The good, the bad and the ugly

What's good about the US elections tonight? None of the multi-millionaire big spenders managed to buy themselves political power. The kerrazzee wrestling CEO didn't manage it, nor did the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who exported jobs out of America, nor the eBay CEO.

It seems that the day and hour when you can simply purchase power is not today and not this hour. Not yet. Thank goodness for that. It's a small mercy.

The bad? Stalemate in US politics for the next two years. Looks like a Democratic Senate and a Republican House. But the Republicans are riven between the GOP old guard and the Tea Party, which is itself riven between the likes of Marco Rubio and the likes of Christine 'not a witch' O'Donnell.

The tea partiers want smaller government, but they don't know what to cut except Obama's healthcare programme, his one achievement which he won't give up. The GOP wing, as demonstrated by Bush, are as big spending as the Democrats. And the Democrats have just been viciously pasted.

The ugly? Proposition 19 seems to have been voted down in California. This was the proposal to legalise and tax cannabis in the state. It would have brought billions in revenue to the bankrupt state. And it would have set in process a much-needed wave of legalisation across the world had it passed and been demonstrated to work.

The war on drugs has failed utterly. Cannabis is one of the most benign of psychoactive substances, rated only this week by prominent medical journal The Lancet as much less damaging to individuals or society than alcohol.

America's demand for drugs won't recede just because cannabis remains illegal. People will continue to die by the thousand in Mexico and elsewhere to feed that appetite. And the civil liberty to choose freely a favoured intoxicant has again been denied.

According to exit polls, the vote broken down by age was as follows: 18-29 59%, 30-44 50%, 45-64 44, 65+ 32.

So it was voted down by grannies. Boomers are slightly opposed (what utter hypocrisy) and younger voters (under 45) are in favour. It's inevitable that cannabis will be legalised in California, then America, then the rest of the world, in future years. But during each of those years, criminals will pocket billions and thousands will die as a result of this ludicrous prohibition.

Last of the last

According to this morning's Bangkok Post, Europe is the last region to recover economically from the global financial disasters of the past few years.

While the US is showing the fabled green shoots, and Asia is en route to booming again, sluggardly old Europe is lagging behind with barely perceptible growth, major unemployment and ongoing banking crises.

And of course, Ireland is one of the weakest economies in Europe, which given the stiff competition from other messes like Portugal and Greece is pretty dire indeed.

The moral of the story is that we are last of the last, likely to still be suffering from NAMA hangovers long after the rest of the world economies are back on track.

It must be remembered that this is a direct result of the failures in government; the blatantly corrupt and incompetent Fianna Fail aided and abetted by the dewy-eyed amateurs of the Green Party.

If we don't hold them to account, and their hangers-on (the parish pump gombeen independent TDs, the banksters, the specudevelopers) they'll only do it all over again, as they've continually done so since the birth of the state.

Frankly, only an injection of backbone and hard work is going to sort Ireland out now, even if we do rid ourselves of the Fianna Fail cancer.

Where is that going to come from? Hardly from the boatloads of Nigerian scamsters and Roma beggars we imported like idiots to parasite off our ailing economy.

The only place it can come from is the greater Irish nation itself - the Irish in America who are sick of being patronised and ripped off by us, the Irish in Argentina still wrongfully denied their heritage by the racists in the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Irish in Britain and most of all the nearly 2 million Irish in the North.

We're going to have to throw ourselves properly on their mercy and ask for help. But only after we demonstrate our own intent to roll up the sleeves and do the hard work too.

Otherwise, we're going to be the last of the last for quite some time.

Blarney O'Leprechaun bites de Big Apple

Acccording to the ever-gorgeous Government Press Office, our glorious leader is off to Noo Yawk later this month:

The Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen TD, will undertake his first official trip to the United States next month [sic].

He will visit New York for a series of engagements with key political and business leaders, as well as representatives of the Irish community.

The highlights of the visit are expected to be a visit to the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday July 16th and a keynote address at the Wall Street 50 Dinner on Thursday 17th July.

In his meetings, the Taoiseach is expected to discuss the global economic situation, how to further develop the relationship between Ireland and America and the issue of immigration reform and the undocumented Irish in the US.

So Cowen will continue the ignominious whining and begging of the Irish government to make our illegals in the US legal. So far, so Bertie.

But the man who claims the Celtic Tiger credit is also set to share his wisdom with the gloom-mongers of the NYSE. It will of course not be fascinating to hear what turgid twaddle and covert FDI pleading that Cowen intends to serve up as his main course at the Wall Street dinner.

I just wonder how all of this will go down among the stockbrokers. They're already feeling the pain of the credit crunch. The Chinese are at the gates, their economy is bleeding money on at least two wars, and their reliance on cheap fossil fuel is utterly unsustainable.

Then Blarney O'Leprechaun, who's been boasting about what an economic genius he is based upon the long-gone Celtic Tiger phenomenon, comes along pleading the poor mouth, begging for investment, and asking that America doesn't ship the tens of thousands of Irish hiding out there back to our shores?

I bet it's just what they need to hear right now. It should give them a right good giggle.

State of the union address translated

Why am I up so late? Good question. Blame the damn birds.

Actually, I'm watching Bush's final State of the Union address. (Link to full text.)

This is a depressing experience I wouldn't recommend to all but the hardiest of souls.

So to spare the more delicate among you, let me bring you some relevant excerpts, complete with translations into English:

"In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth. But in the short run, we can all see that growth is slowing."
- Oh. Y'all noticed the recession, huh?

"Members of Congress should know: If any bill raising taxes reaches my desk, I will veto it."
- I need all the money I can get for my exceedingly expensive war and to stave off the worst of the forthcoming economic collapse. So let's keep borrowing!

"Thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our Nation's capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other non-public school. Sadly, these schools are disappearing at an alarming rate in many of America's inner cities. So I will convene a White House summit aimed at strengthening these lifelines of learning."
- Let's teach more kids about intelligent design, everyone. And while we're at it, we can cut funding for state schools.

"The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change. And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more efficient technology."
- Fuck Al Gore. We had to sign that Green crapola in Bali. But in the meantime, at least we've got Iraq to milk dry of its oil.

"Every Member in this chamber knows that spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is growing faster than we can afford. And we all know the painful choices ahead if America stays on this path: massive tax increases, sudden and drastic cuts in benefits, or crippling deficits."
- Fuck the poor and sick too. We can't afford that shit. We're at war remember? Make that wars, actually. So let's axe the handouts.

"We are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the 21st century. The terrorists oppose every principle of humanity and decency that we hold dear. Yet in this war on terror, there is one thing we and our enemies agree on: In the long run, men and women who are free to determine their own destinies will reject terror and refuse to live in tyranny. That is why the terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to people in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Territories. And that is why, for the security of America and the peace of the world, we are spreading the hope of freedom."
- The people of Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine are all terrorists. And we have to fight them, because they're this century's Soviets.

"One of the most important tools we can give them is the ability to monitor terrorist communications. To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning. Last year, the Congress passed legislation to help us do that. Unfortunately, the Congress set the legislation to expire on February 1. This means that if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. The Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted."
- You can't give citizens their privacy and civil liberties back after you've taken them for no reason. So let's keep bugging the people.

America is opposing genocide in Sudan and supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma."
- Only we're doing it really quietly, because none of them have oil we want.

"America is a force for hope in the world because we are a compassionate people, and some of the most compassionate Americans are those who have stepped forward to protect us."
- We express our compassion through military force and imperial occupation, which is why we're so popular all around the world.

That's the state of the union, folks. Teetering on the verge of economic collapse, eradicating secular education, scrapping welfare and health for the poor, fighting Muslims because the country needs an enemy, and bugging their own people.

Nice work, George.

P.S. Here's a beautiful Youtube edit of last year's speech. All you're meant to take away from the entire address in a minute flat.

Print your own money!

Running a bit short for Xmas? Why not print your own money?

Just be sure not to get too stroppy when people who know what proper money looks like, such as, erm, bank tellers, decide not to cash it for you.

Better off going with lower denominations and passing them in Tesco like everyone else, dude.

Oops, I've said too much...

When is torture not torture?

When it's conducted by the American government, of course!

If I kidnapped you and held you against your will, slapped you repeatedly about the head, held you in freezing conditions and plunged your head regularly under water threatening drowning, you wouldn't be best pleased.

In fact, you might well describe such behaviour as torture.

And it would be, as long as I'm not a member of American security forces. If I was, then I could slap you around the head all I want, deprive you of sleep, humiliate you, keep you in freezing cold conditions, and simulate drowning by holding you underwater as much as I liked.

And it would only be 'taking action to protect the American people from further attack.' And I would be a 'highly trained professional interrogator', not the medieval torturer you thought I was.

Glad to have cleared that up for you all.

Welcome to Jamestown

2007 is a real year for anniversaries. One of the most important is that it will be 400 years next month since the settling of Jamestown by English settlers.

Where's Jamestown, you may ask? Good question, as it's not on any contemporary maps anymore. It was the original settlement of the English in what we now call America.

Forget that fake origin myth about the Pilgrim Fathers. The original settlement was at Jamestown, though it didn't last very long.

In December 1606, over 100 settlers from London sailed from London under orders from James 1st (or the 6th, depending on whether you talk to the English or the Scots) to find gold and a westerly route to the trade centres of the Orient.

Yup, like all imperial adventures, it was a moneygrab, nothing more or less.

They settled Jamestown island in Virginia and almost immediately began fighting the actual inhabitants of the land, the Algonquin indians. Nice way to make friends in a new country. But there was no talk of multiculturalism or assimilation in those days.

By 1609, two-thirds of the population had starved to death. But the colony limped along for another ten years, until it was saved by the importation of, you guessed it, black slaves.

In 1622, the highly pissed-off local population took the battle to the colonists and killed 300 of them. King James was so annoyed he took the land into crown ownership.

The site remained of token importance as the location of Virginia's legislature until 1698, when the statehouse burned down. Within fifty years, it was buried below ground, the abortive first foothold of England on North American soil forgotten.

But its legacy obviously remains. Other English came, eradicated the natives and claimed the land. America became white, anglo-saxon and protestant, Wasp in other words.

Built on the back of black slave labour and continual immigration, not to mention genocide of the native inhabitants, the United States has good claim to be one of the least justifiable regimes on earth, from the very point of its origin to today.

On some level, Americans know this. Hence the continual desire of so many to hyphenate their nationality. They're not Americans, they're Irish-Americans, Latino-Americans, African-Americans.

In fact, the United States is so excited about celebrating its abortive birthplace that they've got luminaries like Bruce Hornsby and Chaka Khan to play at the celebratory event! Talk about ancient history!

On the other hand, the Brits are tremendously excited to resurrect memories of a time when they utilised theft and genocide to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the world.

The current occupier of James' throne, good old Betty Saxe-Coburg Gotha, will be making a rare trip to the site of Jamestown next month not to commemorate the atrocities commited by the English at the site, but to 'celebrate' them.

What's to celebrate? English imperialism? Indigenous genocide? England doesn't lose habits easily. They're still involved in both activities today, in locations as diverse as Ireland and Iraq.

As Bruce Hornsby might sing, 'Some things will never change.'

Who said Americans were stupid?

Aussie broadcasters reveal the true extent of the average American's idiocy and lack of knowledge of the world.

Q. Which countries are in the axis of evil?
A. California, New York, Florida, Mississippi...

Watch and weep!

Man down

And the first casualty of the Republican Party's dismal performance in the US elections appears to be Donald Rumsfeld.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

Now, will someone please charge him with war crimes and ship him to The Hague to make my joy complete?

This sudden move seems to imply that George Junior reckons it is Iraq that has seen the House and probably the Senate too fall to the Democrats.

Which just shows he really is as thick as people say, since it's clearly the falling house prices, spiralling budget deficit and rising unemployment. In other words, it's still the economy, stupid.