Today's headlines

Scientists create 'dry water':

The substance resembles powdered sugar and could revolutionise the way chemicals are used.

Each particle of dry water contains a water droplet surrounded by a sandy silica coating. In fact, 95 per cent of dry water is ''wet'' water.

I hope it's better than that bilge known as non-alcoholic beer.

It Pays to Riot in Europe:

Ireland must now pay more than Greece to borrow.

Dublin has played by the book. It has taken pre-emptive steps to please the markets and the EU. It has done an IMF job without the IMF. Indeed, is has gone further than the IMF would have dared to go.

It has imposed draconian austerity measures. The solidarity of the country has been remarkable. There have no riots, and no terrorist threats.

Yet as of today it is paying 5.48pc to borrow for ten years, or near 8pc in real terms once deflation is factored in. This is crippling and puts the country on an unsustainable debt trajectory if it lasts for long.

Yet Greece is able to borrow from the EU at 5pc and from the IMF at a staggered rate far below that (still too high for the policy to work, but that is another matter). These were the terms of the €110bn joint bail-out.

To add insult to injury Ireland is having SUBSIDIZE Greece to meet its share of the rescue fund.

I am sure you can all see the absurdity of this. It has moral hazard written all over it, and shows what happens once a dysfunctional system twists itself into ever greater knots rather confronting the core issue.

Yes, I know that the Irish and Greek maturities are different but the fact is that Greece has extracted better terms by letting matters get further out of hand.

Well, as anybody who has studied history knows, there are very few true Greeks left. Modern Greeks are basically uncircumcised Turks - and revolting in more ways than one.

And while we're on the subject of real Greeks, Odysseus was one.

Greeks discover Odysseus' palace in Ithaca, proving Homer's hero was real:

Odysseus – known to the ancient Romans as Ulysses – famously took 10 years to return home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.

On his journey, he was twice shipwrecked and encountered a cyclops, the spirit of his mother and tempting Sirens before returning to Ithaca, where he found his wife, Penelope, under pressure to remarry from a host of suitors who had invaded the royal palace.

With the help of his father, Laertes, and his son, Telemachus, he slaughtered his rivals and re-established his rule.

But despite the fantastical details in the Greek epic, a team of archaeologists has claimed the tale is anchored in truth - and that they have discovered his home on the island of Ithaca, in the Ionian sea off the north-west coast of Greece.

Nearly 3,000 years after Odysseus returned from his journey, the team from the University of Ioannina said they found the remains of an extensive three-storey building, with steps carved out of rock and fragments of pottery. The complex also features a well from the 8th century BC, roughly the period in which Odysseus is believed to have been king of Ithaca.

The location "fits like a glove" with Homer's description of the view from the fabled palace, the archaeologists claim.

As for a modern-day Greek tragedy - how about the BP scandal? Greek tragedy was always brought about by "hubris" which is nowadays translated as "pride" but which originally meant "disrespectful touching" or something actually closer to our concept of "assault and battery."

Oil spill safety valve was wrongly plumbed on rig, says BP executive:

Harry Thierens, BP’s vice president for drilling and completions, told a US political hearing that the blowout preventer was connected to a test pipe, rather than the correct one.

“It would mean that the pipe rams could not be closed,” Mr Thierens said in evidence to a federal panel on Wednesday. “I was frankly astonished that this could have happened.”

You don't say! I'm shocked I tell you - just shocked to the core. I guess you can tell that I'm one Republican who has no sympathy for Big Business. Like government, mega-corporations are a necessary evil and must be carefully watched to preserve our liberty.