The Face of Truth

This evening I met with a few of the people cheated by Trevor Cook. There is much more to say than simply these scant few words, and I hope to write more on the subject in the next few days, but I was left with a deep and abiding sorrow. Sorrow at the hurts they've received and sorrow that there is little I can do to help.

Each day in this world many people are born, many others die. There are tragedies in every town, regrets in every community, but one of the most profoundly moving things anyone can do is to take the time to become personally familiar with those who have suffered an injustice. The anguish is palpable in pain evident in the words and visible on the faces of those who've lost much, including unfortunately some of their faith in their fellow men. It was my distinct pleasure to meet and get to know these people and to put real faces, personal experience and real human emotion to what would otherwise have been yet another set of words on a page about a case of fraud resulting in human tragedies.

Cannibalizing Democracy

While sailing recently with a 'more conservative than me' friend of mine, he commented that he felt the model the Irish Government played in helping Ireland become a much more economically well-off land was a good model to adopt, whereas the model the Germans and French followed was a poor idea.

His complaints with the French and German models were (among other things) that their anti-immigration policies, given their low native birth rates, would ultimately be their undoing. They both saw falling tax bases while continuing to spend in ways they should not.