Pay and Display?

I really should stop reading the coiney blogs, their habitual twisted logic always puts me in a bad mood for an hour or so. Peter Tompa's latest is (yet another) post on the topic of how "the Italians" cannot look after their own ancient buildings at home (evidence: bits of the ruins of two ancient old buildings fell off after they'd been in the open sky for two thousand years) while

...collectors in Italy, the rest of the EU and the United States are already displaying, publishing and conserving ancient coins struck in Italy, and all without the government funding that is so difficult to come by these days.

Where, one might ask is Mr Tompa's own collection of ancient coins on "display" and can he give the name and address of the trained conservator who looks after it for his, please? Also the references to all those publications of the coins in the Tompa collection would be appreciated.

What on earth is the bloke on about here?:

Once again one wonders why American archaeologists are pressing the Italian cultural establishment to claim Greek and Roman coins as its cultural patrimony.

Last time we heard from Mr Tompa on this issue, he was saying that it was not even certain that ancient coins were going to be in the Italian-US cultural property MOU extension at all. Now we hear that he thinks the Black Helicopters have been busy and AIA President Brian Rose has parachuted down in his midnight blue Ninja suit to an undiclosed venue in the Italian countryside at midnight in a highly secret meeting with top officials in the Italian cultural establishment to persuade them to consider that coins dug out of Italian archaeological sites are part of the archaeological record of Italy (see? The meeting with Shelby White was a clever bluff). Ancient coins, archaeological artefacts? The very idea! Perhaps Tompa is already (with the other four lawyers retained at no little cost by the ACCG to fight such nonsensical cases) preparing a "complaint" to accompany the 2011 ACCG Illegal Italian Coin Import Stunt they are already planning should this scenario play out the way Tompa is expecting.

I have a better idea, why don't US collectors agree to stop buying illegally exported coins ? Why not help "source" countries protect the archaeological heritage from those who want to make a profit by exploiting it illegally? Instead of conserving isolated artefacts ripped out of unknown contexts, why can they not do their bit to help conserve the sites which are being dug over illegally to produce them? Why go to the trouble of thinking up crazy conspiracy theories about renegade "archaeologists", US gubn'mint collusion with foreign powers, agents of influence undermining US society, and all the rest of this claptrap nonsense ? What is it all in aid of?