Club Lisbon

Do these people have a track record in competence, morality, patriotism, humility, charity or sincerity?

Have their actions over their careers indicated that they give a damn about Ireland or its people?

Have they bickered and scored cheap political points while the economy goes down the swanny?

Have they failed to explain why the Lisbon Treaty is supposed to be such an obviously good piece of legislation or have they fudged matters by scaremongering and pretending that we'll be kicked out of the EU if we don't bow to their superior intellect?

Why should we trust them when they unite to command us to sign away our constitutional rights on October 2nd?

If in doubt - vote it out!

Iguana, Gecko or Chameleon?

In recent weeks I've had a number of conversations (arguments) with people who claim to be in favour of the Lisbon Treaty. They generally lack a basic understanding of any of the facts relating to this referendum. When challenged on the issues they usually respond by condemning any dissenting voice as a communist, hard-right, Sinn Feiner who also attends Libertas meetings on the side. Here is a brief summary of a typical conversation with the pro-Lisbon voter (I now call them Lizards).

Lizard: I can't wait till Lisbon is passed. It is good for Ireland and good for Europe.

DarkPassenger: Really, would you care to explain how it is good for us?

Lizard: It just is. We are better off in Europe than outside it.

DarkPassenger: But this is not a referendum on our continued membership of the European Union. It is, however, a referendum on some fundamental changes to the way the EU operates and will undoubtedly confer substantial powers on an unelected European elite. Discuss?

Lizard: So you are against Lisbon. You must be a communist. You must also be in Libertas and Coir and Youth Defence.

DarkPassenger: Ha ha ha ha (wags finger). That must make you a card carrying blueshirt or Fianna Fool hack. I don't fall into any of the categories you mention. I do, however, fall into the category of educated people who like to inform themselves about what they are voting for. Have you read the treaty Lizard?

Lizard: Well.....eh.....no. I won't waste my time reading it. All the politicians say it is a good idea. That's enough for me.

DarkPassenger: These would be the same politicians who have lied, cheated and stolen from the Irish citizen for decades? The same scumbag millionaires who continue to rape the exchequer, claiming millions in unvouched expenses. Has it occurred to you that what is good for corrupt self serving politicians is not good for Ireland?

Lizard: You must be in Sinn Fein.

DarkPassenger: Wrong again. Can you now explain, with reference to the relevant articles of the treaty, how it is good for Ireland?

Lizard: Well we have the guarantees that our government expertly negotiated.

DarkPassenger: You call them guarantees, I call them Andrex. The fact of the matter is that your beloved guarantees are worthless. The European Court of Justice will have the power to rule these unlawful at any time. If you had a basic understanding of how the EU operated you would know this.

Lizard: Well you haven't any proof that Lisbon will be bad for Ireland.

DarkPassenger: Au contraire my poor deluded friend. I have plenty of evidence to suggest that the Lisbon treaty will be bad for Ireland. Take article 113. This opens the door for Europe to inflict indirect taxes on countries such as Ireland "...to avoid distortion of competition." This amendment would give the European Court of Justice the power to deem Ireland's low corporate tax rate a distortion to competition. Therefore, companies who are resident in Ireland could be forced to pay some of their corporate tax to other EU countries where their goods are being sold. We would have no option but to increase our corporation tax rate to address this "distortion to competition". What will that do for foreign direct investment here?

Lizard: But the guarantees say that Europe can't force us to increase our corporation tax rates.

DarkPassenger: Even if the guarantees were enforceable - this guarantee would mean nothing. Europe may not directly force us to increase tax rates. However, through the vehicles of Enhanced Cooperation and the European Court of Justice - we could be forced to pay punitive indirect taxes which would force us to "elect" to increase our tax rate. Most European states don't like our corporate tax regime and will be only too delighted to band together to force us to change it.

Lizard: Well model politicians like Pat Cox say Lisbon is vital for Ireland's future - I trust him to tell me how to think.

DarkPassenger: I feel sorry for you Lizard. Just because the press say Pat Cox is a model European you believe them. There is considerable evidence to suggest that Pat Cox has a lot to lose if Lisbon fails. Mr. Cox acts as an advisor to companies such as Pfizer, Microsoft and Michelin. He is the managing partner of European Integration Solutions, a Washington DC - Brussels based transatlantic consulting/lobbying firm. He also acts as a senior counselor for lobby consultancy giant APCO. Now explain to me how a man such as this can claim to offer advice that is impartial? Explain to me how he can claim to represent our best interests? It strikes me that a man like this could use his connections in Europe to reap massive rewards when a post Lisbon EU assumes even more power.

Lizard: Well I don't care. I'm voting for Lisbon anyway - no matter what you say.

DarkPassenger: But we have so much more to discuss: Militarisation (Article 42), Immigration (Article 79), new EU taxes (Article 311), the primacy of the EU over the indivudual states (Articles 1, 47, Delcaration 17).....

Lizard: You are just making up numbers now.

DarkPassenger: Enough said you weak minded fool! Bad enough that our political masters have already wiped their arses with our first decision on this treaty but now you can't even be bothered to read the relevant documents. I don't care how anybody votes as long as they equip themselves with the facts necessary to make an informed decision. As Forrest Gump said "stupid is as stupid does". And Lizard - you do stupid very well.

Some supporting documentation:

• Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union and Lisbon Treaty


• Former MEP Jens-Peter Bonde on Ireland and her tax rate


• A good article on the EU Common Consolidated Tax Base.


• Pat Cox - fingers in many pies


• Yet more on Pat Cox and potential conflicts of interest


• Pat Cox - APCO profile


• Pat Cox - UCD Smurfit School profile

New Schedule, Old Rubbish

Hot on the heels of recent televisual calamities such as Charity Lord of the Rings - RTE has released its 2009/2010 new season schedule. Let's examine how RTE will squander our licence fee over the coming year:

News, Current Affairs & Factual.
RTE will kick an already depressed nation in the nuts with an assortment of digital downers such as:

• Addicted To Money - Presented by David McWilliams
  "David McWilliams surveys the wreckage of the global economy and points to the worrying, but potentially transformative challenges ahead"
  Sweet Jesus - that's all we need. Another exercise in smugness and misery brought to us by the Harry Potter of Irish economics. How many different ways can McWilliams say "I told you so". We know the place is wrecked - the last thing we need is to do is send him all over the world to point out the bloody obvious.


• The Frontline - Presented by Pat Kenny
  "...will instigate lively debate on the most important news stories of the week between selected guests and a studio audience."
  Surely associating the word "lively" with Pat Kenny is a bit ambitious. This "new" current affairs program will undoubtedly follow the same nauseating format as its predecessors: The usual connected politicians and journos will answer preselected "questions" from an audience of party hacks and toadies. Allowing Kenny to present this pantomime is akin to feeding sleeping pill sandwiches to a pilot before a transatlantic flight.


• Elsewhere in this category most of the old reliables such as Nationwide, Ear to the Ground and Crimecall return to bore us into submission. There are a few potentially interesting programmes unveiled in this category. The 90 minute special If Lynch Had Invaded examines how Jack Lynch handled the crisis in 1969 and explores what would have happened if he had ordered Irish troops to cross the border in protection of the nationalists being victimised in Derry. And there's a three part documentary about Charlie "Dirt" Bird's year in America. I wonder if this will involve a thorough analysis of his expense account?

Entertainment.
If ever a programming category was misnamed it was this one.

"..some of Ireland's top comedians are let loose on RTE Two and are amongst the talent in nine brand new and nine returning entertainment shows."
Fan-bleedin-tastic! We get to have our intelligence insulted by overpaid muppets like the Ryan sisters (Gerry and Tubridy). We pay for Maeve Higgins to give her a sister a job in another RTE nepotism special: Fancy Vittles. A new "10 O'Clock Show" promises "audience participation, new comedy inserts......and a lot of messing about." Odds on that this will involve the usual suspects like Neil Delamere, Ed Byrne et al. laughing at their own feeble attempts at humorous commentary on weekly events. RTE will also continue to broadcast cringefests such as The All Ireland Talent Show and Up For the Match - leprechaun TV at its best.

Lifestyle.
RTE's "Lifestyle" offerings are predictably gag inducing:

The king of sanctimonious tree hugging, Duncan Stewart, returns for a 10th season of the fantasy building programme About The House. Off The Rails continues to lecture our women folk about outrageously expensive and unattainable fashion and beauty solutions. RTE give Baz Ashmawy yet another opportunity to humiliate himself at considerable expense to the licence payer in Baz's Culture Clash. Meanwhile human thunderbird Dr. Mark Hamilton hits the streets with a mobile clinic in Health of the Nation. And we'll be needing to avail of Dr. Thunderbird's services after RTE have offended our eyes and ears into submission through programmes presented by Richard Corrigan, Shane McGowan and Neville Knot. Thanks be to jaysus that Lucy Kennedy is on maternity leave so we don't have to put up with her crimes against consciousness for a few months!

Sport.
Nothing noteworthy here. As long as they keep employing Eamo and Gilesie we'll be guaranteed some entertainment from the Sports Department! In fact RTE should consider replacing their stock "comedians" with sports department personnel. Some of George Hamilton and Jimmy Magee's one liners belong on a sketch show rather than a sports commentary!

Acquisitions.
This is the category which allows RTE to spend bags of cash on successful American TV series. RTE will be showing proven hits such as Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and The Mentalist. New series such as Flash Forward, The Good Wife and Nurse Jackie will also be aired in 2009/2010. It's a certainty that RTE will also continue to broadcast a large proportion of these "acquisitions" at times when most of its target audience will be in bed. Entourage, 24 and Brothers and Sisters all suffered this fate last year. But should we expect any better from an organisation that doesn't have to give a damn about customer satisfaction due to its protected and pampered standing and the undeserved licence fee it receives.

Religious
It seems that when RTE needs to justify the salaries of a couple of complete wastes of space it creates a few religion programmes for them to present. Enter Joe Duffy and Marian Finucane. Joe and Marian have turned radio into a thought free zone during their trashy radio programmes. Now they get to do the same on the telly through their religion programmes on RTE. Joe will be presenting his Spirit Level religious magazine programme. Let's hope that the show doesn't require any intelligent input or sincerity from its host! Marion will be presenting a four part series entitled Does God Hate... Well Marion, you can bet your life that if God was a licence payer he would truly hate RTE!

Meet The Slobs

I'm sure most people remember the classic Harry Enfield characters Wayne and Waynetta slob. This pair of chavs were thick as planks yet sly as foxes. They hadn't got two brain cells to rub together yet they lived comfortably despite never working a day in their lives.

Enter Ireland's answer to Wayne and Waynetta Slob. This poster family for scrounging and laziness typify the attitude of many of this state's citizens. They sit on their fat arses demanding free this and subsidised that while ordinary working families struggle to make ends meet. They extract thousands of euro from state coffers every month and continue to demand more. They pop out kid after kid and expect to be rewarded for it by working people who can't afford to start their own families.

The unfortunate truth is that we all know plenty of people similar to Wayne and Waynetta. The inconvenient truth is that we only have ourselves to blame for the easy life these parasites are allowed to live. For too long we have tolerated their shameful playing of the system. There seems to be something inherently Irish about giving someone kudos for making a living out of laziness or downright fraud. We all know people who are on "the sick" - claiming disability allowance because their doctor will provide them with endless sick certs without any real proof that they can't work. We all know people who are popping every pill they can get a prescription for because both their unnecessary doctor's visit and their expensive drugs are paid for by the state. And we all know people who view alcohol and cigarettes as a basic human right even though they are supposedly unemployed and impoverished!

Yet the Wayne and Waynettas of Ireland expect us to treat them with respect. And us poor pixie Irish have thus far been stupid enough to do exactly that. We have turned a blind eye to welfare fraud seeing it as getting one over on "The State". People who do their best to avoid work while raking in thousands in benefits are seen to be doing no harm as "The State" is picking up the tab. Well we are the bloody state! And just as the bankers and property developers have robbed (and will continue to rob) us of billions through bank bailouts and NAMA, these serial spongers will do the same. It's about time we started treating them like the wastes of space they are:

• The welfare system needs to be reformed to discriminate between A)people who are proven to have worked and are actively seeking work and B)people who are making a lifestyle choice in being "unemployed".
  
  It is time we saw two queues at the dole office: one for people in category A and one for the wasters in category B. The unmotivated public servants will be encouraged to provide the wasters with the usual level of obstruction and ignorance while the job seeker will be afforded some respect and assistance.


• The billing records of service providers like Sky and NTL should be examined to identify customers who are also availing of state benefits designed to alleviate poverty. These people should made to repay the money they have squandered on luxuries like subscription satellite TV or broadband.


• Let's see some publicity campaigns launched which will stigmatise people who treat the welfare state like a cash cow. People should feel outraged and offended that the Wayne and Waynettas of this world treat the state and it's citizens with such disrespect as that displayed by the Slobs.


• We should not be afraid to object to the preaching of sanctimonious politicians and supposed do-gooder organisations like CORI. Check out this piece of vomit inducing hypocrisy taken from CORI's "Thought of the Day" page for Tuesday 18th August:
  

  “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”

  Well CORI - when you sexually abuse a child we call you a paedophile. Go and atone for your considerable crimes against generations of unfortunate children before you climb into your ivory towers and start preaching about charity and goodwill.
  
  And don't even get me started on hypocrite politicians like Eamon Gilmore Girl who claim to represent the poor and marginalised. Gilmore and his ilk can go and drink a steaming hot cup of shut the fuck up. This article illustrates Gilmore Girl's complete reluctance to even countenance reform of the welfare system. What's the bets that Wayne and Waynetta are Labour voters?


• Most importantly we all need to cop on. We should be openly questioning friends and family who are ripping the piss out of the social welfare system. Why should we feel like monsters for questioning anyone who we believe is taking advantage of the tax payer? Yes, there are people who are genuinely down on their luck. They have lost their jobs and deserve help and sympathy. But how can anyone justify a monthly net income of €3,064 for being so openly idle and greedy as the Slobs appear to be?
  
  People like this would make even Wayne and Waynetta Slob blush with embarrassment!

BaNAMA Republic

So the much awaited NAMA draft legislation has been published. I'm not going to discuss the ins and outs of Fianna Fool's Financial Flash Gordon plan to save our economy! It suffices to say that anything which this government proposes should be viewed with utter suspicion. Do they really expect us to believe that they are acting for the good of the nation? It would seem to me that the plan is to burden an already crippled economy with the debts of our evil and greedy banks. The determination of the "discount" that will be applied to loans bought by NAMA seems to be very vague. It appears that NAMA will be paying above the market value for dodgy loans. The banks and developers will be off the hook and the poor pixie Irish will be left footing the bill AGAIN.

If anyone believes that our inept Minister for Finance or any of his simpleton civil servants are capable of producing a positive outcome for our country they must be mad. For years they have pursued flawed economic policies. Why should we trust them to have changed the habit of a lifetime now?

It isn't the first time that our beloved political masters have deprived the taxpayer of vast sums of money and it won't be the last. Remember how, in 1987, Ray Burke abolished the requirement for oil and gas companies to pay royalties for commercial finds in our territory. He also abolished the 50% stake that Ireland could claim in these finds. In 1992 Betray Ahern further improved the conditions for exploration companies by reducing their corporation tax liability from 50% to 25%. The Irish taxpayer has been robbed of millions of much needed Euro while foreign companies make a fortune.

Remember how tribunal after tribunal has pissed millions of quid of our money down the toilet? Barristers have made millions while the people of Ireland have seen little justice served on corrupt politicians or crooked gardaí.

One suspects that NAMA will produce a similar outcome to the aforementioned crimes against our country.

I urge everyone to educate themselves on the contents of the NAMA legislation. This plan for a financial septic tank will impoverish this country for generations. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to inform ourselves about how this agency will operate. And if we feel that the scumbag millionaire politicians are again selling us down the swanny we owe it to ourselves to fight them. They have gotten used to stealing our country's scarce resources and giving them to their paymasters in multi-national corporations. We must now stand up to them before they do it again!

Some required reading:

• NAMA draft legislation
• Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev's excellent analysis of NAMA on his True Economics blog.
• Brian Latchico Lenihan's statement on NAMA

The Silver Lining

Things have been quiet around here for the last couple of weeks. Devoted Dexter is sunning himself on his boat off the coast of Florida. And as for me, well let's just say there is lots to talk about but I've been so depressed by the state of things that blogging about them would send me over the edge. In fairness it's hard to stay upbeat these days. Everywhere you look it's recession, cuts, taxes, misery and, of course, the usual helping of sickening hypocrisy from our beloved public representatives. So in this post, instead of my usual dose of bile and vitriol, I will try and concentrate on the upside of "de recession". I'm putting my faith in the old chestnut of every cloud having a silver lining - it's just a matter of looking for it hard enough! So what are the upsides of the economic H-bomb that has detonated over our poor island in recent months?

• The price of stuff is going down: we still have a way to go but the profiteering retailers know that the days of people paying ridiculous prices (with borrowed money) are over.


• We appreciate our money more: there can be no doubt that the spending patterns of Celtic Tiger Ireland were crazy. People squandered cash on all manner of needless crap. We became a nation of label lovers with our Orla Kiely handbags, D&G sunglasses, Jimmy Choo shoes, Tag watches etc. etc. etc. Of course there's nothing wrong with liking your labels but let's face it there are more important things in life than buying fancy stuff every week. Maybe we will now appreciate it when we treat ourselves to the odd luxury. What's seldom is wonderful after all!


• Ireland might qualify for the World Cup: Surely it is more than a coincidence that our football team enjoyed its most successful period in the days before our economy went into overdrive. I firmly believe that there is some undiscovered scientific rule that links our economic strength inversely to our football team's success. Let's hope that this theory holds firm and we'll be cheering on the boys in green in South Africa next year.


• Less SUVs on the road: One of my many pet hates is the SUV. This hideous fuel guzzling behemoth undoubtedly symbolised the Celtic Tiger preoccupation with overindulgence and waste. A friggin' monster truck with one kid in the back seat driven by a soccer mom never made sense. Hopefully people will now go back to driving proper cars and leave the jeeps to be driven by the few builders and tradesmen who can still find work.


• Haggling is back: During the boom years you were made to feel like a pariah for having the temerity to haggle with a sales person. Well, well, well, how the worm has turned! The shops are begging you to haggle now. That annoying Australian tosser from Harvey Norman is always on the radio pleading with the poor pixie Irish to haggle with his staff. And a car salesman will happily brighten up his impoverished and lonely day by haggling with the rare customer who might consider buying a car. So get haggling people. We have years of profiteering to avenge!


• The curse of the property programme may be lifted: Hopefully we will now see the cancellation of the multitude of nauseating property programmes which have infested our telly boxes for years. We haven't got the money to even dream of moving gaffs so surely Duncan Stewart, Kirstie Allsopp et al. will be banished from our televisions forever!


• The recession might even be good for our society: People generally smoke less, drink less alcohol and exercise more during a recession. With people devoting fewer hours to work they are also more likely to get involved in their communities and spend more time with their families. In the last decade or so obesity levels have soared and a sense of community was becoming a rare characteristic in modern Ireland. If the recession facilitates the emergence of a healthier and more caring society that can only be a good thing.

So there's my attempt at presenting the bright side of our current woes. Let's hope that when the bust turns to boom again we can remember the lessons we have learnt during these troubled times.

The Lyin' King

No I haven't gone soft and taken to blogging about Disney cartoon characters! I'm referring to the biggest liar in the Dáil. The Kildare Street Country Club is full of hypocrites. All 166 of them have lied, misrepresented facts and generally betrayed their constituents and the people of Ireland. But who is the biggest hypocrite of them all? There are a number of contenders:

• The whole government front bench. They're so used to lies and deceit that it has become second nature to them. They preach about saving the economy they wrecked, they oversee the mockery of our democratic rights and generally behave in a fashion that would make Robert Mugabe blush. But they don't win the prize.


• Enda de road Kenny probably believes his own bullshit, but the grand aul gobshite of Irish politics is a mere thunderbird at the helm of a pit of vipers. The likes of the hated IToldYouSo Lee, Hangman Hayes, Count Leo von Varadkar and Lucinda the Teenage Witch Creighton specialise in a unique brand of spite-riddled blueshirt misinformation. Even this shower don't win the prize.


• The Green Sleeveen Party. I have already outlined the undoubted hypocrisy of these tree hugging halfwits. But not even a green sleeveen has the streak of pure evil necessary to be awarded the title of Lyin' King.

Enter Eamon Gilmore Girl. Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!

Eamon Gilmore Girl is the winner of the coveted title of Lyin' King 2009. Deceit, lies, insincerity and misrepresentation are his core competencies.

Gilmore Girl likes to take the moral high ground. He invents tales of "a man he knows who <insert convenient sob story about how people are suffering because Lie-bore aren't in power here>". Gilmore's story always ends in a craw thumping statement which shows that the Lie-bore party is a beacon of morality and justice. He must think we have the collective intelligence of an amoeba. Gilmore Girl is the self styled hero of the working man yet he has never been employed in a proper productive job. He went from being an Official Sinn Féin student activist and USI president to Dublin City Council to Dáil Eireann. He hasn't done an honest days work in his life! A cursory examination of Gilmore Girl's behaviour over the last year shows that both he and his party don't have any policies or principals and that appealing to the lowest common denominator is all they care about.

Gilmore Girl's utterances in the aftermath of the rejection of the evil Lisbon Treaty are a prime example of his Class A hypocrisy.

In this interview with RTE on Six One News on 13/06/08 he decided to back the democratic decision of the people of Ireland:

"I think the Lisbon Treaty is dead. The Lisbon Treaty to be ratified requires 27 Member States to ratify it. The Irish people have now decided in a Referendum that they do not wish to have it ratified therefore Ireland cannot ratify the Lisbon Treaty and therefore the Lisbon Treaty falls"

“I don't think there's any question of this Treaty being put a second time to the people”

By June of this year, in this press release Gilmore Girl had done a complete U-turn (more than likely his commie colleagues in Europe had made a few calls reminding him of the vast rewards that awaited politicians after the people of Europe had been disenfranchised in a post Lisbon system):

"I welcome the reported conclusions of the European Council in Brussels today which I am confident will now enable the Lisbon Treaty to be put to the Irish people and endorsed by them."

"I will now be recommending to the Labour Party that we support and strongly campaign for the ratification of the Treaty at the referendum expected to take place in the autumn."

The Lie-bore party leader's behaviour over the pension levy also demonstrate his sickening lack of respect for our intelligence. This press release typifies Gilmore's two-faced approach.

Gilmore Girl and his politburo think that the pension levy is "unfair in that it places an unacceptable burden on public servants on modest incomes". He speaks of fairness and equity and deplores the unfair treatment of public servants. He mentions nothing about the fact that these same people are virtually unsackable. That they were continually awarded pay rises regardless of performance and that they enjoy pension entitlements that a private sector worker can only dream of. This toad doesn't give a stuff about fairness. He merely wants to look after his cronies in the unions (the same cronies who provide funding to his party)

Gilmore Girl likes to preach one thing and do another when it comes to reforming political culture. The Lie-bore document on reforming political life mentions regulating the practice of political lobbying yet they are inextricably linked with the unions. He bemoans the performance of the community welfare system yet is opposed to the reform which is necessary to save it. He has opposed all attempts to back up our failing banking system yet he would nationalise the banks - funnily enough this would effectively increase the size of the public service payroll and ensure yet more power for his mates in the unions.

Perhaps the biggest act of hypocrisy that Gilmore Girl is guilty of is his desire to enter into government with Fine Gael. He has previously served in coalition government with the blueshirts even though they are probably the party most ideologically opposed to Lie-bore principles. When Fianna Fool are dumped out after the next election Gilmore Girl will again enter into government with the blueshirts. He will abandon many of his supposed socialist beliefs in order to secure a ministerial position (and the bags of cash that go with it).

Eamon Gilmore Girl is a living, breathing, lying political paradox. He claims to be a socialist yet enjoys a salary far above what his beloved proletariat earn. He claims to be on the side of the working man yet favours the over taxation of working people in order to support people who aren't even looking for a job. He claims to favour bringing reform and transparency to our political system yet he will enter into government with a Funny Gael party who are just as corrupt and self-serving as Fianna Fool. You would expect a beacon of socialism such as Gilmore Girl to be elected by unwashed masses in hoods like Tallaght or Ballymun. Ha ha ha ha ha - you couldn't get further from the truth. Gilmore Girl, in true paradoxical fashion, is elected by the south side cappuccino drinking, Mercedes driving, privately schooled yuppies of Dún Laoghaire. Socialist my arse. I bet he wears a blue shirt under his red commie jacket!