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Bertie is in great company

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I stumbled upon this today and while I never thought that my low opinion was supported by anyone else, when people start betting on Bertie Ahern to depart as Taoiseach on/before 31 Dec 07 it makes me chuckle. This places Bertie in the same ‘Good’ company as Robert Mugabe to depart as President of Zimbabwe on/before 31 Dec 07 and George W. Bush to be impeached by House of Representatives before end of his term in office

I makes you wonder what they all have in common…corruption, lies and dishonesty. All the things a good politican needs to get elected.

Bertie’s empty promises

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As usual Damien is highlighting Bertie’s government failings with this
‘I ain’t really with it, I’m gettin’ off at Tara’ story.

What do you expect, Bertie can’t even tell the truth about his own expenses. And you think he would spend any money on people with needs? What, and give it to people who he doesn’t know personally? What would he give to his friends if he spent it on things like, drug prevention, drug rehabilitation, social services for children, children’s rights. That stuff is expensive, and mostly no one will notice if he just lies a bit more.

What gets me is this man got re-elected. What does that say about the electorate?

The past in perspective

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The Taoiseach by stating;


Let us consign arguments about the past to the annals of the past” – Taoiseach

wasn’t just talking about Beverly Flynn and her previous crimes against the state.

After all, an unrepentant murderer could still be a nice person, if you could trust them.

It seems that this must be a personal wish for the Taoiseach’s own past and an underlying belief of the government and the National Archives, when even items in their own card catalogs are missing or lost in the annals of time and there is no desire amongst the staff working there to correct the situation. It’s no wonder that the Canadians have to digitize the Irish Census for them.

Pride and Honor

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Having watched one of my favorite movies, The American President a movie I usually cry over, with a feeling of pride and honor. I realized that at no time in resent memory could I ever express such Pride and Honor over a real politician. With the gross lack of any real Honor, Respect and Pride in our current crop of standing politicians, I crave more, I want to respect my elected leadership, I want them to represent Honor, Humility and Pride in me as a citizen as I would have in them. I hope that my fellow Irish citizens feel that way also, that tomorrow they will go to the polls and vote for the persons they most Respect, not because they are clever, witty or jolly. But because they represent Honor, Respect and Trust, who will do the right thing for us, not just for themselves. To be Strong and Truthful, believing in us as much as we believe in ourselves. Deep in the Irish spirit there is that Honor, and there is that Pride, we can do better, we have earned that right. We are free by our own hand, and we require the respect that brings, and we require that our political leaders represent to the world that pride, and honor we have in ourselves.

A green road to Cork.

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Having driven the Cork to Dublin (or Dublin to Cork road take your pick) more than a few times, I realize that the upcoming Motorway while making the trip faster, it will make it more dangerous, boring and expensive. It will be faster, burn up more gas, and toll payments, wear out my car faster, and cause accidents by drunks, boy racers and road fatigue.

But there is another cost, and this one is a big unknown, Lifestyles of the communities along the old road.

In many ways, the towns along the way make a living from the traffic, but in a more ethereal way the motorway will disconnect each community along the way from each other, and the people traveling past them. It will erode the distributed population, and create a conduit to increased centralization in Dublin.

Having grown up in the Central U.S. I know that the era of the superhighway pretty much destroyed small town america. In a real way the world passed them by, slowly draining away the youth, and futures of small towns. One more nail in the coffin of Ireland that was, one more notch in the handle of globalization.

And you know, I’m going to miss the view.

Dublin, second city of the British Empire

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I was watching a historic program the other day, and was amazed that Dublin was considered the Second City of the British Empire, Second to London! Very interesting, so, in fact the people who pride themselves on being Dubliners are really (secretly) proud to be from the second city of the British Empire 😉 and not really Irish at all :-0

Maybe that is why they continue to believe that corrupt politicians are the norm, and continue to vote for Bertie, better the devil you know, Eh!

Please Vote for me because…

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Please Vote for us because …

Because I did not take bribes (don’t you believe him?)

Because I don’t burn cars, sell drugs, or support crime (don’t you feel safer?)

Because I don’t keep patients waiting on gurneys (just don’t get sick!)

Because I’m not continuing with stealth taxes (I can feel that extra change in my pocket)

Because I won’t shoot my foot off (I’m from stab city)

and

we won’t continue to give away public land to private Hospital developers as the next step in privatizing health-care

we won’t give away more public services like Eircom, and Aerlingus.

we won’t build and give away more public roads and bridges to NTR

we won’t continue to support monopolistic private businesses like VHI,
Eircom ( want to buy some shares?), NTR, etc

And above all, We will restore the Freedom of Information act, and become truly transparent!

Does anyone want to buy a bridge?

How Sinn Féin could win the election.

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If Sinn Féin wanted my vote, they would blowup the Toll booths on all the Irish toll roads. Particularly after NTR boosted the rate for autos to 1.70 Euro just before the Easter Bank weekend. After only 6 months in operation on the M7, this would make a 6% increase, and if that were to happen again, 12% per year. And we don’t live in Rip-off Ireland?

Why would we continue to have Finna Fail spend public funds for roads only to have their friends at NTR reap the profits from the very people who paid for the roads.

Maybe blowup could be a bit strong, but you get my meaning. Maybe a bit of St. Patrick, and drive the snakes out of Ireland.

Bertie’s short memory

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How many years does it take to provide ‘a few more hospital beds’. Today Bertie used that line, while explaining why his government is giving away billions of Euros in Public lands to private hospital developers. His government has been in power for 12 years, and now he is planning to supply a few more hospital beds? What happened to the campaign promises he made 12 years ago.

This is just another way to payoff campaign contributers.

Time, for a change!

The switch from BT to Eircom

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This Friday we were informed we were paying for Eircom Broadband, no modem had arrived, and there was no disruption in service from BT. I was expecting a cutoff of service as Eircom ‘switched’ our service. It was expected as I was expecting them to transfer our ‘port’ from BT to Eircom before they started to charge us for it.

So on a lark, I reset my router to use the Eircom username password, and as easy as you please, the ip address of the router switched, and bingo, we were on Eircom. A quick change of DNS addresses and all was back to normal. Except that the domain was Eircom.

A check of the VPN connection, the primary reason for making the switch, and sure enough, a stable connection. Utilizing the same routers, wires and having made no changes to the router setting, I had a stable and useful VPN connection where BT had claimed it was my equipment.

BT, over the last few weeks, had become increasingly unstable with frequent dropouts, and performance issues. Some of this may not have been their fault, but their inability to repair and maintain, were their fault, and the response of their techies’ was unacceptable.

So now I’m Broadbanding from bigbrotherland, and strangely happy about it.