Jump to content

Brian Cowan - Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) resigns


Recommended Posts

all right then let's bring the thread back round - cos it is a good one - and since i can't get my Irish friends (in Ireland) to discuss the FUTURE of Irish politics maybe we can get something going here. I am utterly intrigued as to the absolutely incessant discussion about how rubbish FF are - yes they are but they are on their way out so let's move on - and so little willingness to discuss who we (i use 'we' liberally since i too will not get to vote) are going to put in the Dail (that's Irish Parliament for all you of the rubbish-at-eurovision-nation). I suspect it is because the options are not particularly inspiring. And they're not. But that can't be ignored in the way it seems to be. No great white hope is going to miraculously appear on the ballot box. Who would you vote for if you could vote in Ireland?

nice try Olivia -


like this country, I think there is little merit in blaming most of the politicians in power until there is a unified idea of what people want, OR an acceptance that leading a country is a horrible, horrible job which involves much compromise to keep as many people as happy as possible. I really do believe that people get the politicians they deserve (unlike the sense I get from others which is more "what have we done to deserve this shower"?)



Having said that you do get some genuinely unpleasant and downright dangerous people in power - but at least in democracies we get a chance of jettisoning those people every few years

i too 'believe that people get the politicians they deserve.' And that's what scares me - i think we are about to empty the Dail of one load of gobshites only to fill it up with another load. if i had a vote at home - for the first time in my life i really do not know who i would vote for. and anyone i ask who they are voting for, avoids answering - I can only assume that is becuase everyone feels the same, and feels the utter despondency of that. Still, I find it hard to believe that after everything Ireland has been through, and considering we are quite a politicised nation, that no leader or even flurry of independents has emerged from all the mess. There is a lot of talk and little action. and as a result we are going to end to up with a party in power who are as entrenched in the failed political machinery, the cronyism, the fear of the banks and builders etc... as FF. If not, sweet jesus, FF themselves again. that would not particularly surprise me. nor would the assent of Sinn Fein as a knee-jerk vote or a vote in the void. and personally, i think that is a terrifing prospect.

(keeping an eye on this ULA outfit - they might shape up)

OliviaDee Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> eh?


Well this independence is way overestimated. We never had these problems when Westminster ran things for us. Besides how the hell are we supposed to know what's going on over there when we are over here. They wont even give us a vote. Given that the BBC is completely impartial, they would soon tell us if another Cromwell was let loose across the sea.


I say vote for the Union and lets get back to the pub.

This sounds about right........



Paddy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in County Galway when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust..


The driver, a young man in a Saville Row suit, Gucci shoes, RayBans and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the farmer, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"



Paddy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"


The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.


The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany ..


Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.


Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the farmer and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."


"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Paddy.


He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the boot of his car.


Then Paddy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"


"You're a T.D. for the Irish Government", says Paddy .


"That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"


"No guessing required." answered the farmer. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of euros worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep... Now give me back my feckin' dog"

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • For every person like OP that moans their doorbell was rung and there was a knock on the door, there's someone else moaning that they didn't hear the delivery drivers. If you've ever done delivery work you'll know that loads of people's bells don't work. The delivery drivers probably goes to a hundred doors a day: press bell, knock door, drop package, move on. If you don't like delivery drivers, insist on delivery by Royal Mail where the workers have wages and a union - or just stop ordering shit online that's artificially cheap. But most of us (me included) don't want that
    • If someone comes to my house and bangs my door and slams my gate, I'd speak to them about it nicely and ask if they would please not do that. And then subsequently less nicely if they keep doing it, ending in reporting them.  We don't slam doors at home and I don't put up with that either. I can see us moving to a culture where we bribe drivers to be nice by tipping them, but we shouldn't have to. It's not necessary - does not matter if they are on minimum wage or not, or if society means that delivery services are outsourced or whatever reason anyone would like to concoct.     
    • We’ve got a gap on the roof of our shed that needs patching  don’t want to buy a huge roll so hoping someone has some leftover  happy to collect/reimburse 
    • I never said I thought it was targeted or deliberate. There also has never been a “stand off” or confrontation, we’ve spoken to them in a friendly manner about it. Our experience is they don’t seem to care. That’s the frustrating thing for us, if someone politely raises a concern at least take a second to reflect. Treat others how you would want to be treated.  I don’t want them to lose their job, far from it. But considering it could cost me a days work to fix any damage, I’m within my right to try prevent it.   
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...