Is the Indo systemically anti-Muslim?

Certainly, some Muslims seem to think so.

As far as I'm aware, there have been at least two complaints to the Press Council and Ombudsman from Irish based Muslims about articles that appeared in the Irish Independent.

One was a somewhat inflammatory piece by commentator Kevin Myers, whose flights of fancy I've previously examined here.

The other complaint apparently relates to Ian O'Doherty (airbrushed above), whose otherwise interesting and light-hearted column I-Spy is regularly marred by his blinkered defence of all things Neo-Con or Israeli, and his blanket demonising of Islam.

After yet another crack about Shariah law in Ireland from Ian, a large number of Irish Muslims finally had enough and collectively wrote a letter to the editor, which was published in today's edition.

What I found intriguing, though, is that the grammar of the letter was sporadically abysmal. Not consistently so, just sporadically so, almost as if errors had been deliberately inserted to make the writers look stupid.

What errors JC, I hear you ask with my now well-known superpower of being able to hear your thoughts over the interweb?

Errors like: "Let us start with Saudi Arabia as an example quote by himcountry in the world named after a family..."

Or "We would also like to point out to yourMuslims were unmatched in the advances in the fields of mathematics..."

Or "It is similar to what the British didthe IRA was bombing Britain."

Now, some of the signatories included at least two consultant surgeons, not to mention other doctors, as well as 'students, shopkeepers and housewives.'

Either we are to believe that they took it in turns writing a line each, which might explain why a letter that is otherwise coherent and eloquent could include a series of incomprehensible grammar clangers.

Or we could assume that the Indo butchered the letter for their own impenetrable reasons.

I wonder which it is? Could the Indo be so systematically anti-Muslim as to deliberately make a community of Muslims out to be illiterate?

The American presidential election digested

From the inimitable Fred Reed comes the most succinct summary of the choice America faces in the forthcoming months about which leader to choose:

We’ve got Obama, an empty suit with a good line of patter and a past few write about, and McCain, a pugnacious senile temper tantrum who can’t remember whether Al Qaeda is Sunni or Shiite.
Not too promising.
That leaves Clitler, a strange visitor from another planet probably and crooked as kite string in a ceiling fan, but neither stupid, ignorant, nor crazy.

Needless to say, he's a Hilary supporter by default. Though given he resides in Mexico, she's unlikely to benefit from his vote.

He's pretty good on current and former presidents too:

Bill Clinton was said to be the first black president. W is the first kinky president, which is a whole new approach to democracy.
All sorts of countries torture people, because intelligence agencies naturally attract cowboys, assassins, incorrigible juveniles, and sadists.
But W’s S&M operation in Gitmo is a first. Whipseys and Cheneys. It’s because he’s a Christian. Poor Jesus.
His followers act like the Marquis de Sade—torturing, burning old women at the stake, turning water into water boards. I’d love to know what movies you might find on hard drives at the White House.

There you have it - the five minute lesson in US presidents past, present and future. Perhaps they should lure Fred back across the Rio Grande and stick him in the White House. Not that he'd do it, of course. He knows Washington too well:

Washington is a curious city, separated from most of the rest of the United States by a gaping cultural chasm. It is probably the nation’s best educated town, and it is certainly a place where people know the score.
The population consists of politicians, reporters, beltway bandits attached to Uncle Sucker’s well-worn mammaries, wonks from policy shops, or outfits supplying all of them with one thing or another.
In a country that doesn’t, they travel.
It doesn’t make them better people than others. It means that they know it’s all a game, a matter of whose rice bowl gets filled by what contract and who gets re-elected how.
Things are dirty and rigged and one either hides things from the public or misrepresents them to gull the rubes. This of course is no secret. It doesn’t have to be. It works anyway.

But if Fred was, somehow, to assume the reins of power, he does have a plan, a single idea to put an end to the war in Iraq. I like his plan. It's neat, and it just might work:

I will strap the mothers of the graduating class of Harvard to the front bumpers of Humvees in Baghdad, and see how long support for the war lasts.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Political leaders and mental illness

What is it about political leaders and secret mental illnesses?

I don't mean, why do they keep them secret. That's fairly obvious from a self-preservation point of view. But how come so many political leaders have them, and why aren't we the people informed?

People have made a big deal about John McCain's health in the US Presidential race. His ticker may not be the best, or some such.

Frankly, I'd be much more interested to know if he's secretly nuts or not. I think his state of mental health is way more important.

Let's look at the latest politico to out themselves as a loon: John Prescott, formerly number two in the UK, has now owned up to being a bulimic.

That's got to be one of the strangest admissions yet. He has my sympathy for his condition, but equally, I'm a bit annoyed as to why he didn't mention this BEFORE seeking to run the country for a decade.

He's not the first nutter to conceal their mentalism until after they'd left office either. It's now patently obvious that both parties to the famous Eighties 'special relationship' between Britain and the US were actually suffering from dementia.

Both Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were subsequently diagnosed with degenerative dementia symptoms - Alzheimers in Ronnie's case, general demented mentalism in Maggie's.

These symptoms are progressively degenerative - that's medicalese for saying they don't happen overnight. They develop over a long time. In other words, both Maggie and Ronnie were nuts while in power. Explain a lot in retrospect, doesn't it?

I'm beginning to get concerned over who will be the next to reveal a psychiatric condition.

Will Bertie Ahern admit to compulsive kleptomania?
Will Ian Paisley own up to listening to scary voices in his head?
Will Mary Harney explain her constant hallucination that she is part of a national political party?

It's not good enough, and the public deserve better than a hand-wringing revelation long after the politico has left power.

I think all people elected to public office should have to undergo a full medical, including a psychological assessment, reviewed annually.

They're running the country, for goodness' sake. We have a right to know if they're secret loonies or not.

So what's this Lisbon Treaty thing about?

This just in from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious: Most Irish people haven't a clue what this Lisbon treaty malarkey is about.

Why is that, do you think? Might it have something to do with the fact that the document is so difficult and complex to summarise that everyone just gave up trying to explain it?

That seemed to be EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso's position this week when he visited Cork and deigned to take a few questions from a hand-picked selection of langers.

But it's not that complex: here's a nice, simple (pro-EU) summary of what the treaty will do, from Auntie Beeb.

Then again, it might be because the Lisbon Treaty is just the failed EU Constitution rehashed. That constitution failed because the good people of France and Holland rejected it in referenda.

So this time around, the EU mandarins have made two clever changes: firstly, they're not calling it a constitution, and secondly they're not allowing any referenda.

So basically, whatever the people of Europe might think or want, their governments are not permitting them to decide for themselves. Unfortunately for the EU mandarins, that doesn't fly in Ireland. Our national constitution DEMANDS that a referendum has to be held.

So what will Lisbon bring if we vote for it? Well, some of the scary NO people would have you think it will bring in abortion on demand, bio-chips in your babies, an EU army with a draft during wartimes, and all sorts of other nasties.

That's not strictly true. But what IS in the treaty is scary enough without people having to make shit up.

• There'll be an EU parliament that can overrule the Dail.
• There'll be an EU army, albeit without a compulsory draft (for now.)
• There'll be an EU government in the shape of a beefed-up EU Commission.
• There'll be an EU Foreign Minister implementing foreign policy on a Europe-wide basis, overruling national foreign policies.
• There'll be a Europe-wide justice system, in the shape of a beefed-up European Courts of Justice.

In short, if Lisbon succeeds, you will cease to be a citizen of Ireland in any meaningful legal sense, compared to how you will be a citizen of Europe.

Lisbon is a charter for a federal Europe. But to admit that would be to see it defeated, so the mandarins have been terrifically careful to avoid the F-word.

Of course Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour all like Lisbon. It's a charter that creates new levels of politics and power and bureaucracy.

But it's not something that's good for the people of Ireland or the people of Europe.

Why else do you think that diplomats and civil servants were seeking to delay bad news from Europe until after the referendum?

Why do they believe you will vote whatever way Irish politicians tell you to, and why do they think the treaty is 'largely incomprehensible' to the lay person?

The answer lies here, in the embarrassing email the British Embassy in Dublin sent to London after a secret meeting with Irish civil servants about the Lisbon Treaty.

Basically, it's a con that they're inflicting on us, because they think we're stupid and easily led and because they think we won't read the damn thing. I hope we prove them wrong on all of their arrogant counts.

Unfortunately, it's up to us and us alone to pull the EU back from the brink of a Federal Europe and all that entails.

So vote sensibly. Vote against the Lisbon Treaty if you believe in national sovereignty, if you believe in democracy in Europe and if you believe in Ireland.

Vote NO to Lisbon.

Dads have fewer rights than lesbian lovers

Irish fathers be warned.

According to a court ruling yesterday, the one third of you who are not married to the mothers of your children have fewer rights than a lesbian in a relationship with your child's mother.

In a preposterous ruling that has massive implications for 30% of Irish fathers, Mr 'Justice' John Hedigan ruled yesterday that a family of two women and a child was no less of a family than an unmarried man and woman with a child.

And then he ruled against permitting the father of a child guardianship of his own flesh and blood, because of the poisonous relationship between the father and the two lesbians.

Let's just tease this one out, because the implications are rather profound.

In Ireland, if you are not married, and you father a child, you have no de facto rights. You are obliged to seek those rights of guardianship, access and custody via the family law courts, which are held in camera, meaning that what is said in those courtrooms cannot be repeated, either in libel cases or in other formats like the media.

In other words, you could go to court to gain access to your child, only to be called for example a paedophile or a drug addict with no basis in reality, and be denied a relationship with your child.

And now, thanks to the most recent ruling yesterday, you can be denied a relationship with your child because the mother has shacked up with another woman and they don't want you involved!

This story will inevitably be spun as some sort of victory for equal rights for gay couples. It isn't. It's a defeat for fathers.

It's the story of a father denied a relationship with his son, a child he fathered, made up of half of his genes, because of the caprice of a lesbian couple and the blind stupidity of the Irish family law system, which favours everything and everyone over father's rights.

And it's the story of a little boy denied a relationship with his male parent because his mother is vindictive and because courts are shit-scared of doing anything that could remotely be spun as homophobic.

Conclusion: It's alright to deny human rights to people as long as they are children or fathers in Ireland.

Is Michael O'Leary the biggest cause of misery on Earth?

I know it's a hard call.

After all, malaria kills up to three million people and infects over 500 million every year.

Fundamentalist religious beliefs not only cause repression among those who espouse them, but also lead to the oppression, usually by violence, of those who don't.

But of all the evils incomprehensibly permitted by God to ravage this poor planet, is there any greater cause of human misery than that rip-roaring cunt Michael O'Leary?

We are informed by experts that experiencing misery is an essential part of truly comprehending happiness in life.

But surely there is absolutely no excuse, no lesson to be learned, no mitigating factor in the unremitting evil that is Michael O'Leary and his army of hellspawn?

By now you may have gathered that I broke a vow I made to myself, the promise that NEVER EVER AGAIN would I subject myself to the Auschwitz conditions of a Ryanair flight.

I had to get to Cork and back. There really weren't many options. Driving and the train would take too long. Aer Arann, who also ply the route, were asking for a truly silly amount of money.

So I made the mistake of booking a flight with Ryanscare. (You know, a fright with every flight.)

Firstly, the flight down to Cork was largely uneventful. It nearly arrived on time (and of course, an annoying tannoy message erroneously informed us that it had done when we landed.) That lulled me into a false sense of security.

The next day on the return leg, things were different. Despite checking in online already, the scum wanted another 4 euro of my money to check in. What???

Then to add to my confusion, and their blatant thievery, they demanded that I pay 18 euro more to check in my hand luggage.

"No thanks," I said. "It's my hand luggage."

They insisted it was too big, or the wrong shape, or too fragile or some such bullshit to be allowed in the cabin.

I informed them that it had been perfectly permitted by the same alleged airline on the way TO Cork, only a day previously. Nothing had been added or taken away from the bag in the meantime.

But they insisted, like the jobsworth cretins they are. And what can one do, in Cork airport at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, as a queue of other harrassed people grows behind you and starts mumbling, only give in to Ryanair's preposterous larceny?

"You can write to Ryanair's head office and complain," suggested a Servisair monkey who was insisting that it wasn't her fault that she was demanding my money for no good reason.

Yeah. I've tried that before. They don't answer. You have to take the scumbags to court to make them take your complaint seriously. And then they really try to treat you like shit on O'Leary's leather loafers.

Don't believe me? Remind yourself how they treated THIS poor woman.

I'm not going to write. Instead, I'm going to ignore O'Leary, and address myself instead to the hundreds of grunts and minions who man his evil empire.

Dear Ryanair Staff:

Are you proud of what you do and who you work for? Are your parents proud?

Is harrassing the public something you aspire to achieve in life? Is there truly nothing else you could do to make a living?

Just because your name badge says Servisair doesn't mean that you're not a Ryanair employee.

Just because O'Leary's memo told you to treat the public like lepers does not mean you are obliged to.

Just because it says in your contract that you should, at every possible opportunity, attempt to steal money from the public to line O'Leary's capacious pockets with, is not reason in itself to do so.

Have some fucking self-respect. Do something useful with your life instead.

Become a student, even. Sign on if you must.

Try prostitution or drug dealing.

Torture Zimbabwean democrats for Robert Mugabe if the inkling grabs you. Suppress Tibetan freedom protesters with Chinese special forces if you're so inclined.

Whatever you do, it's bound to be more useful to society, create less misery on this Earth, than working for that butt-munching goblin O'Leary and his Empire of Evil.

You can give it up. And if you start, others will follow. Eventually, the whole thing will collapse.

It can be done. Start now. Resign your Ryanair job, or your proxy Ryanair job with Servisair and their equivalents, and begin to live a decent life.

You know you want to.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Ryanair's staff are some of the ugliest people on Earth?

I remember when the vocation of airline hostess was one almost entirely populated by amazing, gentle, kind, generous women with model good looks. That's still the case with proper airlines like SAS and Singapore Airlines.

But Ryanair seem to do their recruiting down dark alleys late at night, in the rougher parts of town.

Seriously, some of those trolley dollies make the Manchester United first team look attractive. I guess it's all part of O'Leary's masterplan to add misery at every turn.

JC Skinner's guide to quitting smoking

1. Pick a day to quit, preferably within a week.

2. Two minutes before midnight the day before you quit, smoke your last cigarette.

3. Throw out all the rest of your cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters and matches.

4. Don't smoke any more cigarettes, ever.

Simple, really. I don't know why I didn't do it a long time ago. Now you know how it's done, it's your turn next. Don't give the feckers in Phillip Morris and Reynolds your hard-earned cash and your health.

What finally gave me the courage to quit the addiction was watching an old Michael Moore TV show from the Nineties, where he took a bunch of laryngectomy patients to Reynolds' HQ to serenade the board members of that firm with Christmas carols. All the singers had voiceboxes, and all had smoked Camels cigarettes, made by Reynolds.

If you're still not motivated, why not have a look at this. It's the very segment I'm referring to.

The longer episode that was broadcast was even better. The company's directors came down the stairs and it was evident from their pearly whites and barrel chests, not to mention tailored suits, that they enjoyed a fantastic quality of life at the literal expense of the lives of their customers.

If tobacco firm directors aren't smokers, wtf am I doing feeding their profits at the cost of premature death? WTF are you doing still smoking?

So I quit. In 50 years time, people will look back incredulously and wonder how it took so long to ban such a blatantly and irredeemably negative product.

That's got nothing to do with Nazis, health or otherwise. Even guns and nukes have a peacekeeping purpose. Heroin is a useful painkiller. But tobacco has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Let's ban it entirely and consign it to history.

Bertie the martyr's STILL laughing at us

If you were to listen to some of the hagiography being spouted about Ahern at the moment, you'd think he was a cross between Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.

The blessed one, betrayed and cast out unfairly by those he selflessly served for so long. But still beatific in his sacrifice.

In other words, us sentimental Irish are getting carried away again, and are spouting a load of cobblers about a man who, let us not forget, was described by the ultimate Fianna Fail crook Charles Haughey as 'the most cunning and devious of them all.'

By his actions let him be known, I say. Thumbs up for the Northern peace process. Thumbs down for lying to the nation, via Brian Dobson, about his shady finances.

And a middle finger for bringing another liar, Beverly Cooper Flynn, back into the Fianna Fail fold as his latest act.

Hopefully Cowen, who kicked her out of Fianna Fail in the first place, will have enough sense to keep her at a long arm's length.

If Fianna Fail are ever to turn a corner away from the taint of corruption, which is about as much as they can hope to achieve by sacrificing their electoral trump card Bertie, then they need to keep venal Bev as far away from power as possible.

Previously: They're laughing at us now.

Mugabe: the endgame

It's the endgame for Mugabe.

He may have been asleep at the wheel for years, ruling Zimbabwe via syphilitic spite and paranoid oppression as it collapsed into a downward spiral of economic and social disaster.

But no one's prepared to tell him to leave just yet.

Strange to think that this year, these few weeks actually, will have accounted for the passing of Ian Paisley, Bertie Ahern and Robert Mugabe. Historians will have fun making sense of that list in years to come.

At this point, of course, Mugabe, the great survivor, has outlasted the Irishmen. While the Western media, briefed by the MDC, are announcing that Zanu-PF have lost the parliamentary elections and Mugabe the presidency, it's worth looking at what the Zimbabwean media are saying.

They're saying it's a hung parliament and that the presidency will require a re-run, as neither candidate surpassed 50% of the vote.

Of course the Herald is a government-run mouthpiece for Zanu. We know this. But that's why it is informative at this time when we're being informed of MDC victory by breathless foreign correspondents who are actually in Johannesburg and nowhere near the ground.

It's very likely what the MDC are saying is correct. It's most probable they did win both elections. It's certainly likely that Zanu sought to rig the results.

But if Zanu had really rigged the results, as they have done in the past, we wouldn't still be at this political impasse in Zimbabwe.

So what is really happening on the ground? What can we understand by this long, drawn out count, by these gnomic reports of ties from the government media?

Simply this: Zanu wants power-sharing in government, and none of them have the balls to tell Mugabe he's lost. They want a second ballot to confirm it categorically, but only after they have obtained concessions from Tsvangirai.

What concessions? The ones he has already offered. No witch hunts. No prosecutions. National unity.

And if they don't get them? Well, there's always force of arms.

But there is not the appetite for a civil war on any side. The country is too beleaguered, too ravaged by hyperinflation, unemployment, the collapse of the farming and tourism industries, by the madman's stubbornness.

Once he's gone, things can get better. Zanu are happy to dispense with him in order to have a say in restoring this beautiful land to something like its former prosperity.

It's just that no one yet has the balls to tell him he's got to go.

Previously: Everyone waits for the madman to die

Bye Bye Bertie

The most cunning, most devious of them all is gone.

From the steps of the government buildings plinth he fell on his sword, his lip all a-quiver with pent-up tears.

Well, Bertie was always one for the dramatic touch. Whether it was the yellow suit in the company of world leaders or the famous anorak as he stood in the floodwaters of Drumcondra, Bertie always knew how to hold a crowd.

Unlike Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds, Bertie is the first Fianna Fail leader in living memory to go at a time of his own choosing.

Of course, perhaps it is more a time of The Mahon Tribunal's choosing.

Either way, the reign of the Bert ends on the 6th of May, following his address at the Houses of Congress in the US and, strangely, the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister.

And later, there is Taoiseach's questions in the Dail, when the invisible man Enda Kenny had planned to draw blood. That flush is busted for Fine Gael now, a small consolation for Bertie today.

Bertie was flanked by nearly all of his cabinet. Looking very out of place, John Gormley stood behind Bertie as he barely mentioned the Green Party in the lengthy list of shout-outs he gave to all who had ever supported him.

Whereas Mary Harney, who Bertie described as a 'good friend', had the sense not to appear on the plinth.

Cowen looked bored, looking over Bertie's shoulder at his speech as if trying to see how long Bertie was going to talk for. Behind him, stood Brian Lenihan, who in Bertie's absence may well be elevated to Minister of Finance when Cowen becomes Taoiseach.

Bertie said that his resignation had nothing to do with recent events. That's not the first untruth he's told in recent times. But it is one, perhaps, that he can be forgiven for.

There's no harm in letting the man leave with his dignity intact. But I still look forward to his appearing before the Tribunal to explain the hundreds of thousands of punts that washed through his bank account.

There is a sea-change in Irish politics. Bertie, whose sins compared to those of Haughey are venal, has had to resign, and those in Irish politics who are much more corrupt, much filthier than Bertie should now quake in their gucci loafers.

The clean-up has begun.

The Politics.ie conspiracy theory

It is strange how politics in Ireland functions sometimes.

While the Taoiseach's position hangs in the balance, with opposition TDs calling for him to quit and coalition partners demanding he make a statement, and while he is soon to face difficult questions about his evidence to a Tribunal of Inquiry, his legal firm instead are spending their time pursuing an online politics discussion board over a potential libel.

Obviously, in times like these, such an unusual set of events can provoke imaginative flights of fancy in the more excitable of politicos. Inevitably, therefore, a conspiracy theory has grown up around the events affecting Politics.ie the past few days.

Here's a little chronology of events in order for you to understand the context of the conspiracy theory. And following, there is the conspiracy theory. The first is factual, the second - I would like to stress - is fictional, though no doubt it is believed as fact in some quarters.

In order to highlight the difference, I have put the latter into italics. But first, let us go over the chronology of actual events:

A few weeks ago, the popular political discussion website Politics.ie was hacked into. The accounts of some Young Fine Gael members were accessed by the hackers, who proceeded to post on the website under their guise.
The opinions expressed were certainly not opinions those individuals would espouse. One of the Fine Gael members was able to prove categorically that they could not physically have accessed the website when posts were made under their name.
It became evident that the site administrator's own account had been hacked into, giving the hacker access to the passwords and email addresses of anyone registered with the site. Fortunately, as soon as this came to David Cochrane's attention, he took the site down for almost two weeks as he sought to make the accounts and the site more secure.

A few days ago, following revelations at the Mahon Tribunal, a poster who had only posted eight times in total and not at all since last Summer, opened a topic on the site entitled 'Grainne Carruth.'
Ms Carruth is the former secretary of An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who recently gave testimony to the Mahon Tribunal that appears to contradict evidence previously given by An Taoiseach.
In the opening post of that topic, this poster made an allegedly libellous suggestion about Frank Ward and Co. solicitors, who represent An Taoiseach at the Mahon Tribunal.

This post was noticed by a prominent Fianna Fail poster on the site, who immediately suggested it could lead to a libel action. Others posted on the topic, but none mentioned Frank Ward and Co., nor did they make any suggestions of impropriety about them.
However, after the other posters, including myself, had concluded, someone changed the title of the topic to 'Grainne Carruth and Frank Ward'. As only moderators or those who commence topics are capable of changing topic titles, it is reasonable to assume that this title change was committed by the original poster, the same person who had made the allegedly libellous comment.
Overnight, Liam Guidera of Frank Ward and Co. contacted David Cochrane to demand the removal of the alleged libel. The tos and fros of that particular interaction can be examined here.
In short, he demanded the removal of the libel, an apology and the identities of six posters on the topic in question, including my own. I have made my response to that demand in my post below.

Mr Guidera told Mr Cochrane that his attention had been drawn to the alleged libel by Sean Dorgan, who is the General Secretary of Fianna Fail. Given that the alleged libel did not involve any Fianna Fail members nor indeed the party itself, it remains unanswered as to why the General Secretary of Fianna Fail would take it upon himself to scour the internet for potential libels of legal firms and then draw their attention to any he believed he had found.

In an attempt to maintain the forum of free speech and political debate that has become the hallmark of Politics.ie, Mr Cochrane has taken the brave step of moving the site to servers located outside of the country. This may have the effect of frustrating future legal action. Then again, it may not. Mr Cochrane has indicated, in the comments on the post below, that he intends to fight against this attempt to silence Politics.ie.

Today, the mainstream media have noted the affair (subscription required), but given its legal nature, have shied away from describing the full nature of the case, as I am doing here.

That is the story so far.

But I promised you a conspiracy theory, so let me pass it onto you. Here's how it goes:

It has been suggested by some people on Politics.ie that, because of
David Cochrane's involvement with the lobby group Libertas, which is campaigning against the Lisbon Treaty, he has become unpopular with some people in some mainstream political parties, all of whom with the exception of Sinn Fein are campaigning in favour of Lisbon.
It has been suggested that the recent attempt to hack the site in order to discredit Fine Gael posters may not have been a simple prank by a bored hacker, but potentially something more serious, more targeted, more organised.
It has been mooted that the hackers were seeking access to the database of passwords and email addresses in order to identify certain posters, and in order to make fake and discrediting comments under the guise of others, such as had happened to the Young Fine Gael posters.
It has further been suggested, even in the comments on my post below, that a 'false flag' poster could possibly have gone onto Politics.ie with the express intention of creating a libel, which was then coincidentally spotted almost immediately by a prominent Fianna Fail-supporting poster on the site.
Then the General Secretary of Fianna Fail somehow becomes aware of this alleged libel of a legal firm, who happen to represent the leader of Fianna Fail, and brings it to their attention. They immediately initiate action against Mr Cochrane and Politics.ie.
In addition to the poster alleged to have committed the libel, the firm also demands the identities of others who posted on the topic, but NOT the Fianna Fail supporter who identified the post as potentially libellous.
Instead, they seek the identities of individuals who did not refer to the firm at all in any form, but who are in general noted critics of Fianna Fail.
In short, according to this conspiracy theory, Fianna Fail, or someone acting on their behalf, would have successfully hacked into a website to discredit Fine Gael supporters and obtain the email addresses of posters who were anti-Fianna Fail.
Then, according to this conspiracy theory, the party manipulated a libel on the same site, knowing that David Cochrane as publisher would be legally liable, in order to silence the site and to damage him and the anti-Lisbon campaign.
And here endeth the conspiracy theory as I understand it.

It seems to me that some politicos have very feverish imaginations, not to mention a large degree of paranoia. Such a conspiracy theory could clearly not be remotely true. It is clearly preposterous to suggest that either Fianna Fail or Frank Ward and Co. would ever be involved in such an outlandish set of events.

Rather, Fianna Fail's General Secretary was simply doing a good turn when he passed on details of this potential libel to the legal firm, and they, as is entirely their right, sought to defend their good name.

Of course, in order to dispel this sort of nonsense, it would be helpful if Sean Dorgan explained the circumstances surrounding how he came across the alleged libel in the first place, and why he chose to take it upon himself to pass on the information to Frank Ward and Co.

Until he chooses to clarify those details, I suspect that this conspiracy theory may continue to have currency among the more gullible and suggestible in political circles.

It just goes to show what strange times we are in when such a conspiracy theory about the largest political party in the country can arise so quickly. What could they have possibly done in the past to make such an outlandish story plausible to people?

Ahern's solicitors try to silence online debate

This is really quite concerning for free speech in Ireland and on the internet as a whole.

Frank Ward and Co., the solicitors representing An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Mahon Tribunal, have sent a letter to popular discussion website Politics.ie, threatening legal action.

Their threat, which can be examined here, alleges defamation and libel in relation to a thread on Politics.ie about Grainne Carruth.

Ahern's solicitors have demanded that David Cochrane, who operates the site, provide the real life identities of six individuals who contributed to that particular debate.

I am one of those individuals.

I categorically state that I libelled no one. I also am of the opinion that at least four of the others whose identities are sought also libelled no one.

My contribution to the debate referred to by An Taoiseach's lawyers was to pose questions about Irish legal history to another poster, who despite answering my questions and being one of the most prominent posters on the offending debate, is NOT one of the people Ward and Co. wish to unveil.

In that context therefore, I can only assume that the legal firm have chosen to stifle all debate rather than merely seek to address an alleged libel.

I am also of the opinion that any potential libel can be simply removed in an online debate upon request, as opposed to libels in print which are impossible to retract.

I am therefore stunned that the solicitors representing An Taoiseach have chosen instead to threaten legal action against a popular politics discussion website, and against named internet identities.

David Cochrane has stated that he was told the person who drew this debate to the attention of Frank Ward and Co. was Sean Dorgan, the General Secretary of Fianna Fail. I have no idea if that is the case or not.

I would also like to identify some other facts of interest in Irish current affairs:

David Cochrane is a prominent member of lobby group Libertas, which is running a strident and successful campaign against the Lisbon Treaty.

Fianna Fail are campaigning in favour of that treaty.

This week, the leaders of two parties in the governing coalition of this country called upon An Taoiseach to make a statement clarifying the apparent contradiction of his evidence to the Mahon Tribunal with the evidence of Grainne Carruth.

This weekend, people are debating all of these facts in pubs, in restaurants, around the family dinner table, and yes, online too.

I do not suggest any connection between these facts, causal or otherwise, nor do I suggest any connection between these facts and the threat of legal action against David Cochrane and Politics.ie.

I do suggest that it is wrong to seek to silence freedom of speech and vibrant political debate online in this country, however.

The Mouth of Hell

John Bradley's pics of the mouth of Hell have been surfacing in various spots around the interweb recently.

But I thought it would be only fair to credit him for his work. His site is here, and you should go visit. He takes great pics.

These, however, are something else again.

Today is the day when we're all supposed to turn off our lights for an hour to stop global warming, or somesuch tokenistic nonsense.

Why is it tokenistic? Because in the desert of Turkmenistan in Central Asia, the mouth of Hell is burning:


Yes, that is an open crater in the ground, on fire. This is located not far from Darvaza in Turkmenistan. The backstory is that in the Fifties, Soviet miners drilled into this cavity while looking for natural gas or oil.

None of them wanted to go in and explore in case there was poisonous gas present. So instead, they decided to burn out any poisonous gas first. The fire has been continuous for decades.

See the two dots at the crater's edge below? They're people.


This shot might give a better perspective on how big this is. Factor in the size of the crater and the length of time it has been burning, and imagine how much gas has been wasted here. Then consider the carbon spewed into the atmosphere. Still turning off your lights for an hour?


Inside the crater, which apparently attracts curious insects and animals from miles around, you can get a better sense of why the locals call this crater the mouth of Hell.


Of all the many environmental tragedies in the former Soviet Union, I'd have to rank Chernobyl top, followed by the Aral Sea.

But for sheer, visual, gut-wrenching wrongness, it is hard to top the mouth of Hell.

Feminism V Multiculturalism

In a deathmatch, which would win?

Only kidding.

Here's a question that's concerned me for some time, though.

Given that 65-70% of rape on white women in Scandinavia are committed by Muslim men, who make up around 5% of the population ...

And given that a majority of all rape of white women in America is by ethnic minorities, who in total make up only 32% of the population ...

(especially black men, who commit one third of the rapes, despite making up only 12% of the population) ...

... is feminism, or at least the privileged white Western feminism that's primarily concerned with white Western womens' interests, on a collision course with multiculturalism?

Obviously not. But why not?

Feminism in the West generally shows precious little concern for the really important issues globally. Women go without the vote, go without being allowed out of the family home, go without being allowed to drive a car, go without all sorts of basic rights in all sorts of countries around the globe.

But these things affect black and brown women, not white Western women.

You wouldn't know they affected anyone if you listened to most Western feminists. Once you get past the 'all men are rapists' nonsense, you're generally left with handwringing about being fat, or shrill demands for more taxpayer funded childcare. White western women's interests.

But the colour factor in rape is one issue that they don't ever acknowledge. Because there is a simple, though unpalatable fact at the heart of it.

If white Western women could take one simple precaution to protect themselves from rape, it would be to avoid the company of ethnic minority men, especially Muslims and Black men.

If feminism really cared about the needs of white Western women, maybe this should be on the agenda somewhere.

The multicultural experiment is predicated on the assumption that when cultures mingle, everyone benefits. These concerning statistics indicate, that at least in terms of sexual predation, white women are not benefiting from multiculturalism.

When liberalisms clash, it's never pretty. That's why it never happens. That's why it gets brushed under the carpet.

I bet you never heard a feminist refer to the colour or ethnicity of rapists. And I bet you never heard a multicultural theorist acknowledge the problem of rape by ethnic minorities either.

Now, I don't know why ethnic minorities are raping white women so much. It may be that, as disenfranchised people, some seek a semblance of power through sexual predation. But that's just a theory I heard. I simply don't know why it happens.

However, it's not because ethnic minorities are more sexually violent by nature, because they're not. Perhaps some feminist could examine this and come up with a better theory? Perhaps some multicultural theorist could research it and find some conclusions that could help reverse this appalling trend?

I won't hold my breath.

Fitna

There are fears of a major, violent reaction to the release on the internet of the short film, below, by bouffant blond Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders.

Nevertheless, it is always wrong to bow to threats of violence.

Therefore, with the aim of supporting freedom of speech, I am reproducing 'Fitna' below.

It's short, and it seeks to examine the influence of Quranic verses on contemporary Islamic terrorism.

In that way, it is simplistic. It is also provocative. But like Richard Dawkins, I believe that religions are not exempt from criticism, nor are religious faiths or teachings immune to critical appraisal.

This is what Wilders has sought to do. For that he can be commended, debated or condemned.

But it is wrong for anyone to be physically harmed or threatened because he has sought to do this, and I hope that does not arise.

I have loved every Arab nation I ever visited. I have spent contemplative time in many mosques. I have no less respect for Islam than any other religion, ie I have none for any of them.

I do feel that the grip of fundamentalist Islam on some people is the single worst aspect of Arab states, never mind places like Iran, Bangladesh, the 'stans.

Muslims need to accept, as increasingly Judaism and Christianity have done, that their religion is not impervious or immune to criticism.

If Muslims can respond to Geert Winders differently to how they responded to the Danish cartoonists and Salman Rushdie, by debating rather than destroying, that would be progress towards alleviating Western fears of Islam.

By their silence, their nonchalance, their refusal to be provoked by Winders, they can prove themselves better human beings.

I give you 'Fitna'.

Death by a thousand cuts

History will not record that Louth Fianna Fail councillor Tommy Murphy dealt Bertie the first cut.

Nor will history record that Progressive Democrat senator and leader candidate Fiona O'Malley dealt Bertie that first cut.

Despite the belated scramble by the abject Green Party leader, Minister for Environment John Gormley to slide a knife into Ahern, history will not record that he dealt the Taoiseach the first blow.

No, the first of the thousand cuts that kill Bertie's Taoiseachship came from Minister for Health, Mary Harney.

Let me be clear. I do not like Mary Harney or her policies in the Department of Health. She has presided, literally, over a repudiation of responsibility that verges on criminal and has undoubtedly contributed to circumstances in the Irish health service which have cost people their lives.

But I will acknowledge that she has integrity. She left Fianna Fail because of its endemic corruption and has remained outside since. Many will query whether that made a big difference, since she so cleverly positioned her tiny party in such a place that it propped up successive Fianna Fail governments.

I would suggest it made a difference to her. Fianna Fail used her as a mudguard in regard to the health service. She knows this, and knew it when Bertie re-appointed her to the position recently.

There are easier jobs she could do, no doubt. Especially following the decimation of her party last year, and her having the leadership foisted upon her after McDowell had so rudely demanded she relinquish it.

But her integrity ensured that she remained at her post. More's the pity, I would say. There are few other health ministers who would have pursued the privatisation of our health service with such blinkered vision and such disastrous results.

But just as her integrity can have negative consequences, so it can occasionally be positive for the nation also.

Such as today.

Her conscience jogged by Fiona O'Malley, Harney finally spoke out, finally removed the knife from the belt and slammed it into the back of Bertie.

Apres ca, le deluge.

Let the bloodletting begin.

And so it begins

Yes, people. The peace dividend has arrived.

450 public sector jobs to go in the Housing Executive. That's nearly five hundred people sacked from only one state agency.

How many do you think will be sacked overall, once this wave of 'rationalisation' is complete?

See, what people never realised was that there was in reality a civil war dividend in Northern Ireland.

The stipend from the UK to the province was estimated conservatively at £6 billion. It didn't all go on security. It also went on the most bloated civil service in the Western world.

That's coming to an end. For sure, in order to bribe everyone to stay inside Stormont, there will be a few hand-outs from London, Dublin, even from America and the EU.

But in the long run, this is the future. The over-reliance on state and semi-state sector jobs is a thing of the past.

Expect much weeping and gnashing of teeth across the six counties as people are weaned off the teat of cushy state jobs for life.

It's not going to be pretty.

You know you're a global joke

... when even Uganda is laughing at you.

Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, whose career as Libyan dictator has been punctuated by a series of eye-watering gaffes, has done it again.

This, let us recall, is the lad who attempted to set up a united Africa under his own leadership not once but repeatedly. The lad whose London embassy staff thought it was a smart idea to take potshots at female cops. The lad who trained the world's terrorists and gave them weaponry.

You'd think, after the assassination of his daughter by American bombs, that he'd work out to keep his head down in future. After all, even his fellow Arab neighbours can no longer stand him or his ego.

But no. On a recent visit to Uganda, he called the Bible a forgery because it didn't mention Muhammed.

Presumably it hadn't dawned on him that the lack of a mention for the Islamic prophet may have something to do with the Bible being written centuries before Muhammed was born.

Now even the Ugandans are laughing at him. How low can a dictator go?

Dead man's hand

I may have mentioned in the past that gambling is a mug's game.

Well, it is.

The Irish Poker Open is currently entering it's final day, with six punters left at the final table. The winner will walk away with 800,000 euro for a weekend's work. No one currently at that table will leave without a six figure cheque.

Nice. Makes you think, maybe I'm a mug, slogging my bollocks off every week for the pittance I get. Maybe I should try this poker malarkey. After all, it's only a game of cards. They're randomly dealt. You win if you get the good cards, right?

Wrong. People like Doyle Brunson don't keep winning the World Series of Poker for nothing. Poker is an evil game, where the person with the best hand can lose by being intimidated out of the betting. Where people with crap hands can win large amounts of money.

Never forget the old maxim, if you haven't worked out who the patsy is at a poker table within five minutes of sitting down, it's you.

I forgot that last week, when I went down to Citywest to play in a satellite tournament that would have qualified me to enter into the main event had I won it.

I was rusty, but in fairness, I used to play quite a bit. I sat down at the table with more than a few kids. How much poker could they feasibly have played, I wondered. I began to get optimistic.

I was cleaned out in just over an hour. It was almost embarrassing. With the advent of online poker, there are people out there playing six hands at a time for 12 hours a day. It's almost impossible for the normal person to accrue that amount of experience.

See, for a lot of these youngsters, poker's become their day job. No doubt, for an awful lot more, it's become a quick and easy way to burn through money.

Well, I enjoyed my day trip to Vegas-in-Kildare, but I won't be haunting a card table again for a while. From here on in, I'll watch from the sidelines. I guess I don't have the stamina or the bank balance to play poker for 12 hours daily.

You're probably the same.

But you, like me, can find out who the lucky sod who wins the 800 gees is by checking the live blog here. Whoever it is, good luck to them. They'll have earned the money.

They're right to riot in Finglas

I think so, on balance.

Are they making a shite of their own neighbourhood? Yes.

Is the violence largely conducted by kids buzzing on cheap alcohol? Of course.

Is street violence going to solve the problems facing their community? No chance.

So why do I think they're right to riot in Finglas? Because I don't see what other option they have.

I remember rioting as a kid. That was in Belfast, during the Troubles. We went out to throw rocks and molotovs at the RUC.

There were political justifications, of course. The hunger strikes. The oppression. The fact that we were second class citizens in our own land.

But primarily, we rioted because we had no amenities, and nothing else to do, and were fed up of a system that rubbed our nose in the shit all the time, a system that treated us like animals. If we were going to be accused of being animals, we felt, we could show them what animals could do.

Revisionists, or at least Republicans, would have you believe that our rioting was civil unrest, an uprising, a liberation movement. Perhaps it was all of those things.

But what the rioting in Belfast decades ago, and the rioting in Lhasa last week, and the riots in Finglas in recent days have in common is that the people who live there are objecting to a system that grinds them into the dirt the only way they can, the futile method of tilting at authority figures.

Finglas is a terribly deprived area. It is ridden with gangsterism and drug abuse. Anti-social behaviour thrives because the Gardai give it a wide berth. Schools are poorly funded and bulging at the seams with kids. Even those kids who want to better themselves have the odds heavily stacked against them.

Even if they obtain the necessary schooling to improve their lot, they will then suffer the postcode bigotry of employers who automatically consign job applications from D11 to the bin.

Less than 4% of students at Trinity College come from working class backgrounds these days. The kids of Finglas know that the Celtic Tiger dream marketed at them in the media does not apply to them and never will. Social mobility has never been so static in Ireland. The rich get richer and the poor get their bus routes cancelled.

Local politicians don't bother with places like Finglas because there are no votes there. And in a circular movement, the people of places like Finglas don't bother to vote because no one in authority ever listens to their concerns.

So where can the people of Finglas take their concerns? Eventually, anger bubbles over, the sole amenity of cheap alcohol and drugs kicks in, and the concerns get expressed on the streets.

I did the same myself and feel no shame over it. Two decades on, the oppression I suffered as a youth has been alleviated and addressed. The voice of my community is now heard in government.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that Bill Clinton and Tony Blair won't be taking a special personal interest in Finglas. I suspect the rioters of Finglas will be painted as boozed-up animals rather than people crying out for liberation from deprivation. I hope they get the same result I did, but I fear they will not.

And if they continue to be ignored, then eventually there will be more riots, and riots with increasing severity and regularity. Eventually people will die, local people and Gardai.

They aren't animals. They don't love squalor. They want better lives that are being denied them. The government should listen. Because they're right to riot in Finglas until they do.