FI Fie Foe Fum

And it's Goodnight from him

2006-04-06T00:44:00.000+01:00

Two of my esteemed co-bloggers recently waved adieu to the hobby that has been FI Fie Foe Fum, and now this particular scribbler does so as well.

The apparent demise of the Freedom "Institute" blog has robbed us of our principal raison d'etre, even though the chief culprit is still active in regurgitating grade-A wingnuttery. But the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel eventually grows tiresome, and the recent chilling of the tolerance of dissent in the Bog O'Sphere has sent out waves which washed up on even this little corner of the Irish blogging world.

To all our readers and commenters, a fond farewell. We hope we've ruined at least a few keyboards.

Carry On, Sergeant

2006-04-06T00:28:00.000+01:00

Sicilian Notes, on word reaching the UCD Politics Department of Irish involvement in guarding the trial of Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone:

"Our soldiers have been doing an excellent job ensuring the security of recent proceedings to bring Charles Taylor to justice. The coverage this has received in Ireland has been minimal. This is deeply unfortunate, firstly as they are doing an important and potentially dangerous job, and secondly as the profile and public awareness of the Irish Defence Forces is unacceptably low as it is.

Several Irish Times articles on the subject made no mention of the contribution of Irish troops (1, 2, 3) while the Department of Defence homepage doesn't even mention the news.

Public support for our defence forces is a long-standing problem, as I wrote here."

As has been dwelt on by FI Fie in the past, there's nothing so dangerous to aspiring public commentators as a little knowledge; a caution which goes double for ideologues fancying themselves armchair generals. The Irish military contribution to the Special Court Sierra Leone (SCSL) is relatively unremarkable as it actually arises from a tasking of the Irish 92 Inf Bn. with UNMIL in neighbouring Liberia (itself the subject of excellent coverage in the Irish media generally).

So far the Sierra Leone role is limited, being restricted to helping guard the SCSL and to rehearsing emergency evacuation of SCSL staff [1]. Yet it has indeed been covered, for those who were paying attention. So much for the RW denunciation for the day (an event more regular than the Angelus).

There is a debate here of considerable worth - but it's on the question of how UN missions frequently come to end up understrength (and with mostly inferior, non-First World troops), making the best of insufficient resources contributed by the West.

Having said all that, we must commend Mr. Waghorne on his lobbying efforts, both on behalf of the unrecognised good work which makes up everyday UN operations and on that of public servants (an unfairly-maligned element of the Irish workforce at the best of times). And we very much look forward to Richard reprising his Berlin activities in two weeks' time, waving his little tricolour to Support The Troops as they parade to commemorate the origins of the Irish Army (and indeed this State) in the events of Easter 1916.

[1] "Operation Green Horizon", An Cosantóir, March 2006

That's All, Folks!

2006-03-25T01:42:00.000Z

Hello all

A regular reader of my postings here on FI Fie, if such a warped beast could be summoned from the imagination, may have noticed that my posts in recent times have shared a certain tone. It is one of weariness- a weariness born of boredom.

You see, I'm not sure that FI Fie has a purpose any more. I originally set it up in a fit of pique at the regular erasure of reasonable dissenting comment on the Freedom Institute's blog's postings regarding the shooting dead of Jean Charles de Menezes. If you visit the Freedom Institute now, it is a husk of its former self. It certainly doesn't seem to me to be worth reading, let alone disputing.

Its inhabitants have moved on- some to writing in fringe outlets in the media, others to the start of their exciting new lives as people with jobs. And I think its time for this gnat to move on from FI Fie Foe Fum in response. My fellow contributors may carry on as they see fit, though they all have excellent blogs of their own. I suspect, (one last time) without knowing, that I would not be the only reader who would enjoy reading more on the other passions of their lives at those sites.

Now, before I go, I have one issue I'd like to address.
There have been comments, by Mr. Waghorne amongst other people, that FI Fie appeared to be an "I hate Richard Waghorne" site. To clarify; I haven't met Mr. Waghorne. From his writings, I consider it perfectly likely that he is personally charming. I admire his passion for classical music. He is an eccentric young man and, in the main, I favour eccentrics. To date, we appear to be utterly opposed on everything politically, outside of the tedious topic of Sinn Fein. But that's hardly a reason to even dislike a person, let alone hate them. So, specifically regarding Mr. Waghorne, I wish him well while also pointing out that he and his fellow Freedom Institutionals have managed to be uniquely wrong on almost every matter they have put their minds to. I look forward to seeing them reversing the usual pattern of young radicals and becoming Trotskyists in middle age.

In general, I think the best way to stand against an organisation which stresses its seriousness is to refuse to be serious. I think the best way to disagree with people who do not allow for fair dissent is to refuse to play by their rules. And I think that the correct response to a group who strain to stress their own importance is to have some fun.

I hope I managed to do some of those things here.
Simon McGarr

Dick Attacks Lazy Conservatives. Hmm...

2006-03-21T21:36:00.000Z

It's become axiomatic now that many of our favourite wingnuts are beyond parody, due to an absolute absence of any self-awareness. Is, for example, Tony Allwright aware of the conclusions most normal people would draw about a someone who writes five letters a week to the papers (namely, that he's a sort of political cat-lady?). Does instapundit ever notice that his name implies a person who'll talk at a moment's notice, free of the requirement to consider or ruminate? And does Richard Waghorne ever read his own output before posting it?

Feeling a little bored this evening, I took a stroll around the Freedom Institute gated community, hoping for a chuckle. Alas, as so many times before, the rest of the boys are sleeping on the job (surprisingly public sector of them) and only Sicilian Notes was on hand to entertain.

It seems there's been some criticism amongst conservatives of a paper by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (yes, I know, you're aghast). Dick thinks they're making the wrong criticisms, and for the wrong reasons:

"Sadly, most [critics] are overlooking the weakness of the paper itself (monocausal analysis, questionable ascriptions of motivation) and are instead zoning in on spurious criticisms..........The thing is, there is something dodgy about the paper, as I've suggested above........you really have to wonder how many of the conservatives now piling on with termed (sic) like 'sloppy' and 'lazy' have even read the paper"

This is all admirable stuff, a muscular defense of the intellectual honesty and rigour so prized at FI Towers. Thing is, the paper is "eighty pages long and I'll only be on top of it myself by this evening". So to recap, when talking out of your behind about a paper which you have not read, "sloppy" and "lazy" are verboten, but "dodgy" is just fine. Well, I suppose it beats keeping your mouth shut.

Gnomes ate Mr. Waghorne's numbers

2006-03-21T09:28:00.000Z

Mr. Waghorne recently decided to challenge the Irish Time's assertion that Bush's tax cuts have favoured the rich. I admit, this seems like a challenge and a half. I'd have felt 'If they didn't favour the rich, why would he have made them?' was convincing enough proof.

This level of shabby thinking wouldn't do for the readers of FI Fie, however. Mr. Waghorne has gone to the trouble of setting out his proofs in eight easy points. In response, the US Tax Gnomes have contacted us to offer a counterpoint. It also comes in eight easy points.

Gnomic contribution commences;

1. The top twenty percent of earners now pay a larger share of federal income tax than before the cuts."

Cherrypicking - in fact, three different kinds of cherrypicking:
(i) He looks only at federal *income* tax - the share of *Total* Federal Tax Liabilities paid by the top 20% has fallen.
(ii) He ignores the actual tax *rate*, which gives a better picture of tax burden as it is not distorted by changes in the distribution of pre-tax income (which I seem to recall have been rather favourable to the rich in the last 25 years or so).
(iii) O'Doherty spoke about the benefits accruing to the top 1%, but RW chooses to look only at the top 20%. Could this be because the top 1% of earners benefit far more than the 19% immediately below them? Effective tax rates (total and income tax only) for the top 1% fell sharply between 2001 and 2004.

"2. The share of federal income tax borne by all of the other quintiles fell."

Not actually true, but maybe we can put this down to confusion - RW may have been trying to say that the effective tax rates for the bottom 80% fell. Which they did, but not as much as they did for the top 20%, and much less than for the top 1%

"3. The bottom four-fifths of taxpayers pay only 22 percent of all tax. In other words, the top twenty percent of American earners stump up 78 percent of the tax take."

False. In 2006, The top 20% 'stump up' 64% of total federal tax liabilities (down from 65% in 2001). But even this doesn't tell the whole picture. RW simply ignores the state and local taxes that US taxpayers stump up for on top of federal taxes. Why? Because unlike the federal tax code, these taxes are regressive, so much so that as Brian Roach said in 2003 - http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/03-10-Tax_Incidence.pdf - the overall tax code is only slightly progressive, but "tax cuts to be phased- in under current legislation threaten to reduce or even eliminate any progressiveness from the U.S. tax system."

"4. Between 1979 and 2003 the total tax burden on the top quintile rose from 56 percent to 66 percent of income"

No it didn't. Here, RW is confusing tax *rates* with the share of tax revenues paid. Schoolboy error, really.

"5. The lowest quintile, the people with a claim to be in actual poverty, saw their share of the tax burden fall. The lowest twenty percent of earners are now down to one percent of the total tax burden."

Again, he is simply ignoring both the distribution of pre-tax income and all taxes outside of federal income tax and social insurance. The table he links to says the lowest 20% had 4.2% of pre-tax income, but Roach cites figures claiming they paid 12.5% of federal excise taxes and 4.3% of state and local taxes.

"6. The bottom quintile pay an effective tax of -5.9% while the second lowest quintile pay an effective tax of -1.1%."

More cherrypicking. Now he is focusing only on federal *income* taxes, ignoring the 8.1% effective social insurance tax rate paid by the bottom 20% which brings their *total* federal tax rate up to 4.8%.

"7. From 2000 to 2003, the share of all individual income tax paid by the lowest 40% of earners dropped from 0% to -2%."

Cherrypicking (see above).

"8. Antipoverty spending has risen under Bush. From 2000 to 2004 antipoverty spending rose from 14.9% of the federal budget to 16.3% percent."

This one actually appears to be true. Hey, one of eight ain't bad!

Links for the date used here: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=7000&type=1 and http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5746&sequence=1#pt2

Street cred on the Internets

2006-03-18T17:31:00.001Z

A repeat outbreak of outrage at that librul' MSM over at Sicilian Notes recently, on word of a minor news story about how the Chicago Tribune had managed to uncover the identities of many CIA employees. This particular feat was accomplished by the simple expedient of utilising the commercial operations which have sprung up online in the US as a result of the lack of meaningful regulation of personal data. (So much for the "free" market). But, as we will see, a rather different conclusion is drawn by RW from this episode.

"It's the reception to the story that's as interesting as the news itself. In the neighbourhood where I stayed during the summer in Virginia, a five minute drive from Langley, it was open knowledge who there worked for the CIA. It was also uninteresting. Most CIA jobs are dry analytical tasks and the agency opens, recruits, and usually operates quite publicly. This will surprise nobody in Washington. "

We can suspect that this is an oblique reference by Dickie to the Plame scandal, where the wingnut defence for a time rested on the claim that everyone in her neigbourhood 'knew' who she was (an administration defence correctly predicted by investigator Fitzgerald). So far, pretty much par the course for any blog post over at Stenographer Notes. What made this one special, however, was the following:

"What should surprise is the slipping in skills. Right-of-centre blogger Slashdot is unimpressed:"

And yes, he does indeed link to "right-of-centre blogger" Slashdot. It fell to a commenter to let him in on the joke.

The kicker comes with Richard's denunciation for the day:

"Presumably it will now become something of an online parlour game to unearth and publish possibly false, possibly sensitive information. The responsibility of Western citizens to show a little discretion is worth emphasising, not least by the administration. I imagine that the Chicago Tribune is close to the wrong side of espionage laws. Bloggers who take up this as sport and publish certainly will be. You have to wonder if papers are really being helpful in pursuing this type of investigation. It might not have occured to our enemies to trawl through these sources before. They'll certainly be doing it now either way."

As P.O'Neill notes, silly public scare stories to keep the base motivated in the GWOT are de rigeur in wingnutville. One recent contribution by Richard is relevant to this post:

"British Military IT Security

While researching something else entirely this afternoon I came across this document (pdf). From page 2:"

(cue a warning unremarkable from anything on the end of an official email)

"It's dated last September and I can't find anything stating that's been reclassified, though I've not read all 241 pages and don't plan to. A little worrying, though. I wonder how vulnerable military IT systems are to human error of the sort where documents are filed with the wrong security designation. This one seems fairly harmless, though according to the same page:

[...]

Makes you worry what else might be lying around online."

A simple perusal of the document in question (warning: PDF) reveals that it is actually a rather dry careers-guidance document, issued in order for British Army officers to know which boxes they need to tick off for advancement. But for Richard - evidently entirely unaware of the innocuous nature of this document - it seems that the past (or even last month) is indeed another country.

Subcontracting Mischief

2006-03-14T10:57:00.000Z

We here at FI Fie Foe Fum usually plough a lonely furrow. It is a thankless, and utterly pointless, task poking with sticks arguments to which could be applied the well known definition of a net- 'holes tied together with string'.

And yet we still return with our sticks, the ancient rituals of poking so embedded in our lives that the changing of the seasons and the turning of the tides seem but the whims of fashion in comparison.

So you can imagine our delight when assistance with said poking comes from other quarters.

"Richard Waghorne is Clueless" from Backseat Drivers provides a twinkle of entertainment. But a flare of fun is to be found in the comments to same as Peter Nolan, Mr. Waghorne's associate in the Freedom Institute (and I am told, an amateur ventriloquist of some note) responds sagely:

"Dick, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I doubt that Richard or anyone else will rise to the bait."

Sadly, maintaining a dignified silence is not Mr. Waghorne's strong point.
Some ten million words in response may be found here.

Update from EWI, 14/03/05: Treasa at Winds and Breezes says:

"Every so often a totally insane philosophical conundrum arises out of nowhere and stumps me. I must thank Richard Waghorne for today's."

We suspect, without knowing, that Richard'll continue to do his best in this regard...

Any Chance of The Start?

2006-03-09T12:55:00.000Z

Never one to consciously adopt a dignified silence, Richard Waghorne has views on military recruitment on American university campuses. Or rather, he has reprinted the views of the Wall Street Journal:

Last week it emerged that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, is now a student at Yale while at the same time the school continues to block ROTC training from its campus and argues for the right of its law school to exclude military recruiters.

By way of developing the argument RW adds only this:

Admittedly he's not teaching, but that's hardly the point. When your policy keeps your own military off campus but makes space for the Taliban, that really ought to be the final absurdity before realising something is very wrong.

Turning to the facts, Yale doesn't "keep the military off campus", it merely declines to allow the US military to recruit there (which raises the interesting side-question of how many Yalies are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan). Membership of the US Armed Forces is not a disqualifying factor for potential students. Hashemi is enrolled only as a student. I would imagine (indeed, I would hope) that he's under sufficient surveillance to prevent him from engaging in any Taliban recruitment in his spare time. So, no double standard there, as would have been obvious from a single reading of the WSJ piece.

So what was the point of the post then? Ah, I see:

For a less superficial treatment of the issue of academia and politics, and from an Irish perspective, there's my May 2005 piece On The Structure Of Irish Academia, published first in Magill Magazine.

Funny how so many of RW's posts turn out to be ads for RW. Availble for weddings, parties and right wing think tanks. And as you can see from his "less superficial" gag, he also does comedy.

The Fries Movie Review Forum

2006-03-08T12:09:00.000Z

Peter Nolan, along with Sacha Kumaria, of the Pfizer mouthpiece think-tank 'The Stockholm Network (or 'Stockhom', if Peter is to be believed), have 'fact-checked Syriana, and found it wanting'. Clicking through to this article allows us to read lots of peripheral bumph about Bob Baer, the CIA agent that Clooney's character (Bob Barnes) in the movie is loosely based on, and revelations that oil sheikhs are devils who contrast with the (presumably non-satanic) Dilbert-like nerd engineers who populate the senior management of oil corporations.

In fact, there's no fact-checking whatsoever. The movie identifies that the oil reserves of the fictional emirate are controlled by a family clique, just like Pete and his pal point out happens in the real world. Bribery (by the oil corporations) is part and parcel of the oil business, just like the film says, the notion that oil companies wield no real power in the oil economy, but rather this is the domain of oil-rich nations will be a revelation to Nigerians. Pete and pal primarily object to what's NOT in the movie, and that the movie didn't restrict itself to the interests and observations of the writings of Bob Barnes. Not quite the fact-checking promised on FI.

Things get a little more interesting in the comments however, when Domenico indulges in one of his occasional wingnut meltdowns:

I was flying Gulf Air the other day and they play Good Night and Good Luck on their in-flight entertainment system. The movie is described in the in flight magazine as a fight of this reporter and his boss against ‘Communist witch hunter’ McCarthy. My, my, someone should tell those who wrote the review that in spite of all the efforts by the Commie-loving liberals no person was found wrongly accused by McCarthy. But never mind the facts. This ‘non-documentary’ says there were no Russian spies in the USA - no sir!! Just mad Torquemada – McCarthy The Witch Hunter.

Now, I'm not surprised that Domenico would dispute the scattershot victimisation of the red scare, and McCarthy's role in promoting that paranoia, but making the case that McCarthy was right on the button with his accusations is quite a step up from that degree of delusion. It's a matter of record that no-one was ever found guilty of any charge levelled by McCarthy, who knew well enough that the initial communist scaremongering was where the political kudos lay, and the tedium of presenting actual, you know, 'evidence' offered no great rewards. McCarthy wrongly accused large numbers of innocent individuals of whatever seemed politically and journalistically expedient to McCarthy's self-promotion. And has fellow commentor Jim points out, the film made no claim that there were no Russian spies in the US at the time.

Still, on he goes:

So, this year at the Academy Awards, after you’ve learned to relate in a positive way with the just struggle of the Communist spies

eh?

and their sympathisers against the evil Republican Inquisitor McCarthy, you will have an opportunity to learn about the warm, human side of suicide bombers - in not one, but in two movies. In Syriana a character depicted throughout the movie as a jolly, humorous bloke at the end decides to blow himself up in the protest against the evil oil companies.

Humour seems to be a bugbear with the Fries gang. Pete didn't like the oil execs joking about bribes, and the demenour of the suicide bomber seemingly should be full-time dour - even when they're not aware that they will be asked to act as said bomb in the future. Everyone knows, of course, that muslims of a radical disposition have no time for anything but anger, hatred of freedom and cartoons, with the remainder of their day given over to oppressing their women-folk. No time for jollity in that busy schedule.

And then you can watch Paradise Now where you can learn suicide bombing is actually a natural and legitimate way of making a political statement against oppression, by ordinary, lovable people. I hope they’ll shoot Paradise Now 2 sequence in which we’ll enjoy the action of our hero with 72 virgins.

I haven't seen Paradise Now yet (looking forward to it), so I can't really dispute this review, but you know what? - I'd lay odds that Domenico hasn't set eyes on the film either. So, we've learned so far that Domenico comes from the cinematic school of thought that has bad things only done by full-on villians (possibly with moustache twisting, and evil cackling laugh to re-enforce the point?), and that Senator McCarthy is a misunderstood patriot, who never sullied the name of an innocent. What's next?

What else do we have here? Ah yes, Munich – about mad Israeli agents who somehow got the idea that hunting down the murderers of their Olympic Team was the right thing to do. Incidentally, the Israeli agent in this movie isn’t barbecue-and-ballgames sort of fella one can relate to like in Syriana and Paradise Now. No, he’s steel-eyed Robocop stripped of emotions bar his inhumane desire to get a revenge for the Israeli soldiers killed in legitimate battle in the Olympic Arena.

Say what?!
The movie I saw had a bunch of personable individuals (with one over-eager greenhorn) who demonstrated conflicts about the morality of their actions. Did I miss the robocop bit? It also seemed clear to me that the victims of the revenge campaign were not the murderers of the Munich athletes, but rather an ever-growing list of Palestinian activists, who may, or may not have had any role in organizing the Olympic kidnappings. You have to wonder if Domenico got out to see this one either.

And then you have Brokeback Mountain – mediocre acting and uninspiring plot but hey – if the message is right you get all the cookies.

Mediocre acting eh? Why do I get the feeling that Dom is just chomping at the bit (see what I did there?) to join in the 'Brokebutt' bashfest that his wingnut buddies have been enjoying for months now? Maybe I'm just cynical. I thought the acting was great, and the film deserving of most of the hype, but each to their own.

The irony is that stupid, fat, white man Moore got there years ahead of the sophisticated Hollywood lot. I guess they were too busy polishing their Priuses to notice until now………

Is Michael Moore supposed to be a Hollywood outsider, or just unsophisticated? I'm not sure what the ironic point of reference is? Is it something to do with cookies and obesity? Clearly however the Toyota Prius is a BAD thing, or is that just well polished ones?

I vote Dom's rant Comment of the week.

Now... back to some Commie-loving.

Echosphere

2006-03-08T02:03:00.000Z

Crooked Timberite John Quiggin has news on the course of the GWOT, particularly on how George and Tony's Excellent Adventure is currently being viewed among warbloggers:

As far as I can tell, the official pro-war position now emerging is

there is no civil war in Iraq
there will be no civil war in Iraq
if civil war comes, it won’t be our fault
when civil war comes, it will be a good thing

Bursting with intellectual curiosity, we applied this analysis to the evidence at hand (in the form of one of our own, native wingnuts):

Item 1 from Sicilian Notes, on 5th March 2006:

All this talk of civil war in Iraq is revealing, not about Iraq, but about the news media. Where exactly is this story coming from? It's not based on the numbers. According to the latest Brookings Institute report on Iraq, things are moving in the opposite direction [...] Journalists are not seeing (or looking for) the big picture here. Instead, individual events are slotted into a preprepared political view of the country that has decided that the future is civil war and that the present conforms to that pattern. The fact that the trend is actually in the other direction is missed, willfully or unawares, as journalists take the myriad images as a substitutes for the facts as summarised in the actual numbers.

It's a good example of the power of terrorists in the War on Terror. Create the impression of success, despite the opposite being the case, through judicious use of high-visibility attacks. It worked for the Viet Cong with the Tet Offensive and it's working now for al-Qaeda in Iraq. You would have hoped the media would have learned the first time around.

Item 2 from Sicilian Notes, on February 22nd 2006:

Criticisms of the US strategy in Iraq sometimes omit context. Put another way, it’s hard to make a valid contribution to the discussion on pacifying Iraq if the sheer wilfulness and sectarianism of the “insurgency” is left out. I don’t know how you deal with a deliberate and concerted effort to provoke civil war, but this morning news makes it clear, again, that that’s what’s afoot.

It seems impossible to argue that the US presence is the cause of tension and conflict when they are the only lid on internecine conflict. A withdrawal would seem calculated to precipitate bloodshed on a scale hitherto unseen since the liberation. I’m sympathetic both to McCain’s argument that more troops, not less, are what’s needed, and to the arguments of the editors of the Weekly Standard that we should be seeking to build up the Iraqi forces alongside coalition forces, not as a substitute.

Critics of the existing strategy in Iraq are invited to offer suggestions as to how the al-Qaeda/Ba’athist/sectarian conflict would be better resolved.

Item 3 from Sicilian Notes, on January 25th 2006:

Divide and Conquer

Encouraging news:

[Cue piece on start of civil war in Iraq]

Ramadi residents report "all-out war" between the 'insurgents'.

In the Road to Serfdom, Hayek notes an interesting pattern. Inter-war proponents of socialism in Britain were a numerous bunch, but they were also a diverse bunch. While each supported socialism, what they each meant by socialism differed. They differed not only over what the role of the state ought to be, but over what should be considered priorities, and a lot more again. The point was that the apparent unity of the socialist movement was much more fragile and that once attempting to govern, these divisions would necessarily come to the fore and prove ruinous.

Now Iraq today is no interwar Britain, but the shape of the phenomenon repeats itself. Those opposed to democracy in Iraq are a significant minority, but they're also a heterogeneous minority. You get Salafists and Ba'athists mixed up together, which makes no sense. The surprising thing is that they worked together for so long, though almost three years of co-operation between the remnants of Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda give the lie to prewar arguments that they'd never have cooperated and indeed we now know that they did.

Let's just hope they do each other as much damage as possible.

Chalk that one up to Mr. Quiggin, we'd safely say.

We see that Crooked Timber are up for several categories in the US liberal bloggers' Koufax Awards (where, exactly, is P.O'Neill?). How could we not endorse a group of Irish, Aussie and US bloggers who've earned ringing endorsements in the past from old FI Fie muse, Doctor Bill?

Peddlers of Hannity's lies shouldn't be surprised to get stung

2006-03-08T01:11:00.000Z

McCarthyite Sicilian Notes:

Politics In The Classroom

Leftist abuse of the classroom is something that has to be seen in the US to be believed. Try this latest specimen (mp3). It's both hilarious and scandalous.

It's a recording of a high school geography class in Colorado. That's right - geography. The guy has been suspended. He ought to be sacked. To highjack a high school geography class like this is unforgiveable.

Unfortunately for Richard, Sadly, No!

Hidden Depths

2006-03-02T15:20:00.000Z

"I'm not a natural linguist" - Richard Waghorne

One of the key teachings of neo-con godfather Leo Strauss was that political texts should be read not for their literal meaning, but for hidden meanings and allusions which the author couldn't make explicit for contemporary political reasons. Well, it's at least plausible, but I've always thought it was just a conservative gloss on post-modernism, and like most post-modernism, so much guff. But I've had to have a re-think in light of "What Are We Doing With Our Army?", a recent post on the FI blog (link not available due to ongoing Technical Problems over at Freedom Towers). Given that most of the text contains, on its face, no actual meaning, some kind of enciphered message is the only plausible explanation for the likes of the following:

"While government and Dail approval for deployment may be each to get waiting around of a UN mandate might take a bit longer, which kind of defeats the purpose of being a rapid reaction unit."

OK, now try reading it again. Still nothing? Never mind, we'll run it through the Enigma machine later. Have a go at this one:

"We have a commitment to the men and women of the Defence forces that they will be replaced by people who’s motivation you cannot question but who’s training you could"

Now this one does contain a meaning, but the meaning is as follows: We owe it to our fighting men and women to replace them with undertrained people. Surely some mistake? Or is it another one for the boys over in the decryption lab? And finally (though I'm only cherrypicking here. The entire post is well worth a read):

"The unfunded funding of Defence Forces has been well documented here"

Finally, a sentence where you at least know what they're trying to say. But "unfunded funding"? The post is given the collective imprimatur of the Freedom Institute, rather than any one of their legion of natural linguists, so we may never know who's responsible. Perhaps, in decades to come, a straussian reading will enlighten us.

Victorian Man

2006-03-02T11:04:00.000Z

Is there no end to the talents of Richard Waghorne? A Research Fellow at DICK has stumbled upon on the bookshelves of Hodges&Figgis turned up after much work the following remarkable illustration of the breadth of the FI's Director/Policy Head/Spokesperson/etcetc's roles to which he has set himself:

"One series of meetings that had no problem attracting a crowd were the lunchtime comedy debates. Chaired either by a guest comedian or by Jarlath [Regan] himself, who has since become a comedian, the comedy debates were a tremendous success [...] The new breed first displayed their potential on the motion 'That this House would burn all boy bands at the stake' [...] The unlikely stars of the debate were Frank Kennedy and Richard Waghorne, a cigar-smoking, brandy-drinking Wagner enthusiast who, at nineteen, would not have been out of place in Westminster in the reign of Victoria"

(Page 346 of The Literary and Historical Society, 1955 - 2005. Edited by Frank Callanan, publishers A.&A. Farmar)

So, in addition to his other strengths Dickie turns out to be a comedic talent (and a master of parody in the Little Britain vein to boot). We had long suspected, without knowing.

When Pots Attack!

2006-02-24T10:23:00.000Z

The Freedom Institute blog is [slightly] back amongst us after technical difficulties rendered it mute.

Catching up on the treasure chest of gems contained therein, I found this particularly precious stone.

[Hmm. Can't link to it directly as the blog still seems mostly kaputt. Still, its on the front page, called Exposing the immigration myth, and was posted on January 21st 2005, for the morbidly curious.]

Here Bastiat takes issue with Pat Rabbitte for insinuating that loads of Poles are taking Irish jobs and we might want to pull the drawbridge up a bit. And you know something, I agree with the main thrust of the post. The numbers show we're creating more jobs than we could fill and the moral argument that we owed eastern Europe the same chances to better their lives we had was what swung my vote from no to yes in the Nice Treaty referendums.

So, is the story 'FI Fie in FI agreement shocker?"

Well, not wholly. Here's the opener

Recently Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, eager to shore up his party's support, decided to pander to the lowest common denominator by having a crack off one of Ireland's most vulnerable (and electorally impotent) groups.

And here's the closer

Unfortunately, with Rabbitte having made comments like "There are 40 million or so Poles after all, so it is an issue we have to have a look at" when outlining his views on immigration, it is clear that some members of the DÃ¡il are willing to be less than tactful in their choice of words when they speak on this important issue.

All I can say in response to these lofty words is to refer the reader to FI Fie's post regarding the FI's previous contributions to thought in this field, The Freedom Institute and Immigration

A taster:

"But the worst of all, failure to stop these ordinary conmen at our borders will create huge problems in our society in the future like it did here, here and here

The Curse of the Liberty Blog Awards

2006-02-21T17:06:00.000Z

It has often been noted that to give someone an award, particularly a best newcomer gong, is to doom them to disaster. It seems that the Freedom Institute's Liberty Blog Awards are no different. For those unaware of these great honours, which combine the glamour of the Oscars with the Prestige of the Nobels, an explanation: Rather than join the hoi-polloi of Damien's Irish Blog Awards, the FI have chosen to go all Private Sector on our ass, and set up a sort of gated blog community, where there's a prize for everyone who turns up.

One of the more successful bloggers at the star-spangled cermony was Wulfbeorn, Watching. Best Appearance, Third in Best Humour, and Second in the Overall Blog of The Year Category. Surely he would go on to greater things. Took a look at his site today: Tá sé imithe.

The Curse of the Liberty Blog Awards strikes again!

Karole Drones, Dick Plays Find The Lady

2006-02-20T21:10:00.000Z

After last week's flurry of activity, things have gone a bit quiet here at casa FI Fie. Feeling a little bored this evening, I decided to mosey on over to Karole the fallibilist to see what sort of thing he's been blogging about and, hopefully, laugh at it. Unfortunately I couldn't even get started due to the sheer dullness of the posts. The titles are bad enough: "The Fallacy Of Asymetric Idealisation" anyone? But the real horror begins when you venture into the main text. I've tried and tried to read the stuff, but my eyes just scan over the words, refusing to take in whatever meaning they may or may not contain. Here, have a go yourself:

"Power and secrecy must characterise intelligence agencies, in order for them to be effective. The more of each, the better. This, of course, is provided such power is used only as it ought. Secrecy necessarily prohibits public accountability providing a check on intelligence agenciesZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........., Sorry, no you lost me there. Maybe if I ram needles under my fingernails while I read:

Instead preventing misuse of power is carried out by government oversight. The degree and process of oversight must be a function of the nature (and development) of the threats on which intelligence is sought. The key question in the U.S. debateZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz...........Nope, nodded off again.

Karole Cuddihy may well be one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Alas, we will never know.

Speaking of crystalline prose, I note that Richard Waghorne has been attempting to ape the Christopher Hitchens style of late:

"I will pour myself a quiet, unhappy glass of red wine the evening of the day he is executed, consoled that justice has been done and speechless at the man's evil."

Not bad Dick, not bad, although I think Hitch is more of a Martini man. The "unhappy" is the key word here, capturing the tired melancholy of a man who's been around long enough to know that sometimes you've just got to kill a few people (moral clarity and what not). The piss-up, chez Waghorne, will be to celebrate the execution of Saddam Hussein. Now watch closely, and see if you can find the lady:

(1) "In such an exceptional situation such as this, reaching to the rulebook is a mistake. The judgment on how Saddam ought to be dealt with is a moral one and not a legal one."

From there he goes to the conclusion that

(2) "Morally, the only penalty that is even remotely plausible as a just sentence is the death penalty executed in public."

before adding that

(3) "to require a proof of things so self-evident is to fall into hopeless error and moral disorder."

Too bad. I require proof, which Dick has failed to provide. Sentence 1 advocates a moral, rather than legalistic standard. Sentence 2 asserts that the death penalty is the only just sentence. Sentence 3 calls anyone who disagrees a moral defective and attempts to make a virtue of his lack of an argument. Eagle eyed readers will note the missing link, the part where he considers the morality of public execution as a punishment. Advanced students may have spotted the Fallacy (yes, I know about fallacies too) of Begging the Question in Sentence 1. And for the gold star, don't forget that throwing the rulebook out the window is a denial, not an embrace of morality. Revenge is not morality, because it operates on the basis of emotion and not reason.

I will shed no tears for Saddam Hussein, whatever happens to him, but if Dick's age was judged on the calibre of his argument........well, let's just say that he'd be too young for that glass of Merlot.

The Coca-Cola Kid

2006-02-17T00:09:00.000Z

Still on the topic of the new-look R. Waghorne bio, we'll now take a stab at the following part:

"Richard has a long record of grassroots activism. He has stood in various university elections as a candidate in the classical-liberal and conservative interest, where he won a seat on the Student Council of UCD Students’ Union and was twice elected to the Academic Council of the University. In 2003, [Dickie] initiated and led a campaign against a politically-motivated push to ban the Coca-Cola Corporation from [the UCD] campus. He was elected Auditor of the Philosophy Society and subsequently stood unsuccessfully for the Presidency of the Students’ Union."

Fortunately for FI Fie, there's no shortage of coverage about Dickie's undergraduate days in UCD:

THE PHOENIX, January 30, 2004

LAST November UCD students voted to ban Coca-Cola products from Student's Union shops and vending machines, despite the best efforts of one Richard Waghorne. His pro-Coke team had forced a re-run of the vote but the second time around, SU president, Paul Dillon, came out in favour of the ban while the pro-Coke people fought among themselves, even dropping Waghorne. Now, however, Dickie's ambition has stretched to being President of the union.

An international campaign to get trade unions to boycott Coke kicked off last July. Proponents accuse the company of being responsible for the intimidation and murder of trade unionists in its Colombian bottling plants [...]

The first UCD anti-Coke vote took place in October and the ban was passed [...] Then the pro-Coke side - including its head, UCD Philosophy Society auditor, Waghorne; former UCD Fine Gael auditor, Michael Binchy and UCD Fianna Fáil auditor, Gregg O'Neill - forced a re-run [...]

Meanwhile, the pro-Coke side started tearing itself apart following a Literary & Historical Society debate at which the communications manager of Coca-Cola in Latin America, Raphael Fernandez Queiros, spoke for 25 minutes, took four questions and left. This, according to a furious Waghorne, was not debating as he understood it. He felt "tainted by association" and demanded the resignation of fellow campaign committee member, Binchy. Instead it was poor Dickie who got the chop, with Binchy replacing him.

Rumours (untrue) that the pro-Coke side had been wined and dined by Coke in the Shelbourne also added fuel to the fire [1] [...] But while Dickie and his former chums continued to campaign for Coke ... the one-year ban was upheld [...]

Now Dickie has thrown his hat in the ring or the presidency of UCDSU, but says he won't try and re-run the Coke vote which, he told Goldhawk, he now considers "a dead issue".[2]

Twenty-year-old Waghorne, a second-year politics and philosophy student, got a lot of stick in the college press and at debates during the Coke campaign for resembling an English Tory gentleman [3], preferring to wear suits and sporting a pocket watch on a chain, unlike some of his more scruffy opponents. His Canadian father, Earle Waghorne, is an associate professor in UCD's chemistry department and his Irish mother used to be the administrator of the Dublin European Institute in UCD [4]. Dickie was schooled in the expensive Gonzaga College SJ where he excelled at Latin. Like all cultured young gentlemen should, he regularly attends lunchtime concerts at the National Concert Hall. One hopes the backbiting UCD milieu is not too stifling for Waghorne's ambitions.

[...] Dickie says the [Coke] ban hasn't been as detrimental to the SU's finances as he feared. He opposed the ban, he says, as the allegations against Coke were unfounded. More importantly, he says, he believes in freedom of choice. He says he doesn't agree with the idea of an enforced boycott, but that students should instead be asked to individually boycott the goods in question.

[...]

While Waghorne says his campaign team consists of people from FF, FG and the PDs in UCD, he has never been a member of any party. The union has become too politicised, he says, and it should be concentrating on its role as a service provider. "We can't change the world," he says, "but we can solve our own problems". Like the right to drink Coke.

From Trinity College's University Record:

Hard feelings rife in wake of second UCD Coke referendum
Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 01:47 AM

...Speaking to the Record this week, Mr. Waghorne was critical of the campaign run by right-wing Fine Gael member, Mr. Michael Binchy. "This was a campaign where students were treated as idiots, where human rights were treated as irrelevant, and where opponents were treated as though they had no right to exist. In an atmosphere where students are patently being failed by their Student Union, it is unfortunate that there are those on my own side of the political fence who will stop at nothing to further their own petty careers and refuse to serve the students who they should be standing up for. This kind of party political politics and cosying up to corporations and governments helps nobody, and it should be roundly and utterly condemned" [5]

[...]

While Mr. Binchy could not be contacted at the time of going to print, a source close to him said that he was "incandescent" with the criticism levelled at him by Mr. Waghorne in particular. "Michael feels very let down by Richard, who has consistently briefed against him to the papers off the record, who has undermined the campaign he professed to support, and who has publicly split the right in UCD at a very sensitive time". The source was eager to point out hat Mr. Waghorne was "attempting to position himself as a saviour of the student populace, and a man of the people, when he is in fact no more a man of the people than the next Gonzaga boy with a penchant for pocket watches"

Mr. Waghorne felt it was "indicative of these people that they refuse to go on the record while criticising me in a personal way that is unbecoming of any reasonable human being, while at the same time accusing me of briefing against them off the record. They have smeared me because I am gay, and now they try to call me a Tory, - but there is nobody of whom that party would be more proud than Mr. Binchy" [6]

JOHN MCGUIRK

More from the Record (again by the oddly familiar John McGuirk):

UCD Coke referendum - Take 2
Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 12:50 AM

Campaign to Overturn UCD Coke Referendum descends into Chaos

The campaign to re-introduce Coke to Belfield suffered a serious setback last week when Campaign President Richard Waghorne resigned over an issue of "campaign conduct" following a controversial visit to UCD by a senior Coke executive from South America. The controversy arose when UCD's Literary and Historical Society, on whose committee sit some of the top people in the pro-coke campaign, decided to host the executive at a debate on the issue last week. Mr. Waghorne alleges that the event was blatantly one-sided, as "there was only one guest speaker, who was exempted from taking points of information, and who answered only a few pre-chosen questions before leaving." There then followed a short Student debate which Mr. Waghorne claims was explicitly biased in favour of the pro-Coke lobby.

Following the debate, Mr. Waghorne was adamant that his colleague on the Campaign, Mr. Michael Binchy, should resign, over what he termed a "disgracefully unprofessional act, of which I was not informed". Following this public criticism, Mr. Binchy called an emergency campaign meeting, at which Mr. Waghorne tendered his resignation. It had been apparent to many of late that the tension between the two has been rising, after what was generally viewed as a sustained campaign of attempts by Mr. Binchy to hijack the second referendum campaign and to undermine Mr. Waghorne's authority. Opponents of Mr. Waghorne, however, have been quick to suggest that he has been the one briefing newspapers against his colleagues, and indeed one source suggested that Mr. Waghorne had been behind the consistent vilification of his own colleagues in the UCD Student Papers, an allegation that Mr. Waghorne describes as "preposterous". "I have never briefed against my colleagues off the record. I have been the victim of some outrageous publicity stunts at the hands of people who are using this campaign as nothing more than a vehicle from which to launch their careers. [7] It is a sorry day when the Students of UCD are being let down by the kind of infighting and squabbling that has marred this campaign. If Mr. Binchy had any decency he would step aside in favour of somebody else before his crass egotism costs students the right result"

Mr. Waghorne also had harsh words for L&H Auditor Ciarán Lawlor. "By hosting this event, and co-operating with Michael (Binchy), Mr. Lawlor has disgraced his society. He has allowed the country's most prestigious society to be used as a political vehicle for the extreme right wing agenda of others". This is a charge which Mr. Lawlor disputes. "Obviously in order to get corporate speakers, attempts must be made to accommodate their needs. We allowed the representative from coke to speak for approximately 15 minutes, after which he took questions, which were not preselected and in general anti-coke. The student debate that followed consisted of two speakers form each side. Mr. Waghorne's allegations do not stand up". Asked if he had ever been a member of the Campaign to re-introduce Coke, Mr. Lawlor stated that although he supported its aims, he had not had time to get involved.

[...]Whether or not the divisions between the moderate supporters of Mr. Waghorne and what he terms extremists like Mr. Binchy will destroy the hopes of coke lovers remains to be seen. UCD students go to the polls on the 18th and 19th of November.
Note: by John McGuirk, University Record, issue 3 (20 November 2003)

Obligatory FI Fie snark:

[1] We'd just love to find out what gifts, if any, the "coke lovers" did get. If I recall correctly, Nestlé at least has rewarded friends among the student populace in the past.
[2] For a third time? We should hope not.
[3] Sounding like one, too. 'Nuff said?
[4] This just makes Dickie's frequent rants against academics all the funnier, in our opinion. But still, it's nice to keep it in the family.
[5] We're speechless.
[6] Ditto.
[7] Ditto. Will the real Richard Waghorne please stand up?

Postscript: via Indymedia, we get a look at the press release put out by Dickie's astroturf grassroots activist organisation:

"Campaign to Re-Introduce Coca-Cola

PRESS RELEASE

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

The Campaign to Re-introduce Coca-Cola products confirms that a referendum will be held seeking to overturn the recent decision that bans Coca-Cola products from Student Union outlets and prevents University College Dublin Students’ Union (UCDSU) from entering into sponsorship arrangements with Coca-Cola.

The Campaign has collected the requisite signatures to initiate the referendum. The timing of the referendum is currently undecided and the Campaign is consulting with its advisors and the UCDSU Returning Office to determine the most appropriate date for polling. Campaign Chair Mr. Richard Waghorne stated that “although we are anxious to overturn this result before the serious financial damage sets in and more student jobs are cut, referendum fatigue is very much something to be avoided. A date in the new year seems to be the most likely scenario but we are very flexible in that regard.”

The referendum is being called for a number of reasons. There are a number of issues concerning the first referendum on Coca-Cola that are subject to appeal. Crucially, over three thousand students were disenfranchised. The views of these students must be taken in account. Furthermore, given the narrow margin by which the first referendum passed, a mere fifty-nine votes, the verdict of the students is insecure. Assuming proportional turnout between enfranchised and disenfranchised students, five hundred to six hundred students would have been turned away from polling stations. The margin by which the first referendum was decided is only ten percent of this figure. Mr. Waghorne explained, “Democracy must be above doubt. Sadly the first referendum was not and that is one reason why we have to go again”. The Campaign to Re-introduce Coca-Cola will also present information that came to light during and after the first campaign to the electorate to facilitate a more informed decision by the student body.

Unlike the ‘No’ campaign in the first referendum, the Campaign to Re-Introduce Coca-Cola will comprise of a large and diverse campaign team. “I have been amazed at the enthusiasm of students for a second referendum” says Mr. Waghorne “and we are building a team that draws on the range of experience and ideas of the many students who didn’t participate the first time round. There are a lot of new ideas and new faces making their mark. I can confirm that I will be the chairman of the campaign and I look forward to working closely with such a diverse group.”

END

Issued on behalf of Campaign Chair and PRO Richard Waghorne ( 087 xxxxxxx )"

So he was both Campaign Chair and PRO? (Did he also take his own notes?) So much for the "large and diverse team".

Fellow Alumni

2006-02-15T04:12:00.000Z

We note that young Master Waghorne's online bio over at Sicilian Notes has recently expanded. As a placeholder for treats yet to come:

"Richard Waghorne [...] has studied Political Economy and International Development at the London School of Economics, Political Management at the Leadership Institute, Virginia..."

Hang on, we thought, this "Leadership Institute" thing sounds familiar.

And so it proved, dear readers. For the 'Leadership Institute' happens to also be the almer mater of one Jeff Gannon/JD Guckert, the very same Republican ringer in the White House press corps who in 2005 turned out to be a male prostitute with a two-day 'journalism' course from the LI for the entirety of his credentials. On the 'Institute' itself (via Demopedia):

"The Leadership Institute was founded by Morton Blackwell. Blackwell has a history of setting up organizations to train young Republican activists, but far too often the emphasis has been on political dirty tricks. From 1965 to 1970, he was executive director of the College Republican National Committee, at a time when that group was turning out figures like Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Terry Dolan, and Roger Stone. In the 1970's, Blackwell founded the Committee for Responsible Youth Politics, followed in 1979 by the Leadership Institute.

According to Dissident Voice:

"The Leadership Institute is no seat-of-its-pants operation: The staff of 54 operates the organization on a more than $8 million yearly budget, according to a People for the American Way report. The Institute’s F.M. Kirby National Training Center has 18 educational programs including: Campaign Leadership, Candidate Development, Capitol Hill staff, Capitol Hill writing, Grassroots organizing, Internet leadership, Public Relations, Public Speaking, Student Publications, Youth Leadership, and Broadcast Journalism."

According to the Maine College Republicans:

"Famous graduates of the Youth Leadership School include Karl Rove, senior strategist to President George W. Bush; James S. Gilmore, former Republican National Committee chair and Virginia governor; Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky; and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist."

At present, the focus of the Leadership Institute appears to be on training right-wing journalists as much as political organizers. Mike Krempasky, who set up a "rathergate.com" website so soon after the CBS memos story broke that it suggested he might have had advance knowledge, was employed by the Leadership Institute from 1999 to 2002. Jeff Gannon, who as of January 2005 appears to be at the center of several kinds of Republican improprieties, owes his entire journalistic training to a $50 seminar at the Leadership Institute's Broadcast Journalism School (a name sometimes misquoted as the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism)."

More on Blackwell and his organisation by way of Media Matters.

(For a more complete rundown on Gannon and the Leadership Institute, hit Google)

Purging the Campuses

2006-02-15T03:22:00.000Z

Never one to miss an opportunity to nail himself to a cross, Dickie takes advantage of a post on the utter harmlessness of David Horowitz to don an air of martyrdom once more:

"But what really gets me is the sheer touchiness of these people. Try being in a minority on campus and then come back to me. This twenty-two year old on the bottom rung of the academic ladder works in a department that is almostly uniformly anti-war and well to the left of the country at large. (It is, also, a marvellous place to be, one I'm very privileged to be have a foothold in.) I rountinely get highlighted (though never by colleagues or anyone with any credibility) as some sort of fifth columnist within academia. I can afford to ignore this and I have an excellent relationship with colleagues (particularly those with whom I differ most, interestingly) but it would never cross my mind to claim I’m being somehow persecuted for being highlighted as something of a threat. The idea is laughable."

This would be an unremarkable comment - at least by any UCD insider who hadn't written this, this, this or even this (unsurprisingly, Horowitz has the support of a certain other FI-connected academic). For a comprehensive disposal of Horowitz' arguments, see here.

As to the inimitable David Horowitz himself, Fi Fie Foe Fum is pleased to direct our readers to the words of genuine "100 Most Dangerous Professors in the U.S." academic, Mr. Michael Bérubé.

p.s. how could we let this opportunity go to revisit a classic Waghornism?

"[McCarthyism is] a term I think can profitably be discarded. For a start, the investigations of the immediate post-war years were both necessary and largely proportionate, though they suffered from the phenomenon identified by Milton Friedman of government programs expanding to the maximum of the logic. "

p.p.s. For extra snark points we'll hark back to this, published in Horowitz' FrontPage organ on the topic of the London bombings last year:

"In contrast, a nice critique of the Indymedia anarcho-fascists was published by the Freedom Institute of the Republic of Ireland, denouncing the Indymedia pro-terrorists. These Irish freedom fighters denounce the "anarchists" for violent rioting in Scotland against the G8 leaders meeting there, forcing police to divert manpower from London area just when they were needed there[...]"

p.p.p.s. It brought a tear of pride to the eye to learn that Horowitz has indeed 'Discovered' former Irish President, Mary Robinson.

The caricature of a West Brit jumps the shark

2006-02-15T01:25:00.000Z

Do we even need to add commentary to this one? Folks, knock yourselves out in the comments:

New Junior Ministers

Bertie appointed new ministers on Tuesday after a two month delay. For thirty cent, you can read my take on it in Wednesday's Irish Daily Mail.

I'm very excited about the Irish Daily Mail and privileged to be a contributor.

Posted by Richard Waghorne :: 12:32 AM :: Comment (0) | Trackback (0) Permalink

Why are we surprised?

Abramoff Photos

2006-02-15T00:29:00.000Z

RW:

"The Abramoff lobbying scandal in Washington is a big deal and a very real scandal. What's either embarrassing or hilarious depending on your point of view are the attempts to pin this on Bush. The New York Times has been ferretting around for photos of Bush and Abramoff for months now, with almost no success. This week, they finally found one, which they triumphantly published [...] When you have to highlight the guy in a red circle, it's getting pretty lame. Being in the same room as someone is about as incriminating as sharing the same neighbourhood would be. Sure even I've been closer to Bush than that."

Scrubbing of Abramoff/Bush pics (via Talking Points Memo, who have more):

"(January 26, 2006 -- 11:59 AM EDT // link)

In his press conference today, President Bush suggested that the existence of photographs of himself and Jack Abramoff are no big deal and generally pooh-poohed the press's focus on the story. But our reporting suggests that the White House is actively involved in covering up and possibly destroying photographic evidence of the two men together.

Earlier this month, we were alerted to the existence of a series Abramoff photos at the website of Reflections Photography, a studio that does photo shoots for many Republican political events and sells copies to the individuals who attended the events and other members of the public through an online photo database. Reflections was an official photographer for Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign events and for the 2005 inauguration.

One of those photos was of Abramoff and Ralph Reed at a party for the launch of Reed's Century Strategies DC office in 2003. We contacted Reflections Photography and purchased the rights to publish that photograph and did so on January 11th.

Things weren't so simple with the late 2003 photograph of Jack Abramoff and President Bush.

[...]

After a few minutes, she returned and proceeded to pull up the photo in question on the CD. Then, to her audible surprise, she told me the "photo was deleted" from the CD.

That, as you'd imagine, caught my attention. So I asked what that meant. The woman from Reflections told me that that this sometimes happened when the White House wanted to prevent the public from accessing certain photographs of the president.

When I asked her when this had happened she told she didn't know and wouldn't be at liberty to tell me even if she did.

[...]

But early this afternoon, I decided to take one more go at Reflections. I talked to company president Joanne Amos. We went back and forth over various questions about whether photographs at the site were available to the public and why some had been removed. When she, at length, asked me who it was in the picture with the president. I told her we believed it was Jack Abramoff.

Amos very straightforwardly told me that the photographs had been removed and that they had been removed because they showed Abramoff and the president in the same picture. The photos were, she told me, "not relevant."

When I asked her who had instructed her to remove the photos, she told me she was the president of the company. She did it. It was "her business decision" to remove the photographs. She told me she had done so within the last month.

So, here we have it that the president of Reflections admits that she removed photos of Abramoff and the president from their online database. If what her employee told me on the 11th is accurate the photos were also deleted from the CDs they keep on file in their own archives. So the scrub seems to have been pretty thorough.

Did the White House send out the word to deep-six those Bush-Abramoff pics?"

Riddle us this: if the photographs of Bush with Abramoff are indeed as innocuous as Dickie claims, just why is the White House so obsessed with scrubbing them?

Lovely

2006-02-10T06:53:00.000Z

William Sjostrom is yet another of those right-wing American ex-pat types, and someone who's come to our attention before. An economics lecturer in UCC, he's heavily associated with some old friends of FI Fie Foe Fum:

November 25, 2004

Freedom in Ireland

As evidence that not all Irish intellectuals are mindless left-wing lemmings (okay, so maybe I'm being just a bit cranky here), there is a new outfit in town, The Freedom Institute, which has its own blog. Good for them. Warning and full disclosure: some of them are former students of mine.

Posted by sjostrom on November 25, 2004 07:20 AM

Indymedia Ireland reproduces the text of a Phoenix Magazine article detailing the origins of the Freedom Institute in a trio of Young PD activists studying at - you guessed it - UCC:

The Institute is made up of militant young PD types who seem to think that Michael McDowell is a bit of a wimp when it comes to right wing politics. [...]

Institute spokesperson, PD member Philip O'Sullivan, is a finance student in UCC and he,along with two othe YPD militants, Dave Cochrane and Andrew Page, founded the institute last year. It appears to be dominated by PD members, (although Cochrane left the party over a row about his website, politics.ie), but O'Sullivan claims that a Green Party Local election candidate in Cork, and two UCC Labour members are are also members, as well as individual members of FF and FG. However, the institute rep declined to name these individuals, perhaps because they would be instantly expelled from their organisations! Irish ex-pat professionals in Israel (surprise surprise), the US, and Belgium,are also attached to the institute.

It doesn't take too much to connect the dots. (More on the likely origins of the FI here, and their birthday's coming up soon)

The links with the Freedom Institute - both down in Cork and up here in Dublin - clearly continue to this day. Sjostrom was another (like his friend LGF's Charles Johnson) recipient of the FI's silly Liberty Awards last year.

On to Dr. Bill's latest missive:

"[...] But the week offered up somethiing even more amazing. Questions and Answers, the RTE public affairs talk show, covered the cartoon issue this week. One of the guests was David Norris, the Irish senator. Norris is something of a cretin, a nasty anti-American bigot who is a classic "look at me" moral exhibitionist. But on the cartoon issue, Norris' self-interest seemed to kick in. Norris spouted his usual hysteria, but there was this tiny diversion from it. Norris is gay, and indeed his sole positive contribution to Irish life was to lead the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality. He noted that he seen pictures of young men being executed in Iran for being gay, and he seems to notice that radical Islam is on his doorstep, and they do not seem to be very friendly to him. And so, he remarks:

Nobody who is civilized could tolerate that sort of sharia law.

Nothing like having a crazy wanting to beat and hang you on your doorstep to concentrate the mind."

Charming.

This ties into something which has been a subject of discussion among Democratic blogs in the US recently; namely, the eliminationist fantasies so popular among the more rabid fringes of right-wing US politics about their Democratic opponents.

Sjostrom further links back to an earlier post of his to bolster his case (and, unintentionally, ours):

November 02, 2004

Vote Bush and make the bigots mad

If you have any doubt why you should vote for Bush, check out last night's Questions and Answers, the Irish public affairs program.

[...]

Oops. David Norris, a member of the Irish Senate and renowned Irish bigot, was also on. It is not clear to me whether Norris hates Americans or Iraqis more, although my guess is that he hates Americans, whereas he cares not a whit for whether and how Iraqis die, unless he can blame it on the US. He kept trying to shout down the other speakers. Unsurprisingly, just about everyone told him to behave himself except for the moderator, John Bowman. Norris hates Bush with a hysterical passion. (In fairness to Kerry, if Kerry wins, Norris will probably end up hating Kerry unless he announces in his inaugural address that he plans to surrender.) Norris declared that even ten Iraqi deaths would be too many to permit a US invasion. If Saddam would have kept on killing, that would not have mattered, because Saddam is not American (nor an Israeli).

A Bush victory will make David Norris miserably unhappy for years. An excellent reason to vote for Bush. And if a Bush victory makes Norris choke on his bile, well, good.

Posted by sjostrom on November 02, 2004 11:22 AM

There are people who really and truly deserved to be kicked when they are down: David Norris (if you are not Irish and unfamiliar with the nasty bigot, be grateful)

Let's put things in their proper perspective.

Senator David Norris is a distinguished scholar, a somewhat eccentric gentleman, a friend to all oppressed, a committed humanitarian who has been a dedicated campaigner on issues such as gay rights and East Timor, and an unapologetic speaker of (warning: mp3's) truth to power [1].

William Sjostrom, on the other hand, is just a cunt [2].

[1] his "liar!" is directed at a certain FI director of our acquaintance
[2] ©Twenty Major

Ahh, Nostalgia

2006-02-09T23:19:00.000Z

Comments five minutes ago to this Sicilian Notes post (of which more anon, dear readers):

"Mucker Nazis? Jaysus
Peter Nolan | Homepage | 02.09.06 - 10:54 pm | #

Testing.
EWI | Homepage | 02.09.06 - 11:00 pm | #

(I see commenting's back on. Let's see how long this lasts)

Update 3: They don't like "this joker". Maybe there's room for them in the sandpit at FiFieFoeFum?

An outrageous slur, Mr. Waghorne. As I don't recall anyone ever accusing you of neo-nazi sympathies (in spite of your obvious admiration for Little Green Footballs), I trust that you will remove this remark with its' clearly-intended implication.

We would welcome your comments over at FI Fie if you feel that your various posts have been unjustly represented. We don't censor criticism on our blog, unlike the situation in certain other places.
EWI | Homepage | 02.09.06 - 11:08 pm | #"

Comments to the same Dickie Waghorne blog post now:

"Mucker Nazis? Jaysus
Peter Nolan | Homepage | 02.09.06 - 10:54 pm | #"

Update 10/02/06 (Who says blogs don't stay up-to-the-minute with breaking news?):

One of the fascists has replied to Dickie with a challenge to a debate, which - and for once we agree with the Googling Research Fellow from UCD - young master Waghorne has declined:

"Thank you for your approach. I spend a considerable amount of my time in public debate, both written and in person, but I am not interested in dialogue with you or any other regular members of your hate speech site. To do so would be to implicitly accept that there is something to be gained from debate with racists and anti-Semites and that is not something that I will do.
RW | Homepage | 02.09.06 - 11:52 pm | # "

Speaking of hate sites, we wonder just how the Freedom Institute's "Best International Blog" of 2005, Little Green Footballs, has been getting along.

Presumably Final Update:
Hello, Editor here. I'm happy to say that Mr. Waghorne was good enough to clarify his previous statements before leaving for a prior engagement.

Update 4: The FiFieFoeFum denizens are surprisingly thin-skinned. I normally give them a wide berth, but their indignation at being mentioned in the same breath as the racists at Irish-Nationalism was too much for me not to click through from IrishBlogs.IE. Seems they took exception to my aside yesterday, so I emailed to offer to clarify things and Simon McGarr ('Editor') has said he'd like that.

I know, this will be a shock to you all, but no - they're not Nazis. Repeat, the contributors at FiFieFoeFum have nothing to do with Nazis or anything of the sort.

I suspect, without knowing, that I speak for my fellow posters when I say that I am glad to have it clarified that we are not Nazis. For one thing, I would need a whole new wardrobe, and I am loath enough to spend money on buying a tie. Have you seen the price of the nice ones? Shocking money.
Just as well, then, that this minor misunderstanding ended on such a happy note.

We nominate... Krusty the Klown!

2006-02-09T21:02:00.000Z

Some excitability in evidence over at Sicilian Notes yesterday:

Bolton Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

I find this fascinating and intriguing:

Bolton and Kenneth R. Timmerman were formally nominated by Sweden's former deputy prime minister Per Ahlmark, for playing a major role in exposing Iran's secret plans to develop nuclear weapons.

They documented Iran's secret nuclear buildup and revealed Iran's "repeated lying" and false reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a press release said.

As Glenn Reynolds remarks, "not bad for a guy who couldn't get confirmed".

That sounded suspicious right off the mark - the deeply unpleasant Bolton being a noted exponent of American Might being American Right. Sure enough, a little bit of our own 'independent journalism' bore fruit.

From the official Nobel Peace Prize website:

"How are the Prize Winners Selected?

Below is a brief description of the process involved in selecting the Peace Prize Winners.

September - Nomination forms are sent out. The Nobel Committee sends out invitation letters containing confidential forms to persons who are qualified to nominate – members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts of law; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs; previous years' Peace Prize Winners, board members of organizations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute."

(As an example, any one of the Sinn Féin members of the Dáil could conceivably nominate Gerry Adams in the morning for the price of a stamp.)

This ease of submitting a nomination is something that our Research Fellow in the UCD Politics Department either doesn't know, or else hopes that his readers don't know - as with the curiously unmentioned status of Ahlmark as a wingnut commentator on TCS and elsewhere (for example, see this attack on Hans Blix).

So much for the "fascinating and intriguing".

Update 09/02/06: More on this from Best of Both Worlds.

This one's the left...no...this one...ugh, this left-right stuff is SO complicated

2006-02-08T13:36:00.000Z

Dickie Boy's in fine form these days but his political compass has gone a little askew. Why, dear reader, would I deign to accuse this most revered researcher in zzzZZZZZZZ of such political heresy? Well, wait for it, he's just described John Waters as left of centre:

Vincent Browne, Fintan O'Toole, Martin Turner, Anothny Glavin, Bill McSweeney, Eddie Holt, Lara Marlowe, Mary Rafferty, Shane Hegarty, Michael Jansen, and John Waters all write from a basically left-of-centre position.

LEFT of centre?

Maybe Dickie's confused between his left and right hand for surely so astute a political mind couldn't possibly think Waters is a leftie. Has he ever actually read anything Waters has written, or is it because JW is now writing for Village (ugh...it makes me feel unclean, unclean)? In fact Waters' style is quite like our Dickie's. Compare and contrast the following (from a Waters column) with, basically, anything from Siciliansnores:

What we believe, then, is this: if a mother hurts or kills her child, it is because of some factor that placed her action beyond her responsibility (mental illness or the actions of a violent man, for example); if a father hurts or kills a child it is because he is “evil”. Impressive logic, don’t you think?

Liberal Bias in the Boggersphere

2006-02-08T04:29:00.000Z

The Irish blogging world's very own (newly-minted) ivory-tower academic gazes out at the view:

"Who Is the Irish Blogosphere?"

Whoever's wandered online and signed up to a Blogger account, we'd have guessed. But this, alas, is a Richard Waghorne post and so our journey doesn't end at the glaringly obvious cul-de-sac.

"One thing I would be curious to know is what the feeling across the Irish blogosphere is on abortion."

Could this be the very same Dickie who (just two posts before this one of his) stated:

"So I give Fiona [de Londras] low marks, first for starting this [abortion] discussion on blogs, where I believe it's uniquely ill-suited, and secondly for trying to frame the discussion in a manner than excludes the crucial issue from the outset."

Moving on:

"I suspect, without knowing, that there is a pro-abortion majority, which of course would be a reverse of the general situation."

We're going to see more anon of the robust analysis they employ in UCD's Politics Department these days.

"That would stand to reason, as crusty conservative types are hardly the likely users and readers of blogs (at least, it would appear, in this country) whereas young, liberated, my-body-is-my-own types strike me as more likely to be the types with blogs. "

We smell... Liberal Bias.

"I could be wrong, but I don't think it's obvious off-hand that I am."

We could be wrong, but we have a hunch that what we're witnessing is the birth of the replacement for 'I suspect, without knowing'.

"Certainly it seems that politically-motivated gay people are over-represented online and it wouldn't surprise me if that were part of a pattern of sorts."

Let's tote up the numbers. Dickie Waghorne, Fiona de Londras, A, Damien Mulley, Suzy Byrne, Morgan, Jo and (Pure-Function) Paul make a grand total of, eh, eight Irish political bloggers in this mythical queer caucus. Perhaps UCD could organise grinds on statistical analysis.

"Not that any of this necessarily has any particular implications one way or another, but in the rush to hand out awards to people (an excellent if parochial project) we seem to have overlooked investigating the composition of the Irish blogosphere."

Yes. It would indeed be a crying shame if someone were to set up such an unrepresentative Irish Blog Awards.

"It would be an interesting and worthwhile project to discern in a semi-rigorous manner what the characteristics of Irish bloggers are as a group. There are a thousand Irish bloggers now apparently. What sets them apart from the rest of the population? Maybe nothing, but perhaps quite a bit. "

I suspect, without knowing, that we're about to get to the truth of whatever bee's in Dickie's bonnet this time 'round.

"For instance, twenty percent of Irish people told pollsters in 2004 that they would have voted for Bush if they were in the American electorate, which would imply that two hundred of the thousand Irish bloggers ought to be pro-Bush if there is consistentcy between Irish people at large and the bloggers of the country. I count between four and six, with the latter a very unconservative estimate. (Don't ask me to name names, it should be pretty clear who I'm fingering.)"

We've our very own method of statistical analysis here at FI Fie Foe Fum (which we like to refer to as a "list"). Let's see how it does against a UCD Research Fellow's 'between four and six' estimate of pro-Bush Irish bloggers.

Richard Waghorne
Bill Sjostrom
John Fay
Mark Humphrys

...4...

Auds
Wulfbeorn

...6...

Eamonn Fitzgerald
Domenico Kukuljica
Karole Cuddihy
Peter Nolan
John McGuirk
Jon Ihle
Gaisan
Tony Allwright
Paul (Pure Function)
Richard De levan
Frank McGahon
David Vance
Andrew McCann
Chris (alt tag)

...20.

That's just the loud-and-proud GOP supporters on these green shores, by the bye. We're leaving out a number of borderline cases, as well as the innumerable Young Fine Gael and Young PD student-types who make up the rest of the FI posse.

"This is imprecise,"

He's not kidding.

"but it demonstrates, I believe, a clear gulf between Irish opinion at large and opinion as expressed in the Irish blogosphere."

He's right - it's deeply, deeply troubling. We can feel another Reclaim the Campuses (™David Horowitz) moment coming along presently.

"If the blogosphere in Ireland is, overall, younger and more liberal than the electorate at large, I would hazard a guess that this potentially limits the future impact of blogging in Ireland."

Could this mean that the Marketplace of Ideas is dead? Say it ain't so, someone please!

"Its success in America owes a lot to the robust balance of political forces online. "

Take it from us: there is no 'robust balance of political forces online' in the States; which a truthful ex-Cato intern might actually admit and as the ideologically-pure blogroll over at the Freedom Institute blog bears witness (see here and the comments here for more). See our 'Near' blogroll at right for further details, or even drop by Best of Both Worlds.

"An echo-chamber is good fun for the particants but irritating for everyone else, as anyone who's been to the Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's to admire the architecture can attest. "

A rather curious example, but why travel to a different country? FI Fie Foe Fum suspects that echo-chambers are to be found much closer to home.

"Now I don't mind being in a political minority around here (wouldn't be the first time, I can tell you that), but perhaps this is something the high priests[1] of Irish blogging might think about a little as the Irish blogosphere collectively moves to where it might want to be taken seriously outside the circle of initiates."

We've re-read this several times, and we can't but come to the conclusion that Mr. Waghorne is indeed looking for an Affirmative Action scheme for wingnut bloggers (is nothing sacred?) in the wake of a certain poor showing this week.

Perhaps this is what we're reliably informed one refers to as 'situational' libertarianism.

(Suzy Byrne has more here and here)

[1] 'Pope Gavin I' has a rather nice ring to it, we think. 'Father Fealty', anyone?

Rev Dick preaches at the graveside

2006-02-08T01:42:00.000Z

Irish-Canadian blogger Richard Waghorne commenting on the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King's widow, Correta Scott King:

How Low Can You Get?

Correta Scott King's funeral took place today, with four US Presidents in attendance. President Bush spoke to praise her life and example. Rev Joseph Lowery also spoke. He chose a different angle:

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we knew that there were weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abound, for war billions more, but no more for the poor."

I can think of little more inappropriate that hijacking a funeral to attack the President. The use of King's funeral to stage partisan attacks on a President who came only to pay his respects to the deceased, by invitation, shares nothing with the example King set. The remarks and the enthusiastic approval of many presence reveal, not for the first time, a deep lack of decency, courtesy, and respect.

This was an opportunity to pay tribute to a remarkable lady and underscore America's shared pride in emerging from the days of segregation. To turn it into a shrill partisan rally is indefensible.

"The remarks and the enthusiastic approval of many presence reveal, not for the first time, a deep lack of decency, courtesy, and respect".

Oh, really?

Let's quote from the late Dr. King himself.

"Beyond Vietnam"

(Address delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, 4th April 1967 New York City)

[...]Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.[...]

There's a low individual here, to be sure. But we're afraid it's not the Rev. Joe Lowery.

Blog Award Nominees

2006-02-07T13:37:00.000Z

FI Fie Foe Fum has been nominated in three categories for the longlist of the Irish Blog Awards.

Mr. Waghorne's blog and the Freedom Institute have been nominated once each.

This is further proof that we live in an absurdist universe where meaningless events follow randomly one after the other.

We thank those who nominated us.

"I Detest What You Say. So Shut Up"

2006-02-06T16:02:00.000Z

A frequent theme here at Fi Fie Foe Fum is the rather selectively libertarian ethos of The Freedom Institute. A post will frequently begin by stating that Freedom is great stuff entirely, but continue by saying regretfully that on this occasion it's not such a good idea after all.

A mere few days after flying the flag for cartoonist's rights, Dick Dubya has now had a rethink on freedom of expression, as it applies to, nota bene, peaceful protestors against those cartoons, albeit ones whose language tended toward the interperate, death-to-the infidels style. We'll get to that in a moment. First, the funnies:

"We know that London, or more precisely Britain, is home to people with a disposition to commit these acts...."

No Dick, that's less precise. Honestly, the guy reminds me of Peter Griffin from Family Guy:

"Brian: Do you even listen to the stuff that comes out of your mouth?
Peter: I drift in and out"

Anyway, it's OK to mock Islam in cartoons. Further, it's OK to suggest that Mohammed was a kiddy-fiddler. No complaints here. That's freedom for you. You can mock another person's views, and in a marketplace of ideas, they have equal freedom to express opposition to your view, right? Wrong.

"I see little reason not to prosecute these protestors."

The man's a modern day Voltaire and no mistake.

More Muslim baiting from Dickie

2006-02-05T11:56:00.000Z

Fresh on the heels of republishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons on Silly Notes (because there must be someone who hasn't seen them yet), Dickie has been prompted into another avenue of Muslim baiting (all in the interest of free speech don'cha know?). Was the Prophet a Paedophile? asks Dickie in his post headline, and then proceeds to inform us that, Yes, as far as Dickie is concerned, he was.

Muhammad had a number of wives on the trot in his day, but the contentious one in this case was Aisha, who by some writings, was 9 when her marriage to Muhummad was consumated. Dickie helpfully informs us that although there are ambiguities about the number of wives Muhammad had, 'there is no scholarly or theological dispute' regarding the age of Aisha. The only problem is that, eh... there is quite a bit of scholarly and theological dispute about this very thing. A quick stroll over to Wikipedia will confirm this for even the laziest student of Islamic texts. Essentially the texts attributed to Aisha (transcribed 100 years after her death) might have been muddied by a bit of traditional female 'flexibility' about her age. One thing is certain; there isn't any certainty about her age.

Now, even if Aisha was 14, rather than 9 when her marriage was consumated, it would still raise a few objections in the context of our times, but then, so would the youth of Mary when knocked up by Gabriel (13 or 14 by best estimates). Dickie admittedly concedes that 'perhaps' the norms of 7th century desert life shouldn't be judged by contemporary attitudes, but that doesn't stop him wheeling out this favourite shit-stirring device of the Islamophobe (see Dickie's admiration for LGF for much in the same vein).

If Dickie says you support Zarqawi, it must be so.

2006-02-03T14:14:00.000Z

Poor old Dickie is getting himself in a bit of a twist over on Silly Notes.

It seems he belives his crustie co-students in the UCD Anti-War Group have announced their support for notorious terrorist Zarquawi and his al-Qaeda masters! That can't be right, can it?

Oh, wait. No.

It's not right at all.

Dickie was just telling porkies.

Seems the crusties were expressing solidarity with all democratic, secular and progressive opposition forces in Iraq fighting for US-UK defeat.

Well. No harm in making shit up if it suits your bias, eh Dickie?

On the same note. Dickie links to a supposed 'Fisking' of Fisk's new tome on the M.E.; The Great War for Civilisation. Some wingnut has counted up the errors in the first edition of the book and there are a whopping 13 of them! What a jolly caper!

Dickie doesn't seem to like comments however, which point out the inference therefore is that the remaining 1315 pages of the book would probably be factually correct then?

2006-01-30T21:15:00.000Z

I haven't been around much lately - been too busy doing ladee things like having periods and buying wonderbras. However I have noticed a few interesting things going on with the FIers. We have Waghorne's blog, Sicilian Notes, which seems to be a recepticle for all things long-winded and 'meaningful'. Am delighted to see that the gents have been doing a good job tying him down though (pun absolutely intended).

He's got a new job too, does our Dickie. I love him referring to 'in my day job' etc... I mean, he's been in the job 15 seconds, right? He tells us he's doing something on sovereignty...I'm sure he'll work 'small government big freedom' into that somehow.

Do we think he's started a campaign to rid UCD of its liberals yet? My bet is he'll be outside the next Women's Studies event with a placard and a posse all of whom congratulate him on the insightfulness of whatever slogan he uses to tell the women's studies folks they know nothing.

Joe McCarthy - Too Liberal For Dick

2006-01-30T16:47:00.000Z

Such was the volume of Dick "Look! I have a job! Look!" Waghorne's output on the topic of gay marriage that you'd be forgiven for not scrolling down a little to find his charming defence of McCarthyism. Dick starts out by stating that McCarthyism is "a term I think can profitably be discarded". Absolutely true. Dispensing with the term McCarthyism would indeed prove very profitable for the likes of Dick. "Freedomism", anyone?

Anyway, Dick acknowledges that McCarthy may have gone too far, and cites his megalomania as an example of "the phenomenon identified by Milton Friedman of government programs expanding to the maximum of the logic". Now I know we like to laugh here at FI foolishness, but I take my hat off to Dick here. How clever of him to find a way to castigate Joe McCarthy for being a big government liberal. Really quite brilliant, albeit in a stupid-clever kind of way.

P.S. A note to my fellow bloggers at FI Fie. I think it's about time we started giving each other positive reinforcement of the "You Go, Girl!" type the Freedom Bloggers specialise in. I suggest that every post here, no matter how empty-headed, be followed by comments like this:

"Richard, this blog looks really great - best of luck!"

"Keep at it Peter"

And my absolute fave, from Dick himself, showing unusual brevity:

"Good call"

When the Wind Blows

2006-01-29T23:31:00.000Z

Generally speaking, Mr. Waghorne’s Sicillian Notes is a windy mix of self promotion and muddled thinking. However he has recently outdone himself in an exchange with the exotically named Ms. Fiona deLondras.

Ms. deLondras had reacted to the recent proposals from the Oireachtas committee tasked with examining the constitutional definition of ‘family’. Amongst other things her attention was focused on the fact that, contrary to the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, the Committee had decided to insert a difference in the way gay and straight couples would gain recognition from the state.

In total, Mr Waghorne has now written 5,931 words on this topic in response. One might well say that it is a weighty matter, deserving of some in-depth consideration. And while Mr. Waghorne has certainly never in the past shied away from using one word where a monograph will do, it might be churlish to begrudge him his lengthy contributions on this significant topic.

It might, were it not the fact that, as he cheerfully points out in his first posting

‘I intend pretty much to ignore the immediate issue altogether.’

And, sure enough, he has been as good as his word.

Tricky Tactics Catching On

2006-01-23T23:11:00.000Z

From Our Word is Our Weapon comes the rather heartening news that the Globalization Institute has adopted the hallowed tactics of their young comrades at Fiefdom Institute. Yup, they have succumbed to the charms of democracy and allowed posting on their blog.

I am sure you know where this is going but I will let Jim pick up the point;

Yesterday, they posted this piece criticising MakePovertyHistory for their alleged “attack on business”. I submitted this comment:

“Make Poverty History’s new campaign against business is disappointing.”
...

It’s not an attack on business. It’s an attack on corporate irresponsibility - something which I thought you would support or at least be less strenuously opposed to, since you recently described how “our free-market support of the profit motive is not a license for businesses to do whatever they want”.

You also distort MPH’s campaign with a very selective quote. They explicitly did not say that all or even most multinational corporations “cause harm to communities, damage the environment and violate the rights of working people”. They said, quite rightly, that this happens “all too often”.

I tend to agree with David Cameron in that if you’re going to “campaign for capitalism” you’re not going to win the argument by attacking those who criticise reckless or irresponsible corporate behaviour. At the very least you should conduct the debate with a little more honesty.
...

Rather harmless stuff, I thought. But apparently not - the comment was blocked, presumably by some hapless intern tasked with the important job of protecting vulnerable GI readers from unauthorised thoughts.

I am sure that Fi Fie Foe Fum can stretch to accommodating the comments which don't quite fit the Globalisation Institutes dogma matrix. I'm sure that the day is coming when these brave men and women will feel secure enough to come into the light and debate their views. Until then, the doors here are always open.

Updates:
1.
From Fergal in a comment on another post;
"It seems that when it comes to the Marketplace of Ideas, the FI prefer a planned economy", ditto for the Globalization Institute.
2.
It seems that GI have succumbed to the charms of democracy. Still, the FI continues to delete posts so FI Fie Foe Fum has a continued purpose.
RR

Get A Job, Dick

2006-01-23T14:25:00.000Z

It has long been common knowledge that the Freedom Institute is rather top heavy with student layabout never-did-an-honest-day's-work types, but surely Dick Dubya was rather giving the game away last week, when he posted a brief dispatch letting us know that he was at home watching The Big Bite. Can we now look forward to his ruminations on the anti-Israel bias of Neighbours, the Afternoon Show's neutrality in the War on Terror, and the big government agenda of The Love Boat? I can hardly wait.

Moral Clarity Dick - tough titties for innocent brown people, we're afraid

2006-01-17T03:07:00.000Z

Another day, another bountiful crop of Dickie Waghorne posts. Today we deal with the vexatious issue of "collateral damage", as it has become charmingly known in US Army-speak.

In other words, the killing of innocent civilians in the course of a war.

" On Civilian Casualties

An interesting point on 'civilian casualties'. After the CIA attack in Pakistan, some of the usual suspects (Guardian, anti-war regulars)lost no time in condemning the deaths of civilian casualties. Except, it's not so clear-cut, to put it midly. The Associated Press is now fleshing out what we know of the strike:

[blahblahblah. The Americans attacked a village in Pakistan, but the target turned out not to be there]

Al-Zawahiri sent some aides to the dinner instead and investigators were trying to determine whether they had been in any of the three houses that were destroyed in the missile strike that killed at least 17 people, one of the officials said.

Not only is this sort of intelligence more than sufficient to be justly considered actionable, it's hardly clear that the victims can all be classed as 'civilian casualties'. If you invite Osama's number two around for a bite to eat I've little to zero sympathy if your meal gets interrupted by an airstrike."

Actually, we don't think we're going to write snark about this one. We rather think it speaks for itself.

Update 17/01/06:

Sez Dickie in his comments:

"The facts as they as understood tell us that Zawahiri was invited in to this house. That family has no excuse. It's quite possible that others are dead out of no more than bad luck, but you can't defeat the al-Qaeda threat by holding back on actionable intelligence because a strike might go wrong.

And no, to be a terrorist attack it has to target innocent civilians. Those targeted were neither innocent, nor civilian.
RW | Homepage | 01.16.06 - 7:16 pm | # "

Update 17/01/06: As pointed out in the comments by Mr. McGarr, we've been down this road with young Master Richard before - when the entirely innocent Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police in the London Tube. See here and here for details.

Chile to join the Axis of Evil?

2006-01-16T13:48:00.000Z

Reuters on the winner of yesterday's Chilean general election:

"SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - A torture victim in the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, a former defense minister and a medical doctor, socialist Michelle Bachelet parlayed her ability to connect with voters into becoming Chile's first woman president.

Her challenger, rightist billionaire Sebastian Pinera, conceded shortly after first returns in Sunday's election showed Bachelet winning more than 53 percent of the votes.

Bachelet, also a former health minister, is a socialist from the center-left coalition that has governed Chile since the end of the 1973-1990 Pinochet regime.

"Together we recovered democracy for Chile," Bachelet, the front-runner during the campaign, said in a presidential debate. "Now I invite you to be a part of another historic moment by electing Chile's first ever woman president. Let's make history."

[...]

Bachelet's brief imprisonment and torture at the beginning of the military dictatorship and her unlikely later role as defense minister presented a compelling life story to Chileans.

She went into exile with her mother to Australia and Germany after they were both released from prison.

Her father, an air force general, died of a heart attack in a prison camp where he had been tortured. He was one of about 3,000 people who died or disappeared in political violence during the military regime."

Piñera is, of course, the brother of one José Piñera, Labor minister to the former dictator Pinochet. José Piñera is currently the social security privatisation point-man (and the probable source of Dubya's fascination with same) at the Cato Institute think-tank, home to dodgy online calculators and even dodgier staff.

As such, Piñera also happens to be the former boss (scroll to the end) of the Freedom Institute's Richard Waghorne from Dickie's Cato internship in the summer of 2005. (Update: more here and here, that is if they don't change the links)

A small world, isn't it?

Somewhat predictably, Pinochet's rule of Chile has been a subject of admiration for Dickie and the rest of the gang at the Freedom Institute (following their Conservative idol Margaret Thatcher in this respect). We're going to hand you over to Dick O'Brien at Back Seat Drivers for the goods.

It's worth noting that José Piñera still defends Pinochet's rule of terror, one choice quote being:

"Lamenting each one of the victims, Chileans and foreigners, who fell in Chile, and condemning each one of the abuses which both sides committed in the embryonic civil war which lasted for years, it is important to point out that the Chilean revolution produced a minimal number of deaths when compared to any historic standard. Even the Report of the Commission which President Aylwin's government, antagonistic to President Pinochet's, set up (the so-called "Rettig Report"), concluded that in the 17 year period around 2,000 people died*.

[...]

In addition to the historic economic transformation carried out by the free market economists, the achievement which meant avoiding a war with Argentina, and the voluntary transition to a democratic government, the truth demands recognition that former President Pinochet led a legitimate rebellion against tyranny and that the origin of Chile's civil war --and its victims-- lies with former President Allende and his marxist Socialist party."

Which sounds remarkably like the language you see around wingnut blogs - Irish ones included - when the topic of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez comes up.

We somehow doubt that Sra. Bachelet would agree.

(* non-Piñera sources say that the true figure for dead was 3,197 over 17 years. To put this in perspective, this is a higher mortality rate at the hands of Pinochet's goons than that for the entire Troubles - which had 3,600 deaths over 30 years)

Update 16/01/06: As we asked in a thread over at BSE recently, does FI Fie Foe Fum deserve the downpour of manna from heaven we've experienced in wingnuttiness from the FI?

From the Freedom Institute's "Chief Economist", Young Progressive Democrat activist Mark. J. Coughlan:

"Socialism is its own worst enemy. Its record speaks for itself. No argument ought to serve to persuade people of the folly of socialism better than an example of a country where socialism was experienced, failed, and replaced by laissez-faire capitalism. This nation transformed itself from a backward, impoverished, socialist state to becoming Latin America's most prosperous. Chile is the exemplary state from which developing countries can learn so much.

[...]

The military coup of 1973 brought General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to power. Once the military Junta was in place, Pinochet was proclaimed President of the Republic. Immediately, Pinochet set about introducing radical and much needed economic reforms. The transition from Marxism to capitalism had begun. Allende’s nationalisation gave way to privatisation and deregulation, the minimum wage was abolished, the free market was developed and the Chilean nation began the journey of becoming, as in the words of General Pinochet, "not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs".

Today, as a result of these radical economic reforms, Chile remains the most economically developed nation in South America [...] Like all free and modern nations, Chile’s economy is subject to booms and recessions. However, when we look at Chile today, we cannot fail to be impressed. The transition from a backward Marxist economy to a modern free market where wealth is appreciated and not frowned upon is what led to the coining of a phrase by Milton Friedman - "The Miracle of Chile".

Lessons to be learned from Chile

The lessons to be learned from Chile are extremely profound in a world where freedom is being threatened from many quarters. What we have seen in the above example is what was needed in Chile in 1973 is needed in the new Iraq thirty-one years later. The awe and wonder associated with a miracle lies in the fact that its cause is unknown. The cause of the Chile’s astonishing economic transformation is well-known - free market capitalism.

The foundation stones of freedom were established in Chile from 1973 just as the conditions of freedom must now be established in Iraq. If this means imposing capitalism then so be it. [...]"

(We quote an extensive tract, as FI documents can 'disappear')

Warblogger 101

2006-01-16T09:37:00.000Z

One shamefully under-reported phenomenon on FI Fie Foe Fum has been the subject of the armchair generalship of the Freedom Institute students directors, notably one R. Waghorne. It seems that there's a field-marshal's baton with every copy of The Road to Serfdom - but not, alas, any instruction manual on how to use it.

Continuing our Clueless-Policy-Wonk Education Program, DICK is pleased to present a demonstration of a classic failing of ideologues who set themselves up as military commanders (and ironically enough, it's resource management). Today, class, we're going to cover "overstretch", to be loosely defined as "not having anywhere near enough troops for the fantastical tasks envisaged by civilians".

First, some fun facts and figures: "tooth-to-tail" is the term for the ratio of actual combat troops to support services, which in a modern military runs somewhere around 1 combat soldier for 10 supporting troops. Another one is that conventional military practice is that a sustained, lengthy deployment requires three times the number of troops necessary to actually achieve the mission - one third in situ, with the other two rotating in or out. Having noted this, let's move along to our case study.

Dickie Waghorne, budding warblogger and instant-mix military strategist:

"A live crisis with Iran would probably give the administration the political muscle required to take the required military steps, though the power, or at least determination, of useful fools to blame the US and hinder necessary measures is not to be discounted. If the US needs to put another hundred thousand men in the region for a six month tour, that's perfectly do-able militarily if the argument can be won"

The real world:

Marine Sentries at Naval Academy Sent to Iraq
From Times Wire Reports

A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end.

The gates and crypts of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones at Annapolis have been guarded by Marine sentries since before the Civil War.

The military has now withdrawn Marines from that post and redeployed them to Iraq. The four dozen Marines will be replaced by Navy enlisted personnel.

U.S. Air Force's Role Changing in Iraq
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Mon Jan 2, 1:22 PM ET
AN AIR BASE IN KUWAIT - U.S. airmen are increasingly on the ground in Iraq, driving in convoys and even working with detainees — a shift in the Air Force's historic mission that military officials call necessary to bolster the strapped Army.

The main aerial hub for the war in Iraq has 1,500 airmen doing convoy operations in Iraq and 1,000 working with detainees, training Iraqis and performing other activities not usually associated with the Air Force, said Col. Tim Hale, commander of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing.

"Every one of us has learned that we are in a nontraditional state in our armed forces," he said, standing outside an auditorium at an air base in Kuwait.

This is called "putting a brave face on things".

The question is which hat does Dickie Waghorne propose to magically pull 100,000 extra troops out of, when US military overstretch is already such a chronic problem? A related question is: in just which universe does Dickie imagine that American GI's would be in Iran for just a "six-month tour"?

Some more fun facts:

Population Iraq: 26,074,906
Population Iran: 68,017,860

Wikipedia figures on Iranian military strength (agreed with here):

"Iran's army includes 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts.

Iran can also call on substatial numbers of reservists as most males must carry out a full two year millitary service at some point in their lives. It is generally acknowledged that the conscript element of the army is not trained nearly as well as the professional active duty army."

GlobalSecurity:

"After the Revolution, Iranians continued to buy arms from the United States using Israeli, European, and Latin American intermediaries to place orders, despite the official United States embargo. Israeli sales, for example, were recorded as early as 1979. On several occasions, attempted arms sales to Iran have been thwarted by law enforcement operations or broker-initiated leaks. One operation set up by the United States Department of Justice foiled the shipment of more than US$2 billion of United States weapons to Iran from Israel and other foreign countries. The matériel included 18 F-4 fighter-bombers, 46 Skyhawk fighter-bombers, and nearly 4,000 missiles. But while the Department of Justice was attempting to prevent arms sales to Iran, senior officials in the administration of President Ronald Reagan admitted that 2,008 TOW missiles and 235 parts kits for Hawk missiles had been sent to Iran via Israel. These were intended to be an incentive for the release of American hostages held by pro-Iranian militiamen in Lebanon. Unverified reports in 1987 indicated that Iranian officials claimed that throughout 1986 the Reagan administration had sold Iran ammunition and parts for F- 4s, F-5s, and F-14s. In addition, Tehran reportedly purchased United States-made equipment from international arms dealers and captured United States weapons from Vietnam."

Does Richard Waghorne really imagine that 10,000 GI's could successfully conquer and hold Iran? It's not as if we hadn't already seen the reality behind such a Rumsfeld-esque delusion in Iraq.

It's one thing to forget Vietnam - quite another to fail to learn the lessons of a war still actually in progress.

Update 16/01/06:

It's clear from a re-reading of his post that Dickie thinks that 'attack' and 'strike' are words synonymous with 'land invasion'. They're not - Israel 'struck' Iraq's incomplete nuclear powerplant back in the '80s with aircraft. This is a distinction that McWilliams is clearly conscious of in his article, but did Dickie misread it and prematurely start moving his fantasy US divisions into place? Read the following:

"[McWilliams' quote] Given that the president of Iran wants them wiped off the face of the earth and might use his nukes to do that, what will the Israelis do? Will (probably ineffectual) sanctions be enough to prevent the Israelis from launching a pre-emptive strike? It is difficult to tell, but given that America has been chastened by Iraq, don't be surprised if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities. And on the basis that the president of Iran is a man of his word, if you were living [in Israel], would you object?

[Dickie] I know I certainly wouldn't. McWilliams could have built on this point to argue that the US ought to do the job, for the same reason they decided to cover for Israel after it was attacked by Iraq in 1991. But this is a thoughtful and reality-based contribution to the Irish debate on what may turn out to be the Iran War of 2006/2007. McWilliams has raised the bar. Let's see if the O'Tooles and Brownes can follow."

We report, you decide.

George finds a new friend

2006-01-14T03:08:00.000Z

With Aznar gone, and Blair and Berlusconi in steady decline, George W. Bush's friends in Europe are beginning to dwindle in number. Yet there's some good news for Dubya yet, as Rainy Day happily reports:

Frau Merkel goes to Washington

What can one expect — best-case-scenario — from today's White House meeting between President George W. Bush and Chancellor Angela Merkel? That a telephone can be used for communicating? One hopes so. Her predecessor preferred market squares for transmitting his trans-Atlantic messages, but she may favour more discrete methods.

We know that Eamonn Fitzgerald actually lives in Germany, so he ought to have some idea of what's he's talking about. But we remember the Bush-Schroeder rift rather differently as to who wasn't calling whom.

The New York Times, November 19 2002 (via SMH):

"First, President George Bush refused to congratulate Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on his re-election. Then Mr Bush ignored a personal letter from the Chancellor.

When he finally took a phone call from the German leader on November 8, their conversation was businesslike and brief.

Now the question remains: will Mr Bush shake Mr Schroeder's hand at a NATO summit meeting in Prague this week?

There is no scheduled one-on-one meeting between the leaders of the United States and Germany, the most important economic power in continental Europe and the centre of gravity of the alliance.

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, confirmed he had rejected the offer of a meeting with Mr Schroeder.

Mr Bush is still angry that Mr Schroeder campaigned on a platform opposing a war in Iraq, and was further infuriated when a minister in Mr Schroeder's Government was reported to have compared the President's tactics to those of Hitler.

Officials in the US Administration acknowledge that the President's sense of betrayal ensures that his relationship with Mr Schroeder, which was not easy in the best of times, will never be the same again.

"No question," a senior White House official said last week. "It will remain professional, but it's hard to imagine it being personal." As if to underscore the change, Mr Bush's NATO calendar is filled with meetings with other European leaders."

CNN, June 1st 2003:

"CHOI: I'm wondering what the body language and the reception was with Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor. I know there was a big rift there. In fact, President Bush refusing to talk to him for about six months.

OAKLEY: Well, indeed. The two haven't had a discussion for six months, and it seems really that President Bush holds things against Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany rather more so than he does against President Chirac of France. It's partly, I understand, because he feels that Gerhard Schroeder gave him a personal assurance when they met last year that he wasn't going to use the issue of the Iraq war and the feelings that it had had stirred in Germany as an election counter, but Gerhard Schroeder did then do that.

Of course, it would be much more difficult for President Bush to snub President Chirac here because he is the host of this summit and, in a way, he's already doing so because he's not spending very long here. He's leaving early, before all the other leaders do, tomorrow President Bush is, to carry on with the Middle East peace initiative, going on to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to pursue that.

But Gerhard Schroeder is clearly a little bit nervous about his relations with President Bush, saying that people shouldn't spend too much time measuring how long their handshake takes. Sophia? "

Of course, there's plenty of Bush track record on childish petulance. The Daily Telegraph, 12 November 2004:

"Mr Zapatero was one of the first premiers to send a congratulatory telegram to Mr Bush after his election victory last week.

But, in what was a stinging confirmation of the poor state of relations between Washington and Madrid, he has yet to receive a reply.

Mr Zapatero had also telephoned Mr Bush before the election result was made official but was not put through to the president."

Need we say more?

Well, it's George's party and he didn't want to invite the mean man anyway:

"What about German troops entering Iraq one day soon? Unlikely. After all, the US-led coalition never asked Germany to send soldiers to fight Saddam, it was just that Merkel's predecessor exploited the issue in his bid to cling to power. Germany wasn't asked to fight in 2003 and it won't be today."

On reading this, we're afraid that we experienced a fairly chronic dose of scepticism. And, sure enough:

Chicago Tribune, November 22, 2002:

"The United States has sent letters to about 50 nations asking each what it could contribute to a military action in Iraq. So far the response has been described as tepid. Germany received one of the letters and did not dismiss it immediately.

U.S. officials said Germany may still be willing to play a non-combat role in Iraq, possibly with the peacekeeping and nation-building duties that would follow the war.

Rice said the solicitation of potential allies for a conflict in Iraq was strictly precautionary and not an indication that such a conflict was unavoidable. Bush again insisted that he considered war a last resort.

But Rice said the U.S., and its allies, had to prepare for the possibility of war."

China's People's Daily, December 25 2002:

"German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has reiterated that his country would not send troops to Iraq while the United States gears up for a possible war against Iraq.

"I have no intention of changing my stance," said Schroeder in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper published on Tuesday.

During his election campaign in August, He expressed his stancefor the first time that Germany would not participate in a US-led war against Iraq even if there would be a UN mandate.

"Those who are still discussing how Germany will act if the Iraq conflict has to be solved through military means are making amistake," he told the newspaper. "It is like this, and it will remain to be like this."

The United States has been angered by Schroeder's opposition and bilateral relations have soured.

While admitting his policy on Iraq may have damaged his standing in the United States, Schroeder stressed, "I can't make Germany's policy dependent on that." "

We think we've proved our point.

Finally, a regretful sigh that poor old Europe just can't seem to agree on anything.

No, the best we can wish from today's meeting is the prospect of a unified trans-Atlantic policy in the face of the Iranian challenge. Given how deeply Iraq divided Europe, this will not be easy to achieve. It may prove impossible, in fact.

In wingnut-speak, "unified trans-Atlantic policy" inevitably translates to "doing as Dubya wants". And while we're on the topic of Europe's division over Iraq, let's remember the letter Bush's Poodle sent around before the war. (Note to self: remember to ask Chomsky whether 'boot-shiner' trumps 'poodle' in the pecking-order of useful fools)

Ladies and gentlemen, your self-correcting blogosphere at work. Thank you and good night.

Dickie Doesn't Do Irony

2006-01-13T23:58:00.000Z

The PPF's arts & culture spokesman, today:

"It would be no bad thing if at least one Irish critic of the war was prepared to work for a successful Iraq rather than carping from the sidelines. But then I haven't yet managed to make it over myself either."

Smarter Wingnuttery, Please

2006-01-13T22:44:00.000Z

Dickie continues to be our favourite new read:

"surely it's time to take stock in Ireland. The liberation of Afghanistan - surely one of the most just wars in history - was opposed by something like forty percent of Irish people. We remained neutral despite the UN authorization the war was granted. Had the Irish position been followed, Osama would sitting unmolested in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

A war to be proud of, just not for Ireland sadly."

DICK - the Dublin Institute for Culture and Knowledge - is proud to announce the commencement of our Clueless-Policy-Wonk Education Program.

Good evening, class. Our first lesson is to learn about neutrality as it is understood under international law. Your assignment is to read and memorise the Hague Convention "Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land", specifically:

CHAPTER I "The Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers":

Art. 2.

Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power

Art. 5.

A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4 to occur on its territory.

It is not called upon to punish acts in violation of its neutrality unless the said acts have been committed on its own territory.

CHAPTER II "Belligerents Interned and Wounded Tended in Neutral Territory"

Art. 11.

A neutral Power which receives on its territory troops belonging to the belligerent armies shall intern them, as far as possible, at a distance from the theatre of war.

It may keep them in camps and even confine them in fortresses or in places set apart for this purpose.

It shall decide whether officers can be left at liberty on giving their parole not to leave the neutral territory without permission.

This is what "neutrality" actually means, and it was outwardly the state of play here during WWII. But unlike Dickie, we're going to bet on our these days being one of Dubya's little helpers (the undisclosed 15 members of the "Coalition of the Willing"). Any questions?

Disillusioned Lefty interview

2006-01-12T16:08:00.000Z

[Originally posted on Wheres Me Country].
This weeks Disillusioned Lefty interview is with myself. You can read it here.

RR

Dickie reads the tea-leaves on Iraq

2006-01-11T01:45:00.000Z

If there's one constant Northern Star in the humdrum lives of FI Fie bloggers, it's the regular progress reports by Dickie Waghorne on the Good News In Iraq (That The Liberal MSM Don't Want You To Hear).

This week has been no different. Dickie performs his analysis voodoo on news of attacks on a police recruiting station in Ramadi in Iraq:

"How astonishing - "recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process".

Two stories is hardly more of a pattern than one would be, but it does seem that each times there's an attack, the reaction of those nearby is to hold firm against the terrorists. It takes courage and a strong desire to defeat the terrorist insurgency to organize locally against Zarqari in Ramadi and, even more so, to stand back in line after a suicide bomber has just killed over fifty of those who were waiting with you.

One thing is reasonably sure through the fog of news from Iraq - the country has a deep reserves of ordinary people who are prepared to stand up to terrorism at great personal risk. The millions of those who voted in the recent elections, marking their finger with indelible ink, proved that. Those calling for a withdrawal have to account morally for leaving these courageous democrats to face al-Qaeda alone."

And so what of these "courageous democrats" on whom Dickie's hopes lie? Luckily for FI Fie Foe Fum bloggers, we read Middle East analysis by members of the Reality-Based Community©. Professor Juan Cole, take it away:

"Al-Hayat [Ar.]: Sources close to the guerrilla groups in Iraq told the pan-Arab, Saudi-backed London daily, al-Hayat that new disputes have exploded between it and the organization "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, after he carried out last Thursday's bombings in Karbala and Ramadi. Dozens of Shiite and Sunni civilians were killed. The Iraqi guerrilla groups told al-Hayat that they would not unite with the Zarqawi group, as a result.

[...]

Iraqi guerrillas were especially upset about the bombing of potential police recruits in Ramadi, since some of the men belonged to the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. The guerrillas had given them permission to enlist under a secret agreement they had reached with the Americans via the mediation of tribal chieftains, stipulating that the guerrillas would dominate the security services, the police and army in the Sunni Arab provinces, as an element in an over-all settlement. The guerrillas would be able to place their men in the security services of Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninevah provinces. In return for their accepting this deal, the Sunni Arab guerrillas would also get the release of their commanders from American prisons, along with the release of some Baathist prisoners from the former regime. (Saddam and some of his worst henchmen are excluded from this deal.)

If this agreement shows signs of working out, the two sides will sign a wide-ranging formal political agreement. The conference planned for Baghdad to continue the work of the Cairo conference last fall is part of the negotiating plan."

The Bush administration clearly realises that the situation in Iraq is indeed every bit as bad as the LLM ("Lying Liberal Media") have been reporting, and are desperate by this stage to try anything in order to avoid further US agonies - even to turning control over to the very same Sunni Ba'athists whom the war was fought against*.

But pity poor Dickie, whom it seems hasn't yet received the memo.

(*at least, from a US point of view, better that than the looming alternative of the GOP having yet again given invaluable aid to the Great Satan's nemesis - the Ayatollahs in Iran. Neo-conservatives - the "useful idiots" of militant Shi'ism? Discuss.)

The FI Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

2006-01-10T23:01:00.000Z

"Didn't you think with the Cold War being over, things should have gotten better. How many of y'all were as stupid as I was in believing that? Wow it's over - 40 years of threat of nuclear weapons - it's over, cool, cool... Wrong! Now 12 different countries have nuclear weapons - it just got 12 times as bad" - Bill Hicks, Revelations.

Here at Fi Fie, we know how Bill felt. Oh, we got a brief frisson from learning that our favourite champions of Freedom were undone by their inability to run what they call "the technical ends" of a blog. But then came the awful realisation that the venues for FI foolishness have merely multiplied. Is it any wonder we've had to take on new staff?

So what's up with the FI diaspora? Well, Dick Dubya has posted a curious piece on corporate social responsibility. Like so many of his pieces, my only reaction to it is a vague sense of loss that I've wasted vital seconds of my life, seconds I'll never get back again, in reading it. Essentially, he's against the introduction of a law requiring that 1% of corporate profits be put towards socially wholesome projects. So it's just as well that no-one, no-one in Ireland has been calling for this, given that we already have something called corporation tax. As so often before, Dick read something somewhere (the economist in this case), translated it into Waghornian, and posted it without pausing to consider whether it had a shred of relevance. Because, hey, irrelevance beats the alternative, of keeping your mouth shut.

Speaking of Waghornian, that most impenetrable of dialects, can someone please explain to me what this, over at Peter Nolan's BlackLine is supposed to mean. I know I'm getting to be a bit of a bore on the topic of Peter's trainwreck grammar, but honestly, I've been re-reading this post once a day since before Christmas, and still haven't figured out quite was his point is. It starts out on reasonably solid ground, but by the time he gets to the mad glinting Poles and Balts I'm lost in enemy territory without a map to get me home. Maybe he's just too deep for me. Anyway, answers on a postcard. Employees of Kelloggs may not enter.

Finally, though he's not been inducted into the FI (do they have a hazing ritual I wonder?) you'll notice that the Tallrite blog has been added to the Freedom Bloggers section of our blogroll. Is he a foe worthy of FI Fie? Well, have a look at this and make up your mind. Apparently, he's also beginning to suspect that Ali G isn't really black.

A Thought for Bedtime

2006-01-10T03:04:00.000Z

I have just realised I am the Double-D in the DICK
How fabulous.

Drinkies with Dubya

2006-01-10T02:43:00.000Z

The Tallrite blog has been talking about Charles Kennedy’s love affair with the bottle (not a Kinga-esque love affair, obviously…) and finishes off with this little beauty:

The leader of the world's only superpower is an alcoholic. George W Bush. But he hasn't had a drink since his 40th birthday, and whatever you might think about his vast right wing conspiratorial neocon warmongering crusader politics, alcohol has played absolutely no part whatsoever in his behaviour. He the world's leading walking advertisment that alcoholics can lead fulfilling and fruitful lives, and as such he should be an inspiration, especially to a hitherto successful fellow-politician such as Charles Kennedy.
Ah, but that would be admitting something positive about “the word's greatest terrorist”. Can't have that, can we?

If anything was to drive Kennedy back to the bottle it’d surely be a claim that he should be inspired by a murderous blaggard like Dubya. Frankly I think a drink might do Dubya the world of good – loosen him up a bit, loosen the old tongue, lead to an admission of complete uselessness and, ideally, a psychotic episode at a press conference. As a side-note we’re not at all convinced that Dubya isn’t hitting the bottle now and again, our conclusions of course being formed after a peep at Crooks and Liars and half a bottle of gin.

Hiccup!

They don't really fancy you

2006-01-10T02:02:00.000Z

It’s hard to imagine there’s anything other than sexual frustration behind this latest post on Wulfbeorn Watching in which ‘the Wolf’ supports Stringfellows in the name of capitalism and liberty. He doesn’t seem to be able to make the connection between clubs like Stringfellows where women might well compete for the ‘pleasure’ of dancing on the laps of sweaty repressed yobbos on their stag night, and underground even-more-repressive clubs where women don’t have a full and free choice to ‘perform’. The connection between this and the rise of illegal establishments lies in the free market capitalism the Wolf is such a fan of – pumping (forgive the pun...) something which is inevitably going to be in demand into the market (and the experience of a lap-dance will certainly be in demand) increases the desire for it and when the ‘legitimate’ clubs can’t meet that demand other means will be found.

I know there are many boyos out there without the company of a good woman – as indeed were our own fifiefoedums before my arrival – but there are better and more arousing ways of getting a hard on than paying someone who finds you utterly repulsive to gyrate on your ‘lap’ for three minutes. The Wolf claims that “Stringfellows and other lap-dancing clubs, with the guidance of the profit motive, are indeed stretching the boundaries of liberty in this country” but seems to see nothing paradoxical about lauding the ‘free choice’ of women to ‘dance’ there and the ‘profit motive’ behind treating women like commodities.

An equally serious objection to the opening, however, has got to be the prospect of Stringfellow’s unfortunate ‘dress taste’ and ‘hair’ being imposed on the great Dublin public. The upside at least is that the women will not be required to wear clothes therefore he can’t force them into outfits that match his ensembles. Shudder.

And by the way Wolfie – we’re women. Not girls.

Introduction

2006-01-09T21:02:00.000Z

Who can resist the temptation of donning the cloak of anonymity and clawing out the eyes of rightwing nutters? Not me. New to blogging but not to bitching I’m sure I’ll fit right in here with these brave boys who’ve soldiered on without the guiding hand of a woman for far too long. No longer dear boys – now you have someone on board to teach you the true virtues of bitchiness. I feel tempted to promise only to blog when I’m PMSing but I’d hate to provide all you patriarchs out there with sufficient period-giggle-material to dismiss me off hand so instead I shall blog all month long, PMS or no, but with an added element of bitch-fest-ness at period time.

Where does the name come from? Growing up in the country I was often told I’d become a fine double ditch of a woman. I did, and I’m angry. Who says being fat doesn’t give a woman character?

Now, I’m off to scour the bloggosphere for some right wingers to eat with dinner.

Rebranding the Goys

2006-01-07T23:26:00.000Z

While not always a fan of the rest of its output, we couldn't help but notice the following in the parting shot from Indymedia Ireland Watch (now on hiatus):

"(Or if you can stomach shameless self-aggrandisement and narcissism, then our erstwhile link exchanger*, the Purple Penis for Freedom, occasionally has a posting about Indymedia Ireland's activities. )

CJ"

Has a certain ring to it, we think. We wonder what the Freedom Institute PPF's publicity director makes of it all.

Off with our heads!

2006-01-07T16:39:00.000Z

For a committed Anglophile who cannot praise the English Common Law highly enough, young Master Richard seems to be having persistent trouble grasping basic fundamentals of same such as "innocent until proven guilty". Today's sentence from Judge Waghorne's bench is entitled "Sharon and the failure of Irish Blogosphere". This closely follows the lines of past demonstrated behaviour, so we'll move swiftly through:

"It's a longstanding pet peeve of mine that foreign affairs commentary in Ireland tends towards the insubstantial. There's no shortage of people willing to tackle the area, most critical of US policy, but there's an awful tendency towards taking the cheap shots. Sharon's stroke is a good case in point. Taking the personal tragedy of his sudden illness as a given, the news is a big deal politically.

[...]

So what has the Irish blogosphere contributed to analysis of the state of affairs? Without wanting to be too critical, not least at the outset with a new blog, the answer has to be precious little.

[...]

Altogether, the episode is another example of the Irish blogosphere's frivolous approach to international affairs, characteristic of the larger part of Irish commentary overall. Two blogs stand out though as the honourable exceptions - Lebanon, An Irish Experience, and the Dossing Times, both of which have analysis of the shape of things to come.

Why the collective failure? It's the fourth day the news has been known now. I suspect, without knowing, that an element of self-satisfied groupthink has set in, people being a bit too sure that all right-thinking individuals know that there's nothing good to be said about Sharon so there's no need to make any intelligent comments after his sudden demise.

Those who would criticise policies ought to have an alternative course of action to hand; Irish commentators, perhaps because as a small country we never have to stand over our actions internationally, seem particularly bad at proffering constructive criticism when it comes to world affairs.

This post isn't intended to be critical, more of a well-intentioned calling to account. I am interested to hear some Irish views on Sharon's legacy given the laast year or two of Middle Eastern history and I think those going for the cheap shots in their coverage are selling themselves short."

"People being a bit too sure that all right-thinking individuals know that there's nothing good to be said about Sharon"? We're unsure where exactly "suspect, without knowing" fits in on the scale of evidence. The Free Stater line would be that there are very dark doings indeed in Sharon's past, but that our opinion of him has risen markedly in the last few months, and especially since his leaving the ultra-Zionist fringe in Likud. His death - if it happens - will be a great boon to Netanyahu and other Greater Israel fanatics.

Perhaps if the "independent journalist" had bothered to actually use the arcane powers of the Internets to poll the views of Irish bloggers on this... but the eternal FI recourse to cries of ideological persecution was too tempting. Cries of pro-US/UK/Israel victimhood also just happen to be the right stuff to attract attention (and readership-building links) from Dickie's US wingnut cousins, too.

Well, enough of that. Let's hear Dickie's own detailed analysis on the consequences of the death of Ariel Sharon.

"I'll post my own thoughts on the post-Sharon state of affair next week when time is on my side and I've given the matter a little more thought."

Oh, dear. We've been here before, haven't we?

Update 07/01/06 : Others are taking issue with Mr. Waghorne, too.

"Update 2: Fiona de Londras disagrees:

Richard Waghorne is cross with us for not talking about Ariel Sharon although he vows to blog on it when he has time. I wonder whether he has ever thought that time might be the very reason many of us have not yet blogged on Sharon?

My gripe isn't with anyone who's left the issue alone - the day's too short to cover everything of interest, let alone everything altogether. What worries me is that almost all of those who did find time to choose to cover the Sharon story went for the most insubstantial angle, the Robertson remarks, and only that. And given how many hundred Irish blogs there are, it strikes me as odd that only two have ventured an opinion on the politics of the emerging situation."

Which boils down - so far as we can see - to "it's not an issue to have not covered this - unless it's to disapprove of an influential US evangelist gloating on Sharon's stroke - but it's an issue that so many haven't covered this".

We're not too sure what additional analysis Irish bloggers can add to 'new-look Sharon gone = Israelis and Palestinians further f*cked'. We await Dickie's promised own revelations with anticipation.

Dickie acquires own digs - when's the house-warming?

2006-01-05T22:32:00.000Z

FI Fie Foe Fum notes that our favourite Freedom Institute director has struck out with his own blog, namely Sicilian Notes (no, we've no idea what the name refers to either, unless it's a Classical reference. Which - considering Mr. Waghorne's Arts education - it probably is). So far there's not much, apart from a selection of what it appears Dickie considers his greatest FI blog hits. Of most interest so far are the Sicilian Notes Policies, from which we quote:

"Richard subscribes to the highest standards of disclosure proportionate with privacy and confidentiality, both his and others. Readers should note that Richard has a life outside this blog, including involvement with a number of political organizations, political consultancy, and political journalism, much of which deals with issues featured on Sicilian Notes. Disclosure will be made when in the author's opinion there exists a direct conflict of interest or is required by a third party. As per standard practice, disclosure will not be made for routine commentary regarding groups with whom Richard has a past or current connection unless there is a substantive ethical reason to do so."

"Political organizations, political consultancy, and political journalism"? This bears further investigation, we think. The 'political journalism' bit is presumably the gig writing libertarian pieces for Ian Hyland's resuscitated Magill (the non-ABC figure publishing one). This appears to form the entire basis for Richard's coy public references to himself as an "independent journalist" (neatly side-stepping questions over his apparent real occupation as the full-time - and so far as anyone knows, entirely unpaid - organiser for the FI).

The other two are curious. With regard to the 'political organisations', we're aware of reports that Dickie got royally shafted by Young Fine Gael-heads back in the glorious pro-Coca Cola campaign days in UCD, but the fact remains that most of the discoverable political allegiances on the present-day FI are - you guessed it - budding young Blueshirts. With the remainder being McDowell Youth (apart from the occasional rogue like former Ógra Fianna Fáiler John McGuirk) we'd call it an even toss as to which membership card young master Waghorne carries in his pocket. And we would dearly like to find out just where the 'political consultancy' is going. Are we seeing an heir to Eoghan Harris' record[1] of stunning electoral successes? We've a feeling we should stock up on popcorn for the delights ahead.

Love the Sicilian Notes banner, though. Eternal WASP pin-up Winston Churchill, Leo Strauss (the original neo-con) and two Classical figures, one of whom we presume to be Plato. What a line-up!

[1] So far, the arch former Stickie has served as advisor to John Bruton, Mary Robinson, David Trimble and one Ahmed Chalabi. Oh, and once denounced Mary McAleese as "a ticking tribal timebomb" (ahem).

The Humanity Dick Award

2006-01-05T06:19:00.000Z

(This is a repost from Free Stater)

It seems to be quite the fashion these days in the Boggersphere to be giving out awards - ranging from the laudable to the questionable. Just the other day, we noticed Eamonn FitzGerald announcing as his Person of the Year Condoleeza Rice, whom he characterises as:

"Smart, tough, resilient, Condoleezza Rice ends a testing first year in office with the State Department relocated to the centre of American foreign policy making. That is a considerable achievement."

We (on the other hand) see it as honouring a public liar and brass-necked apologist for torture, and we suspect we're far from alone in this. And it may just be us, but we fail to see how a penchant for publicly brown-nosing Bush lackeys sits easily with this comment added to the end of a recent Rainy Day eulogy to W.H. Auden, and presumably aimed at the press reporting the news critics of Dubya:

"Fifty years ago, he could not have imagined the "horrid, mechanical screech" we are now subjected to by those who are paid to "befuddle the crowd", but his words continue to reverberate. And, there was then and there is now "the suburb of dissent". It's where the bloggers hang out now."

However, and in keeping with the times, the Dublin Institute for Culture and Knowledge is pleased to announce the Humanity Dick Award for notable humanitarian works which better (in ways large or small) the society we live in. As most out there are probably unaware of just who this remarkable Irishman was, we delve into Wikipedia:

"Colonel Richard "Humanity Dick" Martin, M.P., of Ballinahinch, Co. Galway, Esq., was born in 1754 the only son of the Honourable Bridget Barnwall - a daughter of Baron Trimlestown - and Robert Martin Fitz Anthony of Birchall, Co. Galway. He was raised at Dangan House, situated on the Corrib River, four miles upriver from the town of Galway. His father's family, Jacobite in politics, were one of The Tribes of Galway, fourteen merchant families who ruled Galway from the 14th to 17th centuries. The Barnwalls were an enobled family of Norman descent based in the counties of Dublin, Kildare and Meath in Lenister. Bridget died when Richard was nine, and Robert later married Mary Lynch - another Tribal family - by whom he had sons Robert and Anthony.

Though both of his parents were Catholic, Richard was raised a Protestant in order to fight in the Irish Parliament for Catholic Emancipation. This he did with gusto from 1777 to its final sitting in 1800, after which The Act of Union dissolved it and obliged Irish M.P.'s to sit in Westminster, London. He continued his work towards Irish Catholic Emancipation till 1826, when he was found to be incorrectly elected. Emancipation was finally granted in 1829, much to his delight.

He is most famous for his work in connection with wanton cruelty to animals, which led to Martin's Act in 1822, and the foundation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Beyond this, however, was a very eventful life. He survived shipwreck on at least two occasions; fought in excess of one hundred duels with sword and pistol; had travelled extensively in Europe and the Americans in the 1770's (was present in New England when war broke out); founded Galway's first theatre; was present in Paris when the French Revolution broke out in 1789; divorced his first wife - who had at one time an affair with the Irish rebel Theobald Wolfe Tone - and was awarded £10,000 compensation which he threw away to the poor. He was on a first-name basis with many of the famous names of his age, Flood, Henry Grattan, William Pitt, King George IV, Queen Caroline, Daniel O'Connell."

(We'll direct readers also to this)

We have a certain personal connection to Dick Martin, but we're setting up this award in his honour primarily on account of 'Humanity' Dick being a fine example of Enlightenment values and a tireless advocate for good causes all his life. And most of all, simply a decent person. And so to our award.

The Humanity Dick Award for 2005 goes to the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Mr. Craig Murray, whom we had the honour to hear addressing The Phil on the "Global War On Terror" in Trinity College Dublin back in early November. Mr. Murray is the very same ambassador to that beleaguered country removed from his post for daring to speak out about the appalling human rights violations in that country - horrors such as boiling people alive - and the support by the US and UK of this fully paid-up member of the Coalition of the Willing. Murray was subjected to a classic smear campaign intended to shut him up, but this conscientious individual has refused to bow and instead continues to fight the good fight from his blog. In his latest move to get the truth out, Murray has now openly flouted the British Official Secrets Act in publishing correspondence online (the 'Tashkent letters') detailing UK knowledge of and complicity with Uzbek torture, contrary to their own public statements.

The Freedom Institute's Dickie Waghorne likes to lecture at some length on the supposed "moral clarity" of the GWOT (listen here, read here), the perennial justification for each new wickedness to come out of the current US Administration. Given what FI member John McGuirk undoubtedly saw that night and reported back of Mr. Murray disabusing his audience of any notions that Bush or Blair give a damn about human rights, we rather doubt Dickie and his ilk would be eager to face the former diplomat in public debate.

Craig Murray is a brave and outstanding campaigner for human rights in Uzbekistan, and a worthy winner. We salute you, sir.

Craig Murray's website
Biography
Wikipedia article
LCFM
Enron letter to Bush on Uzbekistan
Chris Floyd
Tim Ireland's Bloggerheads (co-ordinating blogger dissemination of the Tashkent letters)

Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!

2005-12-24T14:14:00.000Z

Poor old Peter Nolan, forced back to his personal rant site by the ongoing technical glitches at Freedom Fries Manor, has a tasty bit of freedom travel gossip to impart. It seems that he has "recently suffered oppression myself at the hands of the Islamic Republic" (Iran, that is)! This tit-bit emerges out of Peter's link to the non-news item that western music continues to be banned from state broadcasting in Iran. The nature of this oppression?; he was 'arrested' 'at gunpoint' for photographing a military base, when he wasn't supposed to do such a thing. Seemingly poor Peter wasn't aware that the former US embassy in Tehran has been used as a Revolutionary Guards base for donkey's years now, and they didn't take kindly to his tourist photography. He doesn't specify if he was actually arrested as such, nor the details of how guns were pointed at him, but the 'oppression' (which would appear to have been a brief questioning of what he was at)doesn't seem to have lasted too long, as the oppressors seemingly turned out to be Man Utd fans. I wonder should I take a case of state oppression to Nuala O'Loan about my experiences of being stopped and questioned 'at gunpoint' by the RUC back in the day. It seemed like a nuisance at the time, but clearly I was being oppressed and that fact passed me by.

The good news is that Peter has discovered that Iranians seem to be decent enough skins, and the worst he could say about the place was that their murals are a bit tatty and Porches Cayennes are about as rare there as they are here. He's also answered my question about who ate all the pies*.

* Aww. Pete has removed the pics of himself from his holiday snaps. No doubt in order to avoid the risk of any further 'oppression', or maybe to kick off a new year's Atkins or Minoxidil regime?

Mr. Waghorne Interviewed

2005-12-22T18:53:00.000Z

A lifetime of being the last to hear about things seems destined to continue- as somehow nobody told FI Fie Foe Fum's loyal band of reader that Mr. Waghorne was interviewee No. 11 in the sequence by the Disillusioned Lefty blog. FI Fie contributors no doubt have a warm feeling in their tummies reading his generous description of his critics

in fairness to people who've disagreed with things we've written, most criticism is eminently civilised. Of the online responses, only a handful could be called 'extremely hostile', and that stuff tends to be both anonymous and personally directed and can safely be ignored for either reason. Among some more serious commentators there is certainly a degree of hostility out there.

Speaking personally, I have always felt that serious commentators are tiresome, brown rice sorts who conceal as much as they reveal in their writings. I much prefer the lightweight, the flimsy and the trivial. I always seem to learn more from them. In the same way that the ads a magazine runs will tell you much more about its readers' beliefs than the editorial content.

And, for those of us who value the Freedom Institute's unique contribution to comical phrasing, we can rest easy that our riches are unlikely to be spent any time soon.

Have you ever regretted a post?
No, though I work quickly and would have tightened up the phrasing of some posts. It's a mistake to leave enough room for someone to misunderstand or misrepresent your words and I've done that on at least one ocassion, though that's probably inevitable given the volume (we're on seven hundred and something posts by now). That said, most readers are reasonable people.

The FI's facination with volume posting is a reoccuring theme. I hope we can see more thinking like this in 2006.

As an aside, Mr. Breathnach, the interviewer, asks questions you might actually want to know the answer to, putting him instantly in the top nth percent of all interviewers. Also, he was born in the same year Mel & Kim had a UK Number 1 with Respectable, which puts him in our good books straight away.

UPDATE: Alas, it looks as though all our FI fun will have to be found on other sites now. Apparently the blog is broken. It happens to the best of us.

The curious case of the Minister and the libertarian 'ethos' of the freedom fries institute

2005-12-18T22:33:00.000Z

Dicky Waghorne, in an entertaining lead-up to his selective visual comprehension (see the Irish Times front page piece below), jumped through some extra-ordinary hoops in order to flag-wave for Minister McDowell's extra-legal antics in blackening the name, and undermining the funding of the CPI, and Frank Connolly specifically. Keep in mind that the Fries boys are supposedly champions of individual liberty and are fond of hemming back statist impositions of citizen's freedoms to the Nth degree. Their powder puff piece on wikipedia claims two of their watchwords are:
'individual responsibility and voluntary solutions to solve social problems'
and
'limited, accountable and honest government, carried out as much as possible in the public interest, free from manipulation by special interests'

Seems straightforward enough? Apparantly not. In a fantastic exercise of 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others' it appears that there is a large loophole in the need for government accountability and aversion to 'special interests'; matters pertaining to suspected republicans. Here's why McDowell was right to leak confidential police documents and accuse a man of wrongdoing without recourse to defence within the legal system:

'It is the belief of the government, supported by Irish security services, that the provisional movement remains a threat to the state and is engaged in efforts to create, what has been termed by the Minister for Justice, a "state within a state". This judgement is entitled to respect for four reasons. First, it is corroborated by the security services. Second, it is evidenced by revelations of criminality and is consistent with known behaviour of the groups concerned. Third, it is shared by outside observers, most recently the Economist Intelligence Unit. Fourth, there is necessarily as presumption in favour of the government in such matters.'

Let's take this step by step.

Let's assume for a moment, that Frank Connolly did indeed go over to Colombia (or even Columbia, as the FI man on the ground in the US would have us believe - but then NYC is a hotbed of liberals and socialists) to teach FARC to build super-bombs, barrack buster mortars, carved celtic harps, or whatever. Nothing proven in that regard, but let's pretend. The provisional movement, according to McDowell's boss, Bertie, is no longer a physical force threat to either this state, or the UK. Here's what he had to say on the matter following the final acts of decommissioning by the provos; “The fact is we’ve reached that. The gun, or the IRA, is out of Irish politics.” The political realities as percieved by Bertie would appear to be quite different to those claimed by McDowell. Awkwardly enough, McDowell doesn't actually specify what form this non-violent (or non-armed in any case) 'threat' from the provos might take, or how it has been 'corroborated by the security services'. Whatever antics the provos were up to in Colombia, there's nothing to suggest that it elevated any level of threat by them back here. Let's say for argument's sake, they added to their coffers in a big way, and left rolling in FARC cocaine dollars - what are they going to do with this dosh in the new decommissioned reality of 2005? The UK government are lobbying for the shinners back in local government, the government here say the war is over, and take the DUP to task for not governing with the shinners, all the provo prisoner's are free to walk the streets without posing a threat to the general public, and we know that the SF/IRA machine is well funded from their US fundraising and, eh, local activities of recent years. The Economic Intelligence Unit can believe what they like, but they also claimed that the Irish property bubble would burst a few years back, and that particular horse hasn't come in yet either.

Let's continue to assume that Frank Connolly has FARC coke dollars spilling out of his pockets, and is intend on undermining state security through non-violent means. What does the Minister do to counter this? He brings the only potential link between Connolly and the IRA trip he has (one deemed insufficient to merit a conviction in court, and the only domesticly sourced evidence that could be construed as a threat), to the billionare who is funding the new organisation Connolly heads up, and leaks the same police document to a single journalist. All in an effort to protect against this threat to the state. Strangely the effectiveness of removing one source of funding to this organisation, which supposedly has alternative access to millions of drug money, is supposed to protect the public interest in some regard. McDowell won't actually test the merits of his claims within the legal system, and given the logic of his position, the CPI and Connolly should find it simple enough to continue on with their unspecified campaign to undermine state security with their other purse.

So what have we got in reality?

We have a public servent who takes it upon himself to lobby a non-national funding organisation to end it's relationship with a organisation which has shown no evidence of any activity other than prying into the less savory aspects of the government's record of accountability. No history of mouthpiecing for the provos, the shinners, or any shade of republicanism. Alongside this, he has released to a newspaper, confidential police documents along with an inference (unprovable to date) that a citizen might be involved in some sort of activity opposed to the public interest. No need to support either claim with the force of law, and no need to specify the supposed threat in a post physical-force era.

What DO we know of Connolly and the CPI? They were well funded by Chuck Feeney to act as a fly-in-the-ointment watchdog in regard to public accountability matters. They comprised a number of citizens, from various political and ideological backgrounds, but couldn't be accused of wholeheartedly sharing the ideology of McDowell. Their next publication is/was supposedly to deal with the matter of land purchase for the Thornton prison; and issue which has raised controversy close to McDowell already. There is nothing in the two published reports from the CPI that could be interpreted as either pro-provo, or as undermining state security in any regard. Even if Connolly was a dyed-in-the-wool physical force republican, he is not accused of any intent to violent activity, and the paramility organisation he is claimed to have associations with is conceded by government to have left its armed campaign behind.

Dicky would have us believe that "The broad effort by the IRA and Sinn Fein to establish a financial network operating outside the law and a series of front groups controlled by seemingly independent individuals is a very serious matter, given the ambivalence (at best) of the movement towards the legitimacy of the state and its recent and unrenounced record of violence and terrorism. It is a reasonable view that IRA involvement with a group positioning itself as an independent arbiter of public confidence in political matters is a significant element in a campaign of subversion."

Well, firstly the 'financial network' in this case was an entirely legal one - Chuck Feeny's money is the same money that props up Maynooth University, and scores of other ventures across this island. McDowell did nothing to act against the use of the supposed FARC millions, nor claimed to. The independence of the CPI board is supported by it's members, and no-one has claimed that they are mouthpieces for anyone. If Justice Feargus Flood is supposed to be a mouthpiece for the provo's he's been doing a great job of hiding it. The inference that publishing reports that highlight and quantify failings in public accountability is a subversive act, to the degree that it undermines state security, if presented by the wrong kind of people is astounding in both its hypocrisy (given the supposed ethos and ideology of these FI 'libertarians') and sheer patronising gall.

Dicky's thesis: The state though the office of the Minister for Justice is right to undermine an independent/voluntary grouping without offering recourse to the protection of the law, and to tarnish the good name of a private citizen without the same recourse. The reason for this is that our national security is undermined by published criticism of lapses in state public accountability by that self-same voluntary grouping, although there's no need to back that up with anything other than the reassurance that the Minister knows best. It's that OTHER KIND OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT being defended here by the Fries boys. I'm sure it would have been the same if it was, let's say, a Labour party minister in office. Riight.

True to form, by the way, the upstanding defenders of individual liberty are taking it on themselves to delete my comments on this subject. Here's to standing over your convictions boys ;)

Irrational paranoia strikes at Freedom HQ

2005-12-16T19:34:00.000Z

Dickie Waghorne - perhaps, like a certain Justice Minister, still intoxicated with the heady words of yesterday's disgraceful Kevin Myers column - kicks off the FI's output today with a resounding condemnation of anyone and everyone on his Enemies List:

"See no good, hear no good

What's missing from the front page of today's Irish Times? You won't find it on the front page of the Irish Independent either. It's made it onto RTE News, though only as the eighth item. Irish bloggers seem to have missed it altogether.

Yesterday, Iraq went to the polls with a seventy to eighty percent turnout, with the Sunnis voting, with Baathists defending polling stations, with little violence and less than on either of the two previous votes, in defiance of al-Qaeda promises of widespread violence, and democratically decided who would govern their country under the constitution recently enacted by plebiscite.

Newsworthy?

That it apparently isn't raises questions. How serious are Irish commentators in their support for Iraqi democracy? When US soldiers have opened fire at checkpoints or when terrorists manage a successful attack, the news is typically a leading item. As is diminishing support for the US President and the war (though not, from recent evidence, numbers showing a reverse in the trend). If isolated incidents and opinion polls merit front page treatment, what of free and successful elections?

[...]

Why the omissions? Given that much of the Irish commentariat has insisted that this day would never happen, or some variant on the theme usually involving carnage and helicopters on the roof of the US embassy, the lack of coverage could be due to an ignoble unwillingness to confront the errors of their analysis. Alternatively, it could be simple anti-Americanism, deliberate or not, minimising successes out of disdain for the effort or the ideals underpinning it. Worst, it could be that those who write the headlines have decided that Iraqi democracy doesn't matter, for one reason or another. Or it could be something else entirely. Whatever the proximate explanation, the Irish media's astounding indifference to the Iraqi elections betrays an indifference to Iraqi democracy that is inexcusable.

[...]

That successful elections hardly registered in our media is a cause for embarrassment. It should provoke, as yesterday's news itself should provoke, a thorough rethink on the part of many as to where exactly they stand regarding the spread of democracy and the brave efforts of ten million Iraqis to move their country from savage dictatorship to self-government."

If we are to take Mr. Waghorne's accusations at face value - and that's a big 'if' - then it's a pretty serious matter, and certainly deserving of further investigation. Our esteemed co-bloggers Mr. McGarr and Mr. Crehan are presently off defending the public's rights. However, were they here, they would probably suggest that we examine the evidence before us in order to determine the validity of this charge.

Which we have, dear readers. Going into a newsagents in Dublin city centre today we conducted our own little survey of the various newspapers on display. Which, we now suspect, is somewhat more than our self-proclaimed 'independent journalist' bothered to do.

Lo and behold, we discovered the the Irish Times did put the Iraqi elections story in a position of prominence on its front page - right at the top of its news digests, no less. Not only that, but looking through the various British papers on display - the Financial Times, the Independent, the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the various Brit tabloids - we discovered that apart from the Torygraph, not a single one had the Iraq elections as the headline story.

Perhaps Mr. Waghorne can report back to us on the coverage when the election results actually get announced, and when the first democratically-elected Iraqi government - Islamic or not - is permitted to take office.

Oh yes, we nearly forgot - that FI accusation of rampant anti-Americanism among Irish bloggers who didn't suitably mark yesterday's Iraqi elections. Yesterday was Thursday 15th December (mark that date down) - and just what did the Freedom Institute choose to write about on that particular date, we wonder?

Kidnapping the Queen ('s English)

2005-12-11T18:28:00.000Z

We'd begun to feel a bit neglected here in recent times, what with the dearth of raw material appearing on the FI blog. Perhaps the goys are all too busy studying for Christmas exams, libelling High Court Judges, or inventing new words (take a bow Dom, for "Grandeous"). Then came the final insult - the pointed absence of personal invitations to the FI's festive drinks in Ron Black's. It's fair to say that this was shaping up to be FI Fie Foe Fum's worst Christmas ever.

But what appeared today but the gift of comedy gold from Peter Nolan (Frankincense and Myrrh to follow as soon as the goys learn to spell them). The post is merely a trailer for for his essay (literally, "attempt") at the more august pages of techcentralstation. The substance of the piece can be dealt with briefly. Due to some of Gordon Brown's recent energy taxes, Britain is "facing power cuts and an economic shut-down this winter". This assertion can be quite easily tested with reference to our old friends, the facts. If, by March 1st, there have been no power cuts or economic shutdown (whatever that might be) due to Britain running out of gas, then Peter will have been wrong, and will make abject apologies.

But what's so special about this post, what fills me with festive good cheer is the groundbreaking approach to the English language. What can one say to an opening like this:

"As well as having their double-decker red buses and a Queen, we all know that the British enjoy nothing more than complaining about the weather, and moaning about how the forecasters never come close to being right."

Gold, I tell ya, pure gold. I'll let you have your own fun picking through the article here, but will get you started by pointing out that the above sentence appears to suggest that "we", i.e. Peter and his many readers, are now in posession of Britain's double-decker buses and of their Queen. Where can "we" be keeping them? Is HRH ER currently bound and gagged in the broom cupboard of the FI's underground Global Headquarters? Is it a plot to force her to read one of Peter's articles as her Christmas Speech to the nation?

So passionate is Peter about the English language, that he quotes the Bard in his conclusion

"Now, it would seem, is the winter of our discontent…"

The conclusion to which sentance is of course "....made glorious summer by this sun of York", thus undermining the whole article and suggesting that Gordon Brown has just saved the day. Yet another example of the Freedom Institute going pinko not by conviction but by sheer grammatical incompetance.

A Merry Christmas to you too, goys.

A Word In Our Shell-Likes

2005-11-26T13:03:00.000Z

The Freedom Institute have never met a large commercial organisation they didn't like. But sometimes they seem to have a particular affinity for one- so much so that they can almost predict what it is going to do next.

Shell Ireland E & P Ltd had a touch of bother with their planned gas pipeline through Rossport earlier in the year. I refer you to A. L. Waller on tuppenceworth.ie for a roundup of the issues.

However, one uncharacteristically lucid post on the FI caught my eye at the height of the controversy.

Shell announced that they wanted the 5 jailed men to take part in discussions and would defer work on the pipeline to allow a breathing space for those talks. In return for this breathing space they hoped that the 5 jailed men would accept not to breach the terms of the injunction Shell had sought and received from the court.

Anyone with eyes to see could tell that this had the same chance of success as a fried snowball.

The FI Fie Foe Fum interest in this matter arises from the long and jargon-filled post of Donal Fitzgibbon, a Gemini working in the Environment according to his profile. Here, a week before Shell acted, he laid out a plan for them. Specifically, it is a plan for restoring some semblance of credibility to the Rossport project by opening up talks in the locality. These talks would be aimed at appointing an independent person, (who might be a Gemini, who knows?) to reassure the natives that talk of exploding pipes is a

'subjective' risk assessment, one in which emotions, rather than a deep scientific and technical understanding of the potential risk determines what risk the development poses and what suitable risk management procedures are necessary.

If only we knew somebody working in the field of the Environment who could help us out of this morass of irrationality!

These talks would also involve state agencies, binding the government tighter to Shell, at a time when the Minister was starting to feel the heat of standing too close to them already.

But of equal importance, multi-stakeholder dialogue also facilitates communication between relevant regulatory agencies, such as the Health and Safety Authority, government departments or local authority planning offices and interested parties such as those same local residents. Communications allows the relevance and role of each agency in the planning process for the project to be made clear from the outset. It also provide an opportunity for the relevant government agencies to show that it is representing the best interests of the public most likely to be affected by the development and that it is exercising the rule of law in ensuring human health and the environment is protected.

For some reason the state didn't jump at that idea. But it did like the idea of talks happening without it- the Minister also offered to appoint an intermediary.

But in the end a Gemini just can't get a break. It turned out that Shell would eventually find their offer of talks (or 'multi-stakeholder dialogue', if you prefer) explaining and justifying the decisions already taken was not enticing enough to lure the 5 men from jail, and would instead ask the President of the High Court to withdraw the order he had previously granted them.

But, loyal as ever, the FI haven't given up on their gassy friends.

A Creative Flowering

2005-11-24T10:00:00.000Z

Like a pair of middle aged gorillas, stuck looking at each other for decades in the glassy confines of a Dublin zoo enclosure, sometimes it is hard to get excited by our opposite numbers at the FI. As previously explained, it sometimes is beyond anyone's power to get thrilled by a list of college debate appointments.

And then, just when you think the spark is gone forever, and are about to chew dolefully on yet another lettuce leaf, you are given magical reminders of the entertainment you valued in the first place.

As so often before, it is Mr. Waghorne who kindles our interest.

Take a look here: From a post with the mysterious heading Advisory. (Changed to Advisory on open access websites, for extra mystery, after we originally posted this discussion)

The Freedom Institute would like to take this opportunity to remind readers that all Freedom Institute publications online on external websites are accompanied by our publicly available contact details. All authorized online Freedom Institute output carried on external websites is additionally accompanied by an advisory on the Freedom Institute weblog. Reproductions of Freedom Institute material without these two appendages should be considered unauthorized.

What can it all mean? We're obviously not the only punters stumped, as it is soon followed by an UPDATE

Update (following query in comments): Links to FI output are most welcome; this advisory is simply for readers who may encounter excerpted or copied FI material posted on open access websites by third parties, as happens occasionally (oddly), and are unsure of the provenance of the post. Apologies for any confusion.

But confusion continues unabated. What is an 'authorized' (sic) reproduction? Clearly neither of the above are- they've been reproduced without 'publicaly available contact details'. But if we were so rude as to list the FI phone numbers, as they partially do here, would we then be 'authorized'? What status does 'authorization' bestow upon a previously bare quote? Will it now be served in all the best clubs ahead of the bar queue? They hardly mean the Internet Wayback Machine, which takes snapshots of webpages at regular intervals which you can then search for later? Who could object to a bare record of comments etc being kept provided it wasn't tinkered with?

Though of course if I was tinkering with my pages to break links, edit comments and remove unwanted discourse from the record, I suppose I might wish to throw some level of doubt, somehow, over a record out of my reach.

UPDATE: *Sigh* link updated after it was changed, as per the norm, on the FI site to break links, including our own. Once again, the think tank that doesn't want you to think about it demonstrates a misunderstanding of how the web actually works.

Mighty Mouse takes on M. Ali and G. Foreman

2005-10-31T21:44:00.000Z

On Wednesday November 2nd, Richard will be speaking in Trinity College at the invitation of the College Historical Society. The matter for the evening's debate is the War on Terror. Richard will be speaking in favour of the current prosecution of the War on Terror; Robert Fisk and Fintan O'Toole will be speaking in opposition.

- For all our sakes, and in particular that of the audience on the night, we think we need to know if there is anyone else planned to speak on Mr. Waghorne's side.

Unless, contrary to all evidence at hand, Mr. Waghorne is a oratorical genius who has struggled to date to translate his crystal clear ideas into prose, this just seems like some cruel person has painted him in the role of barrel-dwelling fish.

'Irish Blog Awards'

2005-10-09T14:21:00.000+01:00

(This is a repost from Free Stater)

Damien Mulley suggests that the Boggersphere is at the stage where we might consider setting up an annual Irish Blog Awards. Which is a good idea which the Free Stater blog is more than happy to endorse. There is, however, a dark cloud on the otherwise sunny horizon, as Damien has noted:

"But this idea isn't unique. Seems that bastion of balance - the Freedom Institute came up with their very own Irish Blogs Award 2005, way back in urm February. Not sure how the voting system worked. They officially called it the "Liberty Blog Awards for 2005" though, so maybe if another Irish Blogs Awards happened they wouldn't mind too much? And if they did it would only generate more attention for these awards. Even better."

Ouch.

A little investigation of our own shows that the 'voting' panel consisted of "Paul MacDonnell (Director of the Open Republic Institute), Paul Daly (Journalist) and Philip O’Sullivan (Freedom Institute Spokesperson)". Digging a little deeper, we see that Mr. McDonnell once referred in a Wall Street Journal article to Gaelic Irish being a "pseudo-aboriginal ethnicity", though we're not too sure if his fellow directors would agree (curiously, though the FI link to the ORI, it doesn't appear to be reciprocated). Mr. Daly we presume to be the same individual who popped up the previous year as a member of - you guessed it - the Freedom Institute. Mr. O'Sullivan is, we suspect, a certain pseudonymous contributor to the FI's blog.

Surely an independent panel unlikely to be hewing to the FI's right-wing, slavishly pro-UK/US ideological line in picking winning blogs.

Our Bushophile friends have referred to their gongs variously as the "Liberty Blog Awards" and the "Irish Blog Awards 2005". We would guess that the latter title was in much the same spirit as the Freedom boys declare themselves "Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies.". (Given the capitalist, nothing-in-life-is-free imprimateur which drives the FI, we suggest that Damien apply for the copyright on "Irish Blog Awards" post haste, just in case)

Taking a look at the Freedom Institute's "Liberty Blog/Irish Blog Awards", we note the following worthies:

Best Overall Blog Mark Humphrys
Best Political Analysis Blackline
Best Economic Analysis Atlantic Blog
Best Appearance Richard Delevan
Best Humour Richard Delevan
Best International Blog Little Green Footballs

(One raving nutter, one Freedom blogger, one former lecturer and Godfather to the FI, one bitter rightwing American ex-pat (and ex-Herald hack), and the vilest pit of snakes today running a blog. Need we say more?)

Back to Mr. Mulley's idea. We'd throw in the following categories as well:

Best American Ex-pat Blog
Best Political Blog
Best Technology Blog
Best Legal Blog
Best Group Blog
Best Commenter
Best Photography Blog
Best Personal Blog

Our final word on this is to enquire on the eligible constituency. We're not big on voting based on (blog) property, but we'd wonder if all of Peter Nolan's sock-puppets should really be allowed individual votes...

Caption Contest

2005-10-02T22:51:00.000+01:00

(Yes, I know that it's just that they haven't gotten the hang of this whole Internets business yet. But it's a pretty appropriate choice of hosting service, given our past suspicions that the whole FI thing is an elaborate hoax)

Just a suggestion

2005-10-01T16:51:00.000+01:00

Surely a shoe-in for the FI "Comment of the Week" every week? From the FI's recent pimping of what they charmingly refer to as a "Freedom Institute Event" (Dickie got invited back by the Goys in the L&H, dontcha' know):

[deleted - off-topic]  

Edited By Siteowner 

hensons | 30.09.05 - 4:43 pm | #

And that's the second censored comment in that thread. A snarky earlier comment on this "Event" was simply deleted out of hand. Are the Freedom Bloggers over-sensitive?

First Strike in the GWOBF

2005-09-28T12:04:00.000+01:00

A major blow to the fries boys in their Global War on Breast Feeding, it seems that those entities in the state opposed to the subversive behaviour of our esteemed colleagues are launching a campaign to halt their shenanigans.
News from breakingnews.ie, reports on the stunt of handing out over 1300 Babygros in order to press the benefits of breast feeding to new mothers.

"Sean Power, a Minister of State at the Health Department, said the unusual stunt was part of a campaign to encourage women to choose the healthier option of breastfeeding."

Needless to say in a tactical battlefield such as this, he didnt go on to mention the fries boys by name, recall Maggie's oxygen of publicity, just uttering a few sentences on the need for breastfeeding to become more of a cultural norm. However it is clear from the seriousness of his response that he has been stirred into action by a campaign by 'Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies'.
Or of course it could simply be the fact that next week is National Breastfeeding Week and he desired to make it clear that such behaviour was healthy. But we here at FiFieFoeFum know the truth, the battle lines are drawn and the war begins in earnest.
RR

It's The Stupidity, Stupid

2005-09-22T21:16:00.000+01:00

If the Fries Boys think of us at all, as they lounge in the generously padded leather armchairs in the booklined study of FI World Headquarters, deep in the bowels of the earth, I imagine it is to characterise FI Fie contributors as rabid, chomsky-quoting leftists; veteran Reclaim The Streets marchers and enthusiastic wearers of Trotskyesque beards.

It would perhaps surprise them to learn that we don't spend much of our time inveighing against Freedom. Neither do we disagree with the statement "Informed Choice Should Not Be Prevented" opting to promote uninformed choice. When faced with a choice of "More Public Spending versus Better Public Spending", few of us will take up the cudgels against better public spending, and I'll wager that only a few of us would argue that Ireland must not Face Up To The Challenges Ahead. Indeed, many of us, by the expedient of earning a living, buying stuff, and perhaps even selling stuff, take full and vigorous part in the capitalist system. No, what bugs us about the FI isn't its steadfast opposition to our North Korean and Cuban overlords, but the clueless, dishonest way in which the ideas are put forward. I would describe my politics as broadly left-leaning, but would find much to agree with in a genuinely libertarian analysis. Unfortunately the FI are neither honest nor smart enough to provide this. Their fascinating opposition to breast feeding for example, is fairly incompatible with any libertarian principle that I'm aware of. What it fits rather snugly with though, is the agenda of the baby-milk lobby. That the FI are putting themselves in the shop window for potential clients/donors should be obvious from a mere two words, taken from the Atlas Foundation's think-tank guide: "Intellectual Entrepeneur"

This is why we laugh at you, fellas. This and the rich harvest of solecisms your every post displays. Today, for example, globetrotting Dick Waghorne treats us to several million words on Monday's events in Basra and the fallout thereof. (That the article was riddled with the usual apalling grammar, typos and mixed metaphors is to be taken as a given, but lets not harp on about that. Well all right then, just one:"Should the direction of the last year be repeated over the next..." - well, I don't know, is it possible to repeat a direction?)

Now here's somewhere Dick and I should be able to make common cause. I was a supporter of the Iraq war, and do not see murderous unrest there as merely another stick with which to beat George W. Bush. I look forward to a the development of a functioning democracy in Iraq, and am glad that it is no longer under what was essentially fascist rule. But I also know a cock-up when I see one. Dick, on the other hand takes the Irish Times to task for reporting on the protests in Basra, when "One might just as easily report that tens of thousands of Iraqi police stayed away from the protest, which is true, and far more representative than the report that was printed." Yes, then we can turn the sports page to learn that no World Cup Final was played yesterday (which is true, and more representative than the blanket coverage the liberal media gives to these matches that only happen every four years for goodness sake!). But this is merely the expected heaving to the party line which we've come to expect. It's no different to Fox News' insistence on focussing on the "positive stories" coming out of New Orleans earlier this month. The wind-up of the article is more interesting in that it contains both an outrageous clanger, and an insight into how Dick views politics.

"To throw away a strategy after a localized public relations setback that is likely to have little bearing on the wider or long-term situation would be foolish in the extreme. We've heard calls of crisin (sic) in Iraq before and most have proved eminently forgettable, and forgotten."

Guinness Light was a public relations setback. A (hopefully short-lived) schism between Iraqi Police and the British Army is of rather a different order. Still, such problems don't fit in with the established world view of the FI, and will therefore, as Dick suggests, be very easy for them to forget.

Just Spouting On

2005-09-13T16:59:00.000+01:00

This is just a quick one.
from Sunset Clauses at the EU Level

Data rentention is a perfect example. EU Justice Ministers held an informal meeting yesterday to advance the emerging consensus on data retention across EU countries. The impact on Ireland that the move would have remains unclear, as the proposal hasn't yet been finalized and Minister McDowell is already well down the road towards similar legislation at the domestic level. But while there is a clear upside to coordinating data retention at the EU level in the form of enhanced information sharing, there is also an accentuated risk towards misuse of the information arising from the looser democratic oversight at EU rather than nation-state levels, and possibly also from a European political culture that is less attuned to the important of individual rights, not least the right to privacy.

I know, you drifted off half way through. But leaving aside the 'on the one hand, but on the other hand' fence sitting, there's something else you ought to know. Take a look at this bit;

Minister McDowell is already well down the road towards similar legislation at the domestic level.

Sorry? Shake yourself awake for that one. 'Well down the road towards similar legislation at the domestic level'?
Try down the road, around the corner, up the hill, in the door and sitting in your favourite chair when you get home.

Ireland passed data retention legislation as part of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005. Prior to that there had been a non- statutory regime in place.
The relevant section is Part 7, Sections 61-67, if you want to point the FI towards it. Do them a favour, they don't like to hear from us, but maybe you might be better placed to save their blushes.

Bayou Logic From The FI

2005-09-07T22:25:00.000+01:00

In a typically lengthy screed posted this very day, the Fries Boys bring us up to date on world affairs. Apparently, one of them has become aware of the following:

"Over the weekend of August 27th and 28th, Hurricane Katrina hit Florida in the United States and then moved eastward toward the coastal states of the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday August 29th, the hurricane hit New Orleans, Alabama and Mississippi."

Well, considering it received so little press attention, I'll forgive Karole (for it was he) for taking until today to let us have his thoughts on the matter, and won't try to insinuate that it's taken him until now to crib the US wingnut talking points. On the contrary, I shall fall to my knees in thanks for the riches he has showered upon us here at FI Fie.

But where to start? Well, I particularly like this one:

"Why did it take until Thursday September 1st – 72 hours after the hurricane hit New Orleans – for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trucks carrying water to reach the city? Why did it take until the weekend - after the worst of the civil disorder had passed - for troops to be deployed there? Many troubling questions arise."

Indeed they do, Karole. But what's that you say?

"It is a pity that it took this catastrophe for these questions to be asked"

Well, I don't see how you could ask the above question in any other circumstances. Consider the reaction you'd get.

Later, he pulls a little bait and switch by quoting a letter "printed by The Irish Times today (September 6th)". Actually, today, the day this post appeared, is the 7th, but I'll allow that to slide - Karole has his mind on higher things than knowing what day it is.

"one Alan McPartland writes: “The post-Katrina chaos is a natural consequence of the economic model pursued by the United States… It is a model which suits the rich and powerful in society but the millions of poor in America to a life of drudgery.'"

He then goes on to discuss something completely different that Fintan O'Toole wrote. Under the legal principle that anything not explicitly denied is admitted, we can assume that Karole agrees with Mr. McPartland. A re-think in FI policy, that.

Anyway, what gave me my biggest chuckle, was one of those little throw-aways the Fries Boys specialise in, one of those little comments, so blithely and innocently let slip that hint tantalisingly at vast oceans of ignorance beneath:

"The United States’ system of limited government, in other words, restricts the scope of state activity. Ireland has a similar constitution........"

Isn't that cute? A sort of a capsule lesson in comparative constitutional law, in a half a sentance. And he's perfectly right too. The US constitution is exactly the same as ours, except insofar as it's about a third the length. And the bit about the federal system. And the full seperation of the Executive and Legislature. And the stuff about God, which the founding fathers decided not to go for. Oh, and there's the place of the family, those social chapters at the back, and the vastly different roles of the President.

But apart from all that, both constitutions are similar in that they are often printed on wood-based paper, contain many uses of words like "if" and "the", and are both called "constitutions".

I long for the day when I discover that the Freedom Institute is actually a spoof put together by Chris Morris. In the meantime, us barrel-fish-snipers should be thankful for the game they offer us.

The Gilded Age Awaits

2005-09-01T22:50:00.000+01:00

Alas, here on The Freedom Insitute's Not Evil Twin we have been feeling the effects of the lack of noteworthy comments and events at the fountain of froth.

What laughs are to be gained by a close reading of an essay on why priests should run for election (it would help democracy, you see) which never mentions that canon law bars them from holding office? But which does throw stylistic bolas at the ankles of the unwary reader by telling them that

this counter-reaction to church based influence went a bit too far and was pursued with a zeal that is now best reneged upon.

Well, all right, there are some laughs. But hardly enough to make it worth the candle.

No, these have been dry days. But I suspect that a new golden age is just around the corner. This could well be the start of a boom that will never end. In Forthcoming Posts (the teases!) we learn that Mr. Waghorne will be

reporting from the American Political Science Association Conference in Washington

Be still my heart. Let me click upon those beautious words and behold what delights await the faithful reader.
Thursday:
12:00 p.m. APSA Award Luncheon and Ceremony

Obviously, early rising isn't one of Policical Science's strong point.
12:30 p.m. First-time Attendees/International Attendees Coffee Break
Did we not just have lunch?
6:00 p.m. 2005 Pi Sigma Alpha Lecture
That was some coffee break! But here's the main show- David Brooks of the New York Times, columnist and, by the look of his photo, spokesmodel for the 1950s. What's with the Pythagoran style lecture title? Your guess is as good as mine. "He is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled "Political Outlook."" Does anyone else feel this is a common speech at the American Political Science Association Conference?
6:30 p.m. APSA Networking Reception for Baccalaureate and Master's Level Institutions
Hmm, a six and a half hour coffee break was always going to pose attention-span problems, but a bare half hour keynote seems a little ADD-tinged. Still, who's going to miss the chance to mingle with the beautiful people? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to, as this is on instead.
8:00 p.m. 2005 Presidential Address
This is APSA President Margaret Levi of the University of Washington. Obviously the title or theme has been kept under wraps for fear of her enemies getting their rebuttle in first.
9:00 p.m. Opening Reception
Wait a minute...

Friday
12:00-2:00 p.m. Session 1: Getting Published in Political Science Journals
Its another dawn raid for the pundit-pups. And now we're really into the meat of things. Well, meat and light refreshments.
12:00 p.m. Meet the Officer and Council Nominees
More like, allow them to corner you and demand your votes for their strange parchment-dry parody of their area of expertise. On at the same time as the above set- presumably so that their access to the real movers and shakers isn't clogged up with a bunch of would-bes.
12:00 p.m. 2005 James Madison Lecture
Also berefit of the new and ambitious cub Political Journalists, as it is also planned for midday. Striking for the radical and untested hights, we have a speech titled "Converting Threats into Opportunities." I'm pretty sure we heard that speech from our career guidance teacher once, at my school. To think she could have come so far.
12:00-2:00 p.m. Workshop for Department Chairs - "Chairs and the Law: Legal Issues Facing Chairs"
My personal highlight of the conference. Forget the also rans clashing with it. I reproduce its description in full

This year's workshop will be dedicated to a discussion of the legal issues facing chairs, including sexual harassment, tenure, and family-friendly policy issues, such as maternity and paternity-leave. Pre-registration required

The images rise unbidden to the front of the mind. I see a room of chairs. Being lectured to. On their paternity-leave rights. I can't stop seeing them.
6:00 p.m. 2005 John Gaus Lecture
"Citizen-Sovereigns: A Challenge for Political Science and Public Administration." I'm sorry, did I hear snoring at the back?
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Plenary Session
You're hardly in but you're out again. Well, here's the other choice of your evenings viewing pleasure.
7:00 p.m. Reception Honoring Teaching
10:00 p.m. Nightcap Receptions
I think we'd all need a late night drink after three hours of teachers honouring each other in public.

Saturday
12:00-2:00 p.m. Session 2: Getting Published in Political Science Books
Those nightcaps can really take it out of you, so after a suitable lie in, we're back to the real question of the weekend.
3:00 p.m. State Political Science Associations Afternoon Coffee
Our systems have only just recovered from the six and a half hour caffine binge on Thursday. It seems they've taken pity on us. A mere three hours of smaltalk and pink wafer biscuits later and ...
6:15 p.m. APSA Annual Business Meeting
...we're straight into a meeting. A Business Meeting. With voting and everything. How convoluted do you think political schemeing is at the Political Science Association?
8:30 p.m. APSA Organized Section Plenary Session: New Political Science
A talk on "Resurrecting Empire". I look forward to Mr. Waghornes notes on this.

In fact I look forward to it all. How could I not?

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven."

It's Voodoo Economics

2005-08-26T03:20:00.000+01:00

...or else the deepest exercise in Straussian deception that we've yet seen. A large part of the problem with post-Saddam Iraq is that it became a playpen for every wacko right-wing notion too hot to inflict on the uppity Western populations. (The Freedom bits - themselves hurried replacements for WMD - weren't too important in comparison, it turns out)

Karole provides us with Exhibit 'A' on this Friday morning, moving quickly on to his entirely-too-predictable point:

"Friday, August 26, 2005
More on the Iraqi constitution: It's all about the oil

[...]

The provision on oil revenues is vague, speaking of distribution "according to population amounts". This is on the right track but it provides no mechanism by which this can be achieved. In an article in yesterday (Thursday)'s Guardian newspaper, Philip Bobbitt puts forward such a mechanism and it hits at the central danger to the future of Iraqi democracy.

This is a crucial issue. Its resolution may pose more of a long-run threat to Iraqi democracy and stability than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The constitution should provide for a private company owning Iraq's oil and gas assets in which every Iraqi adult has an inalienable share. The state should then be forced to tax citizens to raise revenue. Then every act of government spending should be approved by parliament. The current draft suggests that oil revenues can go straight to the government. Iraq's great (potential) oil wealth was a key reason why: (a) Saddam Hussein could so repress the people and ruin the economy and maintain the massive state security apparatus; (b) like other Gulf states, it has historically relied only partly on taxation; and (c) it could slip from its democratic path in future if it is not regulated for properly now. When representation and taxation are not linked, problems ensue with which democracy is incompatible and may not withstand. Iraq's oil wealth should go to its people directly, not its government. If this aspect of Iraq's economic and political future is botched, then the future for democratic institutions in that country is thus made unnecessarily perilous. It would be ironic indeed if America's project in Iraq came unstuck if it forgot this central lesson of democracy.
posted by Karole at 1:55 AM"

Who do they think they're kidding when they say that "a private company owning Iraq's oil and gas assets in which every Iraqi adult has an inalienable share" guarantees that Iraq's oil will"go to its people directly"? And "no representation without taxation" was so 1776, and even then not so hot as a cause to build a nation on.

Honestly, Stunned.org may well have been right when they declared the Freedom Institute to clearly be someone's OTT idea of a parody of the New Right. A bright twelve-year-old could drive a horse-and-cart through most of this argument. We'll leave it as a simple exercise for the reader to spot the holes.

Are the FI knowingly putting out nonsense (harking back to the start of this post and the Neocons' roots in Leo Strauss), or is it a case of simple naivity and blinkered ideology? We report, you decide.

Bolton's first lovenote to the World

2005-08-26T02:26:00.000+01:00

(This is a repost from Free Stater)

See Talking Points Memo for the details.

Those people who backed his appointment to the hilt will suddenly go mute now, we suspect. John who?

Those Crafty Kids

2005-08-25T20:53:00.000+01:00

Flushed with the success of our Tribune mention, this site now has it's very own nuisance posters. I suppose we should be flattered. Especially given the trouble they seem to have gone to. Not content with googling the names of some of our contributors and rather clumsily scattering the (out of date) information they find, they've also begun posting under our names. I am represented as a giggling fool, capable only of monosyllabic communication. So well done lads, that's actually pretty accurate. More elaborate was the cross-posting by someone purporting to be commenter "Hairy Man". Over at the Fries Institute he says the following:

"I posted my thoughts on this on FiFieFoefum. You should read them. By the way, much as I disagree with you guys on pretty much everything, this blog is pretty well put together, and generally well sourced.

Please do not take the fact that I post on the other site as any indication that I don't take you people very seriously. You pose a very real threat in the long term to the basic liberties Irish people have won over 8 centuries.

I have heard Mr. McGuirk speak in Public before, and I know that he compares your "movement" in it's current form to the Conservative Movement in the US in 1964. That is a frightening analogy. Be aware that there are a great many progressives in this country who take the threat you pose a great deal more seriously than the clowns who run the other website.

We will not make Johnsons mistakes.
Hairy Man"

Ouch, pretty damning stuff. Pop over to this site and you'll see the following:

" I notice you fail to comment on the substance of the Powerline post.

Mr. McGuirk, in fairness, was not claiming a higher moral authority for bloggers, but rather pointing out the failures of the MSM. Surely transparency is only helped by this kind of thing? I despise Powerline, but they have a point on this one. That you fail to address it is unfortunate.
Hairyman"

All of which is fair enough, though it would give you pause for thought regarding Hairy Man's sanity, given the paranoid tone of the first post. Except that Hairy man later confirmed that he was out chasing a story all day, and hadn't posted any comments.

So thanks for your industry lads, we're charmed. But tell us, who is this Johnson you speak of? And what were his mistakes? If you mean Lyndon, I'm sorry (well, not really) to have to tell you....Um, he beat Goldwater back in '64. In a landslide.

Anyway, as you appear to have nothing to do all day, keep the comments coming. Unlike some other blogs, we won't delete them, excepting, as always, libel.

The GWOBF

2005-08-25T19:43:00.000+01:00

(Or, to those of you not yet up-to-date on the latest US wingnut obsession, the Global War On Breast-Feeding. We're kidding. Just.)

Readers will recall that the FI Fie Foe Fum blog recently had cause to snicker at Dickie Waghorne's somewhat puzzling decision to Jihad against the insistence of the Public Health Unit that Irish mothers be allowed to breast-feed in public.

Now, we find out where the Freedom Bloggers picked up this bizarre new hobby-horse, and unsurprisingly it's a country with the initials U, S and A. Right-winger (and a Fellow at the AEI, no less) Sally Satel at FI sister website Tech Central Station makes the following claim:

"Yet the breast-is-best message can backfire. In fact, in the developing world -- where WHO resolutions matter most -- breast feeding can sometimes be hazardous under special circumstances and it would be lamentable if the resolution were to discourage women from using prepared formula and health officials from making it available. Indeed, in some circumstances, it is life-saving.

Perhaps the most obvious is HIV/AIDS. Clinics in Africa routinely give a six-month supply of formula to prevent newborns from being infected. In one study from Nairobi, Kenya and published in JAMA in 2000, the use of breast milk substitutes prevented 44% of infant HIV infections. To be sure, trade-offs must be acknowledged. For example, if a woman is so poor that she can't afford formula, it is dubious that she will be living under conditions that permit her to prepare it safely. Thus, in Malawi, among the poorest countries in Africa, doctors advise even HIV positive women to breastfeed because access to clean water is so limited. But in better-off Botswana, HIV mothers are advised to use formula."

(Credit to the not-evil 'Roger Ailes'. Who also informs us that the delightful Sally Satel is now campaigning (against what she terms the Breastapo) in defence of the silicone-implant industry's right to poison and mutilate vulnerable women. Can an FI position paper be far behind?)

As an article by Naomi Baumslag MD at WABA tells us, in an article entitled "Tricks of the Infant Food Industry":

"AIDS AND BREASTFEEDING

One of the most egregious examples of formula-promotion through spurious science is the current dogma that HIV-positive mothers should not breastfeed. Despite the incomplete and conflicting scientific evidence on the transmission of HIV through breastfeeding, the corporations have seized on the HIV-epidemic as an opportunity to push formula feeding to the third world. For the formula companies, AIDS is a window of opportunity that is exploited to the nth degree. In South Africa, the head of the health department in the Ministry of Health stated at La Leche League's 1998 national meeting that "we're in bed with the enemy" to solve the AIDS breastfeeding crisis.

Formula makers have used AIDS research presented at the AIDS International Meeting in Vancouver 1996, and cited on the front page of the New York Times, to pressure UNICEF to endorse formula for babies born to HIV-positive mothers. The industry endorsed this research even though it had not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The author of the New York Times article interviewed six "breastfeeding experts" but never reported any of their views. He did, however, report the views of non-breastfeeding advocates such as Thad Jackson, an immunologist who formerly was a full-time employee of Nestlé and now works for them as a consultant. The report was very biased and accused WHO and UNICEF of dragging their feet and not looking out for third world infants. According to the Wall Street Journal, "UNICEF remains captive to a clutch of activists who have been leading boycotts and protests against the baby formula makers since the 1970s on the highly spurious grounds that the companies trying to supply better nutrition ‘exploit' the poor. . . If the toll of African AIDS babies continues to rise, the credibility of one of the most beloved UN agencies may sink." This statement was on the front page, not in the editorial section!

A recent study in Durban shows that there is no difference between the incidence of HIV in exclusively breastfed and exclusively formula-fed infants of HIV-positive mothers from birth till six months, but there are no lobbyists to herald this positive news. Furthermore, is clear that mixed feeding of infants of HIV-positive mothers has the worst possible outcome."

We warned that Dickie might fall in with a bad lot in Washington. Did anyone listen? Well?

Blogs will CRUSH the MSM!!1!!!!1!

2005-08-25T13:28:00.000+01:00

(That's irony, dears)

In the latest outbreak of delusions of blogging grandeur from the Goys, John "the US funds 50% of the UN budget" McGuirk proclaims:

"Shameless distortion
No Blogger would ever get away with the kind of reporting exposed here.

Remember that, the next time RTE run a story reminding their viewers that Bloggers aren't "subject to the same kind of standards as the Mainstream Media".
posted by John McGuirk at 9:02 AM"

Unfortunately, the paragon of blogging prowess and ethics they link to is... Powerline. Whoops.

(The must-read Best of Both Worlds is another longtime fan of Hindrocket & Co).

UPDATE: anyone still unaware of the impending doom of the MSM, or confused about Blogger Ethics should read here, here and here.

FI score latest US right-wing endorsement

2005-08-24T13:25:00.000+01:00

(This is a repost from Free Stater)

This time from Irish-American Brian Maloney, contributor on noted racist wingnut pundit Michelle Malkin's blog (adding to their previous notch from Crazy Davey). To quote Maloney from early Tuesday:

"Wow- a well-designed conservative, pro-American, Italian blog! This one makes my day.

One from Ireland (preferably anti-EU) might be even better, if it existed."

Fear not! His plaintive appeal was soon answered by Malkin's loyal fanbase. A clearly overjoyed Maloney posted later (misspelled Gaelic left as is):

"TIR NA NOG
By Brian Maloney · August 23, 2005 02:54 PM
Yesterday's post about a pro-American Italian blog caused irritation when I asked about a lack of similar sites from Ireland.

For that, I say ta bron orm (sorry), because I quickly heard from a number of people about these:

--- Neocenturions, a well-written moderate site. Scroll down for timely remarks on the increasingly dangerous rhetoric of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Could Pat Robertson be right about Chavez?

--- The Freedom Institute, with a heavy focus on economics.

--- AtlanticBlog, from an American living in Ireland, also strong on economics and global politics.

--- And Mark Humphrys, with an extensive site covering politics and religious discussions. Note: posts arranged by topic, not date.[...]"

(In a measure of Maloney's wingnut status, readers should be aware that his "Chavez" remarks refer to this)

US expat William Sjostrom (Capo di Capi Re to the Freedom Institute) has previously come to our attention as an object of Malkin approval. Humphrys is, well, a nut of Horowitzian proportions, as his own writings make clear.

The 'Neocenturions' (who have only now come to notice) style themselves "Hired Goon", "ZoonPoliticon" and "wolf'n'steyn". (While not as unintentionally gay-sounding as 'Hindrocket', 'Big Trunk' and 'Deacon', we'll give them credit for capturing a genuine sense of that US right-wing je ne sais quoi).

I was reassured to note that these potential young Freedom Bloggers already enjoy the FI imprimateur:

"Keith Mallon said...
Hey folks.

Hadn't seen this blog before.
Good to see you're around.

Drop us a line and catch for a drink at some stage - yeah?

Register on the forum and send us a PM for email details."

Surely, three talented individuals to look out for in the future.

Sliming Ivana Bacik

2005-08-23T22:33:00.000+01:00

US ex-pat William Sjostrom (or the Freedom Institute Godfather, as we like to refer to him around these parts) over at AtlanticBlog has a disgraceful little item up on his blog about Ivana Bacik, the Reid Professor of Law at TCD and a prominent feminist campaigner.

(The rest of this article is at Free Stater)

Congratulations to new Think-Tank

2005-08-23T22:03:00.000+01:00

(This is a repost from Free Stater)

DICK (the Dublin Institute for Culture and Knowledge) would like to welcome a new fraternal institution to the fold; the Poor Man Institute for Freedom and Democracy and a Pony.

As the Editors remark:

"One thing you notice, if you pay much attention to the professional wingnut class, is that they all seem to have some fancy-sounding, quasi-academic positions at organizations that you’ve heard of, but have no idea what they do; or which you think you’ve heard of, but you’re actually thinking of some other organization that you also have no idea about what they do. Most of these organizations appear to be “think tanks”, a term which once meant something (RAND, Brookings), but now appears to have devolved into what we used to call “propaganda mills”, but without the icky working-class connotations. I don’t mean to denigrate all such institutions - some people express sincere admiration for the work of AEI, for example - but, as a class, they seem mostly to exist for the sake of existing, existing so they can gussy up some otherwise undistinguished CVs. Well, I’ve got as undistinguished a CV as any of these National Review guys, and I want in on the action."

Indeed. While they have somehow overlooked the bounty of the Atlas Foundation leaflet we at DICK swear by, they usefully provide their own six-point plan, which we would encourage readers to peruse.

In particular, Item 3 puts us in mind of someone dear to our own hearts.

UPDATE: We also extended our best wishes to the Poor Man Institute in the comments to their announcement.

"EWI Says:
August 24th, 2005 at 2:31 am
We at the Dublin Institute for Culture and Knowledge (DICK for short) are delighted to welcome our new brother think-tank to the fold.

Furthermore, we are delighted to offer the Richard Waghorne Memorial Scholarship for facillitating the important exchange of ideas and friendship across the Atlantic. Unlike our right-wing counterparts we can’t offer swanky champagne parties, but we do have ready access to Polish bootlegged booze."

Some varieties of Yanks are welcome on these green shores.

What sort of Europe suits the US best?

2005-08-23T10:19:00.000+01:00

Presently, America is posed a great challenge by Europe. ... It’s the
one where America actually needs to make up its mind on what sort of Europe it
wants to see, and what sort of Europe will best benefit the free world.

That's the premise for a fine example of FI puffery that contains no actual content, bar acting as a front for promoting a few US right-wing think tanks (sample item: 'Is Europe Dying? Notes on a Crisis of Civilizational Morale') and a neo-con magazine.

Struggle as you might to find some actual original content in the post, there is little to reward the effort. One obvious, if curious note is that Keith believes that the US should have any role in determining the political representation, or development of European states. You would assume that national self determination, and the will of the electorate in the various european states would guide such matters, but seemingly we are all overlooking this requirement for the US to make it's views known.

The second insight that the piece provides is that of a strange world where political/ideological attitudes are conveniently sliced down the middle into 'conservatives or liberal internationalists', with a simple choice between these two camps; 'A discernible choice in policies will clarify the issue. It will enable democracy to opt for one vision or the other.' Heaven forbid that there be any muddying of the waters with additional approaches!

Dickie gets it wrong in his own back yard (that's the Arts, lovies)

2005-08-21T01:07:00.000+01:00

Where to begin?

Dickie seemingly believes that "The absence of state subsidies didn’t stop Plato, Brecht, Egon Schiele, or J.K. Rowling." While we aren't aware of any state sponsorship for Plato's work, and Egon Schiele didn't have a career (or life) long enough to establish his attitude to state subvention, it's clear enough that (well known anti-capitalist) Brecht was a firm advocate of state subsidies for the arts, and directed a state subsidised theatre for many years. As everyone must know by now, J.K. Rowling took a year out on the dole to create Harry Potter, so she has good reason to credit state subvention in her own career.

The antics at the Abbey are certainly long standing and complicated by the bureacracy that committees of any shade bring to artistic endevour, but they don't have anything to do with Dickie's deluded paranoia about John O'Donohue or the Department of the Arts. The Abbey made their own mess, in just the same manner as the Gate have in the past, and many other theatres have whether state subsidised or otherwise. Dickie claims that:

While the Minister of Arts is no imposter when it comes to state power, the control of Arts funding in Ireland is certainly Tsarist in scope. With funds centrally disbursed and artistic agendas tightly tailored by the Department, the scope for individual initiative is limited.

Tsar O'Donhue might well have aspirations to reign over the arts scene nationally, but he won't get much opportunity with the current arts funding arrangements. The Department of the Arts coffers are dictated by the Department of Finance, and usually pretty far down the line, and the funding decisions are made by (amongst smaller independent boards) the Arts Council, who act independently of the Minister. Indeed the current funding provided by the Arts Council to the Abbey was dependent on the resolution of their current accounting 'irregularities', a decision which ran counter to the Department's clear desire to oust the sitting board of the Abbey.

Bottom line is that the Arts Council provide a comparitively miserly funding chest for a broad range of artistic ventures, individuals and organisations. That they inherited a National Theatre, which always operated outside the commercial norms of the theatre business, and which hasn't resonated with an Irish audience for long spells, for many years, isn't any reflection on the merits of state subsidies for the arts, but on the artistic direction, and internal financial management of that theatre. Let's not forget that many much closer to the financial arrangents of the theatre than the Arts Council members, or the Minister, were just as shocked by the true state of their debts when they emerged.

Quite how Dickie manages to perpetually study the Arts without grasping that the "consumer’s control of the product is subverted by subsidies" is a nonsense when applied to arts funding. The arts are about something more that profit, and the logical extension of his blinkered ideology would see the Egon Schiele's taken off the walls and replaced with tearful fishing boy pictures, and the Brecht plays replaced with Starlight Express.

FI Wikipedia entry

2005-08-19T19:11:00.000+01:00

I've taken the liberty of updating the Wikipedia entry on the Freedom Fries Institute. Anyone with something worthwhile to contribute should do so.
Note that the Fries boys are taking their censoring ways over to Wikipedia too, so keep a backup of your contribution for when they (invariably) try to remove it.

It's worth also looking at the history of the entry, to see how they have tinkered with the motivations, associations, and ideology of their punditry. Disillusioned PDs indeed!

The FI page

Dickie's 'selective' interpretation of the Geneva Conventions

2005-08-19T14:05:00.000+01:00

Dickie's on fire!
After his tirade against Irish Muslim Students, he's got his eye on Tom Kitt's requirement that the US and UK need to comply with Geneva Convention obligations for prisoners in Iraq (you know, like not torturing detainees in Abu Ghraib). Seemingly Tom Kitt and the Irish government's stance in relation to this is 'flawed' on two fronts; firstly that insurgent detainees don't qualify for Geneva protections, and secondly, that even if they did, this would be a baad thing.

Dickie claims that the detainees have to meet the following criteria to qualify for Geneva protections:

(1) To be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(2) To have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance;

(3) To carry arms openly; and

(4) To conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

All faithfully transcribed from the 1949 convention of course, but then we get to the nitty gritty. Here's what he has to say in relation to later Geneva provisions:

Subsequent expansions of the Geneva Conventions beyond these four 1949
requirement do not change the assessment of whether the combatants qualify as in
essence they expand definitions of legitimate actors to some non-state militias
but do not alter the nature of the requirements for what qualifies as acceptable
means of fighting.

Really? Because here's what the subsequent provision (Protocol I - accepted by Ireland, but not the US) does say:

3. In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack. Recognizing, however, that there are situations in armed conflicts where, owing to the nature of the hostilities an armed combatant cannot so distinguish himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations, he carries his arms openly:

( a ) During each military engagement, and

( b ) During such time as he is visible to the adversary while he is engaged in a military deployment preceding the launching of an attack in which he is to participate.

Acts which comply with the requirements of this paragraph shall not be considered as perfidious within the meaning of Article 37, paragraph 1 ( c ).

4. A combatant who falls into the power of an adverse Party while failing to meet the requirements set forth in the second sentence of paragraph 3 shall forfeit his right to be a prisoner of war, but he shall, nevertheless, be given protections equivalent in all respects to those accorded to prisoners of war by the Third Convention and by this Protocol. This protection includes protections equivalent to those accorded to prisoners of war by the Third Convention in the case where such a person is tried and punished for any offences he has committed.

5. Any combatant who falls into the power of an adverse Party while not engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack shall not forfeit his rights to be a combatant and a prisoner of war by virtue of his prior activities.

So the Geneva Convention clearly provides exactly the same protections for Iraqi detainees as any other POW. Not quite what Dickie would have us believe.

In relation to his flight of fantasy into photocopiers and mental coercion, and the broader claim that the Geneva Convention protections shouldn't apply where it doesn't suit the detaining party, I think I'd rather let Dickie hoist himself with his own petard. He's obviously been hanging out around the office photocopier a bit too much.

Should We Leave The Freedom Institute Alone?

2005-08-19T11:43:00.000+01:00

The last few weeks, I've been mulling over this question. Maybe there's no point trying to engage with the Freedom Institute. After all, they neither wish to allow us to comment on their postings, or via trackback, to let their readers know that we are discussing what they have written.

Mr. Waghorne is enthusiastic about his hobby, and has never knowingly underwritten a post. But is that reason enough to take him or his fellows seriously? Lots of words written can't assure us of the quality of the thoughts published, as the past few days' posts can show.

You could argue that the fact that their members sometimes appear in fringe media, venting their opinions makes it important for their contradictions to be highlighted and their gaffes to be pointed out.

But in all honesty, is it the best use of a reasonable person's energy to blow on these houses of cards? Discretion forbids me from uttering the word which creeps into my head most often as I read over the FI's output. (though email me smcgarr AT tuppenceworth DOT ie and I'll tell you)

Increasingly, I have to say, I find that the job of undermining the FI's credibility has been superlatively taken on by the FI members themselves. The absurd behaviour over their comments, the renaming of their posts to break links discussing them, the inconsistencies of thinking and most of all (though you may be forgiven if you haven't exposed yourselves to this area) their hysterical, in all meanings of the word, policy papers all combine to give the even barely attentive reader a clear picture of the calibre of this think tank's thoughts.

I've said before that I wouldn't like the Freedom Institute to go away- on the grounds that even the proverbial typing monkeys can hit on a good idea if left to churn out gibberish for long enough- but I do think that maybe we needn't worry ourselves about what they say on any given day. A plurality of voices, even ones we think are wrong and unpleasant never did a society any harm. And even better if the voices we find wrong and unpleasant are so unpersuasive.

Not to say that I'll definitely be able to ignore them entirely. But I will try not to worry about the daily puffery. If Mr. Waghorne feels that he ought to worry about a student society, while sitting in Washington DC, I think it speaks volumes about the level that the FI is operating at. Unless they start to go beyond that level, maybe we should leave them to it.

After all, as a think tank that doesn't want its thoughts thought about (or talked about out of its control) it doesn't seem to have much of a future, whether we point out that fact or not.

FI: One step forward, two steps back.

2005-08-19T01:21:00.000+01:00

Hot on the heels of the half-hearted apology from Dickie in relation to his part in spinning the Stockwell tube killing, the perpetual student now turns his attention to those dubious Muslim students he has to return to when his Cato internship ($700 a month - bring your own blazer) ends. Originally entitled 'Irish students Muslims must renounce apologists' the article has been renamed to 'UCD Islamic Society should renounce hatred and violence'; a bit sharper on the specifics, and rather less demanding in tone, but the content is just as dubious.

It seems that Dickie's experience with those Muslim students has alternated between sinister pamphlets from Egypt's own Padraig Pearse; Sayyid al-Qutb, and handing out nice buns at rag week. Dickie is firmly behind the buns and opposed to the old school activism of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Here's the thing: the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the UK and Ireland (the baaad Muslims) have a few problems as defined by Dickie:

1. The term extremism has no tangible legal meaning or definition and is therefore unhelpful and emotive. (Source)

and according to Dickie:

Extremism is a term used for the benefit of Muslims , separating those who pervert the religion from the billion non-terrorist Muslims worldwide.

So you see - it's a term that benefits the Muslim community, in that it helps Dickie point out those pervert Muslims, without causing offence to the, presumably, non-pervert community. Quite where the line is drawn between the perverts and the remainder of the community is something we'll just have to guess at, since Dickie doesn't elaborate. And on we go; the FSIS (be warned - they may fall into the perveted camp) believe in:
2. The right of people anywhere in the world to resist invasion and occupation is legitimate.

The strange thing is that so does the United Nations Charter, and the Geneva Convention, but Dickie seems to focus on the FOSIS as some sort of aberration in this regard. Then we move on to:
3. Questioning the legitimacy of the State of Israel is legitimate political expression.

Now, I have no difficulty in defending the legitimacy of the state of Israel, but I certainly don't think that there's anything wrong with questioning the legitimacy of any state, Israel included. Given the history of mutual animosity between Israel and the other middle eastern states, and the ongoing matter of occupied territory and ambigious border definitions, it's not terribly surprising that a Muslim organisation would have some difficulty with the Israeli state. Needless to say, Dickies interpretation is somewhat different:

The significance of the above two statements need hardly be spelled out. In backing the right to support resistance and question Israel's legitimacy, FOSIS has adopted the talking points of those groups active in Ireland and the UK on behalf of the al-Aqsa intifada and the al-Qaeda insurgency in Iraq.

Hmm. Sounds like the old 'all poodles are dogs, so all dogs must be poodles' debating point so beloved of the FI crew. Those uppity FOSIS people would be much better off biting their lip and knowing their place, lest they be accused of extremist perversions.

Amongst other claims that Dickie makes is that the FOSIS have been 'distributing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - a claim unsupported by the link he provides, and that they defend Tariq Ramadan from the sort of shoddy inferences that Dickie once again wheels out. Here's a different picture of the bogeyman Ramadan. The supposed 'attempt to legitimize terror' that Dickie applies to Ramadan is a link to this quote (first in French, then translated):

"Des banlieues françaises aux sociétés musulmanes, vous ne trouverez pas de soutiens, sauf infimes, aux interventions de New York, Bali ou Madrid. On ne peut pas confondre les résistances irakienne ou palestinienne avec les actions pro-Ben Laden."
“From French suburbs to Muslim society, you will find no support, except for some neglegible amount, to the actions in New York, Bali and Madrid. We cannot confuse Iraqi and Palestinian resistance with pro-bin Laden activities.”

Damning stuff there alright, eh?
More on the bogus accusations Dickie repeats against Ramadan. Dickie wins extra clown points for claiming that 'the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi linked to the janjaweed militia responsible for the Darfur genocide'. Eh, not quite. Hassan Al-Turabi actually opposed the janjaweed on belalf of the Darfur group, the Justice and Equality Movement, and was thrown in jail by their political masters. Not to worry though, this nonsense is in good company.

In summary Dickie has this to say:

The facts on the ground in the War on Terror are too serious to allow organized apologists for political extremism and terrorism to go unchallenged. It is unclear to what extent Irish Islamic Students are caught up in this world. However, having affiliated with groups defending terror and publicizing articles supporting the resistance and propogating anti-Semitism it is clear that Irish Muslims on our campuses have a long way to go to clear the legitimate concern that should attach to their current activities.

I guess that in the absense of any actual evidence of Irish Muslim student groups supporting terrorism, a half baked bunch of slurs and innuendo from witchfinder Waghorne will suffice in instead? Thanks for the insight Dickie.

Dickie wakes up and smells the coffee

2005-08-18T10:02:00.000+01:00

This morning Dickie Waghorne goes some way towards an admission of how wrong he was in his response to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell tube station. Of course it's all down to the reporting in the media at the time, and not in the spin that he applied to anything that undermined the line that there was no doubt that the police acted correctly, and that the victim was (initially) guilty, and (subsequently) culpable in his own killing.

Let's take a moment to review Dickie's reaction to the first media reports that disputed the police line on events that day:

I think the knowns are more than sufficient for a preliminary judgement.

and:

I don't think every use of force requires an investigation. Not every car crash or every industrial accident requires an investigation. Where nobody raises good grounds for an inquiry, having one anyway is a waste of time and resources and gives the impression that there is something wrong when there been no reason to suspect so.

Acting respsonsibly in an age of terror means not acting the maggot when an obvious terrorist gets shot and not requiring resources to be wasted on an inquiry if there is no reason to suspect wrongdoing on the part of the police.

Of course, Dickie discounts any possibility that the witnesses who raised doubts about the 'guilty actions' of the Brazilian could be worthy of consideration, and that media reporting of such doubts would fall into the 'acting the maggot' category. Self-fulfilling bias seems to be his preferred approach to this story. Like he said:

A press is there to be accurate and informative. It is not there to play devil's advocate for the sake of it and there are real costs - public confidence, premature disclosure etc. - from doing so.
...
When journalists get the idea that all authority and all state action should be questioned regardless the rot sets in.
...
I just don't think that when an anti-terrorist operation is ongoing on the streets around a paper that sowing doubt for the sake of it is fair or constructive.

('Accuracy' here would seem to imply only backing up the 'guilty terrorist' line).

When the true identity and innocence of the victim became known, Dickie didn't falter from his investment in the justification of his killing, and indeed participated in the process of 'blame the victim' that became the new mantra for the right wing. It's too little too late now to try and project blame for the abandonment of civil protections onto erroneous media reports etc. Dickie was an active participant in bulwarking the fictional justification of the killing of an innocent by the state, and needs to come to terms with this fact. His censorship of those that took him to task for this role from the outset doesn't hide his culpability.

Political commentators in dicatorships need all the support they can get

2005-08-15T23:56:00.000+01:00

The fries boys link to an Iranian's blog on political issues within Iran here. The blog itself is a rather dull affair, but the touching note is the fries-loving-lads selective reading comprehension. They ramp up the rhetoric with:

an education for outsiders and a vital example of the work Iranians are doing within their country to steer Iran away from theocracy and nuclear confrontation

and

Political commentators in dicatorships need all the support they can get.

Sadly, as Mr Kholdi repeatedly points out on his blog, he's a Canadian-Iranian and posts from the front line city of Toronto. Unless they know something about Paul Martin that the rest of us don't?

The Freedom Institute and Immigration

2005-08-11T16:57:00.000+01:00

Today we have "Immigration as a Market Based Solution" given to us by the FI.

Here they proudly state

"As has been our stated policy for some time, the Freedom Institute advocates an “open borders” policy, allowing free movement of labour"

My response is to point out that this is their policy, except when it isn't. Here's Dominico on 20th May this year in his post "McDowell hits the nail on the head"

Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell spoke on Wednesday about a huge number of bogus asylum applications falling on the desks of Irish immigration service officers.

He goes on to quote Minister McDowell and make some more comment of his own. Then he finishes by warning

But the worst of all, failure to stop these ordinary conmen at our borders will create huge problems in our society in the future like it did here, here and here

And it was with those final links that Dominico showed his hand. The first a stirring account of a race riot in France, complete with warnings of race based civil war. The second a peculiarly sensationally headlined report of a vaguely described survey ("In the new method, called MindWorld, qualitative data is reproduced as quantitative data, in which age is also taken into account. And several aspects of the results subsequently come more prominently to the fore." Good luck making sense of that). And the last an outright piece of anti-Arab and anti-European propaganda. Cheers for that, lads.

Not the kind of outlook that would welcome an open door policy, you might have thought.

The Comments thread on this was heated, I think its fair to say. And lest the erasers of history pass their Lethean hands over the thread, I fear that I have reproduced the whole thing here, a post placed out of chronological order in the blog so as not to bury the rest of Fifiefoefum.

It was this post that prompted me to remove the Freedom Institute from the Tuppenceworth.ie blogroll. I explained why in the post "Freedom Institute- Make Your Mind Up Time"

Despite today's post, the primary thrust of which I can't really argue with, I'm afraid my opinion hasn't changed since then.

"Islamic nukes"

2005-08-10T01:53:00.000+01:00

FI boy Karole has a piece on Iran and their insistance that they won't be told what to do about their uranium enrichment programme, which is 'in defiance of the will of the EU and the US'.

Now the Iran nukes question is an akward one. They have every right to pursue a nuclear energy programme, and the hard reality is that nuclear power is probably on the cards for many more countries as part of a replacement for oil dependency. The possibility that their intention is to build up a nuclear arsenal is pretty credible too, given the limited defensive options for a regional state with more powerful military adversarys (see Israel etc). Nuclear proliferation is a dangerous business, from whatever source. The regular cry from the 'Axis of Evil' crowd is that, as soon as night follows day, an Iranian nuke will be dispatched to Israel as soon as one is ready (mad mullahs and all that). There isn't a whole lot of evidence to support that contention however. Iran certainly supports Hizbullah in it's border campaign against Israel where disputed territory is very much a reality. It also regularly indulges in demonisation of the Israeli state, just as it does the US. What it hasn't threatened to do however, is launch of nukes against Israel, except as a reaction to an attack on it's territory with WMD. While Iran has no shortage of ills and repression in its society, and certainly won't be winning any diplomacy leagues, they aren't the glory-bent nuclear jihadis that some paint them as.

There's also the difficulty of what anyone can do if the Iranians determine that they are to have nuclear weapons. If they do, they'll develop them in secret, just as every other nuclear state has done, and their existence will become known after the event. Until then, there's little chance that solid evidence of an arms programme could be made available to anyone in a position to do much about it, and even if there were firm suspicions, Iran is not a country so easily (?!) militarily suppressed. It has a large army that effectively defeated Saddam's invason, and has not been degraded by successive gulf wars. It has modern russian anti-aircraft defensive missiles that actually work against NATO and Israeli jets, and it has a dispersed nuclear programme that is well protected against aerial bombardment. No-one is in a position to invade the state, and there is a much higher probability of any occupation attempt failing than in the case of Iraq, there's also precious little chance of the destruction of their nuclear programme through 'surgical' strikes ala Osiraq.

There's also the matter of popular Iranian support for a policy of independent nuclear power. By most accounts the public support for such a programme extends throughout the conservative and liberal branches of Iranian society and politics. Even those advocates of a much more secular and democratic state are opposed to foreign meddling in their domestic energy affairs.

No doubt an Iranian abandonment of it's NPT obligations would be met with increased financial pressures and sanctions on that state, but beyond that, little else is either practical or achieveable. The political structures in Iran would appear to be in flux, and there seems to be a popular movement towards a more moderate and representational political system. Perhaps the only real hope of a nuclear-arms-free Iran lies beyond the current mutual distrust between the US and Iran, and Israel and Iran.

I wonder all the same, what Karole means when he says; "given the credible prospect of an Islamic bomb in the medium-term"? Is a notional Iranian nuke any more 'Islamic' than a Pakistani one? Are the Israeli nukes 'Judeo' bombs? and, given the spiritual pronouncements by the current US commander-in-chief, is the US nuclear arsenal a 'Christian' one?

Mirth

2005-08-07T18:55:00.000+01:00

It isn't right, of course. But a moment's entertainment is to be had from Bernie Goldbach's post on a sudden surge of interest from AIB bank he had to a post regarding our friends at the Freedom Institute.

Of more interest is his original post itself. It ends by pointing out that unless a blog engages with all the tools available for slicing and filleting its content to deliver what people are interested, with as little of what they are not, it is just sitting on its own, talking to itself.

I bet Bernie doesn't delete our trackback. Or anyone else's, for that matter.

Ireland Calling FI: You Never Call, You Never Write

2005-08-05T08:03:00.000+01:00

Just because we have a bit of fun with the Freedom Institute, doesn't mean that we want them to leave us. Who knows, like a thousand monkeys typing, they may hit upon a good idea some day.

But as "Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies" we're seeing rather a thin output when it comes to Ireland related posts. I realise that our lack of Imperial ambition may limit the glamour of talking about this little corner of Europe. What can we do to compare to the heady, world changing talk of "Nation Building and American Foreign Policy"?

While innumerate complaints about Combat Poverty reports are a welcome comedic interlude -and scandalised grumbles that women are allowed breastfeed their children, whether we like it or not give the amateur Freudian an embarrassment of riches- they're almost by-the-by the main chatter about the US political issues.

Oh Freedom Institute, we hardly knew ye.
When you go, will you send back a letter from Ameri-kay!

UPDATE: Trackback removed. Letters from FI Fie Foe Fum less than welcome.

Something has got on Dickie's tit

2005-08-04T09:38:00.000+01:00

Arriving late to the party, Dickie vents about the Health Promotion Unit and their breastfeeding advocacy campaign.
It seems that Dickie is a firm believer in the right of restaurant owners to deny mothers the right to feed their children on their premises. He also has these words of wisdom:

Were breast-feeding an issue of critical importance that needed to be decided centrally for some reason, then it would be understandable that the state was involved. No such rationale can be adduced here.

There you go. It's an entirely mendacious bit of legislation, since there's no possible rationale for the state to involve itself in this area. But wait, what's this the HPU have to say?...

Speaking at the launch Minister Martin said, "There is an ever-growing body of evidence showing that breastfeeding can have a significant impact on establishing the foundation for a lifetime of optimal health and can also result in significant reductions in health spending. We all need to be consistent and unequivocal in our support of breastfeeding as it offers a critical window of opportunity to provide the best short and long-term health benefits for babies and their mothers."

Both mothers and babies have been proven to suffer less from medical ailments as a result of breastfeeding. Babies who are breastfed are less likely to be hospitalised with ailments including gastroenteritis, chest, ear and urinary infections. Breastfeeding in infancy also offers some protection against insulin dependent diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and allergic conditions like asthma and eczema later on. There is also some evidence that breastfed babies turn out to be more intelligent. Mothers also benefit from breastfeeding, with decreased risk of breast and ovarian cancer and hip fractures later in life.

...

only 37% of Irish mothers breastfeed , compared to equivalent rates of 98% in Norway, 64% in the US, 99% in Greece and 71% in the United Kingdom. This deviation from international norms can be accounted for by the attitude of Irish society towards breastfeeding. Of those surveyed 51% said breastfeeding is not readily accepted in Irish society, with a further 63% stating that breastfeeding is seen as a taboo subject.

Hmm, that sounds like a pretty good rationale for breastfeeding advocacy to me, even if only on economic terms that the freedom fries gang might understand. For some reason I can't get worked up about the 'attack on freedoms' that confirming the right of a mother to feed her kid imposes on society.

I'm also surprised that Dickie believes this is some sort of current shift in policy/legislation. The legislation confirming the right of a mother to feed their child in a public space has been on the books for five years now. Will someone check with Dickie that he knows about this terrible business with the ban on smoking in public places?

A Tax on Inheritance

2005-08-03T16:17:00.000+01:00

Well, thanks to the instant education of a lobbyist's pamphlet,

"I mention all this because today I came across work publicized last week by the Tax Foundation."

Mr. Waghorne is now looking to do away with Inheritance tax. He complains that

If you work and save over a year with the purpose of treating someone else to a holiday with the proceeds of your efforts it's intuitively unfair to be told that you have to forfeit a significant chunk of your extra income to pay for everyone in the office to have a better Christmas party just because they didn't put in the extra overtime and you did, finishing up with relatively more.

Leaving aside the terrible syntax of this monster sentence, it is simply not a correct analogy. Our fictitious workplace would have to be one where random members of staff were paid substantially higher wages, due to accidents of birth. And where only those random fortunate few were asked to chip in for other people's holidays.

The rest of the post is a mish mash of demonstrably false assertion ("the only ones who pay the death tax are small business owners and the middle-class") and Americanisms. Fortunately Jim, of Our Word is Our Weapon and my new favourite comment writer, has done all the hard work of debunking, so we don't have to.

In case the erasers remove him, here is his response.

"If you'd have spent the money each week down the pub, nobody would have noticed and asked that you then pay a lump sum at the end"

No, they just tax you every time you spend anything. If there's a moral argument against taxing unearned wealth (and there's certainly a moral case in favour of it, as it gives the select few a manifestly undeserved head-start in life over those not smart enough to choose rich parents), isn't there a greater argument against taxing consumption or income earned through work? I realise you're probably down on all forms of taxation, but in the real world (especially the real world of the big-spending Bush regime) you'll have to convince people why this tax in particular rather than the others should be reduced.

"the only ones who pay the death tax are small business owners and the middle-class, who lack the tax and legal advice necessary to steer clear."

I don't know who told you that but it's completely untrue. The estate tax is overwhelmingly paid by the most well-off - in 2004, the 19,000 or so people who leave assets of more than about $1.5m or so, a tiny proportion. And the average tax rate was about 20%. This idea that the American estate tax hits hard-working middle-class families who squirrel away little bits and bobs of savings throughout their lives is a fantasy.

The estate tax brought in about £18bn last year, and the total cost of repealing the estate tax for a decade would be nearly $1 trillion. Bush says he wants to reduce the deficit, but if he supports abolition of the estate tax it's clear he cares more about pandering to the rich. Though of course we already knew that.

"I mention all this because today I came across work publicized last week by the Tax Foundation."

Strange how that article harps on about the "millions of dollars each year" spent to collect the estate tax, but neglects to mention the billions it collects. Seems quite efficient to me actually.

I do have a small aside of my own to add. Mr. Waghorne is clearly delighted with the excitement of working in a think-tank place in Washington. He's attended Capitol Hill briefings by former Tresuary advisors no less. He's been reading pamphlets that tell him that everything he always suspected is right. He has been surrounded, were al to be accurate with his information that it is the Cato Institute that he is interning with, by the US equivilent of Tory Boys (and Girls). This lovely photo of the 2004 Summer Intern intake will give you the idea, I'm sure.

Nonetheless, despite all this excitement, and we don't begrudge him the thrills of his youth for a moment, I do think that it can sometimes let Mr. Waghorne forget his homestead. The land of forty shades of green, as opposed to one shade of khaki trousers. Ireland has an inheritance tax, not an estate tax or a death tax. If "The Freedom Institute is Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies" as they vaingloriously proclaim with the ambition of the recently undergraduate, ought it not really spend a little more of its attention on Ireland? Maybe localising its anti-Inheritance tax talks would be a good start. They'd still be wrong of course, and cribbed from K Street's digests. But at least they might start to think about the words as they take out all the zs.

Even further aside, here's a link to Under the Influence, a mini-series on Think Tanks in the US, produced by National Public Radio there and the Economist Magazine. It has a specific history of the campaign against Inheritance tax as one of its short little episodes. €200,000 to the Heritage Foundation can buy you a lot of talking heads. Even little ones like Mr. Waghorne, who'll talk for free (or whose talk has no value, as I'm sure a market minded person like himself would prefer to put it) like to run alongside a train that plush looking.

UPDATE: In the footballer's tense: So I'm getting up, I'm eating dinner, I'm watching the telly then I'm coming back to the computer and the trackback of this article is gone from the post to which it refers.

Given our experiences with "abuse and stupidity" can the disappearance of the post be far behind? Will the FI eat itself? How many of those 193 posts last month were the same articles again and again with new names? Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel.

Dickie hits bottom, Dom keeps digging.

2005-08-03T15:13:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. Domenico didn't like Dickie Waghorne being called on his CPA scaremongering. In response to Jim's debunking of his initial claims in relation to relative poverty and the goals of the CPA, Dom has this to say:

But let us not be fooled regarding the real objective hidden behind defending such small steps and that is the ultimate utopia – the society where the equality of outcome is guaranteed (enforced).

So, the issue it seems is not the actual stated practical recommendations of the CPA to tackle relative child poverty in this country, but rather their unstated (indeed, hidden) intentions to remove any variation in income. Thank God we have someone of the calibre of Dickie to act as a watchdog to this sinister organisation!

I can only assume that there's something in the water in Dom's neighbourhood given his next flight of fantasy involving Adam Smith and the fashion etiquette of Vienna and Grafton street. Apparently no-one but the poor wears trackies in Austria (can someone fill Dom in on the long love affair between middle europe and the shellsuit?).

He then goes on to suggest that our national poverty rate (I thought FI didn't believe in this stuff?) 'isn't too bad' at a position higher than France, Germany, Spain, and Austria, and anyway, if we had a higher cost of living, like those continentals have, we'd all be considered poorer here, so it can't make any sense, can it? Don't pay any attention to the actual evidence of poverty, it's all a trick of the statistician behind the curtain.

Dom then returns to his income equalistaion straw man, and offers up his personal testimony of witnessing the brain drain and weariness that absense of competition brings (and don't forget, this is what the CPA want for your children!).

In a jolly example of freedom fries spin, Dom then pushes the straw man that bit further by introducing the bogieman of North Korea (ooh! rationalisation of child benefit will lead us into a totalitarian fifedom if we don't watch out!), and then reassuring us that even those moderate lefty societies like Sweden, who appear to do well out of an equitable social structure, are only there by the grace of 19th century capitalism. Now I could be wrong here, but hasn't Sweden been a capitalist, and yet social democratic society since the thirties? I guess that the Swedish flavour of capitalism has served Ingvar Kamprad well, given that he's become the richest man in the world on the back of it's post-war policies?

Dom then wheels out the Irish GDP figures as evidence of an impending trickle-down economic boom. No mention of the artificial nature of our GDP, and how it's out of whack with our GNP. Our status as european capital of multinational software packaging and corporation tax avoidance offer little potential for trickle-down benefits. The bulk of those finiancial arangements keep the money in the multinationals, and only within our GDP as churn. While our economy is better than the bad old days of the eighties, it's got that way on the back of european grant aid as much as offshore banking, and there's little to show in terms of improving our health service or education provision/accessibility as a consequence.

Dom keeps the best for last however:

A systematic perpetuation of culture of achievement through education, hard work and obeying the law amongst the poor would do more good than all that CPA claptrap, figure juggling and feel-good no-brain rhetoric which merely
reinforces their angst and alienation from the supposedly rigged system.

There you have it. A dose of grind, do your ecker, and a bit less of that criminality and all those faux-poor can sort themselves out (Perhaps they could then be employed at the border to keep out 'criminal' asylum seekers as previously advocated by Dom?). The CPA only encourage poverty by suggesting means tested child support, greater access to the workplace for single parents, or state supported creches might be a good idea. Oh, and North Korea is baad, nyeah?

UPDATE by Editor: Sorry to al for another interruption, but just noting that the trackback to the post referred to above has been removed. Ah, well. I can't say I saw them leaving it there. Though it might have been a nice surprise. Like waking up to find your house is now on Sorrento Terrace.

Dickie doesn't like your poverty if you ain't starving

2005-08-02T17:54:00.000+01:00

Over at Freedom Fries Mansion, Dickie Waghorne takes exception to the most recent Combat Poverty report.

It seems that he doesn't believe in relative poverty, and suggests that the CPA are now resorting to a definition of poverty that, being based on relative income, would classify half the population in poverty if fifty percent earned E100,000 a year and the other fifty earned E200,000.

Funnily enough, a simple reference to the CPA definition of relative poverty tells us that there's a simple enough formula to establish the poverty line:
Ways to Measure Poverty
Relative Income Poverty Lines: to set the poverty line, income is related to some proportion of average incomes. If the poverty line is set at 50% of average household income and average household income is €300 per week, then if the household income is below €150 per week, the household is considered to experience income poverty.

Poverty lines are set in a range from 40-70% of household income. Sometimes, median, rather than average household income is set as the cut off point. Median is the middle point of the income range from the lowest to the highest income. Household income is the money available to spend within a household (taking into account how many adults and children are included).
Relative income poverty lines are commonly used in the EU and Ireland.

Now, by my reckoning (and I'm obviously not the kind of economics wonk that Dickie longs to be), and according to the CPA definition of relative poverty, either the median or average approach in Dickie's scenario (assuming a 50% income poverty line) would set the poverty level at E75,000 per annum, or 0% of his notional population. Even if you take the best possible combination of figures for Dickies argument (median approach with highest poverty line of 70%) you still fall short of the minimum E100,000 and end up with a poverty level of 0%.

That the CPA record a consistent child poverty level of 6.5% (and this can't be news to anyone who opens their eyes in Dublin at least) isn't good enough for Dickie either. They should be shut down because their policy advocacy only encourages the continuation of that poverty (which doesn't really matter in any case, since they're 'under-achievers' anyway, eh Dominico?). 'Leftist' notions like the following only cause poverty, not tackle it:

• Ireland places a far greater emphasis on income support (both universal and targeted measures) for families with children than most European countries, but it invests less in subsidised quality services for children. Ireland’s level of subvention for childcare and healthcare for children is among the lowest in the
EU, and Ireland is also a laggard when net education costs are considered.
• In terms of breakdown of expenditure, approximately two-thirds of child income
support expenditure in Ireland is universally provided (as opposed to means-tested).
• For one-parent families the lack of directly subsidised childcare facilities means that many are left with little realistic choice but to stay at home to raise their children and rely on social welfare as their main income source, placing them in a veritable poverty trap.
• Lone parents in Ireland have the highest replacement rates and levels of marginal taxation in Europe. This is alarming for a number of reasons. The key cause for concern is that these conditions are conducive to the formation of poverty traps, and this appears to be most acute for one-parent households where few childcare subsidies are currently available. This results in reduced participation rates for women in the workforce and a high dependency on social welfare payments as the main income source of one-parent families.
• The relatively low levels of subsidisation of healthcare for children in Ireland place additional burdens on families with children, particularly as it has been indicated that Irish healthcare costs (GP visits, drugs’ costs and inpatient charges) are substantial in the European context. This is likely to result in many low-income working families with children above the medical card income thresholds being unable to afford GP services for their children.
• The relatively low levels of subvention in the education sector entail that some children in Ireland are attending school hungry, inadequately dressed and without prescribed books and equipment necessary for their schooling.
• While Ireland’s housing benefit scheme demonstrates a high degree of progressivity from an earnings perspective, it does not appear to take account of household composition and size to the same degree as in many other European countries where there is a high degree of horizontal equity. This finding is quite at odds with the current direction in Ireland towards more ‘family-friendly’ policies.

Yes indeed Dickie. That kind of thinking reads like a recipe for anarchy to me. Best to run those pinko CPA activists out of town as soon as possible. Given half a chance they'll turn us into somewhere like Sweden or Finland, with creches and decent social provision, and then what'll we do?

A final thought: Shouldn't Dickie be a bit more sympathetic to the notion of relative poverty, given his $700 a month internship income from the Cato Institute? I'd have thought that was a tricky budget to balance, especially with the chinos and blazer overhead?

UPDATE BY EDITOR: Sorry to interrupt, but I just updated the link to the FI site. As previously explained, Mr. Waghorne tends to deal with our commentary by changing the title, and therefore the URL of his posts to break our links. Or possibly for some other reason, unrelated to us but instead part of a covert US government mission. Involving trained cabbages, maybe. Who can tell?
Those who wonder how this low level chivvying is in keeping with the FI's lofty goal "The Freedom Institute will never shy away from expressing its view on any issue." need only consider that they do not promise not to shy away from anyone expressing an opposing view. Sometimes we keep up, but sometimes we don't. Apologies to anyone who finds our links broken. If so, take a click to their main page and you'll usually be able to find the topic yourself.

No More Justice For Me, Thanks. I'm Full.

2005-08-01T23:45:00.000+01:00

An honest post by Mr. Waghorne titled Celebrating Success comments on Patrick Freyne, of Backseat Drivers I was told ending my lifetime of ignorance on the subject. He in turn (do keep up at the back, I won't be going over this again before the exams at the end of the year) was reflecting on an article in the Sunday Business Post by Minister McDowell.

Mr. Waghorne, adeptly avoiding presenting his own opinion on the subject, assures us that

Redistribution per se can be questioned morally, as can all coercive charity.

By who, is left to our own imaginations. Elves, perhaps, with their love of mischief. Or Dickensian monsters of learned memory. Not by Minister McDowell, though. Mr. Waghorne does us the service of assuring us that

The Minister's point doesn't touch on the merits and demerits of socializing healthcare etc.

A relief to the Minister's election agent, doubtless. His abrupt ejection from the political sphere at the next election were he to even refer to the Health Service in such derogatory terms (and with such Atlanticised spelling) would be the talk of the nation for many a minute.
Mr. Waghorne's opinion is best conveyed by himself, rather than by any paraphrasing of mine. The flavour of it can be recieved by his comment that

Proponents of higher taxation now, if they push rates up enough, will do the same, sacrificing future wealth and future public spending for the feel-good factor of an anti-wealth tax rate today.

Or, as the White Queen told Alice, "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam to-day." And as you can see, her spelling was a little eccentric by the standards of today as well.

Mr. Freyne addressed this well in his comment on the same post. You may, should erasers allow, read it here.

Should erasers not allow, it reads:

If you read my whole post you will see that I have no problem with wealth creation. In fact I believe strongly in d'ould capitalist system.

I just don't believe that the trickle-down affect that you all seem to believe in so strongly does its job without the advocacy of the 'social justice' crowd that McDowell contends to be totally motivated by middle-class guilt.

I reckon that there's a strong argument to be made that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand. I don't however, believe that the social justice part came from the pioneering entrepreneurs to the right of that equation.

In this economic success story I have seen a lot of situations where disabled people are not being looked after as well as they could be do to lack of funding. I reckon this causes a lot more hardship than some businessmen not getting their due respect.

Dominico, who like the artist Cher needs only one name, asks, quite reasonably in his view

I know you don't have a problem with wealth creation it's just that you take it for granted. Whatever. I've always been puzzled with 'progressive' terms like 'social justice' or 'sustainable development'. What exactly is 'social justice'? What does it mean and how does one achieve it and when has one had enough of it?

Poor old Domnico is having a meta-textual crises. His words are starting to drain of meaning for him. They must be caged within ' and ' to protect the rest of the dictionary from their influence. When have we got enough justice? I think I'd say that whenever it is, like Alice I would be sure that

It must come sometimes to "jam do-day."

A fact neither the Minister, Mr. Waghorne nor Dominico seem to have accepted.

UPDATE: A mere night's snooze later, I fear that the Trackback has been removed from the FI post. Shall the plaudits and ticker-tape of the comment of the week never be mine?

Latest victim of the censor's blade at Freedom Fries Institute...

2005-08-01T16:13:00.000+01:00

... Their web referrers listing.

The ranking of FI Fie Foe Fum referrals must have caused some anxiety? We'll never know.

So... We've had the comments erased, the IP's banned, the post titles changed, the trackback turned off, and now the referrals removed. It's as if they had something to hide? Very strange.

What's next? Peter Nolan's alter ego's to go?

Edit: They're back! Techie gremlins or U-turn?

Freedom Pete shows the calibre of his argument

2005-08-01T11:31:00.000+01:00

An oldie but a goodie piece of ideological cowardice from Freedom Pete, from the aftermath of the London bombings (when attempting cheap political point scoring was the first thing on every freedom warriors mind).

Pete writes:
Governments have exaggerated the threat from radical Islamic terrorists in order to increase their power and authority, mar dhea.

So will Adam Curtis, producer of the BBC's Power of Nightmares documentary series, and others holding the terroist threat to be a mirage be taking the bus to work tomorrow?

My (repeatedly erased) comment:

VIEWER: Are you saying that there is no threat?
DIRECTOR ADAM CURTIS: No, the series did not say this. It was very clear in arguing that although there is a serious threat of terrorism from some radical Islamists, the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion.

http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/.../ interview.html

Adam Curtis, who wrote and produced the series, acknowledges the difficulty of saying such things now. "If a bomb goes off, the fear I have is that everyone will say, 'You're completely wrong,' even if the incident doesn't touch my argument. This shows the way we have all become trapped, the way even I have become trapped by a fear that is completely irrational."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ terror...1327904,00.html

Free Dickie displays curious size inadequacy

2005-08-01T10:45:00.000+01:00

Dicky Waghorne muses on the wonderful popularity of the Freedom Fries blog here. Aside from the obvious 'mountains out of molehills' matter, there's the curious technical lecture from Dicky about the distinction between 'visitors', 'page views' and 'hits'. I wonder could this have anything to do with EWI's Free Stater blog, which notched up over a thousand visitors within a month?

Of course the Freedom Fries boys manage to generate an inflated unique IP visit count through the crude measure of banning certain commentators IP addresses, thus turning one akward commentator into twenty or so (by my rough count) unique visitors. Who knew censorship could have such marketing potential?

Hanging Themselves

2005-08-01T02:34:00.000+01:00

Dickie Waghorne today informs us that the FI have found themselves on the mega-feed over at the Atlas Foundation. (Some of you thinking that you may have heard that particular name before might like to go re-read this)

One little peculiarity which caught our eye, though, was that the Atlas feed still shows the edits we've referred to earlier, breaking the links in posts critcising FI blogposts. (And, in case it disappears, here's the screenshot - click to enlarge)

More Tricksy Dicksy

2005-07-31T20:32:00.000+01:00

After my previous post on this subject, I've now found more evidence of skullduggery in the latest attempts by the Goys over at the FI to stifle criticism.

This Free Stater article used to link to this address:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/congratulations-to-globalization.html

Now the target article has had its' URL changed to:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/fi-at-globalization-institute-launch.html

Likewise, this article used to link to:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/london-police-make-right-call.html

Now the (Dicky-authored) FI article in question resides at:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/london-police-made-right-call.html

In view of the above, the Free Stater blog wishes to announce that we are happy to accept the unconditional surrender of the Freedom Institute.

Tricksy Freedom Bloggers

2005-07-31T20:20:00.000+01:00

The "Freedom Institute" were widely reviled for their recent attempts to deal with criticism by wholesale censorship of their comments. Having been forced off that by adverse publicity, they've now (it appears) resorted to renaming their articles so that criticisms in other blogs no longer link to their subjects.

I posted an article on Free Stater five hours ago which pointed to:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/un-doesnt-work.html.

That link (to a Richard Waghorne article three days old) now no longer works; instead the (new) correct URL is:

http://www.freedominst.org/2005/07/united-nations-doesnt-work.html.

I've since corrected my own post, but people should be aware of this new FI tactic. Tut, tut, Goys.