Category Archives: Beyond belief

Don’t drink the water — even if it has been blessed

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Galway’s newest resident.

The raging prosperity of my homeland has to be seen to be believed. Some of its manifestations are horrible — for example the despoilation of what were once lovely seaside towns by build-to-rent development. Some are comical — as in the practice of renting stretch limos to deliver 7-year-old girls to their First Communion. And some are beyond satire.

Take the current situation in Galway, the lovely town near where my father’s family live. A stop-frame video made from satellite images of Galway over the last 15 years would show a municipality growing like a tumour, as field after field and hill after hill is covered by speculatively-built housing estates created without the infrastructure to support such explosive growth.

Now we discover the consequences: the public water supply in Galway is no longer safe to drink. On March 28, RTE News reported that:

It has emerged that the city and county water supply in Galway has been contaminated by both human and animal waste.

Tests carried out in laboratories in Wales have also established that the strain of cryptosporidium parasite which has been found in water reservoirs and treatment plants can be transmitted from human to human.

The Health Service Executive says the situation remains a very serious one and it is of the utmost importance that all water is boiled before use.

Experts have told RTÉ News it could be up to six months before tap water is safe to drink in parts of Galway affected by pollution.

Up to 90,000 householders and businesses are affected, and today the number of cases of the cryptosporidium illness in the country rose to 125.

Since then, everyone in Galway has had to use bottled water. Newspapers are full of photographs of families trudging back from supermarkets laden down with huge plastic bottles. Nobody has any idea when — or how — the problem is going to be resolved. It’s got to the state where ‘GalwayWaterCrisis’ even has its own MySpace Profile — surely an innovative use of social networking.

It’s not entirely clear yet what the source of the pollution is, but the Guardian reports that:

Suspicions have focused on a sewage treatment plant at Oughterard, north of Galway, which pumps effluent into Lough Corrib. The Green party mayor of Galway, Niall Ó Brolcháin, claims the plant, built 60 years ago to cater for 250 houses, is unable to cope with the sewage from the now 800 homes in Oughterard that have spread out over the land. “Water services are at capacity and have been for some time,” Mr Ó Brolcháin said. “Yet we are still continuing to develop more houses. That’s wrong. That’s why we are in this mess.”

The Mayor and local politicians blame the government; Environment Minister Dick Roche, however, will have none of it: he retorts that the government had already made 21m euros available for water treatment projects in Galway, but the local council had failed to make use of the money. For once, I agree with the government: this looks like a product of local greed, corruption of the planning system and incompetence. Meanwhile the local business community — which is a major holiday and tourist destination — is beginning to sweat. Will the usual hordes of holidaymakers throng to a resort where you can’t drink the water? Stay tuned.

The delicious irony, of course, is that tainted water used to be a hazard of poor countries like India. In searching for a phrase to describe modern Ireland, a slogan first devised by John Kenneth Galbraith comes to mind. “Private affluence and public squalor”.

The crisis has also, I understand, affected supplies of ‘Holy Water’, which now has to be imported from heathen but uncontaminated localities.

US media: smug, pompous — and misleading

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I’m not a great admirer of the British press, but I have more time for it than for its American counterpart, which seems to me to have failed its public and no longer warrants its elevated status as the Fourth Estate. Bill Moyers recently produced a searing expose of his peers. The response of most of them has been to express incredulity. “Who — us?” is the general tenor of the reaction.

Glen Greenwald has written a nice piece about this in Salon. Excerpt:

[Moyers’s] documentary is — in one sense — a very valuable historical account of the corrupt behavior by our dominant political and media institutions which deceived the country into the invasion of Iraq. But on another, more significant level, it illustrates the corruption that continues to propel our political and media culture.

One of the most important points came at the end. The institutional decay which Moyers chronicles is not merely a matter of historical interest. Instead, it continues to shape our mainstream political dialogue every bit as much as it did back in 2002 and 2003. The people who committed the journalistic crimes Moyers so potently documents do not think they are guilty of anything — ask them and they will tell you — and as a result, they have not changed their behavior in the slightest.

Just consider that, as Moyers notes, there has been no examination by any television news network of the role played by the American media in enabling the Bush administration and its warmonger propagandists to disseminate pure falsehoods to the American public. People like Eric Boehlert have written books about it, and Moyers has now produced a comprehensive PBS program documenting it. But the national media outlets themselves have virtually ignored this entire story — arguably the most significant political story of the last decade — because they do not think there is any story here at all.

The fraud that was manufactured by our government officials and endorsed by our media establishment is one of the great political crimes of the last many decades. Yet those who are responsible for it have not been held accountable in the slightest. Quite the contrary, their media prominence — as Moyers demonstrates — has only increased, as culpable propagandists and warmongers such as Charles Krauthammer (now of Time and The Washington Post), Bill Kristol (now of Time), Jonah Goldberg (now of The Los Angeles Times, Peter Beinert (now of Time and The Washington Post), and Tom Friedman (revered by media stars everywhere) have all seen their profiles enhanced greatly in our national media.

Part of the problem with the US media is that their privileged status as one of the ‘estates’ of the realm has, somehow, rendered them impotent. Three examples:

  • They allowed the Reagan administration to get away unscathed with the Savings & Loan scandal.
  • They connived in the Republican witch-hunts against Bill Clinton — remember the ‘Whitewater’ affair and the Kenneth Starr inquiry?
  • And they failed to question the ludicrous propaganda of the current Bush regime about Iraqi involvement in 9/11. (Greenwald reminds us that “seven out of 10 Americans believed even six months after the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein personally planned the 9/11 attacks.”)

    How could responsible, intelligent media allow such a preposterous fiction to go unchallenged?

    • The consultancy racket

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    I’ve always been suspicious of the big consultancy firms. When I worked on a project in Whitehall some years ago, I watched a team from one of the major outfits at work. An ultra-cautious, ass-covering junior minister was required to make a decision about a project. Rather than ask hard questions himself, he ordered an investigation by a Big Consultancy Firm. The firm sent in a squad of sharp-suited kids who went around asking silly questions for a week and then produced a stupefyingly obvious PowerPoint presentation which told the minister what he wanted to hear. The bill for this hogwash came to £70k. The minister thought it was good value because (a) it wasn’t his money, and (b) it provided him with a document he could wave at the Public Accounts Office if any questions were subsequently raised about the decision. The whole thing was astonishingly cynical, unprofessional and shoddy.

    Now comes an interesting report from Information Week about allegations contained in lawsuits filed last week in an Arkansas federal court by the US Department of Justice. The complaints claimed the defendants — companies like Sun, HP and Accenture — paid or received kickbacks from dozens of companies in violation of federal law, while denying that they had such arrangements.

    Accenture figures prominently in the government’s complaints.

    While Sun and HP allegedly paid millions of dollars each year in kickbacks, Accenture allegedly accepted them in the form of “system integrator compensation,” rebates, and marketing assistance fees. The company earned all three from Sun and HP, according to the complaint.

    As a consultant for the government, Accenture was hired as an objective adviser in choosing vendors and purchasing IT equipment, software, and services. The government, however, says Accenture and its purchasing subsidiary, Proquire, were less concerned with their client, and more interested in profits and revenue from partners. “As a result, millions of dollars of kickbacks were sought, received, offered, and paid between and among the defendants with the alliances in violation of the False Claims Act and other federal statutes and regulations,” the complaint said.

    Between 1998 and 2006, Accenture earned more than $4 million in cash from system integrator compensation, the complaint said. Between 2001 and 2006, Accenture received such fees from EMC, HP, IBM, Informatica, Mercury Interactive, NCR, PeopleSoft, and Sun. With the exception of Sun and HP, none of the other companies are accused of any wrongdoing.

    Accenture also received rebates and marketing assistance fees that were based on a percentage of the revenue in reselling partners’ hardware, software, and services. Under government regulations, such rebates or fees should be pass on to the government.

    Accenture, for example, earned more than $32,000 in rebates from HP in July 2002, and more than $2 million in marketing assistance fees between 2003 and 2005 from Sun, according to the complaint.

    Without telling the government, Accenture also negotiated steep discounts on hardware, software, and services, and then sold them to the government at higher prices. “Accenture personnel were instructed to constantly look for ways to structure government contract transactions so as to provide for greater opportunities to maximize resale revenue often at the direct expense of its government clients,” the complaint said.

    Thanks to Nick Carr and Bill Thompson for alerting me to this particular example of ingenious consultancy ‘services’.

    Homeland security

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    Here’s a sobering account of what happened recently to a distinguished US academic lawyer, Professor Walter Murphy of Princeton.

    “On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving.”

    “When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years.”

    “I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. “That’ll do it,” the man said. ”

    “After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: “I must warn you, they’re going to ransack your luggage.” On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was “lost.” Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this “loss” could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical.”

    “I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture’s argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could. Further, that an administration headed by two men who had “had other priorities” than to risk their own lives when their turn to fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous. Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush’s false claims by “outing” his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. …”

    Bin Laden has won, hands down. My boycott of the US stands.

    Wuff, wuff, wu…. yawn, zzzzzzzz

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    Guess what — Prozac for dogs!…

    Anxiety-ridden dogs that go berserk when left alone by their owners will soon have a new treatment option–a reformulated version of the antidepressant Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine. To be marketed under the name Reconcile by Indianapolis-based drugmaker Eli Lilly, the drug is chewable and flavored with a doggie-delectable zing. It is the latest in a string of recently approved canine drugs, reflecting the growing market for pet pharmaceuticals.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Reconcile in February after clinical tests in dogs showed it significantly improved symptoms of separation anxiety, a problem that strikes 10 to 20 percent of canines with varying severity; dogs affected may bark, chew household items, or urinate in inappropriate locations when left alone. The drug, which will go on the market in April and will be sold along with a behavior modification program, is the first product introduced by a new division of Lilly devoted entirely to pets…

    Don’t you just love that phrase “doggie-delectable zing”?

    One-born-every-minute Department (contd.)

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    From The Inquirer…

    AT LEAST 23 PEOPLE fell for a scam from a bloke who claimed to be flogging an Apple iPhone on eBay.

    One person was prepared to stump up $1,125 to own an iPhone before it reaches the shops, or indeed the manufacturers.

    Apple has said that it will not be releasing the phone until sometime in June, but that did not stop eBay seller rgonzales23455 telling marks that he had six of them.

    Computerworld emailed Rgonzales23455 and asked him how he got his paws on six of the machines before they had been released. He didn’t reply and neither did Apple.

    eBay, however, said that it pulled the listings and was warning that any such listings claiming to be selling the Apple iPhone are in violation of eBay’s pre-sale policy.

    The subprime mortgage racket explained

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    At last! — an explanation I can understand of the biggest financial scandal since the Savings & Loan racket of the Reagan years. It’s by Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post. In his talk at the interesting SNS Dinner in London recently, Mark Anderson went on about the subprime market at some length and I felt thoroughly abashed by my ignorance (for photograph of abashed blogger, see here!)

    Helpful notices (contd.)

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    Boyd Harris sent me this lovely one, seen in a pub in Cumbria. As he observes, scares about new inventions have a venerable pedigree. I once had a conversation with the man who had been the chief architect for the old London County Council and he told me that some councillors had opposed the building of high-rise apartment blocks on the grounds that people who lived on the top stories would be short of oxygen!

    Daft lawsuits, no. 33,561

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    From Reuters

    SAN MATEO, California (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has thrown out a lawsuit challenging the fairness of how Web search leader Google Inc. calculates the popularity of Web sites in determining search results, court papers show.

    In a ruling issued on Friday that came to light on Tuesday, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against Google by parenting information site KinderStart.

    The judge also imposed yet-to-be-determined sanctions on KinderStart legal counsel Gregory Yu for making unsupported allegations against Google.

    KinderStart sued Google in March 2006 alleging the Mountain View, California-based Internet company had defamed the site by cutting it from its Web search ranking system.

    The Norwalk, Connecticut-based company, which features links to information about raising children, accused Google of violations of antitrust, free speech, unfair competition and defamation and libel laws.

    In its suit, the company argued its site’s sudden demotion in March 2005 to a “zero” ranking in Google’s search system had severely harmed its business.

    KinderStart had sought class action status on behalf of what is said were many other sites that suffered the same fate as Google fine-tunes Web site rankings in search results…

    Nice to see that sometimes the law is not an ass.