from our sports desk

In November of 2007 I was fired from the Leinster Leader newspaper where I had worked for ten years.
The Leinster Leader is owned by a British company called the Johnston Press.
When the Johnston Press fired me, the share price of their company on the London Stock Exchange was around the £3.70 mark.
Now, less than a year later, on Friday evening 17th October 2008, the share price of the Johnston Press is hovering at 29 pennies.

The geniuses who fired me have brought their company and all the newspapers it owns in Ireland and Britain, to the brink of...
To the brink of what?
To the brink of a share price of 29 pennies.

The great Hire-ums and Fire-ums have accomplished this without any help from me.
Up to the eve of my firing, the Leinster Leader had traded profitably for over a century.
You know I wouldnt bet on the Leinster Leader even still existing in a year's time.
And I've bet two grand on John McCain to be the next President of the United States.

At this stage we might reasonably conclude that the decision to fire me has probably not been the master stroke some of these high flying executive galoots thought it would be.

As I contemplate the amazing share price performance of the Johnston Press I wonder is it possible that in their treatment of me, these great men, so long accustomed to standing in judgement over others, have somehow offended the only judge who really counts.
God.
That would be a sad day for them.

Christians are never afraid of toe rags.
Whether the toe rags are incompetent bosses, mediocre middle management executives, psychotic policemen, corrupt politicians, morally debilitated bankers, fascist dictators, atheistic communists, half witted jihadi's, or just a bunch of free masons in hopeless servitude to something they call jahbulon.

I don't care what they are.
I don't fear any of them.
I can't help thinking of a one liner the Lord used in the Bible.
"Take a seat at my right hand until I have made your enemies your foot stool."
I could do with a nice new foot stool.

29 pennies.
Not far to go now.

Seriously though, they're doing a brilliant job.

a star is born

Driving south through the mists of a gentle October.
Wintery light on the fields.
I am in a mild reverie.
Suddenly an authoritative voice booming from the radio arrests my attention.
The voice says:
"People are still having sex..."
The voice is filled with a fine portentousness.
A thumping backbeat informs me this is a song.
The song continues conversationally enough:
"Have you noticed that people are still having sex?
Dugga dung, dugga dung.
All the denouncement had absolutely no effect.
Dugga dung, dugga dung."
The mighty Heelers listens keenly. He senses he is on the verge of a great discovery. Yes folks, it doesn't take me long to realise that this song is indeed something rare and precious. A veritable jewel. For this exquisite nonce is a prime contender for a spot on that most sought after of hit parades: Songs So Bad, They're Good.
'Dugga dung, dugga dung,' is the techno backbeat by the way.
Nifty isn't it?
But I digress.
The singer of People Are Still Having Sex delivers his message with an almost epic resonance. It's as though he believes he is sharing some magnificent new wisdom. Or reciting Shakespeare. Or initiating us into an esoteric science. In any case he's really putting his heart and soul into it.
My jaw drops as he recites with triumphant elan:
"Parents and counsellors constantly scorn them.
But people are still having sex and nothing can stop them."
This bold readers is one of my favourite lyrics in the history of popular music.
As I reach the old chateau I am wearing a grin a mile wide.
And hark.
On the chilly air.
It is Heelers himself singing.
If you had passed near our leaf fringed avenue at this moment on Sunday, you might have heard my rich baritone voice complete with techno sound effects, proclaiming with strange high sincerity:
"People are still having sex.
Dugga dung, dugga dung.
Only a fool would disagree.
Dugga dung, dugga dung.
But if people are still having sex,
Dugga dung, dugga dung,
Why aren't they having it with me?
Dugga dung, dugga dung."

ould heelers remembers

When I finished reciting Party Piece, the assembled poets, professors and guests at the Hopkins Poetry Festival burst into applause.
It was a sustained burst of applause.
They weren't faking.
I'd brought them to a place that almost wasn't human.
At my shoulder the ghost of Jim Morrison said softly: "Heelers you're good."
The recital hadn't been prepared. I was sitting in the audience and had only stood up to declaim the poem at the invitation of the festival's director Desmond Egan.
Des had given me exactly ten seconds notice that he intended to ask.
And Party Piece had gone down a treat.
The adulation flowed around me, close enough to touch.
A girly girl college student all short skirt, splendid legs and earnest gazungas leaned across and whispered: "Your poem rocks."
(Earnest eyes, surely? - Ed note)
She was innocent in the ways of the world and had no way of knowing that I would take such a comment as an invitation for a most clumsy pass later on.
The applause ceased eventually.
Amid the general kudos, I became aware of a baleful pair of eyes looking down on me from the stage.
It was one of the festival's special guests.
Robert Minhinnick from Cornwall no less, a poet himself and editor of Poetry Wales.
His glare omitted nothing of the essential elements of a glare.
It was everything a glare should be.
"Alright," he drawled with world weary cynicism, "I suppose some of you liked that. It seemed a bit mundane to me. Rhyming blithe with scythe. I mean how clever. I don't think."
I would have been more aggrieved if I hadn't been going around earlier referring to the august Mr Minhinnick as the Cornish Pasty, and er, also, as Henny Penny.
The Mammy was beside me in the audience.
"I don't agree with what that man said," she whispered to me.
"Don't tell me, tell him," I said loud enough to make the whole audience turn towards us.
The Mammy stood up.
"I don't agree," she cried.
"In what way?" shot back Henny.
"I don't agree at all," roared the Lildebeest.
"Yes but what don't you agree with?" quoth the Henny.
"I don't agree that the poem we've just heard is mundane," persisted Lil.
"And who are you?" shot back Henny.
"I," proclaimed the Mammy with Shakespearian grandeur, "am the poet's mother."
Ah it was priceless.
While this piece of knockabout was going on, I simply sat back in my chair and enjoyed.
We owe it to ourselves to live a little.
And truth be told I didn't mind Mr Minhinnick's disparagement at all.
You see folks, I normally never defend my own poems.
After I turn 'em lose, they stand or fall on their own merits.
The audience had gone nuts.
Minhinners had poured some cold water.
It was all grist to the mill of my supreme egotism.
Yes gentle voyagers of the blogosphere.
You all know I'm an egotist.
At least you do if you've logged on here twice.
The Mammy and Minners finished their acerbic investigations into the relative merits and demerits of my poem, each one apparently settling for an honourable draw.
A not entirely mollified Mammy sat down muttering: "I suppose he thinks Dylan Thomas is mundane."
Now some of the college kids got involved in the discussion.
A studious looking blue jeans girl with pointy teeth and pearly gazungas, stood up in the front row.
(Pointy gazungas, surely? - Ed note)
She pointed at me.
With her hands.
Of course her hands.
What the heck did you expect!
Her wavy red hair hinted at a sensual nature only barely kept in check.
Well we can dream.
She wore a demure knitted jumper. I sensed she was obsessed with Kierkegaard.
(Who did what in the where now? Nothing pointy or splendid for me to explain here. Move along everyone. - Ed note)
With a toss of her lambent hair, she challenged me: "Why would you write a poem like that? I don't see the point. It's completely negative."
My usual policy of not defending poems notwithstanding, this girl, I thought, deserved an answer.
"I wrote it," quoth me, "after reading articles in the Irish Times and Independent Newspapers sneering about the Catholic church having difficulty attracting great minds. I have honoured those petty conformist Tony O'Reilly worshipping pseuds with the most ferociously atheistic poem of a generation. And yet it's a poem that only a Christian could write. The gleeful defiance of darkness wouldn't be possible for the heroes in Independent House or the Bolshevick acolytes of the Irish Times. I was trying to help them really. Quite to the contrary of their own synchronised fervourless sneering, I was letting them know that the Catholic mind is the only mind that really dares to speculate. We're the only ones who dare to go into the darkness. We're the only ones who have the spiritual vocabulary to describe it when we get there."
The studious girl eyed me disdainfully.
"I think it's a disgusting poem," she declared. "I don't know why anyone would write it. It's like you want everyone to be unhappy like you. I mean why did you call it Party Piece?"
A distant look came into my eyes.
I am never offended by incoming fire from repressed sexors.
My handsome preraphaelite features took on an opaque serenity.
"Why did I call it Party Piece?" I murmured. "Because it's meant to be said at a party. When the revel is at its height. At the moment when the glitterati and the bright young things feel most inebriated by their excesses. That's when this poem is meant to happen to them."

party piece

we are all dying more or less
in body in spirit
slaves to a process
not bitter or malign
but limitless
each moment each decade
unrolls in the shadow of the scythe
we laugh cry caress
doomed enough for ones so blithe
blithe enough for ones so doomed
revellers on a runaway train
exultant into the night

ranting in the key of life

The stock exchanges of the free world are little better than pyramid scheme sellers.

Stocks and shares are worth nothing.

Stocks and shares are worth nothing because the board members of stock exchange quoted companies give themselves free money and free shares for doing nothing. The integrity of shares as a repository of value has been shattered.

Banks and financial institutions have gained a strangle hold over the governments of the free world.

Banks and financial institutions have gained this strangle hold by a variety of methods.

The governments of the free world have allowed the pension funds of the citizens of the free world to be entirely invested in the stock exchanges of the free world. Cashing in these pension funds would immediately collapse the stock exchanges of the free world. Governments are trapped in this market whose great men pay themselves millions of dollars a year for doing nothing. And now the governments of the free world are trying to postpone the inevitable reality check by throwing free money at the banks, at the financial institutions and at the stock exchanges. It's a mistake.

The governments of the free world obtained investment advice regarding the pension funds of the citizens of the free world from stock brokers, financial services companies, and banking corporations who had a vested interest in getting the governments of the free world to put everybody's money into the worthless stock markets of the free world.

I repeat. Propping up stocks and shares will not save them. Stocks and shares are glorified pyramid selling. The stock markets of the world are about to collapse. The stocks and shares have been rendered worthless by the practices of the board members of stock exchange quoted companies who have been paying themselves ten lifetimes of wages in one year for doing no work; and by the practices of the board members administering the stock exchanges themselves. (Such as the head honcho at the New York Stock Exchange who four years ago paid himself a hundred million dollar severance fee.)

The Chairman of Bank Of Ireland received a total of 4 million quid in pay and bonuses for a year's work in 2007. The year's work he did in 2007 left Bank of Ireland apparently facing total imminent collapse without government backing this year. I oppose the Irish government's underwriting of the Bank of Ireland.

Board member Lochlainn Quinn of Allied Irish Bank had a spare thirty million quid to buy a vineyard in France some years ago. What exactly do the board members of AIB do to earn their vineyard money? Certainly as an Irish citizen I am opposed to my government's support for AIB. If the bank really was making the profits it's been declaring for the past two decades, it should be able to support itself.

In the United States a company called AIG last year lost five billion dollars in one field of investment alone. This five billion was overseen by a particular fund manager. Only the low rent Daily Mail has had the courage to hint at what really happened at AIG. The Daily Mail put inverted commas around the word "losses" when describing the particular trader's activities which led to the five billion "losses" in his division at AIG. If you want to steal millions of dollars, the best way to do it is to mask your theft with massive losses in what appears to be legitimate trading. This was amply demonstrated a decade ago by the rogue trader Nick Leeson at Barings Bank. Imagine you have five billion to invest. All you have to do is inform a friend where you're going to invest that money. The friend can then make financial bets and speculations based on what he knows you're going to do. You may lose the five billion but the inflow of five billion into any fund, into any commodity (say oil for instance where banks were the leading speculators driving up oil prices recently), such an inflow of five billion dollars must drive up the price in the short term. The company you work for "loses" five billion. You and your friend make untold millions. Most of us would turn our noses up at such behaviour. Yet our governments are underwriting the financial companies whose incompetence has allowed their employess to indulge in it. The banks and financial insitutions have found no way to prevent their fund managers from robbing them in this way. This is why banks and financial institutions like AIG are collapsing. Giving them free money from government is not going to save the economies of the Western World. Giving free money to incompetents and thieves has never helped any economy.

sensitivity training with uncle heelers

1. You must never ever mention Barack Obama's middle name in case anybody thinks the fact that Muslim converts take a Muslim middle name implies that Barack Obama's Muslim middle name is a sign that he's a Muslim convert. You must never suggest that when Barack Obama's Muslim Daddy took young Barack to live in a third world Muslim country and Barack returned with the Muslim middle name Hussein, that this meant some sort of arcane initiation ceremony into the peaceloving religion of Islam had taken place. Lotsa people come back from holiday with Muslim middle names. And hey. CNN girly girl correspondent Campbell Brown yesterday chirpily informed the world: "Of course Barack is Christian." Well stop the press Ma Kettle. We can all sleep easy now. If Barack has passed the CNN Christianity test he must be on a par with Saint John of the Cross. Although one thing doesn't quite add up. The founder of CNN has described Christianity as a religion for losers. So why is Campbell Brown sounding so chipper when she describes CNN's official Presidential nominee as a Christian? Maybe she's rooting against him. No. Can't be. She works for CNN. So maybe it's just she knows something we don't.
(Actually Barrack Obama is the official Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party of the United States and not of CNN. - Ed note)

2. Never ever mention Barack Obama's long association with racist Pastor Jeremiah Wright. It's racist to mention Barack Obama's intimate connections to this racist. Nor should you mention that Barack Obama's friend Jeremiah Wright has accused the American government of developing the Aids virus to kill black people.

3. Never ever mention that the Acorn group has been inventing voters for Barack Obama in key battleground States by filling out multiple registration forms for children, dead people, and delinquents. Mentioning this is racist.

4. Never ever mention Barack Obama's friendship with Bill Ayers who bombed the Pentagon in the 1960's.

5. Never ever mention Barack Obama's treacherous attempts to undermine America during the War On Terror. Never ever mention Barack Obama's attempts to withdraw the American army from Iraq and allow the Iranians to absorb that country. Never ever mention Barack Obama's attempts to prevent President Bush from overthrowing Saddam Hussein (nice name, eh Barack?) and his two gentle peaceloving human-beings-in-acid-baths-torturing sons Uday and Qusay. Never ever mention that Barack Obama was Osama Bin Laden's last best hope when the American army kept defeating the invincible hordes of Islam on the battlefield. Never ever mention these things because to do so would be racist. Why it would be worse. It would be negative campaigning. You know how much CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC hate negative campaigning? They hate it a staggering amount. They find it offensive. Unless of course they themselves are the ones doing it. Oh they were quite bizarrely negative when it came to trying to weaken the Bush Presidency with perpetual reportage of losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, reading out the names of the American war dead one after another? Remember how everyone knew it was a manoeuvre to try and discredit the President? Remember how American soldiers were more disgusted than anyone else at the faux gravitas of Mr Rather's intonation? Remember. Never forget. What was it the great traitors of CNN et Al, proclaimed? Oh yes. They said: "Bush lied, people died." What heroes they are. In the face of an Islamist assault upon our freedoms, CNN and the free news stations of the West, sought to criminalise our President. And now they have the gall to whine about negative campaigning. To hell with them.

A BIT IRISH (by Medbh Gillard)

"Love me, love my shirt!"

the department of dirty tricks

The following attempts have been made to sabotage Sarah Palin's candidacy for the position of Vice President of the United States.

1. Charles Gibson of the ABC television network in a nationally broadcast interview asked Sarah Palin what she thought of the Bush Doctrine. Charles Gibson refused to explain to Sarah Palin what he meant by the question. Charles Gibson behaved as if his guest should have known what his meaningless question meant. Here is the news. There is no generally accepted political definition of the Bush Doctrine. The term was initially used years ago by a commentator called Charles Krauthammer to describe President Bush's posture on environmental issues. The term has been used by some of us to describe Mr Bush's policy regarding the defence of Taiwan against any possible Chinese aggression. At different times the term has been used to describe different policies in the War On Terror. Charles Gibson of ABC pretends that when he uses the term everyone should know he means something along the lines of a supposed Presidential policy favouring pre-emptive strikes against America's enemies. But Mr Krauthammer the originator of the phrase, attests that in the intervening years since Mr Krauthammer himself first used the expression, there have been at least four separate major policy decisions by President Bush which have temporarily been described by media commentators as the Bush Doctrine. Mr Krauthammer who was the first to use the term, claims that Charles Gibson's behaviour in expecting Sarah Palin to know what meaning Charles Gibson was ascribing to the term on this particular day, was thoroughly unreasonable. I am suggesting that Charles Gibson of ABC was being manipulative, mendacious and malign, by asking Sarah Palin a question that could not possibly be answered due to the nebulousness of the terms in which the interviewer had framed it.

2. Katie Couric, a shill for the Democratic Party who occasionally poses as a newsreader for the CBS television network, in a nationally broadcast interview asked Sarah Palin which of John McCain's voting decisions she most agreed with. The question was so vaguely, indeed opaquely, phrased that again it was virtually impossible to answer. Here is the news. John McCain himself would have had difficulty itemising his voting record over the past forty years. This wasn't a Gotcha question as Katie Couric's (very few) defenders maintain. This question was manipulative, mendacious and malign. (See above.) Katie Couric is a five time winner of the Connie Chung Award for Objectivity and Integrity in Journalism. Expect to see a lot less of her in years to come.

3. CNN has led the charge in disingenuously trying to discredit Sarah Palin for something it calls Troopergate. CNN has been assisted in this matter by supporters of Barack Obama styling themselves, CBS, NBC, ABC, Newsweek, Time Magazine, the New York Times, and the Washington Compost. Here is the news. What these Democratic Party supporters posing as journalists, newspapers or magazines, call Troopergate, is a situation involving a State Trooper who was formerly married to Sarah Palin's sister. Obama supporters in the legislature have wrongfully and vexatiously alleged that Sarah Palin fired a senior official in Alaska from his job for himself refusing to fire the State Trooper. The salient piece of information about this State Trooper is that he tasered a ten year old boy. In my opinion, one doesn't need any more information on this case. Suggestions that Sarah Palin acted improperly are irrelevant. The truth is that as far as most of us are concerned she actually should have fired the State Trooper and anybody connected with trying to keep the State Trooper in his job. Because the State Trooper in this case was pond scum who tasered a ten year old boy. Case closed. You know folks, the pro Barrack Obama liberal media have traded for a long time on their monopoly of news reportage in the United States. Their thinking is inspired by the old Mafia dictum: The wheel is rigged but it's the only game in town. Unfortunately for CNN et al (particularly Al, I hate him) unfortunately for all these Democratic Party shills, the good citizens of America and elsewhere are starting to figure them out. The wheel is rigged and the wheel ain't got no viewers. And many of us are starting to establish our own games in our own towns, not run on Mafia principles, but run on priciples of truth, justice, egalitarianism and fairplay.

4. The enquiry into Troopergate was deliberately scheduled by Barrack Obama's supporters in the legislature to announce its results three weeks before the Presidential elections. This scheduling was a blatent attempt to prevent Sarah Palin from having time to properly refute any allegations of wrongdoing the enquiry might have frivolously chosen to ascribe to her. Worse than that, it was an attempt to affect the decision of the electorate in choosing the next President and Vice President of the United States of America. In the end, the enquiry has found she was not guilty of any of the charges of impropriety it had sought to manufacture against her. This complete exoneration of Sarah Palin was utterly unnecessary for those of us who knew that the State Trooper had tasered a ten year old boy. The whole thing was a snow job. Even down to the lingering accusation on the Enquiry's part that Sarah Palin somehow improperly allowed her husband to meddle in the Troopergate situation. Once more with feeling. Here is the news. The early scheduling of the release of the Troopergate Enquiry results was an egregious example of partisan investigators running pass defence for Barrack Obama's Presidential campaign. They aren't going to get away with it.

5. The son of a Democratic Party politician has been caught hacking into Sarah Palin's computer and stealing her private correspondence. He faces criminal charges for hacking into Sarah Palin's computer. My analysis is that he hacked into Sarah Palin's computer at the behest of elements within the Democratic Party, including his Daddy, who are attempting to secure Barrack Obama's election as President. Sing it loud. Here is the news. The trial date for this son of a senior Democratic Party politician charged with hacking into Sarah Palin's computer, has been set for December. Yes, that's right. December The trial date of the Barrack Obama supporter who hacked into Sarah Palin's computer will not take place until the American Presidential election is over. Contrast this with the early pre-election release of the Troopergate Enquiry. Clearly elements within the Judiciary are themselves attempting to run pass defence for Barrack Obama. The postponement of the trial of this saboteur son of a senior Barrack Obama supporter is a foul trahesion of jurisprudence. It is also a bitterly crass dereliction of duty by those members of the judiciary involved in its promulgation. The decision to delay the trial until December for the Democratic Party pro Obama son of a senior left wing politician who hacked into Sarah Palin's computer, then stole and published her private correspondence, the decision to delay the trial I say, has been implented solely for the purposes of helping Barrack Obama into the office of the Presidency of the United States of America.

6. And finally... CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Newsweek, Time Magazine, the New York Times and the Washington Pot Roast, have latterly all begun complaining about Sarah Palin's negative style of campaigning. These are the same media entities who have treasonously conspired to demonise President Bush during the period of maximum threat to the world from our Jihad enemies over the past seven years. Yup. CNN and company. They're the ones whining about negative campaigning. Can this be for real? CNN is against negativity? Okay. Let us be clear. CNN and these other media groups who worry so much about negativity, are the same ones who for nearly a decade have banded together to dishonourably and maliciously accuse President Bush of the most grievous war crimes. They have conspired to sow in the public mind unconscionably false and treasonous propaganda, to wit: "Bush lied, people died." They have done so with no discernible purpose other than to break American resolve in the worldwide conflict with Muslim extremism and thereby to bring down President Bush. They have trumpeted American losses on the battlefield while ignoring the massive defeats inflicted on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They have intoned with fake solemnity the names of the American dead while neglecting to dwell over much on the unhappy demise of Uday and Qusay those two lovable Hussein boys who will never again force any human being into an acid bath, never again precisely because President Bush authorised the American army to send them home to Allah. Let me be blunt. CNN and its associates have shamelessly exploited every human rights violation they could trump up against the American army, including the occasional genuine one such as Abu Graib, while all but ignoring the satanic desecrations and vitiations of humanity inflicted by Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic Republic of Iran. CNN and friends have failed to champion Iraqi and Afghan democracy for fear some of the credit might percolate to President Bush. Incredibly at times, they have even gone in to bat for the late great Saddam Hussein (may he rest in pieces) and his murderous family, claiming that if the Americans didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then the invasion must have been unjustified. What strange high bastardy is this? I'll tell you. This... is... CNN... (Imagine me saying it like that silly portentous James Earl Jones voice over which the station uses to advertise itself.) And they have promoted as gospel the anti American, anti President Bush, anti life, anti freedom, views of a legion of fellow traitors including the psychotic Norman Mailer, the opprobrious Michael Moore, the quisling John Pilger, the pseudo commie Noam Chomsky, and of course the pissant little hanger on Vincent Bugliosi who thinks he's going to impeach President Bush. Good luck with that one Vinnie. You git. These guys aren't fifth columnists exactly. Fifth columnists sometimes have courage. These are just cowards selling out their own side to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in pursuit of a short term political agenda. They have given succour to the enemy. Oh they have alright. Because from his hideout Osama Bin Laden realised very early on in the War On Terror that these invidious media bast--ds were actually rooting for him. Al Qaeda was losing on every battlefield it showed up to. (They're good against unarmed air hostesses. Less good against the American army.) But the Jihadi's figured it out. From their reading of Time Magazine, and their fascinated viewing of CNN, they saw that there was something still to play for. They concluded that through the influence of the liberal left wing pro Democratic Party media, America might yet be defeated on the homefront. Here is the news you useless fifth century Islamist galoots. It ain't gonna happen. Barrack Obama loses. You lose. Freedom wins.

Every time.



(Ed Note: James Healy has bet his last two thousand smackers that John McCain will win the American Presidential elections.)

the eternal wheel of destiny