Love Ulster or hate it

I am ashamed.

Ashamed to be Irish today.

On Saturday, democracy in Ireland was suspended for several hours, as peaceful marchers were denied their right to express their opinion. And a mob of hard line republicans and Dublin scumbags (of which there is an epidemic level in our fair city) went on the rampage, preventing any semblance of law and order across large parts of the city.

I'm getting more and more annoyed as I type this.

Where to begin?

Well obviously blame lies with Republican Sinn Fein for apparently organising this little riot. I think it's about time that the party itself was ruled to be an illegal organisation, because clearly they have no interest in the freedom and inalienable rights of othjer people, or indeed their right to disagree. They need to be raided and closed down as a political party in Ireland. That may seem a little extreme, but what happened on the weekend is, I think, sufficient evidence that extreme action is necessary.

The other Sinn Fein (the ones with apparently no involvement in this fracas) needs to be told quite frankly by both governments that there will be no progress with regards to the North until the IMC have stated that there is not criminality associated with the IRA. SF needs to sign up policing in Northern Ireland and make a declaration in the Republic that they fully recognise the Irish Defence Forces and Oireachtas as the legitimate army and parliament of Ireland. The Dail needs to introduce an oath of affirmation to be taken by all Deputies in which they swear to recognise and uphold the Constitution.
Until all that is done, not one iota of progress should be promised by either Merrion St or Downing St.

There needs to be a full investigation of the Garda response to the threat of disorder on Saturday. While I cannot applaud enough the bravery of the guards on the beat that day, it would appear that people further up the chain of command seriously underestimated the risks that the parade would bring with it, and did not allocate sufficient resources.

There needs to be a massive increase in the number of Gardai on the streets in Dublin during the day and night time. The scumbags responsible for this destruction and wanton criminality are a small percentage of the thousands of knackers that shuffle around our streets day after day. They need watching properly.

The bastards who have so far been charged with various offences need to be tried by the Special Criminal Court, because I don't trust juries to convict them. And we need harsh prison sentences to be imposed to dissuade anyone else from ever trying this again. The Irish state is a mature, 80 year old democracy..this should not be tolerated, and should not be allowed to go unpunished.

As for the 90th Anniversary commemoration of the 1916 Rising..I don't think now is the time to be going about that. Whether it should be called off is a topic for another day, methinks.

What a sad day for Ireland.

Mahommadness

Absolutely indefensible.

I have been watching the news over the past week with a mixture of incredulity and irritation.
This rubbish over cartoons is so ridiculous that I would be deeply, deeply ashamed to be Muslim right now.

Firstly, the Danish paper in question shouldn't have published these cartoons, as they were obviously going to cause controversy. But there you go.
Secondly, the other European newspapers are to be congratulated for their support of the Jyllands Post because by that stage the controversy was becoming a dispute over the notion of the freedom of speech.
Thirdly, it's worse to burn down embassies than to draw "blasphemous" cartoons.

I can understand that Muslims don't like images being drawn of the prophet. And that they're apparently forbidden to do it. But here's the thing; were not.
We can draw whatever images of Mohammed we like. We can draw him doing whatever we want, because Muslim law does not apply to non-Muslims. So I can appreciate that they might not like it, but tough. Simple as that.
Next, it would have been smart for the Middle Eastern governments that go so uppity over the cartoons to protest to the editor of the paper. But I don't see why they would bother (a) complaining to the Danish government or (b) trying to get the government to get the paper to apologise. The Danes were quite simple about this, there was nothing they could do because there is a free press in Denmark. It has been very interesting to see the reaction in the Middle East to these cartoons. Clearly not one Muslim country there either understands or appreciates the notion of a free press independent of government control. Quite an eye opener alright.

And the reaction in the region was completely unacceptable. To attack and burn down foreign embassies and to firebomb a church in Lebanon, what sort of impression do Arab Muslims want to give us? If they don't want to come across as short tempered, irrational, zealots who try and police the minds of everyone they come into contact with, then they probably shouldn;t go apeshit over a fucking cartoon.
It's just ridiculous. How could people get so exercised over a cartoon? I think it's safe to say that in no Western country would people storm and burn down embassies because a Muslim paper had published a cartoon about say...Jesus with a bomb in his...donkey.. Are we forced to come to the conclusion that Arab countries (and I'm making the difference between Arab and Muslim because no-one in Indonesia or Pakistan has gone torching Scandinavian consulates) is in such a backwards state that this sort of thing could even be considered normal or acceptable?

I don't want to think that Islam is backwards, that the religion of 1.3 billion people is so fundamentally flawed that it cannot survive outside a medieval society. But I'm just not hearing or seeing enough from the Muslim moderates, about whom I'm starting to wonder if they exist in any great numbers. We're very lucky to have a very moderate Muslim community in Ireland, which appears to have a good relationship with the Government, and is actively supporting the Gardai in keeping extremists out of the country. But other states seem less fortunate. The UK, for example, seems filled with thses Islamofascists who are determined to force their views on us here in the West. The Irish Times had a picture on its front page on Saturday of protestors in London (why were they protesting? No British paper published these cartoons?) and one had a placard saying "Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer." Now firstly I would disagree completely. Secondly, if you don't like Europe then leave. No one is making you stay. Very much the opposite..

I've never seen an entire region of the world act so immaturely, I really haven't. We can hardly be expected to treat the Middle East and its inhabitants as equals, can we? If they're acting like tantrum prone kids?

This is a sort of clash of civilisations, in as much as civilisation (ours) is going up against hot headed and irrational zealotry. We can't appease this sort of nonsense with platitudes and apologies. It's the Middle-Easterners who should be apologising to the Danes and Norwegians for the damage to their embassies.

(Den)marked man

This, is the cartoon causing all the furore in the Middle East.

This?!
Lads, this is not the most..tolerant cartoon ever drawn, but for this you're storming buildings, burning effigies, complaining to governments and threatening to firebomb churches?

....That an entire religion could be motivated about something this petty would seem to suggest to me that there are a lot of people in the Middle East who have very little to do and should maybe cut back on the caffeine.

As for where the Danish flags are suddenly coming from to be burnt, your guess is as good as mine.

Oscars for TDs!!

(Michael McDowell. Minister of the Year 2004/2005)

I would love feedback on this one!!!!!

Okay, last year I awarded the above Minister with the coveted "Harping On Minister of the Year" title. Our esteemed Panzer P.D won basically by default, as he is one of a minority in the Government who did anything constructive in the past 12months, because of his bold proposals for cafe bars, his general iniative and vision and, most importantly, his refusal to shy away from confronting SF and the IRA.

I thought I might broaden the scope of the awards this time around.

So..I present to you...

!Dail Awards!

Basically I plan to award T.Ds and Ministers who have actually done their job with some degree of competence over the past 12 months. And highlight the ones who have not

So here are the categories.

• Minister of the Year
• Teachta Dala of the Year
• Minister of the Rear
• Teachta Dala of the Rear

Now if anyone wants to nominate people for this, either pose here or email me (address in profile).

Closing date for nominations is the 28th February with results to come shortly thereafter.