Tangents

It’s 2012 and the world’s as messed up as ever. Witness the second deployment of Jedward to contest the trash-fest that is Eurovision. I bear no ill-will towards the strange parade of crass and confused pop that the public broadcasters of Europe contrive each year. Where’s the harm in acting out prejudice and pop psychosis in an auditorium and through phone-in polls? It can inspire a healthy dose of humility or a momentary rush of national cheer. Nor do I feel anything significantly negative towards the Grimes  (apart oftentimes from a rising sense of panic, confusion and primordial fight-or-flight response, which is fine as along as I avoid coming into contact with them).

Nonetheless there’s something awkward about sending the same people to the competition twice. I realise we’re all frozen in a post-Lehman’s moment but can we not even come up with another trashy confection with so many idle and under-employed in the country?

Jedward: Human Rights defenders?

The Eurovision Song Contest has often been muddled up in politics, whether in the ubiquitous bloc voting, the raw musical expression of national egos and manias or even famously in the triggering of national revolution (the singing of the Portuguese entry in 1974 was the signal for beginning the Carnation Revolution there).

In fact in conception there’s an inherent political mandate for the contest as a festival of European solidarity and friendship.

So perhaps we can vary or re imagine our entry in that regard.

Last year’s winner, and thus this year’s host, Azerbaijan, is not well-regarded currently for its attitudes to human rights. I don’t refer to their winning entry last year though to call a spade a spade, it’s a bit crap:

No, I mean the recent report from Human Rights Watch cataloging a host of breaches human rights there. I won’t run through them all but they are substantial.

So here’s the pitch. This year Ireland is chairing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe of which Azerbaijan is a member. The OSCE is required to promote the full respect of human rights. So I’m wondering, if, with this in mind, our Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Eamon Gilmore, while OSCE chair, might not pick up the phone to the brothers Grimes.

He only needs to give them a short lesson, with lots of pictures if need be, and perhaps have someone right a few words for them to blurt to the European continent in their singular manner. It wouldn’t be much but it might redeem the whole nutty event a little so why not? And if the Economist thinks Engelbert Humperdinck might defend human rights, why not deploy Jedward, a weapon of significant magnitude and reach!

Hey John, hey Edward, hey Eamon! Ohmigod! Totally!

I imagine a lot of people are in agreement with Henry Farrell over on Crooked Timber on which he complains that the new Gmail sucks. He’s absolutely right. Here’s hoping Google take note soon. In the meantime are there any good Greasemonkey scripts that fix Gmail somewhat?

Every so often I take a look to see what is currently topping the weekly charts for illegal downloads on Torrentfreak.com and I always have a question. What does it mean to be the most downloaded film?

Take this week’s chart topper: Real Steel certainly didn’t strike me as much of a proposition when it was in the cinema, but I wonder is it a film people are willing to watch though unwilling to pay for and thus more likely to top the charts for illegal downloads than others. These charts clearly don’t reflect the real worth of product but is the dynamic that distinguishes this consumption measurable?

So is it possible to take a film’s performance in paid legal consumption, compare against illegal unpaid consumption, measure the difference controlling for audience profile’s technical abilities etc etc, and discover a quantum that describes how willing people are to watch something, but are unwilling to pay: the Too Shit To Pay/Just Good Enough to Watch co-efficient (or TSTP/JGETW co-efficient… yes I would consider renaming it!)

Can some number cruncher start working on this? I lack skill, will, time…

In the run up to the recent election here in Ireland I accused the ECB of playing deflationary chicken with the Irish economy. That is to say that the only tool they had allowed to be used to “correct” the Irish economy was to effectively induce a period of deflation in the economy. And this is playing chicken as there’s a strong possibility of losing control of that deflation and killing the economy entirely. It’s liking bleeding a patient and discovering one has gone too far.

Well in an excellent piece on the Econonomist Free Exchange blog they accuse the ECB of doing just that, but doing it with the entire Eurozone:
Who killed the euro zone?

An institution that professes itself terrified of inflation has undertaken a policy programme that actively inflated the debt of Eurozone members and turned the attention of the markets on that sovereign debt to the point where the bond market is now broken.

We hear a lot of talk of the break up of the Euro, the death of the currency, but it is the institution that wields the most power, the ECB, that may be recast in the fire.

The damage done by the Prime Time Investigates programme continues to reverberate, giving rise to some “culture war” brush fires in the process. The defaming of Fr Reynolds was completely outrageous and the the Prime Time Investigates team completely and utterly failed the standards set by the likes of Mary Rafferty who in the teeth of sustained opposition wrested verifiable stories and facts from a systematic cover-up and a veil of painful silence.

Mary Rafferty in particular did this with the help of excellent work by a highly professional team including Eoin O’Sullivan of Trinity. The laxity of standards of the Mission to Prey production will be examined by the investigations in train so I’m not getting into that in any depth, in the meantime I highly recommend a read of Vincent Browne’s critical take on the affair in the Sunday Business Post (27/11/11).

But I want to take a moment here to point out what I believe is a calculated untruth that is being propagated by defenders of the institutional Church. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I got notification from the computer game company Valve that their Steam service, by which you can purchase & update games and play online, has been compromised and that my personal information & credit card details may be stolen. (Story here)

If this sounds like a re-run of the problems Sony encountered that’s because to all intents and purposes, it is. I’m not a gamer, I bought one game using Steam, Half Life 2. There was no reason why I should have left my credit card details with them and yet I’m sure they structured their service so that I did without thinking too hard about it. In fact it makes less sense that I left my credit card details with Valve than if I left them with the staff of my local bookshop where I make many more purchases in a year than I ever will from Valve or even with the butcher up the road.

So this morning I’m sitting down and trying to draw up a list of the sites and services that have my credit card details and I’m a little shocked at myself. Not that these sites aren’t trustworthy, it’s more the case that there is no compelling reason for me to have given these companies permission to keep this information.

So this morning, having been told to monitor my credit cards by a company I made one or two purchases from my advice is to do a personal data census:

Who has your credit card details and why?

Ticketmaster? Amazon? Play.com? Web hosting companies? Cinema websites?

Update: BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes had an item on From Our Own Correspondent reporting from Bahrain this morning on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service on the plight the doctors being persecuted there:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9521963.stm

———–

Just sharing two further, disturbing stories on the maltreatment and alleged torture of Bahraini medics published today:

Bahrain doctors tortured into confessing, say families
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News, Bahrain
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13851761

Bahraini leadership faces new claims that torture took place in hospital
By Alistair Dawber, The Independent, London
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahraini-leadership-faces-new-claims-that-torture-took-place-in-hospital-2299944.html

I know I’m being a bit of a tiresome one man band on the Bahrain issue but the story managed to gain some traction.

• On Tuesday Maureen O’Sullivan questioned Eamon Gilmore on Holohan’s attendance at the RCSI graduation ceremony and the probity of that.
• On Wednesday Prof MX FitzGerald wrote a letter to the Irish Times voicing his disgust and disappointment with Irish medical organistaions: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2011/0622/1224299383224.html
• Which sparked a debate on RTÉ Radio One’s Liveline programme including a contribution from Prof Damian McCormack. I was on air briefly. A very interesting and enlightening piece form the Liveline team. One retired consultant called in to say he was returning his degrees in protest. You can listen here: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-r1-liveline.smil
• Today’s Irish Times includes further coverage and two letters, one from myself: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0623/1224299455606.html

Yesterday the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Medical University of Bahrain held a graduation ceremony for 196 students. Our Ambassador in Riyadh Dr Niall Holohan, attended the graduation ceremony alongside the Prime Minister of Bahrain, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Gulf Daily News reports. RCSI Bahrain awards degrees of MB BCh BAO from the National University of Ireland, or NUI, who also of course award degrees conferred on graduates of the NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, UCC, UCD and NCAD. These RCSI Bahrain degree programmes cost US$37,135 a year to attend, which over 5 years likely amounts to an investment of nearing a quarter of a million dollars when inflation and living expenses are included.

Meanwhile, the Khalifa Royal family, who have been backed by the Gulf Cooperation Council, are trying 48 surgeons, doctors, paramedics and nurses, who had the temerity to treat injured demonstrators cleared from Pearl Square in a crackdown by the Kingdom’s Sunni controlled authorities, in a military court. They are being charged with attempting to topple the state, apparently by doing their best to help the wounded brought to the Salmaniya Medical Centre. You can (and should) read Robert Fisk’s indignant report, published in today’s Independent here.

The army used extraordinary violence against unarmed Shia pro-democracy protestors while GCC troops stationed in neighbouring Saudi Arabia entered the Kingdom to act as a backstop. Their subsequent prosecution of protestors has resulted in claims of torture, and in the case of the doctors facing charges, at least one faces the death penalty. The Shia constitute the majority of the population, but Bahrain, effectively a client state of Saudi Arabia in many respects, is ruled by a Sunni elite and royal family who appear to have little interest in any real reform.

Amongst the charged are graduates of the RCSI who are bearers of Irish NUI degrees, some of whom are former employees of the Irish health system. Dr Ruarí Hanley of the Irish Medical Times has been drawing attention to the whole affair (read his column on the RCSI and IMO’s silence here, and his letter to the Irish Times here), and successfully lobbied deputies in the Dáil to quiz Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore on the issue (Irish Medical Times report here).

While the Minister’s written reply makes a great show of concern it appears this has not stopped his civil servant, and representative of this country to Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Dr Niall Holohan from appearing alongside Prince Al Khalifa at the RCSI graduation ceremony in Bahrain. The Department of Foreign Affairs has washed its hands of responding to the ill-treatment of these unfortunate doctors by the Bahraini authorities on the basis that they are not Irish citizens, the Phoenix reported recently. In the final sentence of the reply Minister Gilmore states “that the relationship between the RCSI and the Government of Bahrain would be very much a matter for those parties themselves.” This statement is quite clearly at odds with the fact of Ambassador Holohan’s presence in Bahrain in the company of that country’s Prime Minister at an RCSI occasion.

The RCSI clearly have a commitment and duty to the students to whom they are currently providing an education in Bahrain. Yet there exists also an economic interest in the form the very high fees charged for this education that trades on the fine reputation of the RCSI, and Irish medicine and medical instruction. That very reputation though might be in the process of being sullied by what’s currently occuring to RCSI graduates under the very noses of the RCSI and the Department of Foreign Affairs in that Kingdom.

In the extensive Irish Times report written by correspondent Jamie Smyth, the RCSI claim to not “comment publicly on a political situation, or individual cases” while also maintaining that any commercial interest is subordinate to their duty to their students and has not motivated any silence on their part.

Whether or not that is the case, the events in Bahrain are certain to give prospective students, such as this young woman in Singapore, pause for thought, given the high fees and potential political instability. It also raises serious questions about the RCSI’s involvement in Bahrain, the attitude of the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Kingdom, and the NUI Senate’s participation in awarding degrees in countries with atrocious human rights records and vindictive attitudes to NUI graduates doing their humane work.

—UPDATE— June 15th 18:55

The Department of Foreign Affairs have confirmed to me, after making enquiries, that Ambassador Holohan did attend the graduation but have stressed his presence was “in a private capacity as he is not yet formally accredited to Bahrain and therefore does not have any official standing in Bahrain.” The Department maintain they are communicating the Tánaiste and Government’s concern “through our Embassy in Riyadh and all other appropriate channels.” A meeting is being requested with the Bahraini Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the earliest opportunity to hand over a copy of the Tánaiste’s statement  and to make clear the Government’s concerns and displeasure regarding the prosecution & maltreatement of the medical personnel.

The Department did not answer enquires as to whether they were aware of Ambassador Holohan’s travelling to Bahrain, whether there had been any counsel given to the RCSI over their position in Bahrain and the prosecution of medical staff there, or whether the Embassy or Ambassador have had any communication with the staff in question or relatives of the staff.

—Futher Reading—

Bahrain has retained lawyers and is threatening to sue Robert Fisk for his reporting:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/14/uk-bahrain-britain-lawsuit-idUKTRE75D6E820110614?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Also, Nic Robertson’s CNN report:

Doctors and nurses on trial in Bahrain (CNN Report)

And Richard Sollom,deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, on Bahraini treatment of medical professionals:

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/17/bahrain_medical_professional

MSNBC – US envoy: Bahrain detainees need rights protection

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43406347/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/us-envoy-bahrain-detainees-need-rights-protection/

I linked to this on Twitter on seeing it on the weekend but just thought I’d copy it here as well as it really is something else. From the Crossing Wall Street blog:

The movie Atlas Shrugged is opening this weekend. The book came out in 1957 and it was absolutely panned by critics.

Some of the readers didn’t like the criticism. Here’s one such response:

November 3, 1957:

To the Editor:

Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Mr. Hicks suspiciously wonders “about a person who sustains such a mood through the writing of 1,168 pages and some fourteen years of work.” This reader wonders about a person who finds unrelenting justice personally disturbing.

Alan Greenspan, NY

Yes, this is real.