Digest – July 12 2010

Words go here.

HOME

Anthony’s attic archives; nothing changed, nothing gained.

Abigail Reiley on life covering gory, and not so gory, crimes and trials.

P O’Neill is so feckin’ sharp. Read that this week. On Brian Cowen, quotes from Seamus Heaney and public service performance.

[Go read the post for context, t’is only a short one] More seriously, at which speech did he announce that his task force on transforming the public service had hit the ground running so well that it had already had its first meeting?

Both of them.

Charles O’Mahony of Human Rights in Ireland on cuts to disability services.

Friend of the blog and owner of global property portfolio, Frank Fahey, talks nonsense about property and Nama on Newstalk.

Suzy Byrne on the week the Seanad earned its keep.

Are you listening, local authorities? How to make local government data transparent, from the Guardian Data blog.

Ronan Lyons; ‘visualising the employment crisis, who has been worst hit?’

Wow. Bad call from HSBC. Come Here to Me! spots a corn-flake spitting inducing advertisment featuring the statue of Jim Larkin.

Seamus Coffey; The Two Irish Economies.

Constantin Gurdgiev kicks seven shades out of the Mortgages Arrears Group Report.

Apart from the report being about 18 months too late, I missed any actual solutions or actions that would help addressing these priorities. Instead, the report contains 44 pages of rather general, if lofty, talk about the need to do things, discuss things and agree to things. A handful of meaningful recommendations it contains actually set out nothing more than the best practices that all lenders should pursue regardless of the Working Group effort.

WORLD

A peephole into the life of a viking raider‘. The head of a Icelandic bank is getting done in the US courts. Sigrún Davíðsdóttir is watching closely;

The flats have been the centre of some attention lately. In 2006-07 – the time when the folly of the favoured clients of the Icelandic banks reached its climax, the years of buying yachts, jets and other trophy assets – the couple bought not one but three flats at this Ian Schrager-designed condo, 16A, 17A, 18A, for $25m. Two flats were merged, which is why just two flats are often being mentioned. Landsbanki lent the money but either didn’t bother their clients with collaterals or forgot – I’ve repeatedly asked the Landsbanki resolution committee about this case but they decline to comment until this case is over. However, on in the UK court papers it seems that Johannesson has given conflicting information on the financing, claiming at different times that his family financed it or that the financing came from Landsbanki.

See also, a tale of a ‘low standard of commercial reality‘.

Ariel Levy asks if ‘the wayward republican’, Mike Huckabee is the GOP’s best hope.

Steve Buttry on reporters who trade silence for access.

Glenn Greenwald goes for the neck on the Washington Post and transparency.

Sociological Images on oil spills, locations and context.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, politicians being Shook Ones.

OTHER

Video; former car salesman, ‘Big Vinny’, tells his story. Really engaging, well-told story. Shot beautifully too.