Odds and Ends.

The response of some public servants to the scrapping of the 30 mins cheque cashing time is quite revealing. What it shows is that there is a large section of the public sector who are not actually being selfish or mean, but genuinely believe that surreal anomalies like this are normal. They constantly harp back to the statement “we didn’t wreck the banking system, so why should we suffer”. They are, of course, correct. But they also need to recognise that the large gap between public spending and tax revenues is as a result of the intervention of their union representatives, alongside a reckless Fianna Fail/PD government that ceded the spending to them. Also, the relative safety of their jobs has to be given some monetary value, because that is the sort of feature that people in the private sector would happily pay BIK on.

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Just saw the last episode of the TV show “Monk”, which I thought wrapped up the show and the characters very nicely. The show is about a brilliant but flawed detective who suffers from extreme OCD after his wife’s murder. I’ve always liked the show for its gentle humour, engaging characters and mystery storylines, and it acts as an antidote to the gorey realism of “Criminal Minds” or “CSI”. Sometimes you just want to be entertained for an hour, something “Monk” never failed to do. Will no doubt become another addition to my wing of the National Obscure DVDs Library.

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The strong performance of the True Finns party in the Finnish general election isn’t an easily dismissable anomaly. All across Europe, from Wilders in the Netherlands to Marine Le Pen in France to the Swedish Democrats or the Danish People’s Party, f**k-the-EU nationalism is on the rise, and connecting with voters of both the right and left who would never traditionally give such parties a second look. The really frightening aspect is that EU leaders, by refusing to appoint a charismatic President of the EU to make the case for integration, are leaving an open goal. If we don’t act soon, watch as one-by-one the European Council is replaced by nationalist eurosceptics until it’s too late

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Excellent piece by Dan O’Brien here about why Irish government has failed so many of the tasks of running a 21st century country, including the definitive summary: “The most localised and least cosmopolitan political class in western Europe has run the region’s most globalised economy into the ground”. Always strikes me that we have a bizarre means of measuring successful leaders in Ireland. It’s like saying “How do we pick good brain surgeons? Well, first of all we see if they can get us a good parking spot near the hospital.” 

5 thoughts on “Odds and Ends.

  1. How very dirigiste to post under Odds&Ends your predictable take on the rise of the TrueFinns.

    I’ts a pity you missed the opp (so I’m giving it to you gratis) to point out the comparisons between the EU and Ceti Alpha V. As any SciFiTrekkster no, Ceti Alpha V is the planet, which ,through an ingenious plot device, becomes exposed to the ‘Genesis Device’, a missile which is used in terraforming,making it inhabitable in a very short period. The problem being that as it whips an inhabitable ecosystem up in double quick time, shortcuts were taken and the planet disintegrates in double quick time. The EU is the Genesis Device to the physical continent of Europe. We’re seeing an artificially constructed economy fall apart at the seams, it ain’t going to be pretty.

    If you listen to the EU mandarins & assorted useful idiots, the nation state is dead. France obviously doesn’t think so, in its spat (oddly missed by the MSM) with Italy. Nor do the pipple of Finland. The parties who have had the country sewn up for so many years don’t seem to like it one bit, but then that is the default setting of the Europoliterati, the electorate’s job is to vote them in, keep quiet and be thankful for anything they are lucky enough to get. Looks like the Finns have had enough of this, and if their wishes are not listened to this time round, well, the main EU poodle parties are just delaying the inevitable.

    No doubt the tax payer & EU funded BBC and media outlets will decry them as fascists and nationalists, following the example that Uncle Joe set out, invoking tales of the bogeyman, without realising that the vision they promote of a 21st Century Europe is far, far scarier than anything UKIP or True Finns could ever be or do. The further east you go, the fresher the memories are. We’ve seen a good portion of the public of Iceland look at their recent referendum on whether they should allow themselves to be mugged by the UK and the Netherlands with one eye on their application to join the EU, and – whisper it quietly- the Croats are re-evaluating their position on joining as well. (A double plus good)

    The political continent is starting to tear itself apart. The apparatchiks can stamp their feet as much as they like, but we are in the end game of an historical tipping point. Whether it is Cromwell, that bird with her tits out storming the Bastille, or the Winter Palace, the stringing up of Mussolini or the overthrow of Ceau?escu, once that tipping point is reached, you can do nowt about it. It is true to say that what replaces that which went before may not be better, and may even be worse, but that is the danger with revolutions, it does not invalidate the lack of credibility of the regime which came before. And boy, does that regime lack credibility…..

    Contd page 94

    Kind regards

  2. Pingback: Ministers don’t focus on their core executive duties « PuckstownLane's Blog

  3. Actually, I was a big fan of “The Shield” and am enjoying “Sons of Anarchy”. “Monk” is a different type of show. “Murder, She Wrote” takes on a whole different form if you watch it like “Dexter”, assuming that she is the murderer and is framing people. Obviously, you’ll need a bottle of Scotch as well.

    And I like “Columbo” too.

  4. ‘the gorey realism of ”Criminal Minds” or “CSI’

    Jaysus, hope no one ever sits you down in front of the Wire, The Shield, Homicide, Hill Street Blues etc etc.

    Monk is for grannies who like Murder, She Wrote.

  5. My own heavily worked up expression is that we pick politicians like someone picking plumbers on the basis of their knowledge of 19th century romantic poetry.

    And you’re correct about the rise of parties that are Euro Averse under the guise of being Euro Sceptic. There is nothing wrong with being questioning or sceptical, but that is not the approach of many of these parties.

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