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The New York Times has been getting a bit of stick of late. For the last couple of years the US’s paper of record has admitted to reporting government spin regarding the Invasion of Iraq as fact, publishing reports by journalists who simply cobbled them together from other papers and most recently, misquoting Hugo Chavez as saying that he regretted that he didn’t get to meet the author of Hegemony and Survival, Noam Chomsky, before he died.

In the case of the latter, it turns out that the New York Times hadn’t checked the translation. What the Venezuelan President had said was that he regretted not meeting the liberal economist JK Galbraith before he died (brought to our attention by the Angry Arab via Most Sincerely Folks).

In fact, when it comes to reporting on Hugo any semblance of objectivity goes out the window.

Today they tell us that the ‘fiery populist leader of Venezuela’ has suffered a setback in his efforts to gain Latin America’s open seat on the Security Council next year.

Quote: “Neither country obtained the necessary 125 votes — two-thirds of those voting — to win the seat outright, but Guatemala ended the day with a lead of 110 to 77”.

According to the NYT, Chavez has ‘turned the contest into a focus of his campaign against Washington, and traveled widely and spent his country’s oil largess liberally to promote its candidacy’.

The United States, however, is supporting Guatemala, a small impoverished nation that relies on foreign aid from the US. While the NYT makes the point that Hugo is spending Venezuela’s oil revenue promoting their bid there is no mention of the fact that the US uses foreign aid to countries that are up for a two year term on the open Security Council seat to maintain greater influence over Security Council decisions.

Back at the end of August it was reported that a paper was about to be published which showed that the levels of US aid provided to countries that join the Security Council for the two year stint increases during their tenure and then falls off again once they leave. In effect, these temporary members extract a rent for their vote.

The paper is called: “How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations” and was published in the Journal of Political Economy, where Stephen D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics, is an editor.

According to the abstract:
“A country’s U.S. aid increases by 59 percent and its U.N. aid by 8 percent when it rotates onto the council. This effect increases during years in which key diplomatic events take place (when members’ votes should be especially valuable) and the timing of the effect closely tracks a country’s election to, and exit from, the council.”

The NYT’s lack of sympathy for the Latin ‘fiery’ devil chaser could be down to his declared attempt to pit his country’s resources against the Masters of the Universe.

“Francisco Arias Cárdenas, Venezuela’s ambassador, said his country was not battling Guatemala, which he called “a brother country,” but “fighting against the owners of the universe.””

At least I presume that’s what Cárdenas said, it could be a misquote.

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We can blame the Brits for this, I suppose. There's a whole universe of academic studies that put the Irish inferiority complex down to centuries of colonial governance. It's just that, what with the fourth post-independence generation toddling off to the crèche in mommy's SUV it's hard to equate that self-loathing with the present-day economic reality. Yet in the past week we had two shining examples of how much we hate ourselves and how we want to have that self-loathing reflected in our national ambitions.

Let's start with the seemingly innocuous FAI and Steve Staunton. First of all, could you picture any national football association anywhere in the world stating for the record that it intends to write off completely all ambitions for competitive qualification until 2010? And to prove that it was serious, it goes ahead and hires a manager with no managerial experience? That manager then proves his worth by gaining ONE point out of a possible NINE for a competition that the football association has already said it has no intention of participating in. The manager keeps his job and the fans and the public accept it as 'well, it's a learning curve for him.'

In the same week, two opinion polls show an increase for support for Bertie Ahern AFTER it was shown that he took over £60,000 from businessmen and property developers in the early 1990s - money he then kept in cash in his house. Oh, he was minister for finance at the time. Bertie said that his separation left him penniless - although it is impossible to substantiate this as the Taoiseach has refused to hand over the financial details of his separation to the tribunal. The public lap it up, pat him on the back, and say 'well fair play to yeah.' Support for the Taoiseach rises by 1% while Fianna Fáil support rises by 8%. The same public is meanwhile living in rabbit hutches in glorified trailer parks that have sprung up in the past fifteen years in a riot of bad planning and, in some cases, downright corruption - the majority of cases of which have involved not Bertie Ahern but the party he leads, the main recipient of the 8% surge.

There is no way on God's earth that Bertie Ahern would have received a 'whip-around' of £60,000 where it not for the fact that he was the most senior government minister at the time - the man who controlled the nation's purse strings and, more importantly, doled out the finances for the other departments to pursue policy, or not as the case may be It is unbelievable that Bertie Ahern can say that his separation left him penniless when it so obviously did not - I mean, in the end his friends paid for the separation, not him. Yet, he goes on to national TV and plays the Poor Mouth and it goddamn works.

Similarly, the FAI can turn around and say that we're crap so he hired a crap manager and the public lap it up. The national squad is there to help Steve Staunton become not a better manager, but a manager. He gets this multi-million pound toy to play with and when he breaks it no-one minds because it's a 'learning curve' for him.

Bertie Ahern gains £60,000 through his position as finance minister and again the 'fair play' crowd is out putting up posters and telling us all to shut-up and get on with it.

In both cases in Ireland - national football manager and minister for finance - the national needs are there to serve the individual and not the other way around. The public interest is there to serve the public servant. The ambitions of the public servant supersede those of the public they serve. Steve Staunton gets to put 'manager' on his CV, and Bertie gets to have 'whip-arounds' held in his honour.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not the way to do business. It is not the way to run a national squad, and it's not the way to run a cabinet. The Irish people see it as wrong, but accept it all the same. No ambition. No drive. No sense of self-worth.

Can I suggest a new national flag for Ireland? It would involve the island of Ireland lying on all fours while getting f**ked in the ass by Richie Kavanagh wearing a strap-on Irish breakfast roll. It seems to be the way for us to feel good about ourselves. Now shut up and pay that mortgage.

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According to Breaking News, the Government has been forced to pay an allowance to a gay man who had to give up work to care for his terminally-ill partner.

“The Government has agreed to pay a dependent allowance to a gay man who had to give up work to care for his terminally ill partner.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs initially refused the man's application last March, but this has now been reversed on appeal.

The Equality Authority says the outcome reflects an important recognition for same-sex couples and their relationships.”

Looks bad for a government that has dragged its feet over recognizing civil partnership. Of course, we’ve had the lip service from Michael McDowell on the matter, but as Suzy Byrne reports the Government is also paying out our money to pay for so called experts to speak on the quality of gay and lesbian family life in the KAL Case when those experts have their own anti-gay marriage axe to grind.

However, if the Green’s make up part of a rainbow Government things might be different:

“The Green Party has launched proposals to legalise gay marriages in Ireland if it forms part of the next Government.

Under the plans, the State would also recognise so-called civil partnerships for homosexual and heterosexual couples who live together but have not tied the knot.

The Greens say the changes would bring the Constitution into line with modern times.

Launching the proposals today, party spokesman Ciaran Cuffe said the Constitution states all citizens must be treated equally, but the State currently discriminates against gays and lesbians in relation to marriage rights.”

Oh shoot, Suzy has beat me to it.

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The new Lancet report Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is published online today. Jon Ihle from Backseatdrivers has a bit on it, to which I’ve responded. Whereas the initial Lancet survey, published in 2004 claimed controversially that 100,000 civilians had died as a result of the invasion and subsequent turmoil, the new figure is even more shocking.

According to the MIT sponsored report, there have been 654, 965 post-invasion deaths as a consequence of the war. Jon questions that a leap of half a million deaths in two years could be possible and according to an AP report there are those that consider it an exaggeration and claim the timing of the publication is political, arriving just before the mid term elections in the US.

It is certain that, like in 2004 this report will be attacked, or as is more likely, ignored as much as possible. The survey though seems to be based on sound evidence and could be more thorough.

Rather than using media reports of deaths in Iraq ( Iraq Body Count) they produced a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey based on 50 clusters (with 40 households per cluster) which were randomly selected from 16 Governorates (the 2004 report was based on 33 randomly selected clusters of 30 households with a mean of eight residents throughout Iraq).

As Ben Good pointed out in his comment to Jon post, it seems that the highest mortality rate occurred in males of military age:

“Deaths in men of military age, defined as 15–44 years of age, were disproportionately high and accounted for 59% (52–65) of post-invasion violent deaths, despite this subgroup accounting for only 24•4% of the Iraqi population.”

However, only 31% of post-invasion violent deaths were the result of coalition forces. And deaths "from air strikes were less commonly reported in 2006 than in 2003–04, but deaths from car explosions have increased since late 2005".

Overall they estimate that the death count as a result of the invasion and subsequent insurgency cost the lives of 2.5% of the Iraqi population in the study area.

No doubt it will, once again, become a bludgeon for anti-war protestors to wield and just another politically motivated hysterical attack for the politicians responsible for the destruction to spin out of the way.

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What was he thinking, sending out inexperienced players last Saturday before an expectant, roaring crowd? You'd imagine, with all the lineup changes, the injuries sustained along the way, the fights, the firings and rehirings while playing away, that there's no way they could hold it together. But they came on so confidently, and as the skeptical fans waited nervously for the real action to start the champions pounded confidently along. Immediately we realised that they were going to be magnificent. They're playing so well, we thought, this can only end in glory.

At this point of course, you've probably realised that I'm not talking about Ireland's miserable performance against Cyprus last Saturday, but rather another spectacle entirely. Last Saturday evening the mighty Fall played the Village in Wexford Street and despite some ropey Dublin shows down through the years this time they were definitely a triumph.

Pardon my conceit though. The 'he' referred to is of course, Mark E. Smith, but there is a reason behind my duplicity. Smith has expressed a fondness for soccer once or twice and when explaining why the Fall have had so many lineup changes over the years in a recent BBC2 documentary he even likened himself to a football manager, who in order to get the best out of his team has to change things around a bit.

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It seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I don't care what you purists think - Mary Margaret O'Hara's contribution on Hallelujah was a high point of Came So Far For Beauty, the Leonard Cohen tribute show in the Point on Thursday. I am not alone in this opinion - my mate sitting next to me agreed. Mostly everyone else, including my girlfriend, my other mates in the balcony, many Irish bloggers, much of the audience, and the Irish Times, disagrees.

I had long since given up ever hoping to see Mary Margaret O'Hara perform, and this was one of my (many) reasons for going to Came So Far For Beauty, so I might have been biased. Judging by the well-heeled crowd of a certain age, I'd imagine most people there hadn't ever heard her music and thought she was taking the mick or something.

I'm not defending the quality of her contribution; it doesn't need to be defended. She's a bit like Cohen himself in that respect - you either 'get it' or you don't and there's no convincing you. I'm saying that in complaining about O'Hara's whoops and ejaculations (or whatever the Irish Times said), you may have missed the point somewhat.

Consider the situation of all the artists heading onto that stage. What are you going to do when asked to cover songs everyone knows and loves? How can you come out ahead? Can you hope to break even? Most of the other performers (including some I love, such as the delightful Ms. Orton) played it safe and by the numbers; some (the great Lou Reed) played the songs as if they were their own - Reed's contributions, albeit great, could have been his own compositions circa the 'New York' album era.

Don't get me wrong, I think both of those are fantastic, and it was a privilege to hear the dirty rumble of that man's distorted guitar when he kicked those pedals, but they weren't exactly taking any chances. Some took a chance and it didn't work - I think it was Laurie Anderson doing Dear Heather ("and your legs all white/from the winter") through a distorted microphone, but at least she was going for it, and you have to respect that, even if, like me, you didn't appreciate it.

Mary Margaret O'Hara and Gavin Friday were handed the toughest assignment of the evening - to cover the best-known of all the Cohen songs, the smash-hit single all the kids wanted to hear. Playing Hallelujah straight, the best they could have hoped for was a polite smattering of applause and mutterings about how it wasn't a patch on Jeff Buckley's version (lauded even by Cohen himself as the greatest rendition of this song).

My two cent is that, faced with this no-win situation, O'Hara and Friday, talented renegades both, decided to go for broke. He's an irreverent punk in the purest sense of those words, and she's a kook possessed of an otherworldly voice - they tore that song apart, turned it inside out, and held it up to the light in a way that makes you see it afresh, as a new song. It's what Buckley did on the Grace album. It's what Johnny Cash did with all those American Recordings albums.

That's the true point of covering songs; if that's not what you want from a tribute show, then go see the Australian Leonard Cohen instead. If you're not aware of her own music, treat yourself to an early Christmas present of her only 'proper' album - Miss America, released way back in 1988.

Despite the brooding menacing presence of both Nick Cave and Lou Reed in the same building, the scariest part of the whole night was seeing Tori Amos walking around the foyer at the intermission and not knowing if she was on the billing for the second act. Thankfully, she was not. A little harsh you say? I agree, her voice is a little harsh.

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