Inside View

Five-Foot Shelf of Knowledge

WE HAVE ONE wall in our new home that will house a five-foot shelf of knolwedge. The idea follows the words of Dr. Charles W. Eliot who said, "If I had more than once stated that a five-foot shelf would hold books enough to give a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare just fifteen minutes a day for reading." Eliot was the President of Harvard University. His five feet of books became known as The Harvard Classics.

Ian Bailey has a case

UPDATED 24 APRIL 2010: Ian Bailey was arrested by Irish police when the French authorities presented a European warrant in a civil court proceeding. The arrest raises questions that are fundamental to the proper running of the European Court of Justice. The assumption among member States is that each country in the EU acts in good faith in the operation of its criminal justice system. Can this assumption survive a rejection by one member state of the validity of a decision not to prosecute in another?

ON THE COVER of the current issue of Village magazine¹ is the headline "Falsely Fingering Sophie's Killer" and inside follows five pages written by editor Vincent Browne and journalist Sara Burke that suggests there are systemic problems inside An Garda Siochana concerning the revision of statements made to the Irish police. Every police service wrestles with this issue as detectives helpfully clean up transcripts to make them more pointed for the prosecution. In the case revolving around the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier on the night of 22 December 1996, the evidence points back to a bungled police investigation--the case Ian Bailey has brought to court already. It also points to the dangers of quickly stereotyping brusque personalities who do not acquiesce to a police presence. It raises questions why recently-retired local sergeants from Schull and Goleen weren't drafted to assist with the case.

RFID implants for US passports

ALL USA passports will be implanted with remotely-readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced. One year from now, US passports will have tiny radio frequency ID (RFID) chips that can transmit personal information including the name,
nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitised data such as "fingerprints or iris scans."

Blogger Ghetto

ONE REASON mainstream news editors relegate commentary from people on the ground is the narrow perspective that often accompanies the views emoted from parish level. That is the same broad brush slapped at bloggers too. Besides, many bloggers often take their lead from mainstream media and merely regurgitate a single point. Consequently, bloggers are not seen as quality sources of information.

Key fob cross-check

THE BENEFITS OF machine-to-machine communications now affects home owners. I know this because I have seen an Eaton Home Key fob in pre-release. Years ago, I saw Eaton stamped on the side of circuit breakers in my grandfather's business. Like many other companies in the cut-throat electrical components market, Eaton felt the press of decreasing margins. But they did something radical: they invested in R&D and started thinking about device connectivity.

No-blogging policy in school

THE PRINCIPAL at Pope John XXIII High School in Sparta, New Jersey, has banned his high school students from blogging because he reckons personal weblogs are fertile grounds for sexual predators. On Boing Boing, Xeni Jardin reports that "it's an open invitation to predators and an activity that Pope John XIII Regional High School in Sparta will no longer tolerate, the Rev. Kieran McHugh told a packed assembly of 900 high school students two weeks ago".

Blogging by Candlelight

LIKE A FEW thousand residents in County Tipperary, I am going to sleep without power on a rainy Sunday evening. The ESB Info number 1850332999 has not been updated since 1715, around the time of the initial outage. It's rather demented to use a loss of electrical power as an excuse to blog, so this will be quick.

Sunday Snippets

RORY CARROLL'S safe return from Iraq brings to mind a snippet of advice that served me well while walking on foreign streets of unstable regimes: "The trick is not to disguise yourself but to achieve a little misdirection." Some other snippets jumped out in today's papers.

Carole Coleman's Fav Place

CAROLE COLEMAN'S favourite place is Lancaster County, my home. She tells the Sunday Tribune that she feels "you automatically hit the brakes and travel back about 150 years in time" when you travel into the county. She describes her route of travel for effect. "The first town in Amish country is called Intercourse, followed by Bird-in-Hand, both touristy. I prefer to pass through the towns and head straight for the countryside and the Amish farms." She has captured some of the atmosphere of that experience.

Another Reason to Wear Seatbelts

CONTROVERSIAL IRISH POLITICIAN Liam Lawlor died when the Mercedes car in which he was traveling crashed into a bollard at high speed in Moscow. Few accident reports ever present facts related to surviving a crash. Anecdotally speaking, I've seen autobahn smashes involving Mercedes automobiles where the passengers staggered out of the wreckage. I've never seen an unrestrained passenger survive the multiple impacts accompanying a high-speed accident in a Merc.