It's like Christmas come early for long-time fans (this blog included) of a certain former "Director" of the failed Freedom Institute and Daily IRISH Mail correspondent columnist. Expect this new manifestation of the Evil One to be pimped mercilessly by Mulley for the next week (at least).

No word as yet, alas, on what the email policies at Dickie's new digs are. Stay tuned!

Via MacRumors, commenting on the just-released iTunes 7.1:

iLounge took an in-depth look at the release, and found support for ratings tags for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in addition to the United States for movies and TV shows (when applicable). This find could serve as additional fuel for previous rumors that cited Spring 2007 as the launch for the expansion of iTunes in Europe beyond music.

It's our distinct impression that sharing of movies via BitTorrent is unlikely to be challenged as the premier movie "download" service for some time to come.

(That is, of course, barring a crack-down.)

On my trusty Sony Ericsson K750i I use Opera Mini for Web access; Salling's Remote Basics for using my phone as an iTunes, VLC, Keynote and DVD Player Bluetooth controller for my Macs; and iTuneMyWalkman for syncing with a Smart Folder in iTunes every morning for podcasts (such as Battlestar Galactica). I use iSquint with custom settings on my desktop machine to output compatible video for viewing saved TV.

It plays AAC, MP3 and MPEG 4. I can listen to the radio on it with comfort, via the hands-free kit I bought at the same time. I can take pictures with the two-megapixel camera for import into iPhoto.

The cost of all this? 200 euros on an 02 contract upgrade from my previous phone, 20 euros for the 3.5mm hands-free plus about 30 euros for a 1GB Memory Stick Duo. The rest was free. The Sony Ericsson does everything I want, and more, and has replaced my old 3rd generation iPod last year. (the installed Media Player does suck as a GUI, though)

The iPhone costs at least 500 euros (guessing) for the lowest configuration and won't be here until Christmas. I might get one in a few years, when the price has come down and the built-in memory capacity gone up. Until then, and despite being enthusiastic about Apple's great kit, I don't think so.

(I may give a different answer once I hold an iPhone in my hand for the first time. Watch this space.)

The latest edition (February 23rd) of The Phoenix brings an obituary to our notice:

"IT IS with much sadness that Goldhawk reports the disbandment of the Freedom Institute, the right-wing, sorry, liberal think-tank that brought much amusement to Dublin media circles around 2003/04. The Institute has now liquidated itself but its members still push their world view in academia and in the media."

Needless to say, the untimely demise of a fellow think-tank has been received with glumness here at the Dublin Institute of Culture and Knowledge. After all, who could not shed a tear at the demise of an intrepid group of students young capitalist warriors who could claim the following as their mission statement:

About The Freedom Institute
Founded in 2003, The Freedom Institute is Ireland's Centre for Social, Economic and Political Studies. Our approach is simple - while others argue about causes, we seek solutions from the ideas and principles developed by great thinkers - Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their contemporaries.
The Freedom Institute will never shy away from expressing its view on any issue. Our beliefs are simple - pro-freedom, pro-enterprise, less government and strengthened security.
An Ireland that embraces FI beliefs would be a place where resources are diverted to fighting not just crime, but also the causes of crime. Our view is to increase choice and competition in every sphere - particularly in the economy, healthcare and education. People should have the opportunity to fulfill their potential in this country - not emigrate to pursue their dreams. Government should retreat to its core areas, and not interfere in areas where the private sector is more than capable of providing. Taxes should be reduced, with the burden of tax (as measured as a share of GDP) still unacceptably high, despite the progress made in recent years.
Our proposed policies will make Ireland a better place to live.
The Freedom Institute has a range of staff dedicated to producing our policies. We will fight for a better Ireland on a range of levels - through public meetings, lobbying and producing our expert reports.
In conjunction with many other think tanks throughout the world, we will not shy from our responsibility to creat a safer, stronger, freer and more prosperous Ireland.

Begat (so legend tells us) in 2003 in the back of a bus between four McDowell Youth Young PD members, the young Freedom Institute was off to a promising start when it received a donation from noted US lobbyist laundromat Tech Central Station in 2004 to fund a survey friendly to deregulation of medicine advertisement, an issue obviously close to the heart of TCS's Big Pharma donors. Latter years saw an influx of Young Blueshirts Fine Gaelers, plus the irrepressible ex-Ogra Fianna Fail (see Phoenix issues passim) John McGuirk.

"The Institute may have gone away, you know, but Richard Waghorne, the Institute’s director, is now writing full-time for the Irish Daily Mail. A recent article listed Pat Rabbitte as the most dangerous man in Ireland while author and lecturer Rory Miller is fighting the good fight elsewhere in the media."

Our analysis of Dickie's Mail career gets an airing in a recent thread-spat here with another veteran Freedom Instituteer (and professional global warming sceptic), one Peter Nolan, ex(?) of the lobbyist front The Stockholm Network. Suffice it to say that the Rabbitte article referred to above seems the tip of the iceberg for entertainment value (see the recent Waghorne piece blaming marriage breakdown on gay sex), though we of course can go only on what we read while nosing through the newsagents' shelves of a Saturday.

"Waghorne told Goldhawk that it was simply a matter of the band pursuing solo projects but conceded that the “creative energy” the group had in 2003 – when there was still a debate over the merits of George W Bush’s Iraqi plans – was gone by late 2006."

"Creative energy", indeed (how's the Bush Legacy going, anyone know?). Sad news that graduating college and getting jobs going on to 'solo projects' has led to this, though we're glad to hear that it wasn't due to no more money turning up after the TCS cash was expended (for so little apparent returns) by the goys.

"Eamon Delaney, editor of Magill magazine, was glad to provide it with a regular and wide platform initially, and Waghorne and John Lalor became constant contributors. Delaney, however, is eager to distance himself now from the Institute, which was eventually indulging in namecalling, cheap shots and, worst of all, predictability."

We're astonished. And more than a little confused. Is this actually the same neo-Magill editor who passed the following recent (February 2007) Waghorne column for publication?:

"More Ideas Please
Irish political culture would be enriched by more think tanks, say Richard Waghorne

One of the high profile London think tanks was in Dublin before Christmas, talking to our capital's decision makers about the possibility of opening an Irish branch. To say that the reception they received was chilly would be something of an understatement. Oppsition to the idea was as strong from business as from the civil service [...] Why are we still so averse to independent policy groups when other countries have come to regard them as an indispensable part of politics?
[...]
It is a sign of how backward we remain about this that, even though we have much ground to cover to catch up, new arrivals tend to be greeted not like liberal bromides but with overtly hostile suspicion [...]"

And so it goes on, ad nauseum (and without a reference to Dickie's personal connection to this topic anywhere in the piece, we might add).

Back to the Phoenix:

"While Waghorne said the group was never as right-wing as it was portrayed, he admitted that “message management” was an issue. Indeed it was, although when you publish articles praising the merits of rendition flights, the folly of concern for global warming or referring to the minimum wage as “criminalising” work, the message obviously needed more than simple management."

Heh, indeedy. The Phoenix scribe misses out on other Freedom Institute classics such as on the de Menezes shooting, their love-bombing of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the repeated pimping of the McCarthyite David Horowitz and the Smoking Ban ("The Vampire At The Door", according to 'John Lalor Health Spokesperson'). Unsurprisingly enough, the Freedom Institute website was made inaccesible to the public several months back, at presumably the same time that it informally wound up; a check just now through the backdoor route we uncovered then reveals that the entire content has recently been scrubbed off their server.

We're hereby dedicating next week to recapping on some of the Freedom Institute's greatest hits, along with - if we've time - a "where are they now?" series. Stay tuned.

Postscript: a final note (pun unintended) on Sicilian Notes, which was recently promoted by Mulley as "one[...] to watch in 2007" (being an utter cunt[1][2][3][4], appears not to be a disqualifier for this distinction). Dickie has, it appears, turned his online scribblings into a gated community (what could he be afraid of, that people might read there? *).

One to watch, indeed.

* We've no idea (ok, maybe a few). We do, however, happen to possess extensive archives of the riveting opinions expressed by Dickie on his blog in the past (as well as those of the Freedom Institute). Requests to the usual email address.

Continuing the Transformers-meme started by Fústar*, via iPodHacks we see the Most Awesomest iPod Accessory we ever did see: the Optimus Prime transforming dock.

We wantsss one, Preciouss.

* We have to admit, though, Fence over at Pretty Cunning runs this a close second for coolness with the Macguyver Multitool. Sweet.

There's a surprise, he said snarkily. A company evidently engaging in bluff in a poker game it's started with the government.

As has been obvious from the beginning, the fuss over risk equalisation has only been an ploy by Bupa to maximise their profits in this jurisdiction, nothing else. They knew about it before they decided to set up shop in this state, and they've simply been engaged in Ryanair-style theatrics since.

Update, 25/01/07: As pointed out in the comments, there's not much to back this claim up in the original linked article (hey - self-correcting blogosphere!). I was sure that I heard a news report about a Bupa statement confirming this on Newstalk on Thursday morning, but having listened through their podcasts makes me think that it must've been on the Orla Barry show - i.e., non-podcasted. Consider this a retraction until further notice.

So, can anyone tell us about this "new" Blogger?

First we had the news that George and Tony's Excellent Adventure has killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. Now, comes word that in the UK the generals are unwilling to be complicit in the la-la fantasies of the neocons and the "decent" left any more.

In an interview in the Daily Mail, Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, is quoted as saying the British should "get out some time soon".

He also said: "Let's face it, the military campaign we fought in 2003, effectively kicked the door in."

Certain persons have been avoiding the topic of Iraq lately, unsurprisingly.

My. Sweet. Jesus. The chance to finally work out those repressed Catholic kinks in your upbringing?



So, what exactly do you wear to an event like this?

Dress code is fetish, rubber, leather, vinyl, high formal, cyber, gothic, fetish drag, corsetry, burlesque and lingerie.



Ah. Kind of like a Marilyn Manson concert for adults, then?

What does Nimhneach stand for?
Nimhneach means “sore” or “painful”.

Guess not. We're still quite in shock, so the wags of the Bogo'sphere are invited to quip away in the comments - if they dare. More from where we first found this.

p.s. For lay members of Opus Dei (the target clientele, surely) who intend to head along to this but are missing that all-essential dog collar or nun's habit, a little further Googling threw up this convenient accessories store in Temple Bar.

Searchlight Magazine has an interesting article up:

"Author: By Scott Millar | Date: August 2006

Ex-Provo gives new life to Irish clerical fascism
A former senior Provisional IRA member, who until 2003 sat on Sinn Fein’s national executive, is reorganising the extreme nationalist right in Ireland by attempting a takeover of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the largely moribund marching organisation seen as the Catholic equivalent of the Orange Order.

Gerry McGeough, 47, from Tyrone, now living in Dublin, has been described by the FBI as a “dedicated terrorist” and “senior commander” in the IRA. He makes no secret of his Provisional IRA past and his extreme anti-gay and pro-traditional Catholic views. McGeough is believed to have served on the PIRA’s “headquarters staff” and overseen its international arms buying and military operations during the early 1980s. He has served eight years in total in American and German prisons, awaiting trial for an IRA attack on a British barracks in Germany in 1988 and attempts to purchase surface-to-air missiles in the US. Until recently he was the editor of the large circulation Irish Catholic newspaper the Irish Family.

Now he has turned his attentions to saving Ireland from “sodomy” and immigration and returning it to “Catholic Faith and Gaelic Heritage“. In May McGeough, as editor, and Charles Byrne, a 28-year-old from Drogheda, launched a monthly magazine called The Hibernian, dedicated to “Faith, Family and Country”. Seemingly well funded and run from premises in the border town of Drogheda, the magazine acts as a publicity vehicle for McGeough and the extreme right in Ireland. Some of its contributors are associated with Youth Defence, an extreme anti-abortion group, and the Society of Pope Pius X, others are those attempting to infiltrate and take over the AOH.

In recent months local newspapers in rural southern Ireland and the border area have carried advertisements for those interested in joining a revitalised AOH which is to focus on the promotion of so-called “Hibernian” values. McGeough says that a significant number of persons associated with his brand of homophobia and extreme Catholicism have now been recruited into existing AOH “divisions”, the term for local units of the organisation, and have formed new “divisions” in Dublin and other areas of Ireland. "

Fine. Just the usual run-of-the-mill letter writers to the Irish Times, surely?

"The first outing of McGeough’s new look AOH was a televised speech on 26 May by Michael McDowell, the Irish Minister for Justice, on civil partnerships for same-sex couples. The speech was interrupted when a jug of water, a number of cups and copies of the Irish constitution were thrown at the minister by eight men in the audience who accused him of seeking to pervert Irish children. The men, who were eventually escorted from the building, identified themselves to the media as members of the AOH. On the same day the website of The Hibernian carried a press release stating: “We, the General Tom Barry Division No. 1975 AOH, Cork and the Naomh Lorc O’Tuathail Division No. 31 AOH, Dublin, wish to state that we carried out today’s protest at the launch of a conference on homosexual ‘marriage’
[…]
However not all in the AOH were supportive of the actions of some of their new members. A week later Tony Carroll, the AOH public relations officer, said: “We saw the pictures on TV and everybody was amazed at what went on”. He pledged further to investigate the disruption and take “appropriate action”. However McGeough believes the days of mere charity work by the AOH are numbered. He said, in a taped interview forwarded to Searchlight: “I am part of a new group of people in the organisation who want to take a more pro-active stance on Catholic issues. If the leadership have a problem with Catholic teachings, then they should take it up with the Pope. The organisation which was moribund for years under that leadership is now attracting huge numbers of new people. We only have a convention every three years. but I believe we will see a radical shake-up at the next election.”"

We believe that Suzy has already encountered this lot. Unsurprisingly, there's also a Justin Barrett connection:

"The former terrorist first emerged as a figure on the Irish extreme right when he accompanied Justin Barrett on a lecture tour of Irish towns in March 2004 in support of Barrett’s bid for election to the European Parliament.
[...]
When confronted by video film of brown-shirted skinheads marching with neo-nazi flags through the conference on national television, days before the second Nice referendum, Barrett’s defence that he was unaware of the nature of the meetings became a national joke.

It was during this period that McGeough, then acting as organiser of the Sinn Fein anti-Nice campaign, became involved with Barrett and his cohorts. The two are still in close political contact although McGeough says he does not agree with Barrett’s vocal opposition to immigration.

So what's McGeough's current relationship to the Shinners?

Because of his IRA activities McGeough had a strong following among some Provo supporters. He was elected to the Sinn Fein national executive in 1999 while studying history in Trinity College. He became the party’s national campaigns organiser in 2001 and remained on the executive until 2003. During that time he, along with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness, led Sinn Fein election campaigns and toured the country addressing republicans on behalf of the party.

The former terrorist is scathing of his former comrades in the leadership of Sinn Fein. In the Searchlight interview McGeough said: “Sinn Fein has been heavily infiltrated by homosexual activists and British double agents in recent years. A lot of republicans can’t fathom the liberal values of the leadership. They do not understand why they are pursuing a liberal British agenda. Immigration is a massive concern and there are a lot of people who are not happy with the level of immigration.” "

No love lost there, we guess. And then we were drawn to a familiar name:

"The only two websites that have links to [McGeough-edited magazine] The Hibernian are “Irish nationalism”, an openly racist site, and the “Irish Bulletin”. The second site, which has a banner proclaiming “Dispatches from the battle to defend Irish unity, culture, tradition and orthodoxy”, is the only outlet that initially promoted The Hibernian. It also carries “news” reports similar in content and style to those on The Hibernian’s website. Under the heading “European Nationalist Movements and Philosophies” the Irish Bulletin has links to the websites of Forza Nuovo, the International Third Position publication Final Conflict and the neo-nazi National Democratic Party of Germany among other extremist groups."

Searchlight goes on to further elucidate on the love-in. While there hasn't been any even half-serious fascist movement here since the days of the pre-Fine Gael Blueshirts, this lot (the somewhat further-out section of Irish wingnuttia) still bear keeping an eye on for mischief.

Dr. James Dobson's US-based Focus on the Family (more here) is a name which garners precious little recognition here in the Republic, but it really ought to. Founded by Dobson in 1977 (and of which he was president until recently, handing over to an ex-Christian Coalition activist) and closely GOP-aligned in the Age of Bush, Focus on the Family serves as a lobbying organisation and pressure group for hardcore Bible-bashers on predictable topics such as Creationism, the separation of Church and State and homosexuality (the side of the fence they fall on can be readily guessed). Dobson himself gives new definition to the phrase "fundamentalist loon":

In response to 9/11: "Question: Has God withdrawn His protective hand from the US?"

James Dobson responds: "Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures. " (FOF website, http://www.family.org/docstudy/excerpts/A0018615.html)

(via PFAW)

Those with a masochistic streak can also Google for the good Dr. Dobson's beef with a children's TV cartoon character named SpongeBob SquarePants. But don't say that we didn't warn ye.

Where does Ireland fit into all this? Your humble blogger will sheepishly admit to having tagged along to an evangelical service in Cork about a decade ago (long story). This soul was long ago promised to the Divil, we're afraid, so there was no chance of even the lovely-looking girl sent over to 'introduce' herself to a stranger in the congregation being a sufficient enough temptation to lure a non-practicising Catholic boy to the Dark Side. But the obvious professionalism of the act by the two American pastors was duly noted for future reference - and just because they don't get attention from the Dublin media doesn't mean they're not out there in numbers and growing, folks.

Fast-forward a few years, and a character named Mervyn Nutley shows up in 2003 as the Director of an outfit called "Christian Initiatives", making a submission to the Department of Communications in favour of allowing religious advertising on the airwaves. Apparently already in existence for eight years, Christian Initiatives later that year got the franchise (so to speak) and became "Focus on the Family Ireland", thereby entering our little tale. Posturing as a Christian 'family support' organisation appears to be the modus operandi of FotF Ireland; they also popped up at the Joint Committee on the Constitution in 2005. But you can be sure that like the US parent organisation, that's just the thin end of the wedge for the rest of their agenda - anti-feminism, homophobia, creationism, sexual ignorance for adolescents and all the rest of it - to get in the door too.

And here's where we assign some homework to the Free Stater readership. Via the never-disappointing PZ Myers at Pharyngula, comes word of a way to exact some karmic retribution on FotF's attempts to do an end-run around their dues to Caesar - namely, selling wingnut literature for tax-deductible supposed "donations". There is, however, a weakness in this scheme... and you can find full instructions here.

Needless to say, we've already taken this opportunity to get a headstart on the Christmas shopping, ordering some Narnia goodness:





Be warned, though, that doing this puts you on the US fundie spam and junk-mail lists. We've already had invitations for Christian Dating(!) amongst other God-related offers in the Hotmail inbox (though good luck to them sending us junkmail through An Post) so caveat emptor, as they say.

p.s. Where would your neighbourhood evangelicals host their website on the Godless Internets? Why, with Godsweb, of course.

The BBC, yesterday:

Terror police find 'martyr tapes'

Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.

An unofficial police source said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on what officers are finding.

Again, Aunty Beeb:

Terror detectives 'find bomb kit'

Police probing an alleged plot to bring down flights have found a suitcase containing items which could be used to construct a bomb, the BBC has learned.

Officers have been searching a piece of land called King's Wood in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

A police source told the BBC the case contained "everything you would need to make an improvised device".

As Craig Murray notes sceptically, "everything you would need to make an improvised device" covers the contents of the average residence:

"The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.

The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.

Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce - as they have whispered to the media in this case - that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn't it?"

The 'evidence' leaked to the press by the police in this case mirrors such recent inglorious episodes as the Ricin Plot, the Forest Gate arrests, the death of Jean Charles de Menezes last year (and that of Rigoberto Alpizar in similiar circumstances in Miami). In each case, the narrative of Islamic terrorist plots placed with accommodating press hacks by the police ultimately turned out to be completely without substance. And Murray (the very same ambassador who blew the whistle on UK collaboration with the people-boiler of Uzbekistan) deals with the unreliability of evidence extracted by torture, an unwelcome slap of reality for torture fans everywhere.

But - and this is the important part - the sense of induced panic from the screaming tabloid headlines always lingers on in the public subconscious; whether as unintentional byproduct or (more sinisterly) by design on the part of the Blair and Bush governments. Which interpretation is correct, we leave up to reader discretion.

And as other people have already observed, the 'discovery' of this alleged plot couldn't have come at a better time for the Bush Administration, what with prominent pro-Iraq war Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman defeated that same week in his party primary by an anti-war candidate. As Murray notes in further posts, treat the narrative being peddled now by the Blair government with a good dose of caution. Why has no police officer gone on the record about these supposed finds of evidence?

p.s. For a detailed look at the reality behind the hype of liquid explosives, The Register provides.

(A close death in the family will continue to disrupt blogging on Free Stater for a couple of weeks. Dickie's threatened solicitor's letter has meanwhile yet to turn up on our virtual doorstep... Rest assured, We Will Return)

Sicilian Notes posts a reply:

"Email Postscript

Following this post, the Sunday Independent ran this article. Much nonsense online has followed. While I regard the matter as closed, and said this when contacted by the author of the Independent piece, some clarification is in order.
First, I should not have published the name of the person who sent the email, as that put me on the wrong side of my own email policy. I'm happy to put my hands up and accept that I was in the wrong on that count. It's a remote probability that the author checked the policies or even knew they were there, but that's immaterial."

Regardless of whether or not there was a written policy, there is certainly a netiquette that private email carries some privileges. That Sicilian Notes put these principles into a written blog policies document just emphasises that Richard was aware of such custom.

"Second, the reports that the author lost his job are news to me. I know only that disciplinary processes were initiated. I neither know nor have any interest in what become of the email's author. Those presuming either way should limit themselves to known facts."

Here's a fact:

It's the same story out at UCD [helicopter noise - EWI note]. More often than not, when stepping outside there'll be one in the sky. The faint whir is audible as I type at the moment. Happily the noise inside this concrete bunker we all work in is reduced to insignificance, but the sheer number is striking. Given that helicopter traffic to UCD itself is unlikely on academic salaries, the supposition is that much of it is for the Radisson, which apparently is a favourite hideout of the helicopter set.

Posted by Richard Waghorne :: 7/14/2006 10:09:00 AM

"Third, the allegation online that I have misused IT facilities at one of my places of work is entirely incorrect."

The allegation that Richard has misused IT facilities has never been made. He has, however, been invited to reflect on the hypocrisy of castigating another person for the expenditure of taxpayer's money in a private cause while he himself clearly does likewise (UCD enjoying subvention from the public purse).

"Moreover, had I chosen to use UCD facilities to blog outside the time I allocate to fulfill my responsibilities there I would have been entirely entitled to do so, as is every other member of staff and the student body."

This is entirely up to UCD to decide, and not something that this blog concerns itself with. What does concern us is whether Richard uses any of our tax-euros to promote his views: the exact same justification ("Your taxes at work.") he used for outing the Údaras employee.

"It is possibly defamatory to report that I am in breach of contact by misusing facilities."

It is also "possibly" defamatory to falsely claim that someone else has made defamatory remarks about your own self. Richard has never been accused of breach of contract, about which we profess no opinion one way or the other: he has merely been labelled a rank hypocrite for likewise using facilities at least in part public-funded.

"I note in passing it has not been made by anybody writing under their own name. I note also that I have sought recourse to libel lawyers in the past with a 100% success rate to date. If the author is serious, I invite him or her to publish the claim under their own name. I will then refer the matter to one my lawyers (I find it a sad reflection on the world that at twenty-two I already have need of two of them). I invite those who have made or spread this claim to withdraw it. "

It is a matter for Richard Waghorne if he wishes to waste time and money pursuing a defamation case where it is abundently clear that none such has occurred. As to his concerns over pseudonymous bloggers, we suggest this little quiz for readers; just how many Waghorne-blogrolled right-wing bloggers are also pseudonymous?

"Fourth, though doubtless accidentally, Sarah Carey is incorrect in reporting that I "probably wouldn’t do it again". I would act exactly as I have with the single exception, as already mentioned, that I would not have made public the actual name of the person who sent the email. That an inappropriate and abusive email was sent from a state funded body is a matter of legitimate public interest and I would have considered myself remiss in not reporting the email, as I did straightaway, and in making public the basic facts of the matter. At the time I had no idea whether the author was a chief executive or a secretarial temp and would in any case have treated the matter in the exact same manner irrespectively. If the author did indeed lose his job the responsibility for that fact is entirely his and I neither express nor feel regret. There will be no apology. The responsibility is his and no amount of politically-motivated dislike of yours truly changes that fact."

Does Richard apologise for violating email confidentiality and publicly naming him? Apparently not...

"Fifth, Sarah Carey is in the wrong when she argued that I "shouldn’t have let the SINDO article go forward implying that [I] hadn’t complained". I supplied the journalist with all the information he requested and an accurate timeline of events on the day. I have at no point denied this and would have no reason to. If she is unhappy with the article in the Sunday Independent she should get in touch with the paper. They will, presumably, then tell her to get a life. As she is in the business of demanding apologies from people, myself included, she might consider, if not an apology, a correction at least."

In that case, there is a rather curious coincidence in that both articles forget to mention this detail; the disclosure of which might otherwise have taken the shine off Mr. Waghorne's halo in this sordid tale [1].

"Lastly, had the Irish language zealots who protested my brief piece in such inflammatory and unreasonable language across the blogosphere"

Inflammatory and unreasonable language isn't unknown to Mr. Waghorne, we fear.

"had the minimal maturity to respond in a rational fashion and desist from explicitly directing readers to send hate mail to my account, they would not have had one of their own suffer, by all accounts, a clear career setback of one type or another. You lost."

Who are the "you"? Alas, we can only speculate as to what VGLC (Vast Gael-Linn Conspiracy) Richard may have uncovered....

"And it was needless and entirely your fault."

Again, we're completely in the dark as to who the "you" is meant to be.

"Learn from it by learning to deal with disagreement as adults and not as caricatures of fringe interest lunatics. I accept no blame in the matter, reserve my right to report civil servants in the future for similar breaches of contract, and advise those who have devoted not inconsiderable time to this most trivial of news stories to find something else to blog about in what could hardly be considered a slow news week."

Have done. Back to this, now.

"The matter is closed."

So commandeth the Prince of the Internets.

[1] the Sindo reader demographic being unlikely to grasp the finer points of email ettiquette.

L'Affaire Waghorne takes another turn:

"What I’d like to know is how the woman at Udaras found out so quickly that the employee emailed Waghorne in the first place…Did Richard ring Udaras to enquire (he very carefully says he “took” a call from an Udaras woman - is she following all web links to their website on a daily basis?)"

To which the answer apparently is:

"Someone who got in touch with me on the whole matter has told me that Waghorne complained personally to the Udaras head office on the matter; I’ve no doubt that he did as Udaras are unlikely to have noticed it any other way in such a short space of time."

This is far from over, we promise.

Catch it here: http://www.apublishersblog.blogspot.com/

(via the Sunday Business Post)

From The Register comes word that the American white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood have suffered a major setback:

"Bosses of an American racist prison gang have been convicted of murders and racketeering offences after investigators broke the encoded messages they used to order attacks.
[...]
The trial, the first of several targeting the leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood, covered 17 murders or attempted murders between 1979 and 1997. Mills and Bingham were convicted on all but one of the counts against them. Two others defendants, Edgar "The Snail" Hevle and Christopher Gibson, lieutenants in the Aryan Brotherhood, were convicted of lesser roles in some of the deadly assaults orchestrated by Mills and Bingham.

Prosecutors hope the trial will limit the power of the Aryan Brotherhood, a gang of around 100 men who use fear and violence to control drug pushing and gambling in jails across the US.
[...]
These instructions, encoded using steganographic techniques developed by Francis Bacon 400 years ago, were written in invisible ink, whose contents only became visible when held over a flame. The gang smuggled messages by placing them within mop handles or under recreation yard rocks."

Now these are extremely dangerous men, undoubtedly with the blood of many people on their hands. However, you can't read the following:

"But the prosecution produced a raft of documents, including decoded letters and membership lists, to back-up its case. The government even produced a "mission statement" for the gang setting out an agenda for the Aryan Brotherhood to become "the very best possible criminal organisation"."

...and help but imagine this particular Aryan leadership generation as less like the ruthless, scheming Vern Schillinger (from HBO's superb Oz)

....and more like Cholla from Every Which Way But Loose.

From: Free Stater [mailto:freestater1916@hotmail.com]
Sent: 30 July 2006 21:29
To: independent.letters@unison.independent.ie
Subject: Údaras Email Firing

"Dear Editor,

On Sunday 30th July 2006 the Sunday Independent ran a piece entitled "State agency forced to apologise in email misuse incident" by a Daniel McConnell, dealing with the firing of a summer student who had been employed by Udaras. The student - one Ultan o hAodha - had sent an email using an Udaras address in reply to a posting by a UCD employee (one Richard Waghorne) on Mr. Waghorne's own online blog.

i) It is not unreasonable to guess that Mr. Waghorne posted his original derogatory comments concerning the Gaelic language using UCD facilities.
Does UCD allow or endorse Mr. Waghorne using their facilities to promote his ideological positions?

ii) Mr. Waghorne has a number of stated policies at his blog, accessible
here:

http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/01/sicilian-notes-policies.html

I draw your attention in particular to the following:

"Quoting policy on Emails
Unless you ask otherwise, emails will be regarded are quotable. However,
unless you state permission, it will be assumed that identity is not to be
published."

Nowhere in the Sunday Independent article in question is Mr. Waghorne's
failure to honour his committment of confidentiality to his email
correspondents noted. I feel that this is a serious flaw in the reporting on this particular incident, and I hope that the Sunday Independent will print
a correction to that effect in the next issue.

Yours faithfully,
EWI"

--
Thanks to the reader who sent in the link to the Sindo article. Some related links:

http://freestater.blogspot.com/2006/07/public-health-warning-for-silly-notes.html
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/o_manamse/P25/
http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/07/email-from-udaras.html
http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/2006/01/sicilian-notes-policies.html
http://talideon.com/weblog/2006/07/lets-not-feed-the-troll.cfm
http://donal.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/we-cannot-do-without-irish/
http://imeall.blogspot.com/2006/07/imeall-145-trollil.html
http://imeall.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/being-a-peasant-is-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-being-ignorant-is-nothing-to-be-proud-of/

Update 13:28 31/07/06 more links...

http://twentymajor.blogspot.com/2006/07/apologising.html
http://donal.wordpress.com/2006/07/31/stick-that-in-your-pipe-and/

The BBC:

"Israel says world backs offensive

Israel says Wednesday's decision by key world powers not to call for a halt to its Lebanon offensive has given it the green light to continue.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the remarks before Israeli cabinet ministers decided not to launch a large-scale ground offensive."

Oh, really?

Britain and US block call for ceasefire
John Hooper in Rome, Ewen MacAskill in London and Jonathan Steele in Beirut

The split within the international community over the Lebanon war was clearly exposed yesterday when the US and Britain combined at a Rome summit to block a move by European and Arab countries to demand an immediate ceasefire.

In a frenetic last 90 minutes of the summit, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had to fend off a chorus of calls from foreign ministers demanding that she support a call for Israel and the Lebanese-based militia Hizbullah to declare a temporary truce. Her only ally at the conference was Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary.

A US state department official travelling with Ms Rice denied the US had been isolated, a view disputed by other sources at the conference.

A state department official said: "Whether we call [ the ceasefire] immediate or urgent is semantics. We walked out of that room with the same sense of urgency [ as others]."

The conference ended with a statement fudging the ceasefire issue, with participants expressing "their determination to work immediately to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire", but going on to incorporate Washington's insistence that any cessation of hostilities be "lasting, permanent and durable".

British and Israeli sources have said the US was deliberately delaying the diplomatic process to give Israel more time to complete its military operations against Hizbullah.

Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, made what Ms Rice described as an "impassioned appeal" to the summit.

"Is the value of human rights in Lebanon less than that of citizens elsewhere?" he asked. "Are we children of a lesser god? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

© Guardian Service

Our Mr. Ramon doesn't stop there, though:

"Speaking on Israeli army radio, Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

He said that in order to prevent casualties amongst Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in.

'All southerners terrorists'

He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there can be considered Hezbollah supporters.

"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah," Mr Ramon said."

Some of those "terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah":

Funding appeal for orphanage with Irish links
John Downes

The director of a southern Lebanese orphanage which has a long association with the Irish Defence Forces and has received funding from the Irish Government, yesterday described how the children in his care and other orphanage staff are running out of food in Beirut.

Hassan Fawaz, a former principal translator with the Defence Forces, also said 28 of his charges had been forced to live for almost two weeks in a small bunker formerly used by Irish troops. The orphanage which he runs is located in the town of Tibnin, close to the Defence Forces' former battalion headquarters at Camp Shamrock.

Mr Fawaz was speaking on RTÉ Radio's Gerry Ryan show, which yesterday initiated an appeal for funds to help Mr Fawaz and the residents of the orphanage.

A fundraising bank account to help Mr Faraz and the children of the orphanage has been set up through Bank of Ireland.

If anyone knows how to contribute to this fund, please leave details in the comments to this post. Much appreciated.

Update 31/07/06: From the comments:

If you want to donate money to the Hussan Sawaz orphan appeal in Beirut, the details are:

Name: Lebanese Orphan Appeal
Branch: Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street, Dublin
Sort Code: 90 14 90
Account number: 44 99 95 22

This is an article that we've linked to before, but it appears to have since disappeared along with the rest of the Ha'artz Daily site and it's nowhere to be seen on the new one. The following was recovered from the Google cache. It'll hopefully be of considerable interest to readers (the writer refers to a Palestinian arms shipment intercepted by Israel a few years back).

Son of a gun
By Thomas O'Dwyer

I was 13 years old the first time I met a gunrunner. Since he was also the first Jew that I had ever met, that was the identity that stuck - stories of gunrunners were then ten a penny among Father's cronies of the Old IRA. Bob Briscoe was an Irish and Jewish gunrunner, and a hero because of it, and the memory of meeting him came flooding back to illuminate the veil of indignant hypocrisy hovering over all the blustering and babbling about the capture of the "ship of terror" last week.

This greatest military operation since the rescue at Entebbe, and greatest national endeavor since the parting of the Red Sea, failed inexplicably to rouse the righteous indignation of a universe apparently unmoved by the imminent threat to galactic civilization. These deluded foreign fools (anti-Semites one and all) apparently find it unremarkable that a nation under siege and brutal occupation - for no apparent reason other than the bloody-mindedness and land greed of the occupying superpower - try to smuggle in arms from time to time.

In the history of occupations, it has been a singularly commonplace occupation of the occupied - as the Jewish state should well remember. Occupied countries like Algeria, Cyprus, and Mandate Palestine did it all the time. The Irish were the world's most incorrigible arms smugglers in the struggle for independence.

Maybe the story of the Karine A just wasn't startling news. After all, the Palestinians are in a fight for independence from Israel, just like Jews were in a fight for independence against Britain not too many years ago - as aging hypocrites like Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Shamir, and the other old gunrunning nationalists know only too well.

The contempt of the international diplomatic community in Israel for the cynical timing and inept presentation of the arms ship story was undisguised this week. "The usual circus performance for Zinni," one European envoy told me. "If they were tracking this ship for months, why didn't Sharon do something really clever and ask the U.S. Navy to intercept it in the Strait of Hormuz as it was about to leave the Gulf with the arms? The Americans could have done so in the context of the war on terror, and they would have handled the publicity much more skillfully, and maybe even have delivered Israel a free propaganda coup."

This envoy had politely declined the government's kind invitation to "freeze my butt off in Eilat while officials babbled at us in Hebrew," but his report home on the stage-managed fiasco was no less scathing than the rest.

The star of the whole show was probably the affable captain of the "ship of terror," Omar Akawi. His frank and relaxed interview with the television stations and Reuters from his unenviable position in Ashkelon jail reminded me once again of Bob Briscoe's accounts of his daring gunrunning for the IRA and later for the Irgun, before he settled down to a respectable job as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1956. Make no mistake - the gunrunning of the Karine A and others like it will one day enter the folklore of how the State of Palestine struggled for its freedom.

"A nation in desperation will find its ways," Briscoe later wrote. He described the curfews and closures on the Irish people in 1919 and 1920 that drove him willingly into the fight for Irish freedom alongside Michael Collins - the man whose name Yitzhak Shamir later adopted as an underground nom de guerre. "Frightfulness was their official policy," Briscoe wrote of the British occupation, as it is of the Israeli one.

"As the citizens go to bed, the barracks spring to life," Briscoe recalled. "Tanks and searchlight cars muster in fleets, lists of `objectives' are distributed. Through the dark curfewed streets the weird cavalcades issue forth to attack. The `objectives' for the most part appear to be held by women and children. Thunder of knocks on their doors and in charge the soldiers in full war kit. No warrant shown on entering; no apology on leaving when, in nine cases out of ten, suspicions proved groundless."

In the midst of the brutality, Collins summoned Briscoe, "our blessed jewman," (unlike the wretched Zvi Hendel MK today, Collins could then use the term with affection for the only Jew of senior rank in the IRA.) He dispatched Briscoe to Germany, with the cover of a Galway wool merchant and the swashbuckling operational name of Captain Swift, to buy arms. "From a secret underground of German ex-naval officers called Orgesh, I bought large quantities of automatic pistols called Peter the Painters and Parabellums, and variants with detachable stocks that converted them to small rifles, as well as considerable quantities of ammunition," wrote Briscoe.

When the arms had piled up in a Hamburg warehouse, Briscoe bought an old tramp steamer, the Karl Marx, and a seagoing tugboat, the Frieda. He loaded the Karl Marx with cement and had the Frieda tow it out to sea where it sailed north and south and north again shadowed by the suspicious Royal Navy. Meanwhile the arms-laden little Frieda slipped away and made a daring and successful run to Waterford.

Briscoe also ran the City of Dortmund, to and from German ports, with an all-IRA crew. In one of his finest operations, just before a peace treaty was agreed with Britain, Briscoe landed a haul of machine guns and a million rounds of ammunition in Ireland from the gunrunning ship Hannah.

Briscoe was always more reticent about his work for the Irgun. He became an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism after meeting Vladimir Jabotinsky when he visited Ireland to study the tactics of the IRA against the British and was fully briefed by Briscoe: "I appointed myself to a full professorship with the Chair of Subversive Activity against England." During the war he went to South Africa and raise considerable funds from its Jewish community to help ferry Jewish immigrants past the British and into Palestine.

But he conceded laconically: "Most of the immigrant work was organized by the Haganah. I naturally was drawn to the Irgun."

But after the sinking of the Irgun's gun-running ship, the Altalena, in Tel Aviv, Briscoe became horrified at the prospect of a Jewish civil war, like he had witnessed in Ireland. At a meeting with Menachem Begin in Paris, he urged Begin to abandon the Irgun as a physical force movement and convert it to a constitutional party, as the IRA had done.

In 1950, this old son of a gun traveled to Israel with President Eamonn De Valera, who had become his close friend. De Valera was impressed with Israel's progress but disturbed by the plight of the Arab refugees. And so was Briscoe - IRA man, Irgun man, Collins man, Jabotinsky man, Zionist, Irish nationalist and gunrunner. "De Valera sympathized with the Arab people in their hopes for independence and prosperity," he wrote. "So do I. I want to see all people this way - a world where every human being is of equal dignity and equal importance."

Too bad. Fifty-two years later, Mr. I Have Defeated Terror is still too busy listening to his own stupid propaganda.

About time that some attention was paid to intimate Unionist/Loyalist links.