great moments in history

Martin Luther begins the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

the resignation of trevor sargent from the government

Trevor Sargent should not have resigned from the government.
Trevor Sargent was a Minister in the Green Party/Fianna Fail coalition which has been in power in Ireland for a couple of years.
The Green Party/Fianna Fail coalition came to power after Fianna Fail gerrymandered the electoral rolls, simultaneously taking half a million Irish citizens off the register while adding three hundred thousand foreign nationals.
All the foreign nationals vote Fianna Fail.
They vote for their free passports and their free money.
That's how it was done.
The Greens are poor little rich boys with no mandate to govern who have suddenly found themselves in possession of near limitless power.
The Greens have just three seats in parliament but by propping up Fianna Fail they have achieved an unprecedented measure of nationwide influence.
It should be noted that the Greens hold a grand total of nought seats in local government.
They were wiped out of local government in the last local elections.
There won't be many of them left in parliament after the next general election either.
Unless Fianna Fail declares a fascist dictatorship.
Which just might happen.
The three Green seats in parliament represent the Greens' last waning presence on the Irish political stage.
But those are the three seats that matter.
Because Fianna Fail is so terrified of facing the electorate and is willing to buy power by caving in to the Green Party on every issue.
At a time of economic collapse, petrol prices have shot up again because of Green Party stealth charges styled a carbon tax.
Dublin city is paralysed because the government has implemented Green Party recommendations on traffic flow.
Householders everywhere are required by law to spend thousands of pounds insulating their homes to standards contrived by the Green Party.

As you might guess, I am loath to speak in favour of a member of the Green Party.

However today it appears to be regrettably necessary.

Green Party Government Minister Trevor Sargent was compelled to resign for what the media suggested was his attempts to influence Irish police (known as An Garda Siochana) to drop charges against one of his constituents.

This reporting of Green Party Minister Trevor Sargent's actions is grossly unfair and completely untrue.

Here is what happened in the case where he intervened.

A man saw a boy committing vandalism on a housing estate.

The man went to the boy's parent to complain.

The boy's parent headbutted the man.

The Irish police, with their usual crass incompetence, charged the man who had been headbutted along with the person who headbutted him.

The man who sought to report the child's vandalism to the child's parent was fined 500 Euro by an idiot Judge.

The headbutting parent received a sentence of four months.

So the Irish police charged the decent citizen along with the thug parent.

That's An Garda Siochana for you.

Those were the circumstance in which Green Party Government Minister Trevor Sargent quite openly wrote to our idiot police, on headed parliamentary notepaper, saying firstly that he was concerned the case against the headbutting parent was proceeding very slowly, and secondly that it seemed to him thoroughly unreasonable in these circumstances to press charges against the man who had received the headbutt.

For contacting the police and suggesting that it was unreasonable to press charges against a man who had just been headbutted by a parent whose son had been vandalising the estate, for his dutiful and courageous intervention in this matter, Trevor Sargent has been forced to resign from the government.

This resignation is absolutely unwarranted.

This regisgnation connotes exponential power to our dysfunctionally corrupt police force.

If an elected representative of the people of Ireland may not contact the police to express his concerns about their actions, why then the police are more powerful than our parliament.

We will in effect be ruled by the police.

Ireland will be a Police State.

It's already happening.

Trevor Sargent did not act as disgraced former Minister Bobby Molloy acted several years ago when Bobby Molloy sought to have child abusers released from jail.

Trevor Sargent acted in plain view without subterfuge.

Trevor Sargent acted as any of us would have acted to address deliberate foot dragging by the police in their slowness to charge the headbutter.

Trevor Sargent acted righteously to bring to police attention their own crassly deliberate incompetence in presuming to charge the victim of the headbutter.

Trevor Sargent behaved impeccably throughout the whole matter from start to finish and has nothing to atone for.

His representations to the police were decent, right minded and brave.

His only mistake was in accepting he had done anything wrong.

The suggestion that Trevor Sargent did anything wrong in this matter is utter nonsense.

In the morass of mediocrity which is Irish public life, he acted with rare integrity.

Trevor Sargent is an elected official in the Irish parliament.

He is entitled to approach anyone he wants to approach about any matter in the interests of the Irish people.

He is entitled to make any representations to any government department or police department that he sees fit to make representations to.

If we take this right away from Trevor Sargent we are making the police force more powerful than the elected representatives of the people.

By accepting this resignation we are ensuring that the police, those goonish clypes so wont to terrorise citizens at the side of the road, will be subject to even less scrutiny than before.

So it goes.

There is one other factor in this wrongfully enforced resignation that we should be aware of.

Last week a certain William O'Dea, a Minister in the same government as Trevor Sargent, was forced to resign.

Willie O'Dea was a member of Fianna Fail.

Willie O'Dea was forced to resign for attempting to mislead a journalist into believing that a local politician (a member of former terrorist group Sinn Fein) owned a building which contained a brothel.

The Fianna Fail Minister was forced to resign because the Greens threatened to withdraw their support if he didn't resign.

It seems likely, to a level beyond reasonable doubt, that Fianna Fail has contrived the present media circus against Trevor Sargent as an act of revenge.

high society

Strolling through the Cafe Des Beaux Parvenus at Newbridge Silverware this morning.
I am hailed.
"James, James."
The call has an imperious tone.
Turning I behold the striking, albeit somewhat matronly, form of a woman who rejoices under the name Phoenicia Lincolnshire.
There's no mistaking her.
She is the one and only.
Yup.
A legend in these here parts.
Phoenicia is a community activist, a mother of eight children, and possessed of a boundless determination which does not betoken impediment.
Somewhere between bringing eight souls into the world, raising money to build schools in Tanzania, and running a dozen community action groups, somewhere in the midst of all that, she found time to become the regional organiser for Ireland's major opposition party, Fine Gael.
Yes, energy is her keynote.
Boundless energy.
Her influence in the tea rooms of power down our way should not be underestimated.
She herself is the power behind all the thrones.
Let me put it this way.
She knows where the bodies are buried.
A phenomena of nature is awd Phoenicia.
Unique in her capacity to get things done.
I look on her as a sort of Irish Mrs Thatcher, one who presumably never stood for high office only because holding such office might have forced her to slow down.
Seriously though.
"Phoenicia," I beam.
She is not in the slightest bit dazzled or delayed by my beaming.
"I've sent you an email," she expostulates, cutting straight to the chase. "We're holding the Women's Mini Marathon again and I want some publicity."
I nod.
There is a certain rueful good humour playing about my gentle preraphaelite features.
"I was fired from the Leinster Leader two years ago," I tell her cheerily. "I suppose word still hasn't gotten round. I mean does anybody actually read that newspaper? Here is the news. I do not work for the Leinster Leader. I do not endorse the Leinster Leader product. I am not in a position to publicise events in the Leinster Leader. In point of fact, I hope the Leinster Leader and all who sail in her will shortly go beneath the earth retching blood. Ea re sanguinolente, as we do say in the trade."
"Oh," says Phoenicia perturbed but only momentarily so.
With a note of pity in her voice she intones: "Maybe you could put it on that thing of yours. The blog."
So she knows about the blog.
"Maybe I could," sez I.
A thought struck me.
Here was one of the most powerful women in County Kildare.
A woman with access to all the levers.
Perhaps I should let her know where I stand on some of the great issues of the day.
I fix her with a firm stare.
"Defend the faith Phoenicia," I say suddenly.
"What do you mean?" she murmurs.
"Defend the faith," I say again, staring harder than before.
She knows what I mean now.
"Oh right," she murmurs looking around hurriedly.
She begins to move away.
"Defend the faith," I call again.
She is moving faster.
Coiffeured parvenus look up owlishly from their tea and scones.
"Defend the faith against all who attack her," I cry again, this time loud enough for everyone in the cafe to hear.
Phoenicia is at the door.
"Defend the faith Phoenicia," I roar. "And tell the Dukes to do the same. Tell them to defend the faith. Or I won't want to know them."
Ah yes.
The threat every Irish politician fears.
The Dukes to whom I am referring are not members of the British nobility.
They are former putative Irish Prime Minister Alan Dukes and his wife local Councillor Fionnuala Dukes.
I'd say both of them will have a sleepless night tonight as they contemplate the bleakness of their political futures without the reassuring boon of my benign munificent blessings.

flora womens mini marathon in aid of punchestown kidney research fund

By Phena Bermingham
How about getting fit, losing a bit of weight, enjoying the fresh air and raising funds in support of a local charity? Yes, you can do all that and have fun. The Punchestown Kidney Research Fund needs ladies to participate in The Flora Women's Mini Marathon on June 7th in Dublin. This may be the motivation you need to get started after the long hard winter. Let's go forward into spring with optimism and resolve. Join us. If you are new to the area this is a perfect way to meet people.
Over the past five years we've had lots of fun and enjoyment. If you have never done the mini marathon before, do it this year. You will experience a wonderful feeling of belonging to a group exceeding 40,000 women of all ages, backgrounds and levels of fitness. And we're all there for a good reason. Generosity, fun, and kindness fill the atmosphere on race day.Your chance to experience all that and more is at hand.We need runners, joggers and walkers. To vounteer, contact Phena Bermingham at (045) 485232 or (087) 9767531, or Caroline Dempsey at (087) 2562563.

the satanic rites of independent newspapers

John Cooney wrote a piece of bowdlerised verse in the Irish Independent yesterday, asserting that of all the priests and Bishops and Cardinals and Popes in Rome, only John Cooney's favourite putative liberal infiltrator Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was really a man.

Really a man, eh?

Ah yes.

The John Cooney test of manhood.

Apparently the deciding factor is having allied yourself with John Cooney in attempting to criminalise a generation of honorable, decent, dedicated, heroic, Bishops.

Anyone who dares to defend the Bishops against Independent Newspapers' pogrom, isn't a man.

Even the Bishops themselves who insist on speaking for themselves, fall below the highfalutin Cooney standard of masculinity.

Malign, no?

But not the most malign thing you'll see in the Irish Independent of a morning.

The most malign strategy adopted by Independent Newspapers, RTE, and the Irish Times during their joint attemtps to remake the church in their own image, has been the constant use of two supposed sex abuse victims to convey the false claim that sex abuse victims generally wish to humiliate the church.

Now Independent Newspapers, RTE and The Irish Times have always ignored the vast preponderance of sex abuse victims.

That is to say, they ignored the 99.99 percent of victims, the 999 out of every 1000, who were not abused by anyone with a connection to the Catholic Church.

But now we see the media also ignore the preponderance of the tiny minority of victims who were abused by people with links to the church.

They take two supposed victims of church linked abusers, and elevate them over all the other victims of church linked abuse.

By using a select pair of victims to push Independent Newspapers own war with the church, Independent Newspapers has clothed itself in a veneer of faux compassion.

This was the killer application in the present persecution of our ancient religion.

The victims who were willing to spout the Independent Newspapers line were Andrew Madden and Marie Collins.

The deceitful genius of the media in using these two time and time again is borne out by the fact that most of us will not talk back to apparent sex abuse victims.

That means whatever guff Andrew Madden and Marie Collins propagate, it goes completely unchallenged.

And it's always these two.

If victims of sex abuse at the hands of churchmen generally agreed with Andrew Madden and Marie Collins, it would have been reasonable to hear from a few more of them.

But no.

Independent Newspapers, RTE and The Irish Times continually revert to Andrew Madden and Marie Collins as though Andrew Madden and Marie Collins speak for every victim.

Last week on queue, Andrew Madden and Marie Collins were quoted in the Irish Independent issuing ultimatums to the Pope.

Their statements were the usual mix of dictat and victimhood.

Andrew Madden: "We have set out what would be an appropriate response to the Murphy report for the Bishops and the Vatican. They have two days to get their act together."

According to the Irish Independent, Marie Collins stated that if the Pope didn't accept the Bishops resignation it would be a bad indication for the future of the church.

Marie Collins: "It's the very first thing that needs to happen to move forward."

Here are my questions for the thus far unquestioned Andrew Madden and Marie Collins.

Are you aware that you are being manipulated by anti Catholic scoundrels in Independent Newspapers, RTE and The Irish Times who have always sought to destroy the ancient church and who care nothing about sex abuse victims?

Does your supposed victimhood mean that no one may ever disagree with something you say or do?

How many sex abuse victims exactly are in the groups of which you are a part?

Do you accept that many victims of clerical sex abuse disagree with your ascription of guilt beyond the actual abusers to the bosses of those abusers, ie Bishops?

Do you accept that many victims of  sex abuse disagree with everything you are doing?

Do you accept that many victims of sex abuse disagree with the Murphy report?

Do you ever wonder why so much attention is paid to supposed victims of clerical sex abuse while the vast majority of sex abuse victims who are abused by non Catholics in hospitals, sports clubs, schools, and in the family home, are never interviewed on RTE?

What is it about you that RTE likes so much?

Aren't all sex abuse victims as important as you and as entitled to a hearing?

all in a name

Watching BBC television coverage from the British House of Lords.
Someone styling himself Lord Adonis is holding forth in plummy rambling discursive incomprehensibility.
His name seems oddly amusing to me.
"I bet that guy loves himself," I murmur wittily.
Flicking the channel I alight on Sky News.
A Welsh nationalist politician is being interviewed.
The Welsh parliamentarian's name is Elwyn Lewd.
Not since the heady days of Lord Adonis have I heard a name so ripe with mystic merriment.
"Well," I pronounce sagely, "I know very little about life but I know one thing for sure. A man called Elwyn Lewd can never become Prime Minister."
At my feet, Paddy Pup yawns sleepily.
He's heard all my jokes before and no longer finds them funny.
"If you wanna impress me," he says, "makes some wise cracks about the hamster or the budgies. Those guys are ripe for satire."

treasons stratagems and spoils

Last week John Cooney was writing in Independent Newspapers about what a wonderful reformer Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was.
This week he's attempting to preserve some journalistic credibility and put some distance between himself and the same Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
John Cooney's keynote is not subtlety.
On the eve of the Bishops meeting in Rome, which Independent Newspapers had helped precipitate with the sole intention of orchestrating the firing of Bishops, John Cooney wrote glowingly of a photograph featuring Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Pope Benedict.
John Cooney claimed the photograph showed in what high regard the Pope held John Cooney's then favourite Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
The Irish Independent didn't publish the photograph.
We had to take John Cooney's word that it showed what he said it showed.
John Cooney also turned his interpretative skills to other photographs.
These ones were published.
John Cooney claimed a photo of the Pope with Cardinal Sean Brady showed the Pope wanted to keep his distance from Cardinal Sean Brady.
Ah yes.
This interpretation was the clearest evidence yet that Cardinal Sean Brady may not be a deliberate participant in John Cooney and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's axis.
Perhaps all along Cardinal Sean Brady has just been a weak and vascillatory accidental accomplice to these two atheistic cads.
What's become clear is that John Cooney doesn't like Cardinal Sean Brady.
But you know John Cooney doesn't like any Bishops.
Not even the misguided leftist infiltrator Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.
Their alliance was always an alliance of scoundrels.
An alliance of convenience.
John Cooney and Independent Newspapers wanted to destroy the church.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin wanted to remake the church in his own image.
Their aims were not mutually exclusive.
Destroying the church and remaking it in Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's image, amount to the same thing.
But let's get back to John Cooney inspired interpretation of photographs.
John Cooney claimed a photo of Bishop Martin Drennan with Pope Benedict showed that Pope Benedict held Bishop Drennnan in disdain.
It showed no such thing.
John Cooney's interpretation of that photo was as mendacious and manipulative as everything else he has written about the Catholic Church.
Here is the news.
John Cooney never cared one whit about sex abuse victims.
The ball game was always to force the resignation of a generation of Bishops and to replace them with liberals.
By randomly ascribing guilt, by inventing a new standard whereby those guilty of sex abuse would not be the ones who commited sex abuse, but instead the bosses of those who committed sex abuse, by creating such a false standard, and then by applying it solely to the Catholic Church, and specifically not to any other institution, hospital, sports club, community organisation, business, government department, or vocational group in Ireland in all of which sex abuse is rampant, why then, with that business model, Independent Newspapers, Judge Yvonne Murphy, RTE, The Irish Times et al, could quite simply succeed where every two bit Nazi, commie, devil worshipper, freemason, and Islamist has failed for two thousand years.
They could shut down the Catholic Church.
No murders would be necessary.
Except the murder of reputations.
Forcing mass resignations of Bishops would have helped deter young people from the priesthood while delivering an enormous propaganda victory for the abortionists, atheists, and leftists who make up the editorial and journalistic staff of Independent Newspapers, RTE, and The Irish Times.
Yeah.
They must think they came close.
And it isn't over.
Listen to me folks.
We haven't been asked to defy Hitler's guns, or Stalin's guns, or Osama Bin Laden's guns.
Risking our lives for the faith is not the challenge we've been given.
Our challenge is to risk ridicule and humiliation at the hands of the very liberal atheistic scoundrels who have mired Ireland in the violent society.
We're not asked to die for the faith.
At least not yet.
We've been asked to defy a corrupt liberal Judiciary, along with their allied anodyne atheistic media groups, worthless shills without principle or insight, miserable hounds attempting to destroy Christian belief and replace it with the pleasure ethic, the basest curs of Independent Newspapers, RTE, The Irish Times, and lesser breeds without the law, who are in league with each other to destroy our church.
We are asked to defy them.
Give them no quarter.
Call them what they are.
Persecutors of the church.
Betrayers of Ireland.
Last week John Cooney threatened that if the Pope didn't fire the Bishops, the church in Ireland would go into open revolt.
John Cooney somewhat overestimated the extent to which he speaks for Catholics in Ireland.
John Cooney's conception of himself as somehow being a leader of Irish Catholics is beyond delusional.
Cooney can you hear me.
I know you can.
Why have you done this?
Why have you sought to criminalise honorable, decent, heroic Bishops?
Why have you sought to destroy our ancient and true religion of light?
Why Cooney?
Why?

the anti catholic bigotry of independent newspapers

Independent Newspapers has been engaged in a damage limitation exercise.
After their failure to label Catholic Bishops as concealers of child abuse, after their failure to manipulate the Pope into firing those Bishops, after their failure to conceal their own bigoted anti Catholic prejudices and agendas, it became necessary for them to pretend things were still going swimmingly.
People were starting to talk.
So Independent Newspapers published falsified privately commissioned survey figures suggesting the readership for their newspaper titles had somehow actually increased.
Unfortunately for Independent Newspapers, the equally anti Catholic Irish Times chose this week to start telling the truth and to publish genuine properly audited industry figures for all Irish newspapers.
These figures showed that every anti Catholic newspaper in Ireland, that is to say every newspaper, had suffered a huge decline in sales last year.
These genuinely audited figures still overestimate the readerships of Independent Newspapers and The Irish Times, mind you.
They overestimate the readerships because they purport to measure circulation figures, ie the number of these rags distributed by Independent Newspapers and The Irish Times, and not their actual sales.
But still the figures published in The Irish Times do give some measured recognition to the dramatic collapse in popular support for both these and other anti Catholic media groups.
The Irish Times didn't tell the whole truth however.
The Irish Times while admitting its readership had collapsed, still maintained that the readership for its internet website now numbered in the millions.
Ha, ha, ha.
The editor of the Irish Times and her staff pressing the refesh bar on their computers two million times a year does not mean the internet edition of The Irish Times has two million readers.
The Irish Times lost a hundred million dollars last year.
Independent Newspapers owes idiot banks a grand total of 1.5 billion.