System Overload

Well, well, well, who'd have thought. For over two years now we, the great unwashed of Irish society have been labouring under the mistaken belief that the country's governing party, the unique and impressionable Fianna Fail have spent the last 14 years asleep at the wheel (or in the Merc's rear passneger seat at least) while a pack of bankers and property developers (and international private financial investors) were given free reign to run the country aground in the quest for a quick profit.

But now, mercifully, Fianna Fail's latest messiah, Michael Martin has crawled out of the party's stagnant and highly questionable gene pool to set the record straight. You see it wasn't their fault at all. It's been the political system which has been to blame the entire time. The political system, or The System as it shall henceforth be known has secretly been plotting the nation's downfall since the inception of the state.

Lost your job due to your company's inability to attract sufficient trade to maintain current employment levels? The System did that.
Struggling to pay the mortgage due to recent interest rate hikes by state-run, publicly-financed banks? The System is to blame.
Waved a loved-one good-bye forever as they search for life-affirming employment abroad? It was The System which drove them away.
Lost a family member due to our woefully structured and poorly managed health service, or because you can no longer afford health insurance? Yep, you guessed it, The System killed your loved ones.

Getting the message yet? If not, why not switch on your TV any time between now and election day and Mr Martin will be happy to hammer the truth into your ignorant head. And if you're still too stupid to understand the truth? Well Mr Martin will repeat the truth, again, this time a little louder. That should do the trick.

So what can we do I hear you ask? Well, as The System is all powerful and cannot be changed or tackled in any way (as Fianna Fail have proven over the past 14 years) there are only a few simple steps we can all take to safeguard ourselves against this evil and malignant The System and it's Ireland-destroying ideals:

1. If you see The System on the street do not approach it. It will attack you on sight. Instead, report the sighting to the Gardai.
2. Lock your doors and windows at all times. The System is always looking for ways into your home to eat your children.
3. Keep your eyes peeled at all times. The System is crafty and will hide under bushes, behind bus stops or up trees and await it's opportunity to attack unsuspecting members of the public.
4. Regularly check up on elder family members. The System preys on the old and infirm and can often trick old people into allowing them into their homes by posing as a local Fianna Fail election candidate.
5. If all else fails, leave the country. The System has no power outside of the Republic of Ireland as most all other countries have highly developed methods of combating it's evil ways. Politics I think they call it.

Please print out and keep this handy survival guide on you at all times. We can't beat The System. But with a bit of luck we might just survive it.

I hope this helps.

Vote For Me.

Okay, insetad of carping from the sidelines and giving out about the inane pointlessness of X-Factor (which, lets face it is like shooting fish in a barrell), I have decided to enter - and win - next year's competition. That's right folks, I'm in.

To get me through the first round I've decided to invent the wheel. But what's that you say? The wheel has already been invented? Doesn't matter. Everything that happens on X-Faxtor has already been done a hundred times. Once I've invented the wheel, right there on stage, all X-viewers will immediately forget that the wheel has already been invented and vote for me en masse.

Of course my wheel will be slightly less good than the already invented wheel, it will have some edges on it. This will make all X-viewers who use my wheel slightly uncomfortable. Perfect for X-Factor.
I'll sail through the opening round.

In the next round I've decided to discover fire. Whooooooosh. Fire! Right there on stage. But what's you say? Fire has already been discovered? This matters not. You forget that many X-viewers have the attention span of an over-fed goldfish and will immediately forget that they have fires at home already.
Of course my fire will be small and slightly less warm than previously discovered fires, making x-viewers who use my fire slightly less comfortable. Again, perfect for X-Factor.

This should see me safely through to the final where I plan to perform my greatest act yet. I'm going to invent the mobile telephone. Fantastic. But what's that you cry? The mobile telephone has already been invented? Worry not. X-viewers will soon forget this and will assume that the X-Factor version is the one they MUST have.

Naturally, my mobile phone will be slightly less mobile than previous versions, it will have a range of 10 - 15ft and will be connected to the wall, possibly via some form of electrical cable. X-viewers will adore this huge leap forward in communications and will worship me as a god, thus ensuring my victory over next year's fat Shirey Bassey-type sewage worker from Essex.

So, can I rely on your vote?

When is a democracy not a democracy?

Question: What do the peoples of Donegal South West, Waterford and Dublin South have in common?

Answer: They matter less than the rest of us.

This may sound like quite an incendary statement but let me qualify it by stating here and now that this is not my opinion. It is, rather, the opinion of Fianna Fail and their coalition government lap dogs, the Green Party. Since 2009 there have been three by-elections outstanding due to the election of Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher to the European Parliment, the resignation from the Dail of George Lee and the death of Fianna Fail TD Seamus Brennan.

Fianna Fail have, at every turn completely rebuffed all efforts to have these by-elections held. Why? The goverment would have us believe that the country and political classes need to focus on the current (Fianna Fail created) economic crisis and that these by-elections represent too large a distraction. The simple truth of the matter though is that with the government's tiny Dail majority of 83 to 79, and with neither Fianna Fail nor the Greens expected to have poodle's chance in North Korea of winning any of these three by-elections, the goverment are running scared of the electorate. As usual, Fianna Fail regard their own needs as being more important than those of the Irish people.

Today sees the second day of a High Court challenge by Sinn Fein senator Pearse Doherty against the government aimed forcing Brian Cowan to name a date for the Donegal South West by-election. That's right folks, the government now have to be taken to the High Court in order to force them to uphold the constitutinal rights of the people. What's more disgraceful than anything else in this sorry episode in Irish democracy is that, at a time when the country is on it's financial knees, the government are actually defending their stance, legally challenging the constitutinal rights to equal representation of all citizens, wasting even more of tax payers money in the process.

The government's argurement isn't that these people don't deserve equal representation, nor that senator Doherty's legal challenge is wrong. It's merely arguing that it's up to the Dail, and therefore the govermnent to decide when these elections should take place. In other words, they know what they're doing is wrong, but they can't legally be forced to do the right thing. So they won't.

One of Brian Cowan's most infamous quotes (as far as this blogger is concerned) goes like this:

"Sometimes the government has to put the good of the country ahead of the good of the party".

Sometimes! That's right, as far as Cowan is concerned there are numerous occasions when the Fianna Fail good is more important than that of the people. Or the country. Many would argue (myself being one of them) that this is always how Fianna Fail approch the governance of the country. The famous tent at the Galway races cetainly wasn't erected for the good of the people living in West Cork, nor for the poor unfortunates on the health waiting lists!

I take my hat off to Senator Doherty. I'm no supporter of Sinn Fein but, for once, the party finds itself on the side of justice. Let's just hope that the High Court is on the same side.

Brian, The Drain's Blocked.

So, finally the dust is settling. The lies have almost all been unwound. The final and frightening reality of a decade of economic mismanagement has been laid at our feet. 50 billion is the price the few remaining tax-paying members of Irish society will have to pay to rescue Irish banks from the greed-driven insanity which brought them to the brink of failure.

When you add this figure to those other terrifying statistics of life in Ireland in 2010, namely our 20 billion annual budget overspend, 450,000 unemployed, 32% budget deficit for 2010, it begins to seem that the only thing stopping Ireland from going down the drain is the fact that the drain has been blocked by the overwhelming tide of Irishman-made disasters all rushing to sink first. 

The two Brians are fond of telling us that we will manage our own way out of this disaster, that our heroic Brians will shield us from the IMF wolves currently knocking on the door of Rosslaire Harbour, but the truth is that the EU and IMF have been calling the shots from day one of our current plight. At each and every stage of this perilous journey the Brians have been required to glance over in the direction of Brussles for the regulation thumbs up before dragging the Irish people towards the next disastrous pile of bad news, bad debts and bad decisions. Ireland is currently showing each and every nation comprising the EU exactly what this membership means. That the EU comes first, that individual member states can and will have their internal affairs meddled with in the interests the greater EU good. And as the EU can see something that the two Brians, to date, have been unable to fully grasp, namely that this unholy mess is almost entirely of our own (for own read Fianna Fail's) making, the EU are quite happy to heap the misery upon the heads of each and every Irishman, woman and child so as not to upset the bond markets to which even the EU are answerable.

For two years now there have been a number of alternative solutions to the current Irish banking crisis presented to the Irish political class. These ranged from immediately nationalising the banks (as idea as abhorrent to the two Brians as flying economy) to shafting the senior bank bond holders. Each and every suggestion aimed at saving the tax payer at the expense of larger vested interests has been rejected in favour of maintaining our status as good EU boys and girls. Let us not forget that this is the same EU which was already on the brink of a currency meltdown as a result of the decision to allow that other fiscal basket case - Greece, to join the party a decade ago. The same EU which, while preaching austerity measures for the little EU people, was at the same time doubling the entertainment budget for the already ludicrously over pampered politicians in Brussles.

It's no coincidence that while domestically Brian Cowan is suffering the lowest opinion poll ratings in living memory, internationally he is being lauded as one of the World's top ten political leaders. A decade of unchecked, bank-driven economic boom has resulted in the world's top politicians losing all touch with what makes a good politician. In the mid nineteenth century the Irish people starved while we fed the British army and British citizens. In the early 21st century we starve again while the bond markets are fed.  

Welcome to Ireland in 2010. Please sir, can I have some more?