when night rode in on raven's wings

 

time

at half past five in the morning

the ticking clocks and creaking boards

fill the still house with their whispering

and are joined by the voices

of unseen birds in unseen trees

such choruses

praying hope in song

crying darkness now

but before long

dawn

medjugorje musings

Jim Delaney, a friend of mine in England told me recently that he'd heard the Pope was not well disposed towards claims that people are seeing visions of the virgin Mary in the town of Medjugorje.

Medjugorje is culturally Croatian but is located in Bosnia.

Jim may be right about the Pope.

I know Vatican investigations are ongoing.

The supposed visionaries are due in Rome in September where I expect they will be asked some serious questions.

Personally I've been much drawn to the possibility something is happening at Medjugorje.

Ireland's most successful ever magazine editor (in terms of sales and revenue) Heather Parsons, claims she had a most striking conversion experience there, during which she was favoured with a vision of the risen Messiah.

That is to say, she claims she saw Jesus in his glory in the sun.

My Uncle Jim has been there and also attests to seeing some sort of manifestation involving the sun.

Some moderately interesting books have been written about Medjugorje.

To date the best writing about the claimed supernatural phenomena is to be found in a book called The Miracle Detective by Randall O'Sullivan.

Randall O'Sullivan is a contributor to the generally atheistic Rolling Stone magazine.

At Medjurgorje he too claims to have encountered certain direct mystical experiences.

Randall O'Sullivan has supposedly become something of  a Christian though I'm not sure he'll ever jump as far as Rome.

I myself have tried to figure out how the Medjugorje apparitions could have been faked.

The visionaries don't act like liars.

Personally I don't think they are liars.

The only vaguely tenable postulation for fakery, that I can come up with is that a faction within the Catholic Church might have gone rogue and for whatever reasons convinced the young people they were seeing visions.

The Franciscan Order in that region has heroically and courageously ministered to the people there during centuries of Muslim rule.

Is it possible that while isolated from the main body of the Church, elements within the Franciscan Order could have become corrupt, and involved themselves with Mesmerism, conjuring, or some other form of hypnotism?

Is it possible that some renegade Franciscans might have hypnotised the Medjugorje visionaries into thinking they were having visions?

Certainly the personalities who have come to the fore among the Franciscans of Medjurgorje do not appear to be flawless people.

But this is no evidence at all.

God has never just called flawless people to serve him.

Almost always for the big jobs, he calls sinners.

Father Tomislav Vlasic and Father Jozo are the two Franciscans who attract the most media speculation with regard to their bona fides.

Father Tomislav is no longer a priest.

There is general agreement, that if the thing was faked, it was down to these two.

I am reluctant to believe it was faked.

In the past I have included a third priest, Father Slavko, in the fakery hypothesis.

Father Slavko died ten years ago.

He is still remembered today with deep respect by pilgrims and Medjugorje natives.

I was privileged to meet a Croatian priest on holiday in Ireland last month and questioned him about the apparitions at Medjugorje.

He said he would not comment on the visions as he wished to see what the Church herself would conclude from her investigations.

He refused to talk about Father Jozo.

He readily averred that Father Slavko had been a "prayerful man."

The way he said this I understood him to have strong reservations about Father Jozo and to have no reservations at all about Father Slavko.

But this isn't evidence either.

This is just my interpretation of the somewhat evasive answers of one priest to my questions.

I have also recently talked to an Irish priest Father Dave Fleming about his visits to Medjugorje.

Father Fleming told me: "I heard the most incredible confessions in Medjugorje. You wouldn't believe it. I'd be in the confession box for eight hours and people just kept coming. They'd make these really heartfelt confessions. Tears streaming down their faces. You'd see the most amazing conversions."

Father Fleming told me he had not seen any of the miraculous phenomena that some pilgrims report at the site.

The phenomena he had seen were purely spiritual.

And so to September.

The visionaries will go to Rome for their meeting with destiny.

One thing is sure.

Pope Benedict is a tough old coot.

If he thinks Medjugorje is rubbish, he'll say it.

floods of tears

My contacts in South Korea tell me that up until fifty years ago, it was comparatively common for whole villages in their country to be swept away in floods with massive loss of life.

But something changed fifty years ago.

South Korea came under the protection of the United States of America.

And those ruling South Korea were tasked with observing when floods would happen, where they would happen, why they would happen, and how their impact might be minimised.

Advanced drainage systems were installed.

Villages were moved to higher ground.

Flood walls were constructed.

The net result of this, my South Korean contacts tell me, is that flooding in South Korea no longer results in any villages being swept away.

Now consider the situation of Pakistan.

For the past thousand years, Pakistan has been inundated on an almost annual basis with seasonal monsoon rains.

During that thousand years Pakistanis have been very busy.

Pakistanis have been very busy chanting "Allah U Akbar," "Kill The Infidels," and "Death To The West."

Pakistanis have been very busy putting to death any Pakistanis who dare believe Jesus Christ is the son of God.

Pakistanis have been very busy murdering their daughters in honor killings, that is to say for being perceived to have brought dishonour on their families, say by being raped or by refusing to marry their ninety year old cousin Jethro Bin Mohammed.

Pakistanis have been very busy murdering their adult women, usually using oil from cooking stoves to stage an accident, which barbarism is considered easier than obtaining a divorce.

Pakistanis have been very busy blinding schoolgirls with acid to stop them going to school.

Pakistanis have been very busy pyschopathisising their sons in such a way that their sons are good for practically nothing except waging Jihad against the rest of the human race.

Pakistanis have been very busy hiding Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Pakistanis have been very busy launching attacks on American forces in Afghanistan and Indian forces in Kashmir.

Yes, Pakistanis have been busy.

So very busy.

Much too busy with all of this self indulgent islamic fascist drivel to even contemplate building flood defences, moving their villages to safe locations, or altering the water courses and drainage systems where water is most likely to collect as it has collected every year for the past thousand.

They just haven't had time over the past thousand years, what with all the Jihad, to actually look at their own environment and do some work to improve it.

Consequently every year when the Monsoons sweep through the subcontinent, the Pakistanis cry out: "Oh Allah. How did this happen? Who could have seen it coming?"

A comparatively small number of people have died this year in floods in Pakistan.

The United Nations claims something like 1500 people are dead.

If it's a UN figure it will have been exaggerated.

Incredibly, the UN is also claiming that the present Pakistan flooding is worse than the 2004 Tsunami which supposedly killed a quarter of a million people.

I don't trust the Tsunami figures either but let's face it, they blow the death toll in Pakistan out of the water.

When the UN tells a lie, it tells a big one.

The UN is now callling for massive relief efforts and fund allocations for Pakistan.

Never mind the millions being murdered in Sudan, or the Congo.

Never mind the millions being starved by Robert Mugabe's dictatorship in Zimbabwe.

Never mind the forced enslavement of millions in North Korea.

Never mind the pissant denial of the human rights of millions in Burmah.

No.

The priority is Pakistan.

Send your cash and resources to Pakistan.

The Mussies have got their feet wet.

And apparently the world owes them a living.

serial killer larry murphy's relatives

In Ireland the relatives of serial killers are normally given the benefit of the doubt by our liberal judges and media.

But does anyone seriously believe that serial killer Larry Murphy is not being hidden by his friends and relations?

Does anyone seriously believe that serial killer Larry Murphy never once mentioned to his brother when they were building houses together: "Jaze Tom I do love killin wimmin."

Does anyone seriously believe that serial killer Larry Murphy never arrived home to his adoring wife with blood on his hands and/or dirt all over his clothes after burying the bodies and that she never once had any reason to suspect that hubby was involved in slaughtering women when women were disappearing all over South Kildare on nights that her husband serial killer Larry Murphy was, er, missing?

Personally I don't believe any of it.

no jihad here move along folks

Approximately 28 separate forest fires ignited this week across Portugal.

Refreshingly the Portuguese law enforcement authorities announced immediately that the fires had been started deliberately.

Arrests have already been made.

The satelite news channel Euronews in reporting the 28 arson attacks on Portugal's forests took a peculiarly surrealistic view.

Euronews did not once mention that the fires had been started deliberately.

Euronews did not once mention that the Portuguese authorities had arrested the fire starters.

Euronews did not once mention the police investigation.

Euronews merely reported that there were fires.

Euronews climaxed its report with the dismissive statement: "The number of forest fires in Portugal is down on last year's total."

Simply hilarious.

Still at least Euronews mentioned the fact that Portugal was burning.

Most of the news outlets around Europe simply ignored it.

And nobody, but nobody, mentioned Muslims.

odd ditties

My Uncle Joe said this to Aunty Eileen: "Before I met you, I existed. After I met you, I began to live."

the parting of the veil

 

splashings

in the pool of evening

quicksilver

ripples widening

forever

 

cold water thing

risen to exult

in some unthinking imagining

ordinary is wonder enough

 

what do fishes dream

the single greatest ever insult by liberals to the people of ireland

Serial killer Larry Murphy has been released from prison.

He was serving a paltry 15 year sentence for the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of a woman.

The Judge Liberal who sentenced him could have given him a life sentence.

But Judge Liberal isn't accountable to the general public.

The only person Judge Liberal is accountable to is himself and other Judge Liberals.

In any case, serial killer Larry Murphy served only ten years of the paltry 15 year sentence Judge Liberal gave him.

He was released four years early for what Liberals call good behaviour.

Another year of his sentence had been suspended by Judge Liberal while still in the courtroom.

The Judge ruled that the various sentences imposed on serial killer Larry Murphy should be served concurrently, that is to say at the same time and not one after the other, so that again he would be released as soon as possible.

How nice of Judge Liberal.

Judge Liberal and all the other liberals running our law firms, our courts service and our prisons have ignored the fact that serial killer Larry Murphy has never expressed remorse for his crimes and has refused to accept treatment as a sex offender.

Yes, these Liberals have their own definitions of good behaviour.

Unfortunately it is unlikely serial killer Larry Murphy will go live beside any liberals.

That might wake them up a little.

Ireland is in turmoil.

People are genuinely furious that this merciless slaughterer of young girls has been released to kill, kill, and kill again.
We Irish rarely agree about anything.

But a surprising cross section of us agree on this one.

A cross section drawn from all walks of life, income groups and backgrounds.

Anyone in fact who has a family, or a niece, or a nephew, or a friend, or cares about his community, or cherishes Ireland as our shared home, or who believes in God.

Serial killer Larry Murphy should either have been executed or kept behind bars for the rest of his life.

And he should have been waterboarded to tell us the whereabouts of those girls whom he kidnapped, raped and murdered and for whose murders he has never been tried.

And how many others he killed.

And who helped him.

But liberals in the Judiciary, the prison service and the legal profession have ensured he's back on the streets at the earliest possible moment.

Right now, no one knows where he is.

Justice Minister Dermot Aherne says he is powerless to detain serial killer Larry Murphy any longer.

The question is: Are we powerless to dismiss Dermot Aherne from office?

Dermot Aherne, and the liberal Judges, and the liberal lawyers, and the liberal prison wardens, and all the other liberals who rule us from the shadows, are gambling that we are powerless.

Serial killer Larry Murphy is gambling that we are powerless.

Just like the girls he killed were powerless.

Serial killer Larry Murphy kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered Jo Jo Dollard, Annie McCarrick, Deirdre Jacob and others.

Tonight he roams the country.

What happened to Jo Jo Dollard, Deirdre Jacob and Annie McCarrick was a monstrous crime.

But the greatest crime is happening now.

Right before our eyes.

Their killer is free.

An interesting solution to the problem would be to arrest him again and incarcerate him in a cell for one night each with every Judge, prison warden and defence lawyer in Ireland.

And with Dermot Aherne.

It would be fitting for them to experience what Deirdre, Jo Jo and Annie went through alone before Larry Murphy slaughtered them on their last night on earth.

an open letter to geraldine kennedy editor of the irish times

Dear Sir or Madam or Whatever.

Some of your articles caught my eye recently.

On Monday 26th July 2010 you permitted feminist Mary Condren to egregiously slander the Catholic Church by falsely claiming that the church considered child abuse a less serious crime than ordaining women as priests.

You allowed Mary Condren to construct a tissue of poorly referenced pseudo rationalities to justify her bigoted lies.

You highlighted Mary Condren's mendacious manipulations with a banner headline maliciously proclaiming: "Latest Vatican Document Is Final Straw For Women."

This article was a blatent incitement to hatred.

How dare you.

Yesterday you printed an article on your cover wherein you highlighted the views of an 80 year old private citizen who now doubts the genuineness of her conversion to Catholicism.

You didn't present her views as an unknown life long liberal having doubts about her own conversion.

You presented her views on your cover as a clarion call for a boycott of church services.

You also favoured her with the opportunity on your cover to call for the ordination of women, the creation of a married clergy, and the institution of other liberal atheistic agendas within the ancient church.

Now Geraldine Kennedy.

There was no reason for you to pick one particular 80 year old who holds these views and ignore the thousands of 80 year olds who reject those views.

There was no reason for you to put on your cover yet another sensationalist call for a boycott of the church from an anonymous unknown figure.

This article also was a manipulation and an unsubtle assault on the ancient church.

How dare you.

I am aware that your newspaper is losing over a hundred million dollars a year.

I am aware that you are paid in excess of 400,000 dollars a year.

You are historically Madam the greatest single incompetent to ever disgrace Irish journalism.

And with the presence in the cistern of Tony O'Reilly's moth eaten losers, that's some accomplishment.

Today, Thursday 12th August you printed an article on your cover by atheistic bigot Pasty McGarry (you style him Religious Affairs Correspondent) attacking the Catholic Church for contrived reasons relating to your own attempted manipulation of sex abuse issues and your failed attempts in collusion with Independent Newspapers, elements of the Judiciary and others, to compel a generation of Irish Bishops to resign.

You put this drivel on your cover.

You maintained in direct contravention of the truth that the public wanted the Bishops to resign.

Well Kennedy, I suppose if you're going to tell a lie you might as well tell a big one.

Here's the rub.

On Thursday the entire country was focussed on a much more important, more immediate story, than yet another wearisome propaganda piece in your forty year culture war with the Catholic faith.

The entire country Miz Kennedy, was concerned about the release into the community of serial killer Larry Murphy, who police suspect kidnapped, violated, raped and slaughtered Deirdre Jacob, Jo Jo Dullard, Annie McCarrick and others.

On the day of Larry Murphy's release you didn't trouble to report the matter at all.

Larry Murphy's release wasn't on your front page.

He wasn't anywhere in your newspaper.

There were oblique references to him in an article on calls for sex offenders to be compulsorily tagged with tracking devices.

The article made no mention of the girls Murphy tortured and killed.

So here's the thing.

I put it to you.

You failed to focus on public concerns about serial killer Larry Murphy's release in your edition on Thursday because the release of Larry Murphy has come about through the deluded atheistic liberalism of Ireland's Judiciary, lawyers, Senior Civil Servants and prison wardens, an atheistic liberalism which has largely and tirelessly been fostered by, and in collusion, with the Irish Times.

Even the other liberal hack newspapers, Tony O'Reilly's hoor masters at Independent House, and the parvenus of the Daily Mail, even they honorably and courageously sought to represent the sheer horror, anger and revulsion ordinary people of all backgrounds and political dispositions, feel at the release of Larry Murphy.

But not you.

Instead you dedicated Thursday's edition of the Irish Times to your own ongoing and vicious persecution of the Christian faith in this country.

Well done Geraldine Kennedy.

That is why your newspaper is losing a hundred million dollars a year.

James Healy

PS: How dare you.

the monica leech laugh in

Salman Rushdie had just heard the news.

The Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's favourite psychopath, had just issued a Fatwa condemning him to death for publishing an incomprehensibly boring book called The Satanic Verses.

Apparently the Ayatollah believed the book satirised the peaceloving religion of Islam.

At time of issuing the Fatwa, the Ayatollah was the only person on the planet earth who had read the damn thing.

But now Salman's publisher had rung him to say that sales were through the roof.

"People who've never read a book in their lives are buying it," crowed the publisher. "I gotta tell you Salman baby, there's no such thing as bad publicity."

When the publisher rang off, Salman immediately reached for his notepad and began scribbling.

"What are you doing?" enquired his luscious secretary Slinkeesha.

"Writing down the idea for my next book," answered Salman.

"What's it going to be called," wondered his secretary.

"Buddha Is A Big Fat Bollix," replied Salman still ferociously scribbling plot outlines.

greatest scandals of a defunct newspaper called the leinster leader

A few months after failing British media company the Johnston Press purchased the now near defunct Leinster Leader newspaper, a Johnston Press Wallah was going over the current Leinster Leader accounts in its Naas office.

Something caught his eye.

"We paid 138 million for the Leinster Leader," said he. "Why do the accounts show us still paying out rent on the buildings every week?"

A passing lackie explained the situation to him.

"We bought the newspaper," said the lackie. "The price we paid didn't include the buildings. We still lease those from the original owners."

And a little bird said: "Ha ha ha ha ha hoo hoo haa hhaaah hhhaaaah haaah haaaah hha hee hee hee ho ho chortle haaaah hahhhhhhhhhhah hhah ha ha hah ha ho ho ho heee ha ha ha."

Seriously though.

They're brilliant aren't they.

at home with the gadaffis

Colonel Gadaffi picked up the limp body of the serving maid.

"Hannibal," he roared at his favourite son, "how many times have I told you not to leave dead Filippinos lying in the hall?"

dirty tricks in irish politics and media

An organisation styling itself the People Before Profit Alliance has lodged a trumped up complaint with the Senate about Senator Ronan Mullen.

Senator Ronan Mullen is a principled, courageous, decent and honorable man.

*****

The grandiosely titled People Before Profit Alliance is largely unknown to the general public.

The individuals steering the People Before Profit Alliance are largely unknown to the general public.

The spokesperson from the People Before Profit Alliance Martin O'Sullivan is largely unknown to the general public.

Neither Martin O'Sullivan nor any other representative of the People Before Profit Alliance have ever been elected to anything.

*****

Senator Ronan Mullen commented a few months ago on the culture of corruption in Irish political life, particularly with regard to claims for travelling and other expenses.

Senator Ronan Mullen made his comments openly to the senate.

Senator Ronan Mullen observed at the time that after his (Senator Mullen's) election a fellow parliamentarian had said to him in private conversation that he could consider the possibility of claiming larger travelling expenses based on the distance from his house in Galway to Dublin rather than on the much smaller distance he was actually travelling to get to work in Dublin from the residence where he resided on a daily basis which like his workplace the senate was also in Dublin.

Senator Ronan Mullen's exact words to the senate about the matter as reported in The Daily Mail yesterday were: "I was told that I would be the better for it financially. (ie Making an inflated expenses claim.) I have no doubt those who made the suggestions meant well and thought it was an acceptable thing to do within the system. But it is not."

*****

Senator Ronan Mullen turned his nose up at the suggestion.

Senator Ronan Mullen has never claimed inflated expenses.

Senator Ronan Mullen during his two years in the senate has claimed the lowest possible travelling expenses from his residence in Dublin.

His behaviour in this as in other matters has been exemplary.

*****

The shadowy unaccountable unelected cheats of the self named People Before Profit Alliance have attempted to snear Senator Ronan Mullen with a complaint that is unwarranted, misleading, disingenuous and a lie.

The complaint from Martin O'Sullivan and the People Before Profit Alliance alleges that Senator Ronan Mullen is guilty of wrong doing because he has chosen not to name the parliamentarian whom he mentioned in his anecdote about the culture of corruption in Irish political life.

The complaint from the largely unknown utterly unelected Martin O'Sullivan and the equally unknown utterly unelected self styled People Before Profit Alliance is a malign attempt to smear a genuinely honorable man.

The complaint is indeed frivolous but no less evil for all its frivolousness.

It is a notional complaint based on the twisted idea that the very act of referring to a casual conversation while addressing the Senate, can connote wrong doing on the part of the senator who is speaking if the senator decides not to name someone who has figured in his anecdote and who unnamed unaccountable unelected individuals such as Martin O'Sullivan and Martin O'Sullivan's self styled social club the People Before Profit Alliance arbitrarily demand to have named.

The purpose of the complaint is to create an illusion of wrongdoing around the honest and decent Senator Ronan Mullen.

The express intent of those making the complaint is to mislead the general public into thinking that Senator Ronan Mullen has himself made false expenses claims.

The complaint is a pathetic assault on free speech by worthless nobodies intent on weaseling themselves into a position of some influence over public discourse.

It is a complaint that should have been dismissed outright.

*****

On Monday the Senate Committee On Members Interests released a press statement saying it was investigating allegations of wrongdoing against four senators.

The statement by the Senate Committee On Members Interests named three of the senators as Ivor Callelly, Ann Ormonde, and Larry Butler.

All of these are members of Ireland's kleptocratic governing party Fianna Fail.

All are suspected of making massively inflated expenses claims.

Inexplicably the Senate Committee On Members Interests also named in the same sentence Independent Senator Ronan Mullen who is a profoundly honest man along with these other three Fianna Fail senators who are profoundly corrupt.

The Senate Committee On Members Interests conflated the honest Senator Mullen with the other three thieves.

The Senate Committee On Members Interests stated with crassly deliberate dishonesty that it had "commenced investigations  into separate complaints made against Larry Butler, Ivor Callelly, Ronan Mullen and Ann Ormonde."

The intent of the Senate Committee On Members Interests can only have been malign in inserting Senator Ronan Mullen's name into the list with these three thieves.

*****

Senator Ronan Mullen has a reputation as a convinced Christian.

Members of the Senate Committee On Members Interests have effectively colluded with unknown unelected unaccountable elements outside parliament in attempting to smear and silence him.

sophie montage

 

possibilities

air born insects hum

homeward go they homeless

and propose this street lamp or that car light

as the all important centre of the universe

 

purposeless they try again

to divine transcendent purpose

the light that animates their bodies

shines from the centre of the universe

an open letter to judge yvonne murphy

Murphy.

You stated recently that you had found no evidence of a paedophile infiltration of the Catholic Church.

You made this statement following publication of your report into child abuse within the Catholic Church.

Your statement implied that you had looked for such evidence of a paedophile infiltration of the Catholic Church.

You will be aware that I believe your report to have been a trumped up tissue of lies and manipulations designed to create the false impression in the public mind that sex abuse arises primarily at the hands of priests and religious, when in fact the vast preponderance of sex abuse victims, as you well know, occur in broader strata of our society at the hands of non religious people, that is to say in hospitals, sports clubs, health board facilities, and in the family home.

You will also be aware that I believe your report is part of a strategy by shadowy unaccountable liberal atheistic elements of our society hiding within the Judiciary, media, Civil Service and political spheres, who wish to destroy the Catholic Church as a locus of influence for the people of Ireland.

You will of course be aware that I consider your trumped up report to be a power play against the church and that the recent attempts by unnamed officials within the Department of Education to force the Catholic Church to withdraw from the management of Primary Schools are part of the same power play, as clearly you atheists regard educational institutions as a target for conquest in your ongoing culture war, for if you control what children are taught you will be able to control what they think, isn't that so Murphy, and to hell with the fact that Ireland's school system, the envy of the world, has been established and run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the people of Ireland since the inception of the State and for hundreds of years before that in the form of hedge schools, and for another thousand years before that through the aegis of sage priests and nuns, all the way back to Saint Patrick himself.

Murphy when you claimed that you'd found no evidence of a paedophile infiltration you were attempting to propagate a false notion, to wit that sex abuse is caused by traditional Catholic teachings and practices on celibacy.

This notion is refuted by scholarly investigators whose mindset is less ideologically driven than yours.

Sex abuse affects all sectors of society.

No family in Ireland is untouched by it.
Its most egregious manifestation is among non celibate people.

But you said you found no evidence of paedophile infiltration of the church.

And the clear implication was that you had looked for such an infiltration.

Bearing in mind that the police have stated paedophile rings exist in Ireland and operate at a level of secrecy that has left them completely unmapped, it is strange that you would pretend your cursory review of data amounted to a proper investigation as to the presence of paedophile infiltration in the church.

Nonetheless some such evidence exists Murphy.

I mean some of it is in the public domain.

In Sligo national school five teachers were simultaneously involved in the abuse of children.

Five of em Murphy.

Why if they stood together, it would almost make a ring.

Two of the five were some sort of monks in a church order.

Three of the five were ordinary teachers.

The five paedophiles obtained children from a local man who prostituted his children to them.

Now then Murphy.

Do you seriously tell me, that this paedophile ring is not in and of itself a priori evidence of the infiltration of Catholic Church institutions by paedophile rings?

There are other cases you might look at.

But this one is the most egregious.

The police have reviewed the data I have reviewed and like you have stated there is no evidence of a paedophile ring in operation at Sligo national school.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, eh Murphy?

Review this case again Murphy.

You might also check into any cases involving paedophiles within the Church who died shortly after being discovered.

I'm suggesting to you Murphy that some of these sudden deaths of paedophiles were a little too convenient.

I'm suggesting to you that paedophile rings cover their tracks by murdering any members who have been identified by the police.

One other thing Murphy.

If you wish to truthfully establish whether or not paedophile rings have infiltrated the church...

You need to interrogate every single individual who has been convicted of sex abuse.

And you need to get a tough police officer who knows something about interrogations to ask the convicted paedophiles the hard questions.

Take the most extreme cases and work your way down Murphy.

I would commend you to initiate your enquiries in the Wexford diocese of Ferns.

James Healy

PS: I am informed that your husband is Supreme Court Judge Adrian Hardiman, a self described bon viveur. Self described in that the online data base Wikipedia describes him as such, and the probability is that no one else in the Republic of Ireland except himself would be bothered writing an entry for Wikipedia about the useless boring little bastard. Bon viveur. That's a phrase meaning Hoor Master, isn't it? How every edifying. And very edifying to know that if I as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland wish to challenge the trumped up tissue of lies against the Catholic Church which is your report into child abuse, how very edifying to know Murphy, that I will be making my appeals to your smug debased witless husband. I mean, I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns.

this week in the jihad

The worldwide Muslim Jihad against the human race has had a busy week. It's been a roller coaster ride for the peaceloving murderers of Al Qaeda. They've won some. They've lost some. Here's the top ten Jihadi encounters of the past seven days.

1. Germany finally decided to close a Mosque that has operated as an Al Qaeda recruiting ground and propaganda centre for at least the past decade. The Mosque was most famous as the favoured watering hole of some of the Muslim cowards responsible for the Nine Eleven attacks. It only took the Germans nine years to decide to close it. They're waking up. Very slowly.

2. French President Nicholas Sarkozy called for the expulsion of rioting Muslims who shoot at French police officers. It was a mellow enough speech. But Muslims are sensitive to the idea we might expel them from our countries for attempting to murder us. Sarkozy has the right idea, though of course what people really want is for any Muslim involved in rioting, murder, Jihad, honour killing, plotting the overthrow of humanity, etc etc, to be executed and/or sent home to their glorious free Muslim lands to contemplate what they have lost and why they have lost it. Because if we expel them, the Jihad is over for another generation. Within hours of Sarkozy's very moderate speech, Muslims had released footage of French police attempting to arrest Muslim illegal immigrants in the suburb of Bobigny. The Muslims had brought babies to their riot and this tactic resulted in some footage which the Muslims used to allege police brutality. No one was buying it beyond the usual left wing pseudo elites who have gifted France with ten million Muslim immigrants intent on enslaving the country. The French too are waking up. Very very slowly.

3. The Muslim who took a legal case challenging France's proscription of the head scarves Muslim men like to force their women to wear, was charged with rape. Classy classy guy.

4. Omar Khadr the youngest Al Qaeda murderer at Guantanamo Bay failed to have evidence against him ruled inadmissable on grounds of his age and the manner in which he had been interrogated. Aw. Did diddums want to murder human beings and get away with it on account of Diddums being just a young murdering Muslim? Poor little Diddums. Little Diddums going bye byes. Bye bye Diddums. Bye bye.

5. Two Panamanian registered super tanker cargo ships collided in the sea off the Indian city of Bombay. The ships are at present spilling cargo and oil into the water and have forced the closure of the nearby harbour. Super tankers theoretically cannot collide unless someone decides to make them collide deliberately. Al Qaeda doesn't have to actually be driving the ships to cause a collision. All it has to do is pay a Panamanian peasant a few hundred thousand dollars to steer one of the ships into the other. The oil spill from the tankers is the third such oil spill to occur in "accidental" circumstances this Summer. First we had the disaster in the gulf of Mexico when a BP oil rig exploded. Then we had a virtually unreported disaster in China when harbour oil facilities exploded. Now we have this. Have these oil spills anything in common? Well for a start Al Qaeda happens to be at war with all three countries where the spills occurred, that is to say with the US, China and India. Don't expect to see this postulation any time soon on CNN.

6. Al Qaeda Imam Faisal Abdul Woof Woof got permission to build a Mosque on the site of the Nine Eleven attacks in New York. Imam Woof Woof has a long history of propagandising for Muslim terror, having claimed with egregious Islamic malignancy that American foreign policy caused the Nine Eleven attacks. Imam Woof Woof's history of justifying Muslim terrorism in general and Al Qaeda terrorism in particular, has not stopped Barack Obama's administration appointing him to represent America at Islamic conferences overseas. Hilarious no. So Imam Woof Woof now has legal permission to chant Allah U Akbar at the Mosque he will build on the graves of the 3000 people slain by Al Qaeda Muslim cowards on Nine Eleven. You know what I think Imam Woof Woof. I think you're running out of time. I think your Mosque will not stand at Ground Zero for more than five minutes. Do you hear me Imam Woof Woof. You low life murdering scum.

7. In Kenya, people voted by referendum to adopt a new constitution. The constitution was devised by former United Nations Chief Kofi Annan following inter ethnic riots earlier in the year. For inter ethnic, read Muslims v The Rest. What has Kofi Annan ever done to qualify him to write a country's constitution? Beats me. Kofi Annan is most famous for his son Kojo's relationship with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Kojo received vast sums of money from Saddam Hussein in return for helping Saddam circumvent sanctions on Iraq prior to America's liberation of that country. At the same time as Kojo was receiving huge pay offs from Saddam Hussein, Kofi Annan was doing his level best to impede any American military action against that same Saddam Hussein. It is interesting to note that Kofi Annan's attempts to save Saddam Hussein's murderous regime and his sons attempts to profit from it, have not hurt Kofi Annan's career with the UN one bit. Now he's in the constitution writing game. The most salient feature of the constitution that Kofi Annan has foisted on Kenya is that it accords Islamic Courts the right to act within Kenya independently of the country's regular Judiciary. For the first time in its history Kenya now has two parallel legal systems. One genuinely committed to the rule of law and one genuinely committed to the rule of Islam. Kofi Annan's constitution represents a tremendous victory for Al Qaeda who will use it to destabilise further a once stable non Muslim African country.

8. Floods in Pakistan are said to have killed 1500 people. Osama Bin Laden's toes are believed to have gotten damp in the deluge. The people of the Swat Valley where the floods hit hardest have harboured Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, for the past nine years. I am finding it difficult to sympathise with them.

9. Muslims all over the world have begun celebrating the festival of Ramitupyourarse. The opening of Ramitupyourarse was marked in Iraq by Al Qaeda Muslims murdering 60 other Muslims in the streets. This is also Al Qaeda's way of celebrating Barack Obama's decision to withdraw the American army and hand Iraq over to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

10. The United Nations initiated an investigation into Israel's recent interception and interdiction of a terrorist supply convoy attempting to break the blockade of Gaza. Nine Turkish thugs intent on bringing supplies to Hamas Iran's proxy terrorist army in Gaza, were killed as they attempted to beat to death Israeli commandos who had boarded their vessel. The UN just loves holding enquiries into everything the Israelis do. They're a bit slower to investigate the daily terrorist mayhem and cultural oppression carried out in countries under the jackboot of the peaceloving religion of Islam. How many serving maids a year are murdered every year in Lebanon? Just remind me. A hundred isn't it? How many women die in honour killings in Egypt every year? The official figure is 5000. How many women and children die in Pakistan each year in honour killings? Nobody knows mate. The numbers are off the scale. How many Muslim terrorists are currently wandering around the world looking for a chance to kill humany beings? Let's me this way put it. There's a lot. And the UN wants to put Israel on trial. Again. You know what folks. The UN is starting to annoy me.

11. A sniper firing from Lebanon killed an Israeli army Colonel in a sneak attack. Israeli retaliatory fire killed a couple of Lebanese soldiers and a Muslim journalist who had been conviently on the scene to cheer on the Muslim assassination squad. The fact that Lebanon's legitimate army was a party to this assassination implies that Lebanon's legitimate army is now colluding with Hezbollah, the proxy terror army maintained and run in South Lebanon by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The sneak attack was planned to coincide with a speech in Lebanon by Hassan Nasrallah, who is leader of Hezbollah. Nasrallah got a bit excited during his speech, accusing the Israelis of murdering Lebanon's President Rafik Hariri a few years ago. The statement was particularly cretinous since one of the UN's less public investigations has already established that the Syrians, again working for Iran, were responsible for the murder and for the murders of other Lebanese political figures. As usual the UN has been too busy issuing reports on the State of Israel to actually take action and indict the Syrian leader Bashir Assad whose secret service murdered Hariri. The assassinated President Hariri's son Saad Hariri is currently Lebanese Prime Minister. But he is a cowed figure content to spout anti Israeli inanities while the Syrians and Iranians who murdered his father conspire once again to steal his country.

12. Forests still burning in Russia. Does anybody seriously doubt that Al Qaeda lit the matches? There are signs that ordinary Russians are starting to get a bit tired of President Vladimir Putin's unsubtle attempts to create enmity between Russia and the West while Al Qaeda is putting Russia to the torch.

an open letter to father thaddeus doyle editor of the curates diary

Dear Father.

I have read The Curate's Diary off and on for a few decades.

I seem to remember finding copies years ago in my grandparents house.
So I reckon I was in nearly at the beginning.

Your faith and insight are always enlightning.

Some of your guidance on sexual matters is profound.

You also occasionally write about near death experiences, citing people who claim to have clinically died and to have experienced the after life before being revived.

I find these accounts fascinating although of uneven quality.

Not all the testimonies are credible.
But they're always engaging, sometimes challenging, and usually well told.

Anyway.

Having read The Curate's Diary for so long and generally admired what you are doing, it came as a bit of a shock to read your editorial last month.

You wrote about a newly released British enquiry into events in Derry City in the early 1970's where British soldiers shot some rioters.

These events have come to be called Bloody Sunday, a term first devised by the IRA to impute guilt to the British soldiers.

In writing about Bloody Sunday, you felt it necessary to point out that you personally didn't come from a left wing extremist pro IRA family.

Famous last words.

They all say that.

In any case, it was as per usual an interesting editorial.

You will have guessed by now that I disagreed with virtually everything you said in it which was a new experience for me having previously been one of your fans.

You described the rioters in Derry City as peaceful protestors.

No.

They weren't peaceful anyway.

They were IRA supporters endeavouring to make Northern Ireland ungovernable.

And they rioted with rabid infantile psychopathic rage.

At no point were they peaceful.

You accepted absolutely, the conclusions of this latest Bloody Sunday report which exonerates the rioters and implies the British soldiers were guilty of murder.

I do not accept this report.

It is a report contrived by smug socialist left wingers insulated from reality and from the practicalities of having to defend the streets and their country from the IRA.

It was compiled by rarified pseudo academics whose sympathies are clearly with the IRA and its supporters.

Interestingly, only days after publication of the new report, IRA elements began a new bombing campaign in Northern Ireland.

Appeasement doesn't work.

In truth, none of us on this island or in Britain can afford to see the British army being casually criminalised through the attribution of retrospective guilt.

We still need them.

That's the unpalatable truth.

When I do the maths on paper, it seems to me that they're really all that's standing between Western Europe and the Caliphate.

The present generation of woolly leftist liberals who seem so keen to condemn the British army for its actions thirty years ago, may yet discover that dealing with terrorists isn't quite as easy as their tendentious delusional Bloody Sunday report suggests.

You yourself excoriated the compilers of a previous report on Bloody Sunday which had exonerated the soldiers.

You suggested that the compiler of that report Mr Widgery might have trouble in facing God in the afterlife, apparently because his conclusions about Bloody Sunday were different to your own.

That's a rum one for me.

Since I concurred with the previous report.

In any case perhaps everything I've said is wrong and at the end of it all you are right.

But let me tell you what I think.

I think if the British army hadn't fought the IRA to a standstill in Northern Ireland from 1970 onward, then the IRA would have initiated nationwide revolutionary warfare on the island of Ireland and handed us over, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, to Communist Russia.

Certainly my source in the IRA has been quite frank in asserting that during this period the IRA was taking orders from Moscow.

My source has named names, including Gerry Adams, Frank McGuinness, and a southern Irish politician once known as Frank Ross, now styled Proinsias De Rossa and waxing fat on his vastly inflated salary as a member of the Irish parliament.

Reds under the bed.

Only they weren't under the bed.

They were rioting in the streets.

With Moscow pulling the puppet strings.

And you know what.

Communist Russia wasn't just running the IRA as a means to subvert Ireland.

Communist Russia was trying precisely the same thing at precisely the same time all across Europe through its sponsorship and control of the Baader Meinhof group in Germany, the student revolutionaries in France, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Eta Basque Separatists in Spain, and the November 17 organisation in Greece.

All these organisations specialised in riots, or what you call peaceful demonstrations.

All these organisations came with a body count.

All these organisations revelled in provoking police and soldiers, and then labelling police and soldiers as criminals.

Remember the people of Northern Ireland welcomed the British army when it first came onto the streets in the late 1960's.

It was IRA strategy to alienate the public from the soldiers by continually staging riots, the same riots you say were being conducted by peaceful protestors.

If my IRA source is telling the truth, if my analysis of what the IRA was trying to do in seeking to alienate the general public in Derry from the British army is correct, if there was indeed a Soviet plot to conquer the whole island of Ireland using the IRA, why then you, me, and every Irishman who values freedom, owe the British army not just an apology but our heartiest thanks.

Your editorial went on ascribing guilt to the British soldiers and to Mr Widgery for some time.

I found it all quite wearisome.

Because I think you were so wrong.

That's all I have to say about the matter.

But as you rose from excoriating the British, you turned your attention to the Israelis.

Another of my hobby horses.

I think the Israelis are the chosen people of God and have been brought back to the holy land by God's will after 2000 years wandering the earth.

I doubt very much that any of the rat bag Muslim terror armies and dictatorships which permeate the region will be permitted by God to overthrow them.

Your editorial now asserted that the Israelis had committed a terrible deed recently in stopping a convoy of ships bringing supplies to the Islamist controlled Gaza Strip.

I disagree with you completely here too.

The convoy to Gaza was orchestrated by Turkish and Arab Islamists and their goonish atheistic liberal left wing supporters in our own countries.

The convoy was bringing supplies to an organisation called Hamas, which is a proxy terror army run by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Some of the Muslims in the convoy attempted to beat to death Israeli soldiers boarding their vessel.

The Israeli soldiers fought them off, killing nine of them.

The Israelis acted with decency, courage, restraint and honour.

This is my assessment of what happened.

Your editorial didn't finish there however.

You went on to turn your attention to no less a subject than the religious divide, known to some as The Reformation, which five hundred years ago resulted in the demarcating divisions between Catholics and Protestants.

You suggested that it was time for Protestant Christians to think about all the hurt they have caused to Catholics over the centuries.

Let me be clear.

I think the Catholic church was commissioned by the messiah to serve himself in human history.

But I also think your statement about it being time for Protestants to consider how much hurt they've caused us was wrong.

There has been ample hurt on both sides.

We are still one family.
One more thing.
Please forgive my boorish churlishness and unctious presumptuousness in attempting to address your points in such a confrontational way.
It is the closest thing I've got to a House Style at the Heelers Diaries.

James Healy

an open letter to father cyril lovett editor of far east magazine

Hey Cyril.

I came across the June edition of Far East magazine which you edited.

It had moments.
Some good. Some bad.

I'm glad you've retained the old Pudsy Ryan children's column which I remember from my own childhood. The idea still has merit and could legitimately return to its former full page glory. Pudsy is a Just William type character and this should be brought out more.

Emphasise the humour.

Let your writer have fun with it.

The educational angle, where readers can correct Pudsy's spelling, enthuses me no end.
I'm a sucker for the classics.

Adults as well as children would enjoy submitting corrected versions of Pudsy's misspelled stories as a competition.

I also liked the article by Sister Anne Carbon about a mental health centre she's running in Peru.

I would have been interested to know whether she was having any success with methods of healing involving God, counselling, befriending, music, nature, holidays in spectacular locations (nobody can tell me they're depressed until they've seen Rome), flights in helicopters (seeing the world in such a new way is potentially much more liberating than invasive surgeries such as electro shock therapy or lobotomy) and an appeal to the freedom of the patient to choose to be well.

I couldn't help wondering whether in the third world as in the first world, corrupt pharmaceutical companies are simply moving in on mental health facilities with offers of sponsorship in order to control them and thereby effectively prevent any alternative health strategies emerging, ie alternative strategies to giving billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies so that they can drug patients out of their minds in perpetuity.

I suspect all healing depends on the patient somehow facing whatever his mind is telling him.

This would mean experiencing your mind in sleep without the obfuscatory effect of drugs in your system.

There must be no chamber of the mind we fear to go into.

We are made to be well.

All healing begins with acceptance of self.

I am postulating that when you're drugged you can't begin to experience yourself as you are.

Anyhoo.

It was an interesting article.
Another winner for which you should be congratulated.

I just found myself curious as to Sister Anne's views on the possibility of healing without pharmaceutical products.

Does it ever happen?

Am I deluding myself?

And so on.

There was an article on Japanese rice sculptures by Father Eamon Horgan which I also liked.

This would have worked well in any contemporary publication.
Kudos again to you and your contributors.

You published a number of poltical articles also.

As usual these were slanted leftwards in such a way that it was difficult to discern any Christian influence in them whatsoever.

I couldn't help wondering Cyril.

Are you a communist?

It's not such a terrible thing.

But you could reasonably stop posing as a Catholic priest if you are.

One of your leftist articles was a piece advocating sainthood for the Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero who was murdered in the 1980's.

You think Oscar Romero is a saint.

I don't.

Perhaps we should let the church decide through her traditional procedures.

A second article, this time written by your self Cyril, suggests that the only reason China never converted to Christianity was because of the small mindedness of the Vatican and its missionaries in insisting in proclaiming the truth of Jesus the way it has always been proclaimed. You were critical of missionaries who had not dressed up the gospel in Chinese style, philosophy and customs. While praising the missionary Matteo Ricci, you scorned all those who came after him.

In doing so you sneered at the many Chinese and European Catholics who have been martyred so that ordinary Chinese people might hear the truth about Christ crucified.
Nice one Cyril.

Cyril, I know it's difficult for you to accept that the mayhem in China over the past four hundred years is the work of the devil.

I know you don't believe the devil exists.

I know you prefer to blame the Vatican.

So you think China's feudal rulers would have ended their three thousand year oppressions of the peasantry, if only Christians had spouted a bit of Taoism?

So you think Chairman Mao's 70 million murders could have been put on hold if only the Catholics were a bit more down with the proles?

So you think the modern Chinese government's extermination of millions of unborn babies might not have happened if only the Vatican had been a bit more groovy?

Cyril you are terribly wrong about these matters.

You published a second article about China which was written by Father Sean McNulty.

Father Sean McNulty writes from a similarly deluded though more blatently and wilfully blind left wing mind set.

Incredibly Father Sean McNulty in a haze of environmentalist folly and arrant anti western prejudice, advocates China as a model for world development.

His argument seems to be driven by the endemic corruptions in large western corporations and governments.

He's right about those, incidentally.

He's wrong about everything else.

Your by line points out that Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years.

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist government's compulsory abortion programmes where women are compelled to witness the drowning of their own babies in buckets of water in makeshift operating theatres having been operated on without anesthetic.

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist government's arbitrary detention and murder of democracy advocates.

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist government's reduction of Tibet to a feudal vassal State.

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist government's maintenance of North Korea as an unofficial province of China, functioning as a nuclear armed psychopathisised terror regime to destabilise democracies in the region, while the people of North Korea themselves are let starve by the roadsides.

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist Government's sponsorship in Africa of Sudan's Arab Islamic dictatorship which has killed in the region of three million Christians in a thirty year long civil war and has recently managed to rack up another two hundred thousand murders, this time of Muslims who apparently weren't Arab enough, in its Darfur region. 

Father Sean McNulty has lived in China for twenty years and seems to have no problems with the Chinese Communist government's attempts to subvert Catholicism by subsuming it into a communist party run church.

Father Sean McNulty's advocacy of China as an alternative societal or economic model for the world is pure lunaception.

Father Sean McNulty's claim that China is multicultural in any positive sense is crass in the extreme.

All cultures in China are subservient to the Han Chinese majority culture, and the Han Chinese are grotesquely cowed and enslaved by the Chinese Communist Party.

I know Father Sean McNulty is an individual and I shouldn't really saddle him with the Catholic priest label, but, well, for a Catholic priest to exhibit such soul dead slavish surrender to the evils of communism in his description of China is quite quite horrifying.

Thanks for your time Cyril.

If you guys at The Far East ever decide to convert to Christianity please let me know.

James Healy

how green was my budgie

Well obviously one of them is quite green and the other is blue.

reverie

last night by the riverside

i saw myself a ten year child

with vincent berney and john martin

in youthful incarnations

fight and run and hide

 

then was i desolate and morose

dust took the image

even the living have ghosts

of hamsters and men

Afternoon at the Chateau.

I'm showing the pet hamsters to Diarmuid, the neighbour's kid.

Hamsters.

Plural.

We have two hamsters at this moment because I bought one in Naas and forgot to tell another pet shop owner in Newbridge that the position of Resident Hamster At The Chateau was henceforth filled.

I didn't have the heart to refuse a home to the creature she went and procured for me.

I know she moved mountains.

Ireland is undergoing a hamster shortage at the moment which you would not believe.

So here we are.

Hamster Number One who is called Baby Ham is in the front room.

She is a happy hamster and everyone rejoices at her presence.

Hamster Number Two is in my bedroom in the west wing.

His name is Fur Ham because he is of a long haired breed.

He is also essentially a more surreptitious hamster than Baby Ham.

That is to say, no one else in the house has yet been informed of his existence.

"Diarmuid this hamster is a secret," I tell the neighbour's kid.

I prounounce Diarmuid's name "Jeer Mwidge," which is the traditional Gaelic pronunciation that his mother insists upon. She has insisted on this pronunciation at odd turns for several years in spite of my heartfelt and finely principled protestations to make her see reason, to wit that no matter what she does everyone in the present era and posterity will shortly be calling the kid "Dermo."

Dermo juggles Hamster Number Two meditatively.

"Why is he a secret?" quoth he.

"Ummm," sez me, "because he just is. Don't tell anyone about him. I want to break the news gently to the parents."

While the kid still juggles Fur Ham, I go to sit in my corner chair.

The chair tilts backward as I lower myself into it.

I am unaware that the chair is tilting.

My rate of descent increases.

The chair's slide also increases.

It is falling over.

I am falling down.

With a crash of splinters my back cracks through the chair's ornate wooden struts.

I lie in a heap.

Diarmuid stares.

He is not a bad kid.

A saint would find it difficult not to laugh.

Diarmuid is not a saint.

At least if he is a saint, he's going to be one of those saints whose sainthood God makes apparent only after many years.

"Are you okay?" he manages with a stifled chortle.

"What happened?" sez me.

"Wah, ha, ha, ha," replies Diarmuid.

The chortle is no longer stifled but comes forth in a gale of laughter.

Still laughing at the sheer high octane entertainment of existence he pops Fur Ham back in his cage and disappears up the hall.

The last thing I hear is him shouting out the front door at his brother who is playing football on the avenue.

"Hey Peter," he yells. "James has got a new hamster. Yeah. Another one. No really. He's got two of them. Oh and he just fell on his back when he tried to sit down and smashed a chair."

the spy who loved me

Vladimir Putin was alone in his office with his number one agent Evgenia Tarasova.
"Alright," he demanded. "Now tell me everything you learnt from Heelers."
Evgenia looked away demurely.
"You know he predicted that you would attack Georgia in 2008 six months before you actually did," she murmured.
"Yes, yes, yes," barked Putin, "I know all that."
"Well he's been working on a theory that you're essentially a psychopath resovietising Russia," continued Evgenia distantly. "He believes you're going to annex countries on Russia's borders by installing pro Russian electoral candidates in their governments sponsored by George Soros. He says you're destabilising those countries through covert assassinations. He suggests the process is already observable in Latvia, Poland, Ukraine and possibly Kyrgyzstan. He thinks you've probably tried the same thing in Georgia."
"Keen ell," muttered Vladimir Putin.
"He thinks," went on Evgenia, "that you're trying to farm Muslim terror as an instrument of Russian policy. He likens your actions in aiding Iran's nuclear programme to those of Stalin before World War Two when Stalin helped Hitler raise his first standing army in contravention of the Treaty Of Versailles. The first German Nazi army was raised with Russian Communist Party collusion on Russian soil, you will remember. Heelers believes your alliance with the Arabs and the Iranians is likenable to Stalin's secret pre war memorandum of understanding with Hitler. He believes you helped Saddam Hussein transfer his chemical and biological weapons to Syria and Lebanon, prior to the American liberation of Iraq. He believes the Arabs and Iranians will use Russia and then seek to devour her as the Nazis once did. He believes your alliance with Islamism like Stalin's early alliance with Hitler will result in the deaths of many many Russians. He doesn't believe Russia will be destroyed, mind. At that stage he thinks the Russian people will wipe the floor with the Arabs just as they did with the Nazis. But he thinks that Russian victory will be in spite of Russia's government not because of it. Just like our victory in World War Two, he maintains. He also believes that having buried the Arabs, the Russian people will bury you."
"Keen ell," gasped Vladimir Putin.
"He believes the Chinese Communist government is behind the Maoist conquest of Nepal," recalled Evgenia dreamily. "He attributes the attempted Maoist rising in India to the Chinese as well. He postulates that North Korea is being run by the Chinese Communist party as an unofficial province of China with the specific aim of unsettling civilised free countries in the region on China's borders, and allaying the envy and aspiration ordinary Chinese people might otherwise feel for their democratic neighbours such as Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. Those countries are less attractive to ordinary Chinese since they are continually being threatened with nuclear anihilation by the North Koreans. He rejects the Steyn doctrine which predicts a Chinese incursion into Russia's Siberian and far eastern territories. Heelers does not believe the Chinese will willingly make war with Russia. He believes you and the Chinese have been cooperating in devising vexatious impediments to the development of free nations anywhere on earth, especially Africa and South America."
"Keen ell," burst out Vladimir Putin with an air of finality. "Right on every count. What were the odds of that?"