pilots and air traffic controllers are trained for them.
However, it later emerged that there were at least four such 'go arounds' at Dublin Airport in the past week alone. The IAA appeared to have no record of one of them.
Last Monday, said the IAA, a Ryanair flight had aborted its landing (sorry, 'gone around') when another aircraft that was lined up for take off developed a sudden fuel leak and was unable to depart. That same night, as Aer Lingus but not the IAA told me, its flight from Amsterdam (EI 609) 'went around' because of severe weather.
Last Wednesday, there were two 'go-arounds'. According to the IAA, an Aer Lingus pilot on flight EI 169 himself requested a 'go-around', because of the effect of wind on his approach, about two hours after the third Aer Lingus episode that has been described above.
Last Friday, Aer Lingus HQ was unaware of either of these 'go-arounds' on Wednesday.
Within a few minutes of its aborted landing, last Wednesday' flight EI 481 from Lisbon had circled over the sea and was down safely at Dublin Airport. While such episodes might be 'routine' they appear to occur more often than either the Irish Aviation Authority or airlines realise.

Source: Irish Independent, 7-Jul-07

Gosh, what a scoop! The problem is that go arounds are about as exciting as having to make multiple attempts to get into a parking space. There is no story here. None whatsoever. Now if he'd found out that there hadn't been a single 'Go Around' for weeks you'd have a major story, as safety would clearly have been compromised by people who were unwilling to exercise sound professional judgment.

Now, if the author had asked a pilot - you know, those guys with hats and small suitcases that wander around the airport - or even tried Google or Wikipedia this would have become blindingly obvious:

A go-around does not in itself constitute any sort of emergency (although it may on rare occasions be in response to an emergency). A properly executed go-around is a routine, safe and well-practiced maneuver.

But then where would his story be? The same level of diligence and fact checking was also applied to a story about last weeks Cessna Caravan Crash:

The 59-year-old pilot had in the past worked with CityJet and had flown more than 8,000 miles. He was very familiar with the Cessna.

8,000 miles? Anyone who knows anything about aviation can tell you that pilot experience is measured in hours, not miles. 8,000 hours is very experienced indeed. 8,000 miles is roughly how much ground you'd cover as a student, although it wouldn't be in a straight line. Instead if you were doing it in Ireland it would probably be spent going around in circles over Lucan. While spending 3 Euros a minute.

I know - I'm being totally unreasonable by expecting newspapers to actually provide news instead of endless fluff pieces about some woman called Katy French.

Vincent Browne and the Suicide Bombers...

2007-07-05T07:21:00.000+01:00

Vincent Browne is an Irish newspaper columnist whose act appears to consist of figuring out which way public sentiment is going and then inventing an opinion that goes against it. It's a respectable way to make a living but every now and then he comes across as a complete eejit:

The clamour over the three "terrorist" incidents in Britain over the last few days speaks of manipulated hysteria, Islamophobia and a collective myopia over real dangers and disasters. Nobody has been killed. Minimal damage to property has been caused. A clear inference from these acts is that those responsible are amateurs, unlikely to pose a substantial threat.

Source: Irish Times, 4-Jul-07

Of course they were amateurs - professional suicide bombers are hard to come by, especially if you are looking for someone who's competent....

The Irish Restricting Air Travel To Curb Global Warming - A Case Of Leprechauns Voting For Xmas?

2007-07-04T22:39:00.001+01:00

Recently it's become fashionable to point the finger at air travel as a cause of global warming. Apparently the proportion of CO2 pumped into the atomosphere by airplanes is a bigger problem than the fact that everyone in China and India wants to own a car. People get very excited about this and it's not unusual to see sentiments such as this being expressed in the letters page of worthy newspapers such as the Irish Times:

When will we and our governments take climate change seriously? If the growth in aviation is left unchecked the increased emissions in the skies above will cancel out any reductions made on the ground. If we are to have any chance of saving the biosphere we need to reduce and impose limits on our activities. That includes weekend shopping trips to New York. - Yours, etc, BRIAN DILLON, Ballyline, Callan, Co Kilkenny.Source: IT, 28-Mar-07

There's a big, big problem with this line of reasoning.

If we are to restrict out citizens from traveling abroad in the name of environmental preservation then we also have to accept that the same constraints should be applied to inward tourism as well. Any other course of action is quite simply daft. The logical conclusion to such reasoning is:

The Prevention Of Tourism Act 2011

Main Points:

All tourism banned. Business travelers to be vetted by the immigration authorities and moved around in windowless vans.
The state tourism agency Failte Ireland to be banned. Membership to be a criminal offence and the leadership to be rounded up and charged with 'Directing Tourism'.
The Ardagh Chalice reburied in a secret location
The Book of Kells to be sold on Ebay.
Huge signs with such messages as "Keep Moving" and "Have You No Homes To Go To?" to be erected on the nation's coastline.
Unemployed people to be paid to discourage interest in landmarks and major public buildings (see photo).

Obviously this isn't going to work. While the complete destruction of the Irish tourist industry would be both entertaining to watch and would ensure that neither I nor any of my descendants have to put up with the two week physical and financial survival course that goes by the name of 'Irish Holiday' I just can't see it happening. More's the pity. The last time I went on a 'Holiday' in this country I found that my 'Relaxing Shannon Boat' trip involved battling 2 metre high waves in a 10 metre long boat during weather that was like something out of a frozen fish commercial.

(enters rant mode)

And that was a considerable improvement on the previous boating adventure which involved me discovering that while Aran Sweaters are both aesthetically appealing and warm they instantly become incredibly heavy if they somehow manage to get wet, say if you fall into water. Why is that the Fishermen wear the damn things? Not that I'm speaking from experience. I never fell into the Portuma Harbor while wearing one. And I defiantly didn't almost get run over by my so-called 'friends' when they decided that the best way to 'help' me was to reverse the boat, which meant that the propeller would be the first part of it to reach me......

(leaves rant mode)

On a serious note: The entire Irish economy is critically dependent on the ability to get to and from Ireland cheaply and reliably. Restricting Air Travel will become an electoral 'Third Rail'' issue once people actually figure out the implications.

Why I'm tired of writing to the 'Irish Times'.

2007-07-04T14:58:00.000+01:00

Those of you who read the Irish Times would probably recognize my name from the letters page. Over the past decade or so I've had about 20 or so letters published, which puts me in the same league as Tony Allwright, another frequent scribe.

But over time certain patterns have become clear:

The IT doesn't have much of a sense of humor. In particular humor directed at causes they hold dear or which violates the norms of political correctness doesn't get far.

They appear to have pigeonholed me as some sort of neo-conservative right-wing loony who is a allowed a look-in whenever things are a bit quiet. I am openly very right wing by Irish standards (or rather the standards of the Dublin 4 elite who run the media) but that doesn't make me a neo-conservative.

In order to get a letter published it has to be short. All good writing should have a strong signal-to-noise ratio but in practice the space restrictions constrain my ability to advance an argument to a couple of sentences.

They rarely print my responses to people's responses to my letters (got that?).

They have a built in bias in favor of such dubious causes as the so-called Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who get a slightly different version of the same letter published every second week.

As a result I've decided to devote my energies to this blog for a while.

Since I have a rich vein of unpublished letters to mine as source material expect a series of articles on subjects which are no longer current.