Write-in candidate

RTE (Irish state broadcaster) Autumn schedule reveals a shocking omission --

The public will also be asked to vote on Ireland’s Greatest Person . The final five involved will be John Hume, Michael Collins, Bono, James Connolly and Mary Robinson.

Besides leaving out Terry Wogan, the presence of Mary Robinson on the list may attract international interest.

Outside his field

Robert "Robby" George is perhaps George W. Bush's favourite public intellectual; he holds down a professorship at Princeton University and is a specialist in the philosopy of "pro-life" issues; he is also a usual suspect in the various front groups that pop up to push aligned Republican and pro-life positions. But in the manner in which right-wingers like to branch out (such as Commentary magazine diversifying from angry pro-Israel positions to opposing Israel-style healthcare for Americans), Prof. George has decided to tell National Review of his outrage about the indeed outrageous release of Pan Am bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.

But here's the problem. He's blaming Barack Obama for it. And specifically, he's blaming Barack Obama for not doing enough to get Gordon Brown to stop it. But read his comments. They show no awareness of the difference between "United Kingdom" and "Scotland", let alone the primacy in judicial matters of the latter -- the critical factor in how al-Megrahi was released. If the London government was indeed angling to release al-Megrahi (as cynics maintain they were), then Obama would have had more leverage. But Scotland explicitly chose to avoid the seeming route offered by London -- the Prisoner Transfer Agreement -- and made the decision on their own moral grounds. This is all stuff that's easy to look up, but apparently too much effort to do so in the quest for a 103rd reason why he doesn't think anyone should vote Democratic.

Behind the Murdoch paywall

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The fun stuff that you can't read anymore since The Times (UK) went subscription --

Former Tory politician Matthew Parris wrote in his Saturday Times column that he had swum across the river in central London in his vest and trunks.

"Frankly swimming in the Thames is not only ignorant it is selfish too," said David Snelson, Port of London Authority chief harbour master. "It was ignorant and it was dangerous," Mr Parris admitted in his column. "It could have ended in disaster," he added, admitting that he was "no great swimmer".

Mr Parris attempted to swim from the Globe Wharf apartment complex, in Rotherhithe, south-east London, across the river to Narrow Street, in Limehouse, north-east London.

The 60-year-old had planned to swim across the river at high tide to reduce the risk of being swept upstream

However, he had not realised that navigational tables were in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). As it was British Summer Time (BST) when he made the swimming attempt, high tide was an hour later than he had expected.

Consequently he was swept three-quarters of a mile upriver from Limehouse.

The talking points will be televised

Sarah Palin showing Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace the scare trillions number written on her palm so she could remember it to argue against letting the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of earners expire.

She also used the word "cojones."

It's somewhat bizarre that this circus is not generating more alarm.

The reserve army of the migrants

The latest in the Wall Street Journal's efforts to repackage the Celtic Tiger disaster as itself a triumph --

The Irish exodus is a grim indicator of just how far the Irish economy has fallen. But it's also instructive on how immigrants generally behave when free to come and go as they please: They show up when there's work to be had, and move on if their opportunities dry up. In Ireland's case, both before and after the crash, the result of open borders has been a more flexible and productive labor force. That's an achievement all Europeans can celebrate.

It's true that both the non-Irish and the Irish are leaving the fiscal austerity paradise, but as with Ireland's boom, it's tough to see the general lessons in any of this. The tale of Ireland as an immigrant country is essentially one of movement between the European Union's small economies, especially the Baltic states -- and the crucial factor of Poland. which managed its boom much better than smug and complacent Ireland did and so has been able to create opportunities for its former migrants in Britain and Ireland.

But global migration is not a story of movement between relatively wealthy countries already in an economic union. In particular, it's doubtful there's much in America's immigration debate that can be informed from Ireland.

Did they split the bill?

In contrast to the usual fuss about residences and palaces, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took Saudi King Abdullah to dinner at a restaurant -- Nobles' Palace (al-Nubala) in Damascus.

A new trend in head of state visits?

English Socialist

As US election season approaches, conservative thinker Stanley Kurtz has announced that he is reviving his 2008 argument that Barack Obama is a lifelong socialist and will have a book -- Radical in Chief -- setting out the case. He elaborates --

Community organizing is a big part of what makes American socialism distinctive, and this, of course, is where Obama comes in.

"Community organizing" is a bizarrely essential element of right-wing demonology about Obama and more broadly about the financial crisis; with regard to the latter, the narrative has it that community organizers forced bank loan officers to give trillions of dollars in mortgages to poor people, whose now-underwater mortgages nearly brought down the global financial system and forced George Bush to increase government intervention in the economy. It was amazingly clever of Obama to have set all this in motion in Chicago 20 years ago, but that's the thing about these nefarious left-wing plots.

But anyway, this obsession with community organizing is coming at a strange time in the Anglo-American currents, because here from just a few days ago is UK Prime Minister David Cameron setting out the philosophy of the government's Big Society initiative --

For a long time the way government has worked – top-down, top-heavy, controlling – has frequently had the effect of sapping responsibility, local innovation and civic action.

It has turned many motivated public sector workers into disillusioned, weary puppets of government targets. It has turned able, capable individuals into passive recipients of state help with little hope for a better future. It has turned lively communities into dull, soulless clones of one another. So we need to turn government completely on its head. The rule of this government should be this: If it unleashes community engagement – we should do it. If it crushes it – we shouldn’t.

And the speech later describes specific efforts that will be taken to support community organizers.

It's going to be fascinating to watch the intellectual gyrations required to make an intrinsically bottom-up and decentralized activity like community organizing into a socialist vanguard. It's more likely that Kurtz will -- as he did in 2008 -- rely on a web of guilt by association, with community organizing being depicted as something that old lefties now do. But the implication for how American conservatives think about freedom of association for disadvantaged people should be clear.

Badge of honour

Newspaper ad in Dubai announces a car recall campaign. For Lamborghini.

Slow news day

Sky News breaking news. Conservative MP David Davis overheard in a pub criticising coalition government.

With recent American media uproars revolving around what people said in emails and tweets, perhaps this was the logical next step.

Too much gold

It's been quite a day for Irish economics. Garret Fitzgerald finds proof in Ireland's austerity experience that we are pragmatic northern Europeans. Paul Krugman finds a belief in leprechauns and faeries at the Economic and Social Research Institute. And Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern unveils a new analysis of the country's problems, one that was clearly in the briefing for today's Cabinet meeting (held, appropriately enough, at a place that the government paid far too much for) --

Mr Ahern said the level of savings had gone up from around 4% to around 12%. He said what we need to do as a nation is to get the people who are saving their money to spend it in the economy.

In other words, Irish people are saving too much. In the 1930s, Keynes figured out why that's the case for governments to spend more. But instead the purpose of the meeting was more cuts. And with the huge overhang of bank bailouts still to be paid for, we wouldn't expect to people to behave any differently -- that money is coming from cuts to public services and higher taxes, so more savings are going to be needed.

Krugman points to an obsession of governments with confidence of "the markets". It seems to the governmment is struggling towards a needed focus on confidence of the citizens.

Second Troy

Bloomberg News collects quotes hailing Ireland --

“The scale of cuts in pay and spending here are unprecedented across Europe,” said Garret FitzGerald, 84, the Irish prime minister in the 1980s who reduced budgets and raised taxes. “We’re Northern European, less emotional, and more accepting of what needs to be done in a crisis.”

You have to read the article a couple of times to see that by the economic measure to which it gives most attention, the budget deficit, Greece is doing much better than Ireland. Especially because it had no banking crisis.

On the home front

If things are looking so dire for Israel's geopolitical situation that people overseas see the need for groups like the Emergency Committee for Israel (a Commentary/Weekly Standard operation on behalf of the Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania US Senate race) and the Friends of Israel (the Aznar/Trimble et al ex-politician outfit), why is Israel itself, under the hawkish Bibi, cutting defence spending?

The most important file

UK Chancellor George Osborne using the oldest meeting trick in the book, the newspaper (The Times, as it happens) buried at the bottom of the materials. Except that he was holding up the materials.

Still, it's a good sign for the UK that he saw the EU meeting as a snoozer, since it's the one that discussed next steps in the EU emergency finance package for countries in distress.

One hopes the Irish representative (Martin Mansergh) was paying attention.

Photo: The Council of the European Union

Spending is futile

The Wall Street Journal editorial page uses forecasts of a modest positive impact of Spain's World Cup win on its economy to prove, to its own satisfaction, that it doesn't matter how much money is spent in any economy --

But there's no such thing as a free celebration, and the money spent celebrating Sunday's 1-0 victory over Holland is, by definition, not available for spending on other things. A household that buys a crate of bubbly to toast Andres Iniesta will certainly improve the wine merchant's fortunes, but probably at the expense of someone else—perhaps a carpenter who had been booked to perform repairs, or wages for a cleaning lady.

To put it another way, winning the World Cup does not expand the Spanish economy's productive capacity, and so the euros spent celebrating have to come from somewhere—either forgone consumption elsewhere, or reduced savings, or increased debt.

So far, so supply side enough. But there's more ...

The labor market for Spain's World Cup heroes may be brighter than ever, but their victory will do nothing for the 20% of the Spanish work force that is currently unemployed. For them, loosening up Spain's still-rigid labor market would do a lot more good than any national party.

Mention of Spain's 20 percent unemployment is where things get crazier than Nigel de Jong's kung fu tackle on Xabi Alonso. Because if Spain's problems were so deep-rooted, you'd expect its unemployment rate to have always been 20 percent.

Two years ago, it was 11 percent.

Which yes, is a tad high for a booming economy but it's a lot less than 20. So why did unemployment go up so much? Because people stopped spending due to the financial crisis. A little World Cup celebrating in that context is just what the doctor ordered.

That Tuesday Boy problem

"I have two children. One is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability I have two boys?"

Much effort has been expended on this one. The initial presumption is that the answer must be 1/2 or 1/3, depending on how the set up of the question is interpreted.

Actual answer: 13/27. Seeming implication: having a boy born on a Tuesday makes it less likely to have another one. As one would suspect, it's not true. You can do this kind of trick with lots of ancillary events (for boy born night or day, the answer is 3/7).

Sorely lacking in the hours of reading this blogger has done on the topic is any intuition for the 13/27 answer, and indeed the attempted explanations seem to veer ever deeper into the philosophy of probability.

So here's our attempt. By specifying not just that one child is a boy but is one born on a Tuesday, the question has done two things. (1) It has introduced a 2nd characteristic into the event i.e. day of week as well as sex and (2) it has ruled out some events that would otherwise count. Example: 2 boys born on Saturday don't count as positive events. 2 girls born on Saturday already didn't count because of the specification that one child was a boy. In other words, the day-of-week seems irrelevant, but it's still grabbing a portion of the outcome space and putting other parts of it off limits.

The implications of this logic for an opinion poll asking whether the US president is a socialist are left to the reader.

Don't put him down as arrogant

Summer Quiz --

Identify which of the following are titles to (1) Rush albums or (2) Seamus Heaney poetry books.

District and Circle
Hemispheres
Power Windows
Hailstones
Seeing Things
Test for Echo
Vapor Trails
The Spirit Level
Gravities
Signals
Opened Ground
Permanent Waves
Caress of Steel
Keeping Going

Answers tomorrow.

UPDATE: Heaney bibliography; Rush discography.

Why you should never connect through JFK

If you think missed connections and lost bags are bad enough ...

Four guns went missing and were believed to have been stolen from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security detail after American Airlines lost luggage containing the weapons, NBC reported.

It said the Glock 9mm guns had been placed in checked baggage -- as security protocol dictates -- at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and were supposed to be placed on a flight to Washington for Israeli agents assigned to Netanyahu, who was meeting President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

But workers mistakenly sent the luggage to Los Angeles where it was learned the guns were missing, and police said they believe they were stolen, NBC television reported Tuesday out of New York city.

Someone was set up

Here's a strange one. The Ambassador from the UAE to the USA did a public interview with Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. But the Washington Times is first out of the block with actual quotes and the apparent scoop -- that the UAE would rather see an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities than have Iran with nuclear weapons. The Washington Times was remarkably efficient in getting approving quotes from a usual suspects list (e.g. John Bolton), while National Review's Cliff May hails "an Arab neocon."

Now Goldberg himself is a tad more circumspect although he also recognizes the Iran scoop in the quotes. But the UAE government has rushed out an official statement denying the imputed meaning of the quotes, if not the quotes themselves --

"These statements came as part of general discussions held on the sidelines of an unofficial gathering and were taken out of their context in which Mr. Otaiba was speaking," the senior official said. "Iran is a neighboring country and we maintain historic relations with it." He stressed that "the UAE respects and believes in the sovereignty of other states and in the principle of non-interference, of all forms, in their internal affairs." "Already, the UAE declared, more than one time and in official statements issued by the Foreign Ministry, its position on the Iranian nuclear issue," Al-Haidan added.

"The UAE totally rejects the use of force as a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue and rather calls for a solution through political means that are based on the international legitimacy, transparency as well as the need for working, through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on the right of all states to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

All that can be said at this point is that Ambassador seems to have been a tad unaware of the hornets nest he was walking into. So let's see the transcript and perhaps the likely "recall for consultations". Worth watching.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal says that there were two sets of remarks, one in public to Goldberg and another on the sidelines (and perhaps off the record) to the Washington Times.

The Hand of God takes it up a notch

Interview with Uruguay's Luis Suárez, the man who pushed the rules of soccer to the limit to benefit his team vs Ghana --

"Era la circunstancia del momento, no me quedaba otra situación y la mano de Dios la tengo yo ahora", dijo Suárez ... "Cuando me iba estaba mirando en la pantalla gigante y le pedía a Dios que lo erraran, y que pasara un milagro… y pasó", comentó casi incrédulo.

Roughly speaking ... it was the circumstance of the moment, I had no other option and the Hand of God, I have it now .. when I was watching on the big screen I asked God for mistakes (in the penalty kicks) and what will happen .. a miracle happened.

So God not only helped out with the handball but made the Ghanaians miss their kicks. That's some God!

Ireland's fiscal experiment

Paul Krugman and National Review's Stephen Spruiell have been e-duelling about whether Ireland's experience shows that tight budgets work. We've outlined our position here and here. Anyway, Spruiell takes another run at it today noting that relatively non-austere Spain seems headed for another ratings downgrade and that its credit default swap spreads, which once looked somewhat better than Ireland's (part of Krugman's argument) now look just as bad. And in addition, since Ireland's crash was worse and the economy was more constrained by the Euro, the outcomes don't look great but would even have been worse without the austerity.

So to repeat and augment what we've said before.

First, credit default swap spreads on their own don't tell much of a story. Actual debt problems are driven by the yields needed to sell new debt. Right now, Ireland is selling 8 year bonds at 5%. Germany sells at 2.3%. That's not good for an economy that is still shrinking in current value terms (one quarter's growth in output not withstanding).

Second, the most direct measure of whether budget cuts are working is, er, whether they actually cut the deficit. Ireland has yet to show that it can do that. Yes, it can cut relative to the "it would even have been worse without the cuts" scenario. But that doesn't change the ugly economics of borrowing 12-15% of GDP a year.

But finally (and this is something that the a lot of the outside scribblers on Ireland miss) -- the big story is the banks. Ireland could achieve all the budget stringency in the world and it doesn't change at all the massive exposure to the banking sector through the liability guarantee and the bailout of the nationalized Anglo Irish Bank. It's excessive deference to lenders to Irish banks, and not lenders to the government, that has Ireland in so much trouble. It's doubtful any fiscal policy -- stimulus or shrinkage -- can overcome that kind of exposure.

Russian spy network latest

No one could have conceived of a strange Russian-accented person with gadgets effortlessly blending into American suburbia. Never been done.

That's their man

Karl Rove uses this week's Wall Street Journal column to describe Barack Obama's supposed defeat at the G20 summit in Toronto, but as he assembles his evidence, this appears --

The European Union president (sic), Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, tore into Mr. Obama's stimulus and other spending policies in a stunning address to the European Parliament in March 2009, calling them "the road to hell" and saying "the United States did not take the right path."

One assumes that his summer intern could only find a couple of suitable G20 quotes so he had to dig up a 15 month old story to augment his case. And Mirek Topolanek is one of those where are they now people. His government collapsed in the middle of the Czech EU presidency, he had a cameo appearance in those embarrassing Berlusconi videos, and most recently he was in the news when ...

He said that Transport Minister Gustav Slamecka is a homosexual who "gives in" when he faces a serious problem." About Prime Minister Jan Fischer, he said, "he's simply a Jew; he's not gay and he gives in even sooner." Fischer is Jewish. Slamecka has not publicly commented on his sexual orientation. Topolanek also accused the Roman Catholic church of "brainwashing" believers.

The comments came in an interview for a gay magazine in which he provided the above pose.

And he's one of Karl Rove's inspirations.

The news magazine demographic

From the US Dept of Justice complaint describing the alleged Russian "espionage" ring and in particular the segment relating to the journey of "Richard Murphy" back to Moscow with a particular computer; Murphy would buy a US-Milan plane ticket and then in Milan get a fake Irish passport in the name of Eunan Doherty for his laundered journey to Moscow. But of course he would need to able to recognize his handler in Milan ...

Password [Handler] - "Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999" ... [Murphy's reply] "Yes indeed , I was in La Valetta, but in 2000" ....

[Murphy's] recognition sign: "Time" magazine in [his] hands, (title to be seen from outside).

Sign of danger:
"Time" magazine in [his] left hand (title to be seen from outside).

Think carefully about how you carry your print publications in public. Someone could be watching.

Sepp Blatter must go

This one will need updating.

For a start, here's the officiating team at England -- Germany:

Ref: Jorge Larrionda
Linesmen: Pablo Fandino, Mauricio Espinosa
4th Official: Martin Vasquez

All from Uruguay.

Not clear yet who most obviously missed the goal.

... on the other hand, if we're naming names, then Gareth Barry and John Terry should be implicated in England's catastrophe too for their roles in 3rd and 4th German goals. And now that we think of it, Terry was at fault in the first one also.

Good God. Argentina vs Mexico. Our officials are mostly Italian --

Ref: Roberto Rosetti
Linesmen: Paolo Calcagno, Stefano Ayroldi
4th Official (who is the one who could actually see replays): Jerome Damon.

Remember fans, the unaccountable and incompetent FIFA was on display for everyone to see in the Thierry Henry handball against Ireland.

Photo: REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

The land of milk and honey and soccer

It's always interesting to see what other material can break through the dominant pro-Israel content at the blog of Commentary magazine. Usually it's Barack Obama's declining poll numbers. But today Jonathan Tobin revels in a supposed dilemma for American soccer fans, who, it is said, must choose between the trendiness of the sport and the nationalist tensions brought to the fore by international competition --

While I wish the American World Cup team well, as I would any endeavor in which my fellow citizens represent our country, the business of wrapping team sports in national flags is sheer humbug ... It is far better to leave this nonsense to the denizens of Old Europe, unstable South America, and the despotic Middle East, whose one democracy, Israel, is not allowed to compete against its neighbors in soccer but must instead play against the powerhouses of Europe to get into the World Cup, and thus has never been allowed to participate.

What's revealing about this is the cultural gulf between Israelis and the group who would claim to be their staunchest supporters. Now maybe in strategic matters they are, but on the simple matter of wearing the team colours and wanting them to do well in competition against other countries, Israel is just another country, being which is what one assumes the ultimate objective for Israel actually is.

To the practical matters: it's not true that Israel has never qualified for the World Cup. They played in Mexico 1970. Furthermore, is Israel hurt by having to play through European qualifiers to make the competition? It's not clear. If they weren't in UEFA, they would have to play out of an Asian group where the distances are huge and there are can be some very difficult matches against unfamiliar opponents.

Example: New Zealand clinched World Cup qualification in a playoff against Bahrain. By contrast, Israel is grouped with countries that are not very far away and whose players they know well from club football, since many of their best players ply their trade in Europe anyway.

And is there a penalty to being a small country in the European qualifiers? Well, other than the western usual suspects, the 3 countries coming out of the European groups were Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia, all of which have population in the same range as Israel.

In short, if you're looking for evidence of a giant prejudicial conspiracy against Israel, soccer isn't the place the look. Don't ruin it for everyone.

Out, damned ball

Thierry Henry, perhaps with the ball a little stuck to his hand out of guilt, after France's lone World Cup goal today versus South Africa.

Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Different job, different times

European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, in a New York Times interview --

Mr. Barroso said: “I was surprised by those remarks. They don’t conform to the facts. The distance Turkey started to show” from NATO partners and the West “started with the invasion of Iraq and the pressure put on Turkey by the previous U.S. administration” of President George W. Bush.

Above, Mr Barroso, then as Portuguese president, hosting the Bush-Blair war council on Iraq in the Azores, right before the invasion in March 2003. Not only did he not voice any qualms then, 3 months later he popped up in the White House to say --

Now you [George Bush] are taking great risks in the Middle East peace process. Let me congratulate you for that initiative, for re-energizing the peace process. I think the United States of America and Europe -- Portugal being a European country -- we have a lot to do together and I am very much looking forward to this opportunity to discuss with you, and always with the spirit of friendship that exists between the Portuguese and the American people, discuss all these ideas.

And we'll stand by you, because I think that what you have been doing is really great achievement. We have won the war, now we all have to win the peace. And I think that we are going to reach that goal.

One irony: the new Barroso, who recognizes the role of Iraq in damaging US-Turkey relations, is the right one. But this blind spot remains strong among most American conservatives, who strain for other explanations of the Turkish alienation even when it's staring them in the face.

Le Coq-up Sportif

So a truly classic day for French soccer at the World Cup. The players on strike, and then the French referee Stéphane Lannoy makes multiple errors in the Brazil versus Ivory Coast match. Kidding around with Luis Fabiano about him having handled the ball before he scored was the symbolic low point, but the injury reports still have to come in. If soccer had an actual governing body, something might be done about it.

Heckuva job, FIFA

Franck Ribery and Thierry Henry walking to the team bus after the players abandoned their training session in apparent protest at the fallout from Nicolas Anelka's row with Raymond Domenech.

Remember, it was ultimately Swiss bureaucrat Sepp Blatter's choice as to whether France or the Rep. of Ireland would appear in the World Cup.

Photo: REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Not to mention the duty free shop

The good news is that for the latest installment of New York Times pundit Tom Friedman from his visit to Turkey, he's not relying as so often in his past travels, on the taxi ride from the airport for material to enlighten us all.

The bad news? He's getting inspiration without even leaving the airport --

All you have to do is stand in the Istanbul airport and look at the departures board for Turkish Airlines, which flies to cities half of which I cannot even pronounce, to appreciate what a pulsating economic center this has become for Central Asia.

The worse news is that this airport-based journalism, and his actual meetings that did take place in Turkey, are leading him to think of Turkey as Dubai-on-the-Bosphurus, and not to question why this large democratically-run country has become alienated from the USA, other than, in his view, the deleterious effects of being denied EU membership. In particular, like pundits of many stripes contemplating this puzzle, there is no mention of the role of the war in Iraq.