Child benefit allowance

I hadn't thought about this before, but the child benefit system is ripe to be ripped off - B I G—T I M E. The government pays €460.50 each month to the parents (the mother, generally) of any family with three children. If you have a child under 6, you get an extra €1,000 per year. This money is not taxed.

This is the government's way of helping parents cope with the costs of raising children. There are essentially no tax breaks for children.

Fair enough, I guess, but if you've moved here from Poland or Latvia, that's a tidy sum each month. Now, if the Latvian family is living in Ireland then there is no issue. However, Fine Gael claims that €150m in child benefit payments will leave the country as many E. European workers here have not relocated with their families. This is all legal and how the system was designed.

However, what's not mentioned is how easy it would be to go on collecting the child benefit payment even after the worker has returned home. You only have to claim every six months and the cost of the flight will be far less than the payment.

I can't think of any way the government could easily prevent this, unless they start paying visits to the homes of E. Europeans who have registered for child benefit. And, if they find a house with 7 Polish men living there, how will they know that one of them is or is not the one whose name appears in the benefit book? This could get ugly. You have to bear in mind that wages in Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, etc. are LOW. {The average Lithuanian hotel worker earns €237 per month, for example.)

Burning the flag

According to this morning's Times there were demonstrations and flag burnings in Islamic countries yesterday. Ambassadors have been recalled and boycotts are under way.

The flag they're burning is the Danish flag. Yes, Denmark's flag. Sort of hard to imagine in many ways, but apparently this all goes back to some cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllends-Posten back in September. The Saudis want the Danish Prime Minister to apologize, but he has refused. It actually sounds serious.

The Danish Government warned its citizens about travelling to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and withdrew aid workers from the Gaza Strip.

Last night EU foreign ministers issued a statement in support of Denmark, and the European Commission threatened to report any government backing the boycott to the World Trade Organisation.

Now, I understand getting a little ticked when some wiseacre takes a poke at your faith, but there does seem to be a lack of proportion here.

Anyway, it seems the editor of the Jyllands-Posten is a tad uneasy about it all and has published an almost surreal letter to (the) Honourable Citizens of The Muslim World. (What? Do Muslims come from Vulcan?)

The Da Vinci Code

A copy of the The Da Vinci Code landed in my lap over the weekend. So, I started reading it and I was surprised (and not just by my willingness to damn my soul for all of eternity). No, I guess I was under the mistaken impression that it was a good work of literature. It isn't. The prose is pretty bad, although I'll admit to being well short of a knowledgeable reviwer of literature.

It's sort of a cross between a travel guide and a John Grisham or John Le Carre novel, although I don't think it's as good as Le Carre's best work. It's fast-moving and exciting, which is fine by me, just not what I expected. I can't understand why there was so much fuss about it.

Wrong headline

Here's part of a headline from this morning's Guardian: "In baseball, a 'triple threat' is someone who can pitch, catch and run". And, here's part of the first paragraph from the same article:

Baseball has a great phrase for this kind of multitasking: such people are known as "triple threats". In baseball, though, triple threats are rare gems: men who can catch, hit and run brilliantly, making them the perfect player.

How on Earth did the editor come to substitute "pitch" for "hit"? Was it too difficult to follow those two sentences?

'Don't worry, Granny can look after herself'

According to the latest figures from the state of Louisiana, 71% of those who died due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina were over 60 years old. 85% were over 50. As a rough reference, according to the 2000 census, 11.7% of the total population was 65 or older.

The race issue was a red herring, because the age, and not the race, breakdown was always where the real story was. This may sound harsh, but I'd love to know how many people didn't bother to go get Granny and/or Grandpa when they were high-tailing it away from the storm? Over 700 people aged 60 and over are dead. How many of them had younger relatives near-by who evacuated before the storm hit?

Sure, the government - all levels - has to take some responsibility, but I can't shake the feeling that America is reluctant to face up to the fact that many people simply don't really care that much about their mothers, fathers and grandparents. I bet if Katrina had hit Mexico or India or Bangladesh, the death toll may well have been higher, but not so disproportionately elderly. Outsourcing your parents' medical care is one thing, but it seems like some Americans have outsourced love and concern for them as well.

Burning waste

According to the CSO there were 1,287,958 households in the state in 2002 (latest figures) housing 3,791,316 people. Recent estimates say that the population is now closer to 4.2m which, if we use the same percentage increase, would give us approximately 1.43m households in the state.

Bear that in mind.

The Department of the Environment "estimates that up to 60,000 tonnes of waste is being burned illegally in backyards every year". 60,000 tonnes, which is 60,000,000 kg (132m lbs).

Is it really possible that the average household is burning approximately 42kg (92lbs) of garbage each year? I sincerely doubt it.

I don't burn any garbage in my yard, which would mean my neighbors would have to be picking up my share. Yet, as far as I can tell, none of the 200 houses within "smelling distance" of my house is burning any waste. So, are there entire neighborhoods picking up the slack for my neighborhood? Are there vast housing estates where most people are burning their waste on a regular basis? I doubt it.

If we assume that no more than 10% of all households are burning waste in a single year (and that is a gross over-estimate, I believe), that would mean that each of the waste burners is burning 420kg of waste per year (at a very rough guess, I'd say that's got to be near 25 full kitchen-size bags of garbage). Is it really possible that people could get away with burning that much waste? And, what if my 10% is way off (as I believe) and it's closer to 2%? That would mean each burning household would have to burn more than 2,000kg of waste per annum. That doesn't seem feasible to me.

So, I've got to ask, does the Department of the Environment know what it's talking about at all?

NOTE: I'm not very good with the metric system, so if I've messed up one of these numbers please let me know.

No such thing as bad publicity?

Apparently that old adage doesn't hold water in the tourist trade, at least as far as Bundoran, Co. Donegal is concerned. The most recent edition of the Lonely Planet travel guide describes Bundoran as "one of Ireland'’s tackiest holiday resorts, a kitsch assortment of half-baked fairground rides, flashing arcades, fast food diners and overpriced B&Bs". Funny enough, that's exactly how I remember it (only the ocean is right there, which is really nice), but I haven't been to Bundoran in at least 8 years or so.

I just heard on the radio that Bundoran Town Council may sue Lonely Planet for libel. All I can say is 'good luck to them', but they should bear in mind there is always a possibility that they could lose. A jury of Irish people may well agree with the Lonely Planet.

I should add that Bundoran as I remember it is not unlike Bray, only without the overriding sense of menace that descends on my town with nightfall.

Day off for the BT?

The Belfast Telegraph's web site never published the January 25, 2006 paper. The 24th and the 26th are there, but the 25th is missing. Even web sites need days off, I guess.

Bad day for George

We've all had bad days, but right now George Galloway is in the middle of what seems to be the 'mother of all bad days' - one lasting about 40 hours or so. Yesterday morning, a team from the British Serious Fraud Office returned from a trip to the US "with what a source close to US investigators calls 'thousands of documents'" relevant to the oil-for-food scandal. The SFO will be producing a report in 4 weeks, which may recommend criminal proceedings against Galloway (among others).

Then last night Galloway exploded at his fellow house mates in Celebrity Big Brother. After he settled down, he sulked, reading the Communist Manifesto. (I recommend reading the whole article here - I'm sure Karl Marx is rolling in his grave.)

Today, Galloway "faces ruin" if his previous victory over the Daily Telegraph in a libel suit is overturned. As well as having to return the £150,000 he won in the suit, he may have to pay the £2m in legal costs. And, to top all of that off, he will almost certainly be evicted from the Big Brother house tonight, after which he'll find out all the other things going on in his life, including the fact that he's now the subject of a fatwa issued by Omar Bakri Mohammad.

A few scotches might be in order tonight, George. Someone please keep him away from the gun cabinet.

UPDATE 11:30 - Galloway avoided "ruin" today, the Telegraph lost its appeal. Next up, avoiding eviction. And, a nice picture of Galloway with one of the indefatigable one's sons (Uday) was published today.

Zorn to Largent

No, I'm not a big football (gridiron) fan. It wasn't always the case, however. I used to live and die with my favorite team.

For reasons that I can't quite explain myself, I was never a fan of either of the two New York teams, the Giants and the Jets. For a while I was a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, but I adopted the Seattle Seahawks shortly after they arrived on the scene.

They weren't very good, but they were unpredictable, exciting and always flirting with being good. And, they always beat the Jets, which was worth a lot to me in my high school days. I went to high school wearing Seahawks tee-shirts and a (probably somewhat unsightly) green-blue-silver Seahawks jacket sent to me by my Aunt in Seattle.

I loved the Seahawks in those days, particularly Jim Zorn & Steve Largent. On February 5 the Seahawks will play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl. I know virtually nothing about this Seattle team, but I'll be rooting for them. Just, well, it would have been so much better if this had happened in 1982.

New Look

I see this sort of post on other blogs from time to time. Usually the person in charge of the blog has decided to go with a new look because (a) they can now do more with their site or (b) they just wanted a change. I'm in a (to me) new category this evening. My blog has a new look and for the life of me I can't explain why. I haven't done anything, but my site looks completely different to me in Firefox (my browser of choice). However, things look more or less the same in IE and Opera, so you may not see anything odd. Or maybe it's just me. Who knows?

UPDATE: Okay, everything appears as normal again this morning. Anyway, Ed tells me this is the most boring post ever, which is an accomplishment in its own way.

Neo-isolationists

In October 2003 I claimed that an increasingly isolationist America would be the end result of failure in Iraq, if that came to pass. I still believe that, but now I believe it's inevitable, even if Iraq does come good.

Peter Beinart of believes it too. He cites statistics showing a growing isolationism in America.

In the past year or so, however, it has grown increasingly clear that while Sept. 11 merely intensified an old mood, Iraq is producing a new one. Public isolationism has jumped sharply since 2002. Even more striking is the change in elite opinion. According to a recent Pew study, the percentage of security experts who say the United States should be highly assertive around the world has dropped from 75 percent in 1993 to 53 percent today. Among leading scientists and engineers, it has dropped from 55 percent to 32 percent. Among top religious leaders, it has fallen from 57 percent to 36 percent.

Some of the rest of Beinart's column seems a bit far fetched - I don't think there's much of a connection between the reaction to the Miers nomination and isolationism - but I think he's on the right path overall.

Two readings on celibacy

I'm sure there are thousands of documents I could read that would provide me with the same information, but I enjoyed these two that I found this afternoon: one on the history of celibacy and the other on the spirituality of celibacy.

Thoughts on Celibacy

Despite what I wrote below I'm not really opposed to allowing priests to marry. Here are a few things that ran through my head over the weekend.

1. Scandals: Eliminating celibacy will not reduce the number of scandals involving priests. We'll just have different scandals. Instead of priests breaking their celibacy vows, we'll have priests violating their marriage vows. I figure that it'll take about three weeks from the end of mandatory celibacy before we have the first tabloid headlines shouting that 'Fr. Murphy has left his wife and 3 children to run off with his 22-year-old lover'. Human nature is what it is. And, we'll still have child sex abuse scandals, only these will involve priests and their own children. However, I do believe that the systematic failures with regards to child sex abuse would have been less likely to have occurred if there had been married priests. Any sane father would have demanded that his Bishop recognize that these abuses are nearly as serious as murder from a parent's perspective.


2. Loneliness: The media loves anything to do with sex and any person or institution that tries to swim against the tide in our sex-soaked culture is inviting scorn as far as the newspapers, etc. are concerned. Sex is only a small part of the celibacy problem, however. Loneliness is a much bigger issue. A priest's life has always been lonely, but it's even lonelier now. There are fewer priests around and many live alone. And, thanks to the scandals and changes in society priests are less involved in the lives of Catholics today, other than maybe with the elderly. Priests are no different than anyone else - they don't want to spend all day, every day talking only to people over 70. They want to be involved with people of all ages.


3. Vocations: It seems logical to assume that allowing priests to marry will lead to an increase in the number of priests, but it's not going to be automatic. The Church will still need to go out and attract men into the priesthood. Sitting back, waiting for men to hear 'the Call' is simply not good enough any more. I've said before that the Church is not trying hard enough to find new priests. It's a noisy world; some men might not be hearing 'the Call'. Allowing married priests is not a solution to this problem.

Canceled

I used to love the West Wing, but it really has gone down hill the past few years. I'm not surprised it's been canceled. RTE has only just started showing the last season, but it's pretty clear that they don't hold it in high regard because the series returned with no build-up whatsoever. I only stumbled on to it last week.

Outing Fr. Dillane

On a related note to my post below, why was Fr. Dillane's name (and his girlfriend's) in the media at all? For Catholics this is a scandal, but for the secular media this is nothing more than destroying a couple's privacy for a little tittle-tattle excitement.

This couple's relationship is less of a public interest than would be a relationship between a university lecturer and his (or her) student. Maybe we should name those people because that's a public scandal in our state-funded universities. Maybe we should hear about the relationships among those in the media, particularly those that involve senior and junior staff members?

Celibacy debate opened (again)

Every time a priest is found to have abandoned his vow of celibacy the media begins the "we need married priests" chorus again. The argument is always the same, the Church is losing good men due to the celibacy commitment. Although I rarely have the feeling that too many of Ireland's journalists are overly committed to the Church, that doesn't seem to stop many of them from ensuring that only one viewpoint is presented during these "debates".

This week it was all about Fr. Maurice Dillane, who has left his parish to be with his 'girlfriend' and their new baby. The Irish Independent assures us that "there has been an understandable massive outpouring of public sympathy" for Fr. Dillane. This "outpouring" took place over the air waves, which, of course, does not mean that a majority of Catholics in Ireland are all that sympathetic to the 73 year old priest. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but radio phone-ins are not representative of anything.

"Many of the callers to those radio phone-ins said that priests should be allowed to marry, that the Church's strict rule of celibacy may have to be questioned".

How many of them are weekly Mass-goers who pay their share towards the up-keep of their local church and the salaries of the priests (and other Church employees)? And, how many of those would be willing to hand over a substantial chunk of change to fund the priests' families?

Oh yeah, there are consequences, but these are never mentioned when the papers/radio shows get into one of these frenzies. How will people feel when their priest separates/divorces? They'll have to pay up to meet his maintenance costs too. Consequences of ending the vow of celibacy - the great unmentionable.

Iran

What a conundrum? On the one hand, I'm drawn to the ostrich in the sand approach. I have a strong isolationist streak in me. Iran is a problem for Israel, Sunni Arab states and Europe more than it is for the US. Let the Europeans handle this one seeing as most of them were none-too-pleased with how Iraq was handled by the US. Long before Los Angeles is within reach of President Ahmadinejad's nukes Athens, Berlin and Rome will be inside Iran's range. Europe needs to resolve this now, but the US can probably wait, at least a little while.

Unfortunately, if Ahmadinejad's public utterances are taken seriously, then not long after Iran's nukes are ready Israel will be in the gun sights. At that stage Israel will have a choice between annihilation or complete surrender. Not a happy choice, which probably means that Israel will HAVE to act before Iran's nukes are ready. How far away can that be? And, what will the consequences be? How will the Arab states react? What about Pakistan? Turkey? Indonesia? How strong are the bonds of the "Islamic world"? I guess we'd find out.

How bad would it have to get for the Israelis before they unleashed everything at their disposal? Just imagine what the reaction would be if a nuclear bomb explodes in Tehran or Riyadh or Cairo or Mecca?

So, I suppose as much as I'd like to ignore this one, it just can't be done. There seems to be little option other than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, there also seems little hope of achieving that. I don't think sanctions will have an impact. There probably isn't enough time to foster an internal rebellion to overthrow Ahmadinejad & the Mullahs. Air strikes will probably accomplish a lot, but at the expense of high civilian casualties and still we wouldn't be sure that we had knocked out their nuclear program. Invading Iran, toppling the regime and occupying the country just seems an impossibility.

And, if all of that weren't reason enough to be gloomy, we're still 72 days from the opening of the baseball season.

Saint Noam comes to town

Not unintentionally, I missed yesterday's on air celebrations of 'Bring a Noam Chomsky to work day' on Eamonn Dunphy's show. I haven't yet found any blog report on the big event. Chomsky, "perhaps the world's best known liberal intellectual", was in town to tell a gathering of his disciples that the US is a "leading terrorist state". Yet, he continues to live there. He is fearless; no - he's a martyr.

Clonycavan Man

Today's Scotsman has a picture of what Clonycavan man - one of the two bog men - might have looked like. I love his hair, although I don't see much gel there.