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Books
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Stay out of Libya: counterinsurgency doesn’t work
Tweet A moment of some significance in journalism perhaps, as the New York Times reviews the current talked about book, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing West. The author is no bleeding heart but a former assistant Defense Secretary from the Reagan era who stomped his way round the [...] read our review »
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Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Tweet Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings [...] read our review »
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A New Vision for the Catholic Church – Book Review
Tweet The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of [...] read our review »
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Comment on Taking years off your life – NI life expectancy deprivation gaps show increase over last decade
on 19 May 2013 at 2:39 pm
Tapacall I am making a general socio-economic point about “deprivation”, as it’s called, in the UK in general (indeed in the West) and not making a sectarian judgment of the areas specified on this post.
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Comment on Taking years off your life – NI life expectancy deprivation gaps show increase over last decade
on 19 May 2013 at 3:30 am
Oh Lord help us another “post code lottery” non-scandal.
Yes, people in area A have lower life-expectancies than people in area B, area A has more people called Jones than area B, therefore being called Jones lowers your life expectancy, s’obvious innit?
So “deprivation” (and forgive me if as someone who lives in a third world country and sees real deprivation every day I snigger a bit at the idea that people in the UK are “deprived”) is the cause of lower life expectancies is it? It couldn’t be that so-called “deprivation” and lower life-expectancy are simply two symptoms of the same root cause, ie shockingly bad life choices?
But no, at this point I will be howled down by the do-gooders telling me that I am “blaming” people for their own poor lifestyles.
I know, let’s just firehose more tax-payers’ money at the problem I mean that has been such a success for the past half century hasn’t it?
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Comment on Radical Independence & The Jamaican, Ugandan & Pakistani UKIP candidates
on 19 May 2013 at 3:23 am
I wouldn’t worry too much about the swivel-eyed ranting of Scottish students, they’re not the sharpest tools in the drawer and are forever convinced that anyone to the left of the Clydeside Communists are the ushers-in of the Fourth Reich.
I remember at Stirling University campus a couple of decades back, a crowd of the usual unwashed suspects were gathered outside one of the faculty buildings hollooing and hooting about the gathering of (yes you guessed it) “FASCISSTTSSSS!!!!” inside.
Apparently the university conservative society was hosting a guest speaker, a man who if one listened to the braying mob was on the point of rounding up undesirables and shoving them into gas chambers.
Being a curious cove I decided to enter to see this dreadfully dangerous man and to hear the grim fate that awaited us from the devil’s own mouth as it were. I saw a mild mannered, balding man in his forties discussing local government reform in a soporific manner.
Does anyone else remember how we narrowly avoided the Nazi Scottish New Order when Michael Forsyth MP lost his seat in parliament a few years later?
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Comment on It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic
on 10 May 2013 at 1:47 am
“maybe there were understandable sensitivities about commemorating the British armed forces by Derry Council”
If they didn’t want to recognise the heroic men of the Allied forces who helped defeat the Nazis then the council should have had the good manners not to take part in their victory celebration.
To hand those men a memento commemorating their sworn enemy while ignoring their role was an offensive insult.
SoS
See Tochais Síoraí’s post above to see the sort of mean spirited people I’m referring to.
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Comment on Ferguson’s departure: Rivals must work to burst “the incumbency bubble” of the EPL
on 9 May 2013 at 1:37 pm
“What do they all have in common?”
Judging by their surnames one might tentatively say “Scottish ancestry”.
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Comment on It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic
on 9 May 2013 at 12:58 pm
“Harry, A defeated enemy.”
GEF yes, my point exactly.
The council chose to ignore the heroes who fought in the frigates and corvettes of the Royal, Royal Canadian and US navies, or the airmen flying the Catalinas and Sunderlands trying to send the bastards in the U boats to the sea bed and instead chose as the icon of Derry’s role in the Battle of the Atlantic the evil thing itself, the tool used by the Nazis to try and starve the people of Derry and the rest of the UK into submission.
It’s mindboggling.
I wonder will New York commemorate the 50th anniversary of 9/11 with a tie with a jihadi holding a box-cutter? I somehow doubt it, proper recognition will be given to the firemen and policemen who are the heroes of the story, unlike Derry City Council and their memorialisation of the bad guys.
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Comment on “during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
on 9 May 2013 at 12:31 pm
Rory, it’s ok mate I understand. You hate the West, and anyone who also hates the West you’ll give a fair hearing to.
So pederastic religious fanatics who oppress women in Afghanistan get a sympathetic pass from you because they are fighting the Yanks, but if pederastic religious fanatics who oppress women in Tibet fight your Commie friends in China you go ballistic in your foam-flecked denunciation of them.
Pyongyang is very nice at this time of year Rory, surprised you haven’t left your downtrodden misery in the oppressive Big Bad West and moved there yet as no doubt you’ve got a kind word for the loony in charge there too.
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Comment on “during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
on 9 May 2013 at 11:33 am
Last week it was sympathy for the “heroic” Boston bombers, the month before the “heroic” label was attached to Stalin in contrast to the “thug” Churchill, a few years ago I recall you condemning the democracy campaigners of Burma and if I’m not mistaken you cheered on the Russians in their invasion of Georgia too.
What a strange moral universe you inhabit Rory.
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Comment on It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic
on 9 May 2013 at 11:05 am
GEF my memory is fine, the symbol Derry City Council used to commemorate Derry’s proud role in the defeat of the Nazi U Boat menace in the Battle of the Atlantic was a, er, Nazi U Boat.
They chose to remember the enemy.
It is akin to the City of London remembering the Blitz with a commemorative tie showing a Heinkel 111, the Hawaiians remembering Pearl Harbor with a Zero dive bomber, the Desert Rats remembering the Battle of El Alamein with a Panzer tank, or Stalingrad remembering the siege using the German’s Sixth Army insignia.
Derry City Council spectacularly missed the point.
Derry wasn’t important because of the minor end-of-war ceremony in which some U Boats (not the entire fleet as has been thought) were ordered to Derry to surrender but because of the five brutal, bitter years beforehand when British, Canadian and then American sailors bravely set out down the Foyle to defend the Allies’ Atlantic convoys.
But then a Royal Navy corvette flying a big White Ensign, which would have been much more appropriate, might have grated with certain elements in the Council majority.
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Comment on “during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
on 9 May 2013 at 3:44 am
Gee what a surprise Rory springs to the defence of a totalitarian, imperialist, murderous Communist state and attacks the real enemy; a geriatric monk.
Do you get direct instructions on this sort of stuff from the Politburo Rory?
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Comment on It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic
on 9 May 2013 at 3:42 am
I would have thought that pretty much any sailor in the Royal Navy from 1940 to 1970 would have had a run ashore in Derry with a nip over the border for a spot of golf, fishing and off ration luxuries.
And that goes for a not insubstantial number of USN servicemen too given the signalling base in Clooney. Who was the famous US boxer born in Derry? I well recall the big American school bus in navy grey (gray?) pulling up at my primary school dropping off the American kids in the morning in the 70′s.
This is still reflected in the odd names you’ll find in Derry, Olaffson, Aquino, Thorndyke, are a few I remember.
Derry was a garrison town, always was no matter how much nationalists now try to rewrite its history. I was particularly appalled back in 1995 when for the 50th anniversary of the end of the War Derry City Council produced a commemorative tie, crimson for the city with the city’s crest surmounted by a U-Boat on a big “U”, yes that’s right, Derry City Council chose to memorialize the Nazi enemy rather than the people who fought from Derry to beat the bastards.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 4 May 2013 at 9:44 am
Fuck off you offensive cunt, implying, but without the balls to use the quote properly, that my wife and kids are “lesser” breeds.
Prick.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 3 May 2013 at 12:21 pm
“Your comparison of 1980 and 2012 was odious and odorous. It stank. It implied the only good Republic was a white Republic, where the other breeds without the law were denied democratic rights.”
No it didn’t you twat, you’re dying to call me a racist but haven’t the balls to do so because I said at the start that that would be the knee-jerk reaction of anyone who doesn’t wish to discuss immigration in any other terms other than ”Nya nya, not listening you’re a racist!”
Grow up Malc and try debating issues on the actual points raised not on what you want to pretend someone’s saying.
Oh and take back your deeply offensive “other breeds” remark, you fuckwit, my wife and kids fall into that category and I don’t like your repulsive implication.
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Comment on British & Irish flags at new Korean War Memorial for Ulster troops
on 3 May 2013 at 9:09 am
I too have Korean friends and one of them told me that they are regarded as the Irish of Asia, fun people who like to party, (a bit harder working than the Irish mind).
As regards the Ulsters in Korea, they fought in the same action as the “Glorious Glosters” and I remember hearing somewhere that they were rather miffed that the battalion that managed to get itself captured got so much credit when the Ulsters and the Fusiliers who fought viciously to successfully get themselves off the mountain are forgotten.
Another excellent case of the British glorification of military disaster.
I too am intrigued as to why the Irish government (as opposed to Irish veterans who are entitled to do what they like) should want to have official recognition for a war in which they had no hand, act or part.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 3 May 2013 at 9:01 am
Oh and by the way, looks like UKIP are moving into stage four rather rapidly.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 3 May 2013 at 9:00 am
God help us are Greenie and Malcolm completely dense?
Yes I know the electorate has changed between 1980 and 2012! That’s my entire bloody point from the bloody beginning!
Thus my original point that immigration, which has such a major effect on politics is a very legitimate and utterly fundamental issue in politics.
Got that now? Jesus, it takes a while for the message to get through around here.
Yes Malcolm, I am an immigrant thus I am in a much stronger position to discuss the issue and have a clearer perspective on the issue than handwringing, do-gooders who haven’t a clue about what immigration and being an immigrant really means.
Just for reference sake, here’s my position as a legal immigrant. I may not own land in my new home, I may not open a business, I may not even own my home, nor indeed may my wife as she has chosen to marry a foreigner.
I must report every year to the immigration office to go through the rigorous procedure of re-applying for another twelve months. Once I am there I am photographed and have my fingerprints taken. I am issued with my immigration card which I must carry about with me at all time, if a policeman stops me and I do not have it on me then I will be arrested and held in prison until it can be produced. If I wish to leave the country I must get permission from the government.
I do not have the vote, I may not take part in political campaigns, if I commit a crime I can expect to be deported after serving my sentence (unless the crime involves drug smuggling in which case I will face the firing squad).
After five years I may apply for citizenship but only after proving proficiency in the language (I need hardly add that all government documents are in the national language and if I need to have them translated I do so at my own expense), pass a tough examination on the history and culture of my adopted land and then I must also renounce my former citizenship as dual nationality is prohibited.
Got that? Now how does that compare to immigrants in the west? Am I not therefore in a very strong position to be critical of how easy and relaxed the position of immigrants is in my own homeland?
In fact when you see how I am treated as an immigrant (and I have no complaints, it is their country and I am a guest in their land) you might not be surprised that I feel if anything UKIP is bloody soft on immigration.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 1 May 2013 at 10:22 am
Sorry Malc, try again in plain and simple English, your point still doesn’t make very much sense.
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 1 May 2013 at 10:18 am
Greenie, I’m not saying if Romney had run in 1980 he’d have won a landslide, I said if the electorate in 2012 had been the same as in 1980, Romney would have won a landslide.
I have absolutely no problem with well-educated immigrants coming to a country, Greenie, I thought the merest glance at what I said would have made that perfectly obvious. But the US and UK aren’t importing masses of PhD.s and MBA’s are they? No it’s mostly unskilled, uneducated immigrants who are flooding in to do jobs that the natives maintained on unaffordable benefits turn their noses up at.
Remember the idea that immigrants are a boon to the economy misses the blindingly obvious fact that immigrants get sick too, they have children too that need to go to school, and eventually they get old and need the pensions the same as everyone else.
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Comment on Adams’s extended RTE interview on political murder turns the southern clock right back for Sinn Fein…
on 1 May 2013 at 9:39 am
@mickhall
“if the Irish media had given the same amount of coverage to the oppressive nature of the English state in Ireland and their clients within the orange state, the generation Adams belongs to may never have taken up arms, as there would have been democratic avenues open for them to express their political will.”
Tendentious balderdash.
As has been pointed out time without number Northern Ireland proved itself very open to reform. As opposed of course to the Catholic Church-run Irish “Republic” where amongst other hellish abuses practised by the state and state institutions was the internment without trial of 31,000 Irish citizens, men, women and children in Irish gulags.
By November 1968 a mere handful of years after the perfectly peaceful Northern Ireland Civil Rights Organisation came into being, and a few marches on the streets, 90% of the reforms demanded by the Civil Rights protestors were granted by the supposedly unreformable Northern Ireland state, pretty impressive in my view and a total vindication of the efficacy of peaceful protest.
The fact that a reformed Northern Ireland was precisely what the troglodytes of the Republican Movement did NOT want should not lead us to rewrite history.
As to the above war crimes controversy, hey, if the IRA wants to compare themselves to the Black and Tans and the Parachute Regiment when it comes to committing war crimes, well who am I to contradict them?
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Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
on 30 April 2013 at 2:28 pm
In the Guardian (quelle surprise) Neather backtracked from what he had quite clearly and explicitly said when he realised he had let the cat out of the bag but the fact remains he said what he said.
Labour were rubbing Tories’ noses in immigration and they knew it.
We all know it now, not that we knew all along, and no amount of self-serving dissembling will change the fact.
When the Democrats and Labour can’t convince the electorate they simply import a new client electorate to get their way. Was it Berthold Brecht who made a satire about this in Communist East Germany? Except with the left it’s never satire.
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