Four months’ ago, the Ferns Report makes references to his failure to act in the case involving paedophile priest Father Sean Fortune.

He did not even have the moral courage to get near the victims’ family, let alone speaking to them.

It was a flagrant case of utter hypocrisy and a merciless act of cover-up but now he said, publicly, that he had found peace.

But if you are just like me, a normal human being and spiritually, a sinner, you may find it impossible to find peace whenever you think of the horrors and the helplessness experienced by the victims of the abuses. He was laughing because he is in Ireland and he is, sort of, beyond the laws. If he was in France, he would be finding his peace in jail together with the bishop of Evereux who was there for not reporting an abuse of a minor.

How I wish his appalling comment was made because it was just a case of old-habits-die-hard; a hypocritical mumble to conceal his guilt or, he would be stinking to high heaven.

I would have been glad that if he was trying to tell me that he finally got it but I was not optimistic. We all have different roles to play at various times during the day and when we mix them up, we are merely, at best, creating embarrassment for ourselves or worse, asking for troubles.

My supervisor was playing Mister Nice Guy when one of my co-workers wanted to receive a slightly bigger pay cheque. What he did was not only silently condoning my co-worker’s unauthorized overtime but in many ways creating opportunities for him to make more non-working overtime claims. Non-action is a failure of supervisory duties while collusion is ground for instant dismissal.

That was not being a Mister Nice Guy. It was simply Mr Fool. All it took Patrick to do what he did and got away with it was just a little shoe shining. I wouldn’t call it ass kissing because Patrick is still a friend. We were chatting and drinking together over our webcams last Friday. I doubt that he is in speaking terms with his ex-friend, Mister Nice Guy.

Patrick was just one of the many migrant workers in the factory but he is a smart fellow. If he was allowed to get away with what he did and ended up with a decent pay cheque (especially by his Polish standard), he would of course be very happy to do some shoe shining. However, the company has to react to the excessive overtime. -it changed to a lump sum payment based on a 39-hr week for all workers. Patrick was the first one to react – he just did not show up for work one Monday morning soon after the new wage scheme became effective without any prior notice. Patrick’s sudden departure was a merciless betrayal of his supervisor friend. Patrick is such a jerk but don’t blame him for doing what he did.

There was one thing I could have done to prevent Patrick from leaving the factory. He begged me to swap his annual leave with me. He had to give me a good reason before I would agree to it - I knew he wouldn’t show up after his holiday.

What I didn’t tell Patrick was that he would still be entitled to his overtime payments in spite of the 39-hr cap. Had I told him about it, he would have stayed and let his overtime accumulate over time. He would be able to get all his overtime money back by making a claim through the Labour Court when he decided he had had enough. In fact, it would be easier for him to get overtime because the company would think that it was safely protected by the 39-hr cap. Perfect!

On the day I submitted my letter of resignation, I was still trying to convince them that the new wage scheme would be in fundamental breach of both the Minimum Wage Act and the Employment Equality Act. It’s such a simple and straight forward case for summary conviction if reference is made to the Labour Court.

The new wage scheme basically pays everyone on minimum hourly wage rate €298.35 a week regardless of the actual working hours. This is fine for those who work less than 39 hours a week. It means only that they receive a raise above their €7.65 hourly rate every now and then. There is nothing to bar an employer from being too generous. This is not the same for those who have to work over 39 hours to properly carry out their jobs. A worker who works 42 hours a week but receives only €298.35 is getting €7.10 an hour – a rate below the national minimum.

The company contended that since the worker who happened to work 42 hours in one particular week would be working only, say, 35 hours in another week, the net effect would be that the working hours tended to balance each others out. It is therefore nothing illegal about paying someone only 39 hours when he or she actually works 42 hours.

This is so absurd that it is unclear whether they were reading an Irish version of the Minimum Wage Act which they did not understand or they just refused to understand what they didn’t understand.

I have no difficulty with the charity part of the new wage scheme as I very much doubt that the Court will entertain any claim for overpayment after they have paid €298.35 to someone who has only 35 hours on his or her time sheet. As for those who work over 39 hours, they will certainly have no problem getting payment for their extra hours.

When we are dealing with contracts, including Employment Contract, we have to be very specific about each clauses contained therein. The Court is becoming more and more reluctant to entertain implied terms and will definitely throw someone’s wild assumptions out of the window in no time.

It is probably worse under the Employment Equality Act as it carries a heavier fine and a longer term of imprisonment upon summary conviction or on conviction on indictment. The Act stipulates equal work, equal pay. Simply put, two general unskilled operatives, who are doing similar work and who are having similar seniority with the company, should receive the same amount of remuneration. The lump sum weekly payment is effectively paying one general operative €8.50 an hour and the other €7.65 an hour. One can probably attribute the difference to age, sex, race, ass-kissing skill, etc. Take your pick and give it a swirl. Jackpot!

I am sure that they will change to a more equitable wage scheme. The lump sum 39-hr weekly payment simply doesn’t make sense. As for the one who dreamed up such an ingenious scheme, he or she should get some real good spanking.

Lying then Spying now.

(left to right) Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, Jean Chretien of Canada, Jacques Chirac of France, Tony Blair of Great Britain, Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and George W. Bush of the US

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you say
I’ll be watching you

We may never know but if he was, the only logically question is, by whom?

And if he wasn’t, the only logically question is, whether he is of a sound mind.

It was known that his advice on March 7 was based on a long held opinion of his. And it was a matter based solely on principles. Given the fact that there had been no significant events or new findings during the 10-day period before he abruptly changed his mind, we can’t help but ask if Lord Goldsmith is mentally fit for his post as AG.

Well,Blair had sacrified Dr David Kelly, Alastair Campbell and a few BBC executives in defense of his deliberate falsehoods about the war, what’s the cost of an AG. Nothing!

The story followed the principal US negotiators on North Korea coming forward to say Bolton was a dangerous disaster on North Korea.

Being tough and aggressive is certainly not a problem if circumstances warrant but being a bully is a always problem even at the right time and at the right place. And this is exactly what Mr Bolton is seen - a bullying dog.

Today is Red Nose Day - a fundraising event held by Comic Relief every two years.

Do it.

With Google, posting or sharing pictures on the internet has become very simple. I remember when I bought my first digital camera (Casio) back in 1995, it didn’t even come with any photo software and I had to pay extra for a copy of QVPC in order to download pictures from the digital camera to my computer.

Now with Picasa and Hello (both of them freeware from Google, at least for the time being), even though my Cannon IXUS500 does come with a full suit of photo manipulation software, I do not need to install them. (Indeed I have found it a lot easier and user friendly to use Picasa).

Posting the above picture to Blogger took me not more than one minute and there is no need for a separate web host for storing the picture. It involved a few simple steps:

1. Download and Install Picasa first.
2. Download and Install Hello.
3. Use Picaso to import photos from a digital camera or use it to select any pictures already in the computer.
4. Invoke Hello through Picaso and post to Blogger.
5. Done. Hassle free. Cost free.

It’s great!

A woman in Stockholm, Sweden found an adult, medium size penis in a bottle of ketchup.

Sceptics in global warming use the same tactics as tobacco companies in the early days when smoking was found to be the cause of cancer and a whole assortment of illness. We were told that the evidence was not conclusive and there were many other reasons for cancer. We were also told that the evidence was statistical and not medical. Now that medical researches have silented all but the most irrational sceptics.

We can keep debating about the causes of global warming. No one can tell how much time we have before a certain threshold is reached and there will be no turning back. We simply don’t know. But we we do know now is that we can no longer blame the sun and volcano activities for warming our earth. It’s us.

We do not even know whether Kyoto is the answer. But if the worst (USA) and the 2nd worst polluter (China) of the world are not signing up. It probably will not give us the answer.

Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California released a report about Global warming concluding that the “warming signals” in the oceans could only have been produced by the build-up of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and not attributable to non-human factors.

The report also looked at the likely climatic effects of the warming which should come as no surprise to anyone who had watched ‘The Day After Tomorrow’.

Well, it could be a very dark day.