Snapshot of an American couple in Ireland*

OK, it's not a snapshot. It's a prose portrait. If you don't like reading, look at the Swazi girls.

This word picture appears in McCarthy's Bar (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000), written by Pete McCarthy, by birth but fully Irish in spirit. His mission in life is to visit any and every pub named "McCarthy's",  hence his travels to the Auld Sod which this book describes. This scene is set in Killarney...

Outside the big hotels, pony and trap drivers with the faces of medieval assassins are touting for business among gaggles of befuddled recent arrivals who are wandering around in a collective trance, like Stepford tourists. "Will the horse expect extra oats?" enquires an admirably self-aware American, who, at a guess, has won a trip to Europe as first prize in the Fattest Arse in the Midwest competition.

Perched on top of the card in baseball cap, stripy stretch fabric polo shirt and vast architect-designed shorts, he looks like Tweedledum. It takes two of the assassins to hoist his wife up there to join him, like Tweedledee in drag. The horse craps ostentatiously in derision, and off they trundle, to provide a bit of comic relief for the people stuck in traffic jams....

I'm beginning to realise that the parts of the country I've been in so far have been deserted because every bugger's here. Suddenly the gridlocked traffic is overtaken by Tweedledum and Tweedledee, careering along in their souped-up tumbril as the assassin cracks his whip.

To show that they've been assimilated into Celtic society, they're both now draped in tartan picnic rugs. He's smoking a large cigar, while she's opted for a packet of fudge as big as Dobbin's nosebag, to tide her over till dinner in half an hour's time.

Irish hotels catering for Americans are aware of the need to serve American-sized portions, so she'll soon be tucking into a whole spit-roast pig, followed by a main course, all washed down with pints of Diet Coke to stop her from getting fat....

As I'm about to leave [the pub], the crowded room is suddenly filled to bursting point as the Tweedles come in with great commotion, accompanied by an even heavier couple....
"So how are you enjoying your holiday?" asks the barman, as he pours whiskey for the men, and something green for their partners.
"Oh, it's just gorgeous," says Tweedledee.
"Yeah, terrific," agrees Tweedledum. "So old-fashioned."
"And so unspoiled," says Dee. "Say, do you have a rest room?"
"Upstairs."
"Guess I'll wait then," says Dee. "We don't do stairs."

"So where are you folks from?" asks the barman.
"Oh, we live in Chicago," says Dum, "but my father was Irish."
There's a general murmur of approval and I feel ashamed. This man I've been mocking as a stereotype of mindless tourism turns out to be as authentically Irish as I am. I feel like apologising, though we've never even met.
"Sure, that's great," says the barman. "So where exactly was your daddy from?"
"He was from Texas."

McCarthy's Pub is a fine book, a rollicking good read. And let me reassure American readers that McCarthy  is not anti-American. He's just anti-tourist, skewering alike the English, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians...and did I mention the English? Here's a trenchant quote:

Once somewhere has more tourists than local people, more knick-knack shops than newsagents or groceries, then equilibrium has been destroyed, the game is up, and the balance has irrevocably shifted in favour of revenue, occupancy and the forces of darkness. Real life may continue, but to the visitor it's all but invisible.

Agent 3, who lives in a tourist trap (and sent McCarthy's Pub to me) says this is all too true.

* Note from Ed.: Walt wrote "Eire", not "Ireland", but I changed it so Americans would understand.

Video: Can you solve the Missing Square Puzzle?

Here's a very interesting, very puzzling video featuring Argentinian magician Norberto Jansenson. See if you can figure out how he does the Missing Square Puzzle.



Thanks and a tip of the top hat to Agent 6 for forwarding this video, which has been viewed well over 6 million times.

What you're seeing is what mathematicians call a dissection paradox, known since the 16th century A.D. The key to the puzzle is the fact that the diagonal edges of some of the component pieces don't match. If you watch carefully, you can see that they don't quite line up. Click here to see a complete explanation, complete with diagrams and an animation.

Major victory for freedom of speech in Canada. (Americans, take note!)

Those who, like Walt, believe in freedom of speech can rejoice this weekend. At least in Canada, that is. [Paula D. writes: "Only in Canada, you say? Pity!"] The infamous Section 13 of Canada's Human Right Act, long criticized by free-speech advocates as overly restrictive and tantamount to censorship, has at last been repealed.

A private member's bill sponsored by Conservative Member of Parliament Brian Storseth was passed by the House of Commons recently, in spite of not having received the official endorsement of Steve "Stephen" Harper's Tory government. It duly worked its way through the Senate which passed it before going on holiday this week.

Thus Section 13, which allowed [encouraged, surely! Ed.] complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for "the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet" gets tossed into the dustbin of history... and not a moment too soon!

Mr. Storseth called the law a "flawed piece of legislation" and characterized the human rights tribunal as "a quasi-judicial, secretive body that takes away your natural rights as a Canadian."

"[Section 13] had actually stopped being used as a shield, as I think it was intended, to protect civil liberties, and started being used as a sword against Canadians, and it's because it was a poorly-written piece of legislation in the first place," he said.

Chief wielder of the "sword" was a champion of political correctness fittingly named Richard Warman. The barking mad human rights zealot who, since 2001, brought no fewer than 16 complaints under Section 13. Warman's frivolous and vexatious accusations were all funded by Canadian taxpayers, since the CHRC covers the costs of the complainant, even if the complaint is dismissed.

One person who found this out the hard way, as Agent 9 reminds us, is Father Alphonse de Valk, CSB, the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. In 2006 he got dragged into the war against the excesses of human rights commissions when the CHRC charged him with hate speech after a complaint (from "guess who?") about some writings critical of homosexual behaviour. He was eventually cleared of all charges but still had to pay 1000s of dollars in legal bills.

Producing and disseminating "hate speech" remains a crime in Canada, but regulating it will be left to the courts (as it was previously), not to human rights tribunals. But while anyone -- even a raving loony -- could file a human rights complaint, charges of "hate crimes" under the Criminal Code of Canada require the approval of the Attorney-General.

Also pleased with this unexpected victory for free speech and common sense should be Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, who have been demonized for writing the truth as they see it. In "How 9/11 killed Canadians' appetite for human-rights speech codes", National Post columnist Jonathan Kay says that "confronting the human rights industry...wasn't just a matter of free-speech principle but a matter of civilizational self-protection. The average Canadian may not give a hoot about his freedom to use the N-word. But he'll be damned if he's going to let the government prevent him from saying what he things about burkas [sic] and terrorists."  

Further reading: "Father de Valk winner of CCRL award". The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) assists in creating conditions within which Catholic teachings can be better understood, cooperates with other organizations in defending civil rights and opposes defamation and discrimination against Catholics on the basis of their beliefs.

Military intelligence: the true story of Project X-Ray

Once the United States got (somewhat belatedly) engaged in World War II, it quickly became apparent that some Weapon of Mass Destruction [Did they really use that phrase, then? Ed.] would be needed to vanquish the treacherous Japanese. In 1942 the atomic bomb was barely a notion, so other options were considered.

The specs called for something that would inflict lots of damage on the Japanese home islands without loss of too many American lives. Dr. Lytle Adams, a Pennsylvania dentist, came up with an idea, perhaps while inhaling a bit of laughing gas. Bat bombs! Of course!!!

The experimental weapon consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with numerous compartments, each containing a Mexican Free-tailed Bat. (No, Walt doesn't know why they're called that.) Each bat would have a one-ounce timed incendiary bomb strapped to its wee chest. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then land in the eaves and attics of Japanese buildings.

When the bats tried to fly away, they would chew through the straps so as to lighten their load for takeoff. The incendiaries would thus be ignited, starting fires in inaccessible places in the flimsy wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities. [Are you sure this wasn't actually Dr. Rube Goldberg? Ed.]

No, Walt is not making this up. But wait, it gets better... Dr. Adams happened to be a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, who submitted to her husband the President, who approved it personally. So the US military-industrial complex [Did they really use that phrase, then? Ed.] went into action.

After two years spent on research -- not to mention rounding up a couple of million of the critters -- the US Army tested the bat bombs in New Mexico. During the testing, several bats escaped, setting fire to a large aircraft hangar and a fuel tank.

The Army cleverly handed the bat bomb project over to the Navy, which named it Project X-ray and passed the buck -- the bats, actually -- to the Marine Corps. Some military genius decided the trick was to freeze the bats into hibernation before dropping them out of the bombers. In another test run, the frozen bats remained asleep and augured into the desert sands without setting off so much as a spark.

More tests were scheduled for the summer of 1944 but the programme was cancelled by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King when he was told the bat bomb would likely not be combat ready until mid-1945. By that time it was estimated that $2 million had been spent on Project X-ray, afterwards referred to by Dr. Stanley P. Lovell, director of the Office of Strategic Services as "Die Fledermaus Farce".

Supremes say: Let gayety reign unconfined

Did you hear the bells pealing [tolling, surely! Ed.] today? The gay rights advocates and heavy hitters in the human rights industry -- for that is what it is -- are all agog because, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the federal ban on benefits to same-sex couples unconstitutional.

That's right. The DOMA is doomed, and Christian/family values be damned. Walt thinks the weakening of the institution of marriage and the decline in family values generally is the cancer that's going to kill our Western "culture". The Supremes either don't see it that way or (more likely) have given up trying to fight the gay lobby in the media and in the Obama administration. (Presumably the gay lobby in the Vatican had nothing to do with this week's decision.)

Click here to read "Supreme Court strikes down key part of Defense of Marriage Act", from today's Washington Post.

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court also struck another blow (albeit a backhanded one) for the LGBT crowd by declining to rule on California's Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, just as it says in the holy books of all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

Click here to read "Supreme Court clears way for same-sex marriage in California", also in the Washington Post.

Wonderful, isn't it? Now all the buggers and sushi-eaters in San Francisco can get "married" and enjoy the same rights as those who think homosexuality is unnatural. It may be disordered, but it's not illegal any more!
Ontario's openly gay premier, Kathleen Wynne, has applauded the decisions. So has the not-openly-gay President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.

So... Windsor v. United States and Hollingsworth v. Perry are now the law of the land. In a country where there was an even balance between the judiciary, the executive and the legislature, the elected members of the last-named body could undo the wrongs which the "justices" have done. Sadly, as we have seen with the persistence of Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, the USA is not such a country. In America, the Supreme Court rules supreme.

Don't put saints on your euros, Slovakia told

You don't have to be Slavic to know about Saints Cyril and Methodius, but it helps. Cyril and Methodius were brothers, born in Thessalonica (in modern-day Greece) in the 9th century A.D. They became missionaries bringing the Gospel of Christ to the peoples of eastern Europe, particularly Moravia and Pannonia. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title "Apostles to the Slavs".

The Carpathian Basin, in which Cyril and Methodius travelled and preached, includes modern-day Slovakia, where the saints are highly revered. That's why, when Slovakia became a separate country and joined the euro zone, its government decided to honour the saints on its coins.

Sadly, the Slovaks are being made aware of the doggedly secular humanist policies of the European Union. The European Commission -- the bureaucrats in Brussels -- has now ordered the National Bank of Slovakia not to mint new euros that would feature images of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.


Each member state within the European Union has the authority to mint its own versions of the euro, incorporating its own national designs. But the European Commission ruled that the Slovakian design, going back over 1100 years, violates the EU principle of "religious neutrality" -- freedom from religion.

The controversy over the Slovakian coins is the latest in a series of disputes over the role of Christianity in the European identity. See "A More Secular Europe, Divided by the Cross", from the New York Times.

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI frequently observed that the shared Christian culture is the foundation of European identity, and without that common culture the European Union will be bound only by shifting economic interests. But is the European Commission listening? Errr, no.

Another Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary... not enough?

At the specific request of Pope Francis, the bishops of Portugal consecrated that country to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Lady of Fatima. This week Béchara Cardinal Boutros Raï, the patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, consecrated Lebanon and the entire Middle East to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin. Click here to read the report from Fides.


During the consecration, Cardinal Boutros Raï prayed:
Our Lady of Lebanon, we ask you to bestow your tenderness upon our beloved country Lebanon and all the Middle East, this region which soil witnessed the fulfillment of the events of His plan of redemption and from where the Church, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, took off to bring the Good News to the entire populations, bearing witness to the Lord Jesus until martyrdom and acting as the guarantor of the treasure of faith, in order to transmit it from generation to generation, until it reached us.

It is wonderful to see the aid of the Blessed Virgin being sought, for the intervention of Heaven is the only way the world will ever know a period of peace, as She promised when She appeared to the seers of Fatima.

Click here to read the report from Fides.

However... the princes of the Church and Pope Francis himself need to recall that what Our Lady asked for was the solemn and public Consecration of Russia, by name, by the Pope in union with all the bishops of the world. Nothing more...and nothing less. As Pope John Paul II said himself, Our Lady is still waiting.