Is the Irish government trying to collapse itself?

// July 17th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

There is a widespread presumption aboard in the media that the Green’s get together over the weekend on the review of the program for government is merely an exercise in being seen by the membership to at least be going through the motions. And that getting the An Bord Snip Nua report out early is just a new effort at convincing the public that the government has nothing to hide and that the way forward for Lisbon will be cleared of too much speculation.

But what if it’s not?

What if the government is deliberately trying to engineer a situation whereby they collapse in the face of the decisions they face resulting in the need of an election once the Dail were to resume in September and timed to coincide with the Lisbon Treaty vote?

FF once there was a general election underway would probably see their support sneak back around the 30% mark which would be a recoverable position. The Greens while their % would be down nationally might be able to rally support to least some of their seating TDs. Sure people will say that FF would be looking at losing 1 in 4 TDs but just as the parliamentary party has no great personal loyalty to Brian Cowen so too has he no loyalty to the parliamentary party. His interest would be above and beyond all else the wider FF family. And that could be best served in his view by a spell in opposition while avoiding harsh measures that will make the 80s look like the 90s.

This would leave FF with almost a full Dail term to regroup and recover while FG and Labour would have had to take very, very painful decisions faced with an opposition lead by, my guess, Dermot Ahern which would have the default position of the Irish electorate to rely on in arguing that any and all harsh measures were the fault of the current government not a preceding one.

Is this likely? Not so much. But is it just possible? You betcha!

Doesn’t it look like a face?

// July 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

That story in the press about the tree that looks like Our Lady, (isn’t that an odd thing to write down, Our Lady, or Mother of God! JC’s mom doesn’t quite cut it), is a bit of a throw back. Anyway it put me in mind of a piece in Father Ted where Tom (Pat Shortt) reassures Ted about a wound he had. Scene below

Tom: Ah sure, I’ve had worse. Look at this *turns around and drops pants*. Can you believe me own dog did that to me?
Reporter: Er, yes that’s quite . .
Tom: Doesn’t it look like a face?

Torchwood – Children of Earth

// July 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Back around 92/93, while travelling in a van I heard an author interviewed on FEN (Far East Network – for US forces in Japan and the surrounding bases). He was being interviewed about a collection of short stories the name of which I did get and his name I didn’t get. I wasn’t in control of the radio sadly.

One story he spoke about involved aliens coming to earth and asking to take all the black people away in exchange for something, peace, technology, a threat to kill us all, I don’t recall. And how the people of the world including the US held a vote and decided that yep they could all go. The aliens never say why they wanted the black people, for good or ill. And the story was meant to be primarily about how the underlying desire in the US for the race problem to just go away.

I’m not sure if Russell T. Davies read that story or was inspired by it for this season of Torchwood but I have to say it’s bloody good television all the same.

Seanad Reform – 30 years of hurt*

// July 6th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

The Seanad is in many ways the software testing and verification function of the legislature while the Dail is the software development side of the operation (though most of the coders in the Dail get their work from 3rd party vendors and check it into source control as their own work).

Anyway as is my wony I’ve had another go at kicking over the traces on the matter of getting some sort of progress on Seanad Reform. I suspect that John Gormley isn’t necessary enthused about this (seriously how could it compare to saving the world) but his intentions are decent enough.

As you have have seen, or not as the weekend weather had its nice points, I’ve called out (or claimed as some folks might term it) the Leader of the Seanad as to why he’s blocking even the most minimal reform of the Seanad by means of old fashioned procedural stalling and foot dragging.

I would view a letter to the Irish Times as being the political equivalent of standing outside his house, bare chested roaring “Com’on den”. Will Donie respond, one wonders or will he try to make it to the summer recess and an escape to the wild pastures of the midlands?

*yeah right enough it’s a bit over the top to call it hurt. It is darned annoying though.