QuoteAgree with all that REVIP - US is living on the never-never on so many levels.Originally Posted by REVIP
Some nights I sleep for a while, nod off and then wake up again. That accounts for the strange posting times.
Happy New Year amigo
Fintan O'Toole and Tony Kinsella's book 'Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule the World' is a great encouragement for anyone who gets depressed by the Bush regime.
What happens in the US has reprecussions for the entire planet in so many areas - if the US keeps alienating everybody on the planet, then it's cooking it's own goose in the long run. Anyway, China and Saudi Arabia owns so much of it in terms of loans, investments etc that the US is constrained in many ways.
I could go on and on about this......
I was a bit sceptical about their analysis - and then saw what happened in New Orleans where the most powerful nation on earth couldn't even get its own people out of a flooded city.
The US Government is in hock up to their eyeballs and if the Chinese decided to stop buying US bonds there would be nothing to back the dollar causing a collapse in the value of the currency and a rapid slide into economic recession and then depression.
PS Sir Hamish, did you sleep at all last night? You have postings around 4 and then again at 7!!
Agree with all that REVIP - US is living on the never-never on so many levels.
Some nights I sleep for a while, nod off and then wake up again. That accounts for the strange posting times.
Happy New Year amigo
"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."*
This explains SO much...
Unbelievable isn't it Snoop Drog???
You'd imagine anyone wallowing in (even false) piety and sanctity would claim to testify to the beauty of the world and all its wonders as a gift from the very God he worships. To state that it's OK not to protect his God's wonders surely is a form of blasphemy. You'd think they might be afraid when their rapture happens that their stewardship of "God's green earth" would be in the frame.
A perfect definition of bog-ignorance, false pride, arrogance and idiocy if ever there was one.
Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable and a perfect picture of the pond-life that infests so much of redneck America.
You know what, Jerry Springer did us a sort of service when his show exposed that underbelly of US life - even if he did it for commercial reasons/ratings. His sudience and participants are not stereotypes really - they do exist and many have moved from the trailer park to the pulpit and Washington.
I'm surprised you didn't find a few quotes on there from Foot.ie's resident Muslim-hating Lord of Intolerance Condex...
Unreal !!
Even more ... unreal !!
But hey ... at least they are free !!
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
There is some hope. There are a load of Rethuglicans facing the slammer soon - Scooter Libby, Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff is taking a plea bargain and will soon name loads of names, Karl Rove, even Cheney's not out of the woods plus Cunningham Frist and many others.
Also, when the Shi-ite militia start really getting stuck in in Iraq and the Kurds start ethnically cleansing Kirkuk, then the whole Iraq fiasco will really go belly up.
Watch the sh!t flying then when you add all the above up.
missed it at the time, but here it is, from unison.ieAnyone read the front headline in yesterday's Indo about Chomsky's comment about Bertie.......dead right he is. Even more sickening was the editorial of this right-wing rag grovelling to the government and the US trying to minimise the damage.
And here's FF HQ's, I mean the editorial response... (again from unison.ie)Ahern is accused of being Bush's puppet
Taoiseach 'shining the shoes' of US President, says leading academic
Brian Dowling
and Lorna Reid
THE Government reacted angrily last night after a leading US academic compared Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to a "shoe-shine boy" for President George Bush.
In a scathing attack on the Government's foreign policy, the influential anti-war academic Noam Chomsky accused Mr Ahern of "shining the shoes" of the US President by allowing US warplanes to use Shannon airport.
Speaking in advance of a lecture in Trinity College, Dublin next month, Professor Chomsky depicted the Government as little more than grovelling to US demands.
The 77-year-old - who is the eighth most quoted author in the world - asked whether Mr Ahern was following the will of the Irish people or following orders from Washington.
A long-time critic of US foreign policy, Professor Chomsky said the Taoiseach's actions in allowing Shannon to be used for the refuelling of US military aircraft could only be justified "if the goal of the Irish Government was to be the obedient servant of the global superpower". "This tells you that western politicians despise democracy and prefer to shine the shoes of the power," he said.
But a spokesman for the Government said the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern categorically rejected the allegations made by Professor Chomsky.
"They are satisfied that Ireland's position regarding the use of Shannon is fully compliant with domestic requirements and our international obligations.
"Arrangements for overflight and landing in Ireland of US military and civilian aircraft have been in place under successive governments for almost 50 years."
The spokesman said the Government's position had been approved by the Dail on March 20, 2003 and was wholly in accordance with US Security Council resolutions on the situation in Iraq, including that of November 8, 2005.
The broadside from Professor Chomsky came ahead of his visit to Ireland where he will deliver the Amnesty International annual lecture at Trinity College on January 18.
The controversial academic, who has been aligned to left wing politics for over 60 years, has been dubbed "the Elvis of Academia" by U2 lead singer Bono.
A spokesman for Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte reiterated the party's opposition to the decision to allow US warplanes to refuel at Shannon.
"We have consistently opposed the use of Shannon for US military flights and its use for CIA flights too," the spokesman said.
The party's foreign affairs spokesman and veteran international campaigner, Michael D Higgins, said Professor Chomsky's remarks only served to prove that the Taoiseach had "danced around the media" on the whole issue of the use of Shannon.
"The Taoiseach has accepted the simple assurances from diplomats about rendition, but the argument is, if we have friendly relations with the US then what has America got to fear from inspections of their aircraft, if they are telling the truth," Mr Higgins said.
Last week the Irish Human Rights Commission said the Government must inspect US planes landing at Shannon to ensure terror suspects were not being transported to alleged torture camps elsewhere.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=13465ONE does not usually pay too much attention to the views of Prof. Noam Chomsky. But the issue of Iraq deserves to be debated.
Not because the veteran American anti-war campaigner is always wrong, but because his views are so predictable that they are bound to be wrong a lot of the time, and can be guessed in advance anyway.
Leaving aside the typical Chomsky insulting language towards the Taoiseach, on the question of Irish government policy towards US military flights, the professor is wrong once again.
Even so, there are problems, especially over CIA covert flights, which the Taoiseach and the Government must address more openly.
The professor and his many Irish supporters are wrong in saying that Ireland should ban all US military landings at Shannon - or even those taking troops to and from Iraq.
To do so would be to say that we are completely opposed to US operations in Iraq and will do our best to hamper those operations - in this case by halting a facility which has been available for decades.
Such total opposition to the presence of American, British, Polish and other troops in Iraq is not the policy of the Irish Government.
Nor should it be.
For a start, the Government has a duty to weigh the implications of what would be a blatantly hostile act against the USA.
Ministers do not have the luxury of those armchair diplomats and generals who shout for such actions from the sidelines and do not have to worry about the consequences.
But there is a more principled reason as well.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Iraq invasion may have been, it would be an even bigger catastrophe for the people of Iraq if the Americans were to cut and run now.
The duty of other governments is not to give them excuses to do so, but to encourage better US policies to build a stable Iraq where the sort of horrors uncovered yesterday no longer occur.
The allegations that Shannon may be hosting flights which bring suspects for abusive interrogation, even torture, are another matter.
All EU governments must tell the US - preferably through the EU - that they will not tolerate such practices, intend finding out if they are taking place, and putting a stop to them on their territories if they are.Keep 'Anvil' striking
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
I think that says it all about the FF policy.For a start, the Government has a duty to weigh the implications of what would be a blatantly hostile act against the USA.
I fail to see how denying military planes landing rights in our supposedly neutral country can be seen as hostile.
The simple fact however is that similar to the UK not enough people really care about his to change their vote in National elections. I may be wrong but i;m guessing Shgannon residents happy that planes landing as bring cash into the locality but if there was a terrorist attack would probably chnage their opinions quickly.
If you remember how they reacted to the French when they didnt support them then I feel it would be viewed in the US as a hostile action and would be picked up on by the media over there. A lot of US companies providing a lot of jobs in Ireland and in the "with us or against us" atmosphere of the moment I dont think it would be a great move to stop shannon refueling.
American companies will stay whilst it's in their business interests to stay, which will be as long as there are tax breaks.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Exactly. Corporations only get involved in politics when it can increase their profits. US companies based here would have no desire to get involved in war talk.
I am not suggesting that US companies would up sticks on mass but I think the US government wouldnt be averse to applying whatever pressure they feel is needed to keep the shannon stopover if it was important to them. By the way is it that importantto them? Is there nowhere else they can refuel?
You could paint any country to be a nation of idiots by such selective quotes. The George Bush quote about God telling him to invade Iraq etc has long since been established as a mis-quote.
In saying that, I am no fan of Bush at all, or the US foreign policy under this regime, and I feel that most of that talk from such senior politicians etc is trying to find spiritual justification for their actions which can not be justified legally.
You wouldn't even have to be that selective with our esteemed leaders.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Imagine if you did though, the results would be unreal i'd say !!You wouldn't even have to be that selective with our esteemed leaders.
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
The government's stance on Shannon is utterly reprehensible and shameful.
I wish FF/PD govt would just **** off to Iraq and leave us all in peace..
Now that would be a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
No it isn't, their stance on Shannon is appropriate unless we are to bite off our nose to spite our face.
No it hasn't
Press Releases
God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers
Category: News
Date: 06.10.2005
Printable version
President George W Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals.
In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"
Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."
The series charts the attempts to bring peace to the Middle East, from President Bill Clinton's peace talks in 1999/2000 to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last August.
Norma Percy, series producer of The 50 Years War (1998) returns, with producers Mark Anderson and Dan Edge, to tell the inside story of another seven years of crisis.
Presidents and Prime Ministers, their generals and ministers tell what happened behind closed doors as peace talks failed and the intifada exploded.
Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace - Mondays 10, 17 and 24 October, from 9.00 to 10.00pm on BBC TWO.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pre.../06/bush.shtml
Dead right Partizan - nothing to do with cutting off noses either That Guy.
US firms give a toss about one thing - profit. Even Bush supporting firms are "outsourcing" from the USA to countries where the wages are tiny.
The very week Bertie Aherne visited Mexico, Beeslow lost its last big US firm to...........Mexico...it opened there the week he visited. Why? Square D paid to each Mexican worker per month what they paid per week in Beeslow.
LOL As regards the PDs in Iraq - more like weapons of mass boredom.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks