Internet Commentator

Howard's Howler

I don't have that much to say about United's exit from the Carling Cup at the hands of Chelsea last night. I was very keen that United beat Chelsea, if only so that they could demonstrate to other teams that it can be done. Chelsea are nailed on, unbackable favourites to win the Premiership this year. The only way United or Arsenal have a chance is if other teams bother trying to beat Chelsea - most don't expect they are capable. So, last night's disappointment related to that missed opportunity and not the continuing interest in the competition itself, which few take all that seriously. Both teams were evenly matched. If anything, as the home team United shaded it with better possession but unfortunately less penetration, Chelsea defended superbly. Lampard's well-worked opening goal was cancelled out by a beaut from Giggs, beating Cech with a skilfully lobbed volley. United's undoing was a free-kick curled in by Duff (a "crot" in the parlance, being neither a cross or a shot) which United's keeper Tim Howard passively watched until it just went in.

You are now entering Parlon country

The Freedom Institute catch out Progressive Democrat TD Tom Parlon in a bit of parish pump pork-barrell protectionism which ill-befits his supposedly free market party. Parlon appeared at a rally organised by his esrtwhile con-freres in the IFA to protest the closure of Carlow Sugar Factory:

Minister of State Tom Parlon told the rally there are major challenges confronting the European sugar industry that will have to be faced, but he believed the decision to close the Carlow plant undermines Ireland’s case in the [EU] reform negotiations.

“I believe it is a wrong decision for the industry. It is even a wrong decision for Greencore,” he said.

Stressing that the decision has to be deferred, Minister Parlon said he had asked Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan to call in the management of Greencore to discuss this issue.

When Tom Parlon, after flirting with several parties, finally announced that he was going to stand for the PDs I couldn't understand why that party acted as if they landed a big prize. Sure, the former farmers' union supremo is a populist vote-getter. But it is precisely by appealing to dirigiste principles contrary to those supposedly held by the PDs that he is able to garner this support. This latest episode follows his foolish attempt to claim credit for government decentralisation (another bad dirigiste policy) to his Laois Offaly constituency, he is an embarrassment to his party.

Please protect our children from this dangerous substance!

Rafe Champion warns of the dangers of bread:

7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

8. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread pudding person.

Proper pints

Interesting discussion in the comments to this post by Budapest's resident Northern-Irish-man about the quality of guinness on mainland Europe and beyond. Though there seems to be a consensus that one could only rely on pubs in Ireland and Britain to provide a decent pint, I have never had a "proper" pint of guinness outside of Ireland.

The best pint I have ever had in London, while considerably superior to the worst I have ever had in Ireland (of which more later), still doesn't taste as a "proper" pint should. I am happy enough to drink "British" guinness but it doesn't taste the same to me as "Irish" guinness. However, while being poured in Ireland might be a necessary condition of a "proper" pint, it is most certainly not a sufficient condition. I have been served many execrable pints on this island and there are a number of cardinal sins committed by insufficiently attentive or downright incompetent bar staff.

Firstly, I would like to note that the "double pour" - whereby the pint is poured to about 80% full, allowed to settle and then topped up - is a complete red herring and has no effect, good or bad, on the quality of a pint. My understanding that his practice dates from a time when there were actually two taps for stout and while it is a jealously guarded ritual, the breach of which is taboo, I have it on good authority from the proprietor of Peter's Pub, purveyors of peerless porter, that a "single poured" pint is indistinguishable in taste from that poured in the traditional manner.

While the double pour itself isn't a cardinal sin - if it were, "guinness hell" would be a crowded place - it does make possible one of the cardinal sins: the delayed second pour. If a pint is left too long sitting waiting for the top-up, it can "go off". A more aggravated version of this is when, instead of "your" pint which has been sitting waiting for the top up, the barman tops up the nearest (and oldest) to hand: someone else's first pour which could have been sitting there for several minutes or more.

The principal cardinal sin is the "scoop". My heart sinks when I see the firm meniscus of a freshly poured pint gouged out by a table knife. Consider the difference between a cappucino and a regular coffee. If the foam of the cappucino retains its substance until the bottom you get the signature taste. If the foam disappears your coffee is indistinguishable from milky coffee. As the foamed milk contributes to the cappucino's flavour so does the head of a pint. It is imperative that a pint retains its head until the end and one sure way of ensuring this doesn't happen is to remove the protective "skin" formed at the top by gouging it out. A related cardinal sin is the narrow head, referred to by my late father as a "Christian Brother" pint due to a resemblance to the slim collar worn by the monks who taught at his school, Just as a scooped head won't last, neither will one of insufficient substance.

Blog Nepotism

My cousin Kathy, (she may not realise that her first appearance on this blog was way back in June 03!) now has her own curiously titled (vanity) blog. As I've recently explained to her how to link to this interweb thingy, I thought it only proper that I should add hers, and her husband's more conventionally titled blog, to my blogroll.

Budapest

I'm going to Budapest this weekend, so if anyone familar with the Hungarian capital has any suggestions, things to do, places to visit, I'd be very grateful.

Sith spud

Someone at Hasbro has had the genius idea of making a Darth Vader Mr Potato head, Darth Tater:

Bravo!

[via Jane Galt]

More on jazz

Tyler Cowen notes that you can't learn it in school. As the answer to the question - "what is jazz" - goes: "If you have to ask, you're never going to know".

"Innocent until proven Guilty"..

Why this is a legal principle but not a moral principle and the problems with conflating both, particularly in relation to the recent Belfast robbery. Once again this is another comment to a United Irelander post which has evolved into a blog post. In response to this suggestion by Young Irelander:

Hold on,I'm no defender of the Provos,but since when is it up to suspects to prove that they are not guilty?It is up to Hugh Orde and the PSNI to show evidence proving that the IRA did it!

Do the DUP not believe in the old adage of 'innocent until proven guilty'?

I offered this thought experiment:

Let's say the guy next door to you (allegedly) molests his daughter. Let's say (for now) there is insufficient evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. Your own daughter is invited for a sleepover. If what you suggest is correct you should have no problem, after all how can he prove that he doesn't molest his daughter?

The point is that once a reasonable suspicion has been raised, common sense dictates that it should be resolved and it usually falls to the person under suspicion to demonstrate that such suspicions aren't warranted.

Note that a) this presumes that the suspicions are reasonable and in the case of the "IRA" robbery they surely are and b) that such an onus applies only if the person wants to be treated as any ordinary blameless individual and ought not apply in the event of a criminal prosecution.

To which YI replied:

Your analogy could be used to argue that the two governments shouldn't be dealing with Sinn Fein in the way a father shouldn't allow his daughter near a suspected child molester.

I already noted that "innocent until proven guilty" is rightfully the principle behind criminal prosecutions but surely anyone can see from my example that it isn't any kind of moral principle. As it happens I don't think the analogy follows to the governments dealing with SF (although it is closer to the issue of other parties "getting into bed" with SF) but if you felt it did the proper course is to examine the consequences of that and not just assume a priori that whatever happens the governments must always "be dealing with" SF.

That nobody should be found guilty of this crime without due process doesn't mean that some sort of suspicions may be aired. At the moment there aren't really any other viable candidates for perpetrators of the robbery other than the IRA, this means SF have a lot of explaning to do and some sort of political sanction ought to apply.

Their much trumpeted electoral mandate only goes so far - If a political party campaigned on the basis of, say, chopping the legs off everyone with red hair and (by some miracle!) managed to acquire 25% of the vote. This "mandate" wouldn't confer some sort of obligation on everybody else to seek some sort of compromise (perhaps chop off only one leg off every second redhead), at some stage the principle that chopping-the-legs-off-redheads-is wrong must take precedence over electoral mandates.

So that means he's a master bride?

I am mostly in agreement with United Rant's detailing of Arsene Wenger's recent misplacement of the plot but I have to say that it is a most unusual image with which he concludes:

When it comes to the media, Fergie will always be the bride with Wenger as the young and naÏve bridesmaid, chasing the master's trail.