This week President George Bush spoke out strongly about China's record on human rights and religious freedoms, just before flying to Beijing to attend the Olympic Games. According to Dubya, the American people are very concerned about China's shortcomings in these areas.
Also this week, Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, was sentenced to 66 months in jail after a "fair" trial at Gulag Guantanamo. The sentence dismayed the prosecution (i.e. the Bush government), which had been pressing for a 30-year stretch, especially as "time served" means that Hamdan will be eligible for release only six months from now. No need to worry, though: the Pentagon has already made it clear that Hamdan will continue to be detained as an "illegal enemy combatant".
President Hu Jintao is probably too polite to express the Chinese people's concerns over the Bush government's human rights record -- more's the pity.
Friday, 8 August 2008
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Wrapit: Farepak for rich people
I'd never heard of Wrapit until the company came unpacked this week. Running wedding gift lists sounds like the kind of business that can only exist in a society where people like to think they're too busy to do anything for themselves. Cooking? Housework?? Looking after the kids??? Malgorzata can do that! Set up my own wedding list???? Next thing you'll be suggesting I rely on the taste and generosity of my friends and family.
Even in the parallel universe where something like Wrapit can exist (I believe that universe is known as "West London"), a business like this has to be run on sound financial principles. Most importantly, the money intended by customers to be used for buying gifts has to be kept separate from the company's own operating funds. This requires the business to be properly capitalised, which Wrapit almost certainly was not, and it requires it to grow only as fast as its available capital will allow. Wrapit seems to have grown rapidly and not very sensibly: why did a web-based wedding list company need six retail outlets? Once this sort of company starts using clients' money to pay its operating expenses, it becomes not much more than a Ponzi scheme, and its eventual fate is sealed.
Wrapit's management is trying to convince the media and its customers that the company's demise is all down to the credit crunch and to HSBC in particular. Given the nature of the business, if Wrapit had been properly run and well-capitalised it would have been all but recession proof. Like Farepak before it (and on a much larger scale, Northern Rock), Wrapit is a casualty of the "get rich or die tryin'" ethos of the past decade. It's unlikely to be the last.
Even in the parallel universe where something like Wrapit can exist (I believe that universe is known as "West London"), a business like this has to be run on sound financial principles. Most importantly, the money intended by customers to be used for buying gifts has to be kept separate from the company's own operating funds. This requires the business to be properly capitalised, which Wrapit almost certainly was not, and it requires it to grow only as fast as its available capital will allow. Wrapit seems to have grown rapidly and not very sensibly: why did a web-based wedding list company need six retail outlets? Once this sort of company starts using clients' money to pay its operating expenses, it becomes not much more than a Ponzi scheme, and its eventual fate is sealed.
Wrapit's management is trying to convince the media and its customers that the company's demise is all down to the credit crunch and to HSBC in particular. Given the nature of the business, if Wrapit had been properly run and well-capitalised it would have been all but recession proof. Like Farepak before it (and on a much larger scale, Northern Rock), Wrapit is a casualty of the "get rich or die tryin'" ethos of the past decade. It's unlikely to be the last.
A kriminull ideer
A criminology professor is suggesting that "variant" (i.e. wrong) spellings of common words should be accepted as correct. Professor Ken Smith of Bucks New University (no, neither had I, but it's in High Wycombe) is apparently fed up with correcting elementary spelling errors in his students' essays -- truely, ignor, things like that. He wants to be allowed to ignor, sorry, ignore them.
I've never taught in a university, but I have interviewed hundreds of newly-graduated job seekers. It's frustrating to know that a lot of them may have very limited writing or math skills even after a university education. You have to go to a lot of effort to try to identify the competent ones before you take the giant leap of hiring them. Now Prof Smith is proposing to throw his hands up entirely and leave prospective employers even more in the dark about the basic skills of the people they may be hiring. Not that he's doing anyone any favours -- Bucks New University may be cool with bad spelling, but employers won't be. Guess what, kid: you got five devalued A grades at A-level and now you've got a degree that nobody trusts.
I'm pretty sure that Bucks New U wasn't there in those paleolithic days when I was applying for university. All of these new "universities" have been funded by the government in order to make the benefits of higher education available to a much higher proportion of the UK's youth. If a lot of the teachers think like Ken Smith, it's probably a waste of public money.
I've never taught in a university, but I have interviewed hundreds of newly-graduated job seekers. It's frustrating to know that a lot of them may have very limited writing or math skills even after a university education. You have to go to a lot of effort to try to identify the competent ones before you take the giant leap of hiring them. Now Prof Smith is proposing to throw his hands up entirely and leave prospective employers even more in the dark about the basic skills of the people they may be hiring. Not that he's doing anyone any favours -- Bucks New University may be cool with bad spelling, but employers won't be. Guess what, kid: you got five devalued A grades at A-level and now you've got a degree that nobody trusts.
I'm pretty sure that Bucks New U wasn't there in those paleolithic days when I was applying for university. All of these new "universities" have been funded by the government in order to make the benefits of higher education available to a much higher proportion of the UK's youth. If a lot of the teachers think like Ken Smith, it's probably a waste of public money.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
They've lost the plot
If reports that the Government is considering some type of waiver or delay in stamp duty on house purchases are true, things at Westminster must be even more desperate than they appear. As usual Chris Dillow has written the definitive piece on this, with the perfect title: "Another terrible idea". Almost all of the national newspapers think it's a crazy notion too.
Since others have covered the ground so well, let's just briefly summarise what's wrong with the idea:
1. Stamp duty isn't the problem -- lack of mortgage finance is. So cutting stamp duty won't fix anything.
2. When Norman Lamont abolished stamp duty for several months in 1992, it didn't help.
3. The Government can't afford it (though that doesn't seem to be deterring it any more).
4. It may encourage first-time buyers into a market that has further to fall before true affordability is reached. That's foolish at best, cruel at worst.
5. Unless it's strictly confined to first-time buyers, it will provide an unnecessary boost to those who don't need help -- cash buyers or buy-to-letters.
We can only hope that all of these rumours are the result of a silly season trial balloon by the Government, and that this dummkopf idea will sink without a trace. That's not to say that stamp duty is perfect, though. The fact that the higher rates apply to the entire purchase price as you pass each tax threshold is ridiculous and distorting -- income tax doesn't work like that, and neither should stamp duty. But changing that would be a sensible and thoughtful thing to do, and right now thinking and sense seem to be in short supply on Downing Street.
Since others have covered the ground so well, let's just briefly summarise what's wrong with the idea:
1. Stamp duty isn't the problem -- lack of mortgage finance is. So cutting stamp duty won't fix anything.
2. When Norman Lamont abolished stamp duty for several months in 1992, it didn't help.
3. The Government can't afford it (though that doesn't seem to be deterring it any more).
4. It may encourage first-time buyers into a market that has further to fall before true affordability is reached. That's foolish at best, cruel at worst.
5. Unless it's strictly confined to first-time buyers, it will provide an unnecessary boost to those who don't need help -- cash buyers or buy-to-letters.
We can only hope that all of these rumours are the result of a silly season trial balloon by the Government, and that this dummkopf idea will sink without a trace. That's not to say that stamp duty is perfect, though. The fact that the higher rates apply to the entire purchase price as you pass each tax threshold is ridiculous and distorting -- income tax doesn't work like that, and neither should stamp duty. But changing that would be a sensible and thoughtful thing to do, and right now thinking and sense seem to be in short supply on Downing Street.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Sun-loving criminals
The tragic death of a young Welsh couple in Antigua, apparently at the hands of a would-be robber, is leading some people to reassess their desire to visit the Caribbean. A couple has come forward to the Times with a story of a vicious rape and beating in the neighbouring island of St Lucia, and there are reports of people cancelling planned vacations in the region.
Crime in the Caribbean has always been mainly associated with Jamaica, but the rate of violent crime in other islands, including Antigua, has been rising in recent years. The locals seem to be just as scared of this as the tourists are, and place some of the blame on the policy in richer countries (mainly the US, but also the UK and Canada) of deporting convicted criminals to the land of their birth once they have served their jail time.
It's interesting to consider the morality of this. Lots of young West Indians move to North America or the UK as children. Some of them find it hard to integrate, fall into a life of crime and get sent to prison. When they are ready for release, the authorities check their passports and bundle them on a plane to wherever they were born. So: they've grown up in a place they never quite fitted into, they've been hardened up by jail time, and now they've been sent back to somewhere they barely know. You wouldn't think the chances of rehabilitation were very high, would you? These people fell into crime while they were in the US (or Canada or the UK) -- they wouldn't have been admitted as immigrants if they already had records. So while they may be West Indian citizens, they're American (or Canadian or British) criminals. Sending them back is expedient and popular with the voters, but it's manifestly unfair to the hapless recipient country.
This is not just an issue between the rich countries of the Anglosphere and the West Indies. Earlier this year, Australia "repatriated" to the UK a convicted criminal who had emigrated as a child. How do you rate his chances of becoming a functioning member of British society?
The couple who were attacked in St Lucia are urging people considering visits to the Caribbean to stay at home. That seems like an over-reaction -- but then again, you don't want to go for a restful break on the other side of the world, only to be confronted by the same guy that broke into your house in London five years ago.
Crime in the Caribbean has always been mainly associated with Jamaica, but the rate of violent crime in other islands, including Antigua, has been rising in recent years. The locals seem to be just as scared of this as the tourists are, and place some of the blame on the policy in richer countries (mainly the US, but also the UK and Canada) of deporting convicted criminals to the land of their birth once they have served their jail time.
It's interesting to consider the morality of this. Lots of young West Indians move to North America or the UK as children. Some of them find it hard to integrate, fall into a life of crime and get sent to prison. When they are ready for release, the authorities check their passports and bundle them on a plane to wherever they were born. So: they've grown up in a place they never quite fitted into, they've been hardened up by jail time, and now they've been sent back to somewhere they barely know. You wouldn't think the chances of rehabilitation were very high, would you? These people fell into crime while they were in the US (or Canada or the UK) -- they wouldn't have been admitted as immigrants if they already had records. So while they may be West Indian citizens, they're American (or Canadian or British) criminals. Sending them back is expedient and popular with the voters, but it's manifestly unfair to the hapless recipient country.
This is not just an issue between the rich countries of the Anglosphere and the West Indies. Earlier this year, Australia "repatriated" to the UK a convicted criminal who had emigrated as a child. How do you rate his chances of becoming a functioning member of British society?
The couple who were attacked in St Lucia are urging people considering visits to the Caribbean to stay at home. That seems like an over-reaction -- but then again, you don't want to go for a restful break on the other side of the world, only to be confronted by the same guy that broke into your house in London five years ago.
KP?? Are they nuts???
I can't say I am too upset over Michael Vaughan's resignation as England cricket captain. His batting has clearly suffered since he took on the job. He may have the 2005 Ashes victory on his CV, but the only team England have taken a Test series from lately is New Zealand. (And can Vaughan really take much of the credit for the Ashes? The Aussies whitewashed England not long afterwards in Australia to regain the crumbling urn. History is likely to see England's win in 2005 as Freddie Flintoff's Ashes -- or, if you're an Australian historian, as a fluke result mainly caused by Glenn McGrath's untimely ankle injury).
So few tears here for Vaughan -- but quite a bit of trepidation about the selection of Kevin Pietersen to replace him. It's not like appointing Joey Barton as captain of England, but it's not so long ago that KP was a bit of a bad boy. The selectors must be hoping he'll grow into the job, and everyone says he's matured into a real team player. Has he? Graeme Smith played a true captain's innings to win the thrd test for South Africa, but Pietersen's innings the day before wasn't exactly that of a guy auditioning for the big job. Trying (and failing) to reach his hundred by lofting the ball over a fielder placed to tempt him to do exactly that may well have cost England the game -- and triggered Vaughan's demise.
The other concern about Pietersen is that he's clearly obsessed with money. He has been gagging for the opportunity to cash in on the riches available in the IPL and has made no secret of his ambition to play there next year. What assurances have the selectors received from him about this? The last thing England need with the Ashes looming again is a captain who keeps looking wistfully at the money on offer in Bangalore and Mumbai.
So few tears here for Vaughan -- but quite a bit of trepidation about the selection of Kevin Pietersen to replace him. It's not like appointing Joey Barton as captain of England, but it's not so long ago that KP was a bit of a bad boy. The selectors must be hoping he'll grow into the job, and everyone says he's matured into a real team player. Has he? Graeme Smith played a true captain's innings to win the thrd test for South Africa, but Pietersen's innings the day before wasn't exactly that of a guy auditioning for the big job. Trying (and failing) to reach his hundred by lofting the ball over a fielder placed to tempt him to do exactly that may well have cost England the game -- and triggered Vaughan's demise.
The other concern about Pietersen is that he's clearly obsessed with money. He has been gagging for the opportunity to cash in on the riches available in the IPL and has made no secret of his ambition to play there next year. What assurances have the selectors received from him about this? The last thing England need with the Ashes looming again is a captain who keeps looking wistfully at the money on offer in Bangalore and Mumbai.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Giles Coren loses it big time
The Times weekend restaurant reviewer, Giles Coren, has written a blistering e-mail to the paper's sub-editors. He accuses them of messing up one of his masterpieces. The e-mail has leaked out; you can read it here.
My first reaction to the e-mail is that if this is typical of Coren's first drafts, it's no surprise that the Times insists on running his submissions past sub-editors. Leaving aside the multiple obscenities, it's verbose (as even Giles admits at the end) and full of mis-spellings and grammatical errors. It's usually a good idea to count to ten after you write something in anger, but evidently Giles was too self-righteously mad to think of that.
And what is the substance of his complaint? Well, the sub omitted one word from the final sentence of the review. One letter, actually: the indefinite article. This got Giles incandescent with rage for two reasons. First, he claims that it means the piece ends on an unstressed syllable, something he would never do. I've read the sentence several times, and he's wrong about that: the word "nosh" is still stressed. Second, he says that it destroys his meaning: he had structured the whole review so as to get in a final joke playing on a double meaning for the Yiddish word "nosh". Apparently this word refers to eating not only in the conventional sense, but also in the sexual sense: blowjobs, hummers, what you will.
I don't know about you, but I don't read restaurant reviews, by Giles Coren or anyone else, looking for things like that. If the sub had left the indefinite article in place, I daresay the number of people who got this great joke would have been limited to the number of people who Giles personally told to look out for it. This is the Times, after all, not Viz. (Without questioning Giles's knowledge of Yiddish -- he seems very touchy about that -- I might point out that the late Lenny Bruce used "fress" rather than "nosh" for the sexual act. Lenny was at least as Jewish as Giles, and a whole lot funnier).
So where does this leave Giles, assuming he doesn't carry out on his implicit threat to walk away from the job? Well, as a restaurant reviewer who uses the column to expound on any subject that comes to mind, he's not a patch on A A Gill; as an egomaniac, he's not in Michael Winner's league; and as a writer, he's a shadow of his late father.
My first reaction to the e-mail is that if this is typical of Coren's first drafts, it's no surprise that the Times insists on running his submissions past sub-editors. Leaving aside the multiple obscenities, it's verbose (as even Giles admits at the end) and full of mis-spellings and grammatical errors. It's usually a good idea to count to ten after you write something in anger, but evidently Giles was too self-righteously mad to think of that.
And what is the substance of his complaint? Well, the sub omitted one word from the final sentence of the review. One letter, actually: the indefinite article. This got Giles incandescent with rage for two reasons. First, he claims that it means the piece ends on an unstressed syllable, something he would never do. I've read the sentence several times, and he's wrong about that: the word "nosh" is still stressed. Second, he says that it destroys his meaning: he had structured the whole review so as to get in a final joke playing on a double meaning for the Yiddish word "nosh". Apparently this word refers to eating not only in the conventional sense, but also in the sexual sense: blowjobs, hummers, what you will.
I don't know about you, but I don't read restaurant reviews, by Giles Coren or anyone else, looking for things like that. If the sub had left the indefinite article in place, I daresay the number of people who got this great joke would have been limited to the number of people who Giles personally told to look out for it. This is the Times, after all, not Viz. (Without questioning Giles's knowledge of Yiddish -- he seems very touchy about that -- I might point out that the late Lenny Bruce used "fress" rather than "nosh" for the sexual act. Lenny was at least as Jewish as Giles, and a whole lot funnier).
So where does this leave Giles, assuming he doesn't carry out on his implicit threat to walk away from the job? Well, as a restaurant reviewer who uses the column to expound on any subject that comes to mind, he's not a patch on A A Gill; as an egomaniac, he's not in Michael Winner's league; and as a writer, he's a shadow of his late father.
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