Ganley just won’t shut up
Jesus, what does it take to get this guy to shut up? Resoundingly rejected by the electorate during the European elections, still under a cloud about the mysterious funding for that campaign and the first Lisbon vote, the guy lives and works in America, so what the fuck does he want coming to Ireland and spouting off about democracy?
First Interview
His first interview on the second Lisbon vote, the very very first interview, before anyone else, before he even announced coming back, was to the Wall Street Journal. What does that tell us, people?
That Ganley’s only concern is business in the United States! And what’s good for US business? A weak and divided Europe, of course.
The Treaty in plain English
Just today, Ganley is again spouting any ould rubbish to scare people, banging on about a consolidated tax base.
That RUBBISH, people. The French and Germans have been trying that for years and years, and the Brits and Irish are always shooting it down. The EU does not, and will never have, any say in how the Irish goverment taxes it’s people and industries. Never.
Why?
Because the Irish corporate rate of 12% is hugely lower than the big EU countries, and that’s why all those American firms came here to set up – Intel, Google, EBay, Yahoo, etc. etc. etc.
LOW TAXES
If you ask someone who’s voting “No”, why, they’ll say “Oh, abortion..” or “Tax!” or “Defense”. But the Lisbon treaty doesn’t affect any of those issues at all. 100% BS. Rubbish. Lies. Misleading. Crap. The Lisbon treaty says that on the issues that concern the EU
- we’re changing how we vote
- in the future, we can change again without having to pass new treaties
It doesn’t give the EU new powers over ANYTHING that the EU doesn’t already have power in.
That means
- Tax policy – no change
- Health policy – no change
- Defense policy – no change.
So what does he want?
Ganley wants a No vote because America doesn’t want a unified EU foreign policy. Doesn’t want a unified EU trade position. Doesn’t want a unified EU anything! Furthermore, Ireland outside the core EU will be more reliant on the US. We’ll need their investment more than ever. Good trade deals. Even less tax. More incentives.
Of course the US-based Ganley (with $7m contracts to the Pentagon) wants a No vote. It’ll be good for HIM.
But an absolute fucking disaster for the rest of us.
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Dodgy Developers Disposing of Assets
The Minister of Finance, Brian Lenihan, has been spouting for ages that NAMA will pursue developers to the full extent of the law and their personal guarentees. People would be losing houses left, right and centre.
Of course, it’s not going to be anything like that at all. While you or me, if we owe money and can’t pay it back, will lose our homes, cars, posessions and anything else the bank can sell, people with good solicitors and money to pay for barristers won’t lose a fucking penny.
First of all, Lenihan has already provided an out for developers – the government can’t take a developers family home, even if it has been offered as security, if the wife didn’t “consent” to it. Note the verb. Not “Didn’t KNOW about it”. Didn’t “consent” to it. And as well all know, consent is a funny thing. You can do something without having ‘consented’ to it. Take statutory rape as a good example. A young person cannot consent to sex.
So now the door is open to good barristers;
“Your Honour, Mrs. X did sign that document, but she did so under pressure from her husband…”
“Your Honour, Mrs. X did not have independent legal advice and could not have consented…”
“Your Honour, Mrs. X will testify that she did not read the document and was assured by her husband…”
So on and so forth.
And really clever people will already have transferred all the assets they can to other parties. The Irish Indo have just published that Liam Carroll has transferred both his houses to his wife’s name way back in March. A transparent attempt to avoid personal responsability for his crazy deals, yes. Dodgy as fuck, yes. Legal? You bet your ass.
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What I’m reading… Undaunted Courage
What I’m reading is;
Another book by Stephen Ambrose, author of “Band of Brothers”. This one’s about the expedition by Lewis and Clarke across the continental United States in 1803. Difficult to get into but getting more interesting now that I’m into the actual expedition part.
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Anti-Lisbon ideas!
Just back from an interview in Dublin, so I had some time to think on the bus. I came up with some pretty good ideas for the No Campaign against the Lisbon treaty. I reckon that, seeing as how they’re all such awe-inspiring arguments, they need a common slogan to tie them all together. I’m going for;
Then there’d be “I’m with Stupid” above said yokel, and the obligatory “Vote NO for Lisbon” underneath.
I think it’s a bloody great idea.
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What I’m reading right now – Gomorrah
Good book. Well worth getting for a read. Much more immediate than Dickie’s work on the mafia, but less scholarly and polished. Dickie is the Irish Times, and Saviano is the Indo. If the Irish Times did investigative journalism, that is. Which it doesn’t.
Gomorrah
Anyway – Saviano really spins out a good line, and I’ll have to read this in the Italian because apparently there’s a lot lost in the translation.
Dreams from my Father
I’ve just finished this book and one major thought jumps out at me… dude, where’s the ambition???
I mean, seriously, one doesn’t become POTUS by accident. Especially if you’re black. I mean, seriously.
Dreams from my father
The book is a great read by the way, but it comes across sometimes as a road-map to political power, especially when read together with “The Audacity of Hope”. The whole “community organiser” thing – I didn’t even know what the hell that was until I read this book. And seeing that a lot of “The Audacity of Hope” was about how clueless Obama was about fund-raising – dude, where did the budget for all your organising come from? Manna from they sky? Or were you laying it on a bit thick in the second book, playing the ‘awe-shucks’ country-boy routine? It’s clear from “Dreams from my father” that Obama was already a slick political player in Chicago, and that was before the shark-infested waters of Harvard law school.
The bit about the trip to Africa seemed bolted on to the rest of the book, really, more about establishing his black bone-fides than it was about exploring more who Barack Obama is, was, or might be. I mean, being president of the Harvard Law Review might lead people to be doubtful about the man (the other famous black lawyer is Clarence Thomas – one of the trio of extremely-right-wing justices on the Supreme Court!). Best get those African roots in the book then.
Still, a decent book and well recommended for anyone who wants to know a bit about Barack, although one could skip “Dream of my father” and go straight to “The Audacity of Hope” for a better look at where his politics are.
Go out and buy it now.
After de Mendes – Ian Tomlinson
Awful enough that no-one has been held responsible for the death of Jean Charles de Mendes (remember, that guy shot in the head 8 times in Stockton tube station due to a catalogue of screw-ups?), now we have an ordinary bloke getting floored by physced up cops and dying. What the fuck???
It’s clear that Tomlinson is not a happy man in this encounter. It’s clear that he’s pissed about something. He’s surly. He’s not exactly co-operative. He’s not walking away at the pace that the police want him to walk at. Witnesses have alleged that there was another encounter shortly before that film was taken when he was again pushed to the ground.
But he is WALKING AWAY. He has his back turned to the police. He has his hands IN HIS POCKET.
He was not a threat. He was not resisting arrest. He was no disobeying police orders.
What the hell is that cop doing knocking him to the ground? I don’t normally use bad language in my blog – but what the FUCK!?!?!
That’s assault, is what that is. Pure, outright, vicious, assault. And all the other cops standing around, sworn to uphold the law. What do they do? Nothing. They look the other way.
Then the usual Met bullshit PR gets trotted out. Our officers weren’t involved. Protesters pelted us when we tried to help. Terrible incident.
The same BS they trotted out after they shot de Mendes – an innocent man – in the fucking head. “Directly related to terrorism” etc. etc. even when they absolutely knew that he was nothing of the sort. Dirty the name. Introduce doubt. Blur the lines.
The officer that assaulted Tomlinson crossed the line. One giant fucking step across the line. He should be put on leave straight away and put through disciplinary proceedings. The police inspectorate have already fucked up. They were too quick to close the case, hand it off to the police to investigate. With all the CCTV cameras in London, you would have thought that they’d check one or two to see what happened. Now, it must complete the investigation asap and publish the report without delay. The other officers should also be put through disciplinary proceedings for their part. The whole fucking Met should be put through retraining.
They’re supposed to be there to protect citizens – not assault and kill them.
Seriously, he was just a bloke making his way home. Just like you, and just like me.
Ian Tomlinson – RIP.
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The Thin Blue Line
I saw this photo on Flickr and I just had this news headline flash through my head;
Leinster House, April 7 2009 – Uniformed Police picket outside the Irish parliament building. The government today confirmed that civil servants are expected to pay a little more for their defined benefits pensions, receive less overtime and, most controversially, pay for their own Gimp outfits.
The high-visiblity belts, however, will continue to be supplied from Central Stores.
IMAGE REMOVED AS REQUESTED.
Johnny Cash – Hurt
My friend Filippo posted on Facebook the video of “Hurt”, the Johnny Cash version. What a great video. My dad was a big Johnny Cash fan, and I remember listening to him when I was a little kid. Of course, we broke all the records over the years, vinyl being so brittle. Eventually Johnny Cash was no more in the Cassidy household, and stayed like that a long time.
I remember then, sometime in 2001/2002, hearing the “Personal Jesus” cover that Cash did for American IV (The Man Comes Around) on the car radio. I wasn’t impressed – let’s blame the car radio instead of me 🙂 I thought – man, what an awful song – what the hell happened to him?
I dunno when I heard another song from his Rick Rubin-produced albums, but something grabbed my attention. I went out and bought American Recordings, the 1994 album. Hey, I was only 10 years late to the Cash revival 🙂 I think maybe it was my interest in blues guitars, and in American Recordings it was just Cash and his guitar. Maybe it was “Thirteen” that struck me.
Anyway, I loved that album, and went straight out and got all the other ‘American Recording’ albums. Some songs I loved, some not so much.
Anyway, Hurt blew ’em all away. He took a song about heroin and turned it into a song about life. Johnny Cash had the experiences to sing this song with conviction and weight. He knew all about the down side of life, he’d been there and he’d come through. All the fame he had, all the things he had, were transitory. He’s won and lost more times, he’d been down and got back up. At least, at the end, he was on a high, and not one of the too many lows.
For anyone interested in Johnny Cash, if you have to get one album, I recommend Folsom Blues. Cash at his darndest crowd-playing entertainer best.
RIP Johnny Cash.
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Sean\'s Sicily 