the crunch question

Question: Why did the airline Ryanair suddenly have a crisis in October necessitating the cancellation of multiple flights due to pilot rostering difficulties?

Answer: The shortage of pilots at Ryanair was orchestrated by the trade union movement in a smash and grab on the world's most successful airline. Similar problems at a company styled American Airlines in November had similar causes. The pilots' strategy is to hit the airlines with artificially induced rostering problems of this sort rather than to take outright strike action which would put them at risk of losing their jobs. (cf: The Irish police force.)

the ho hum column

Following his advocacy re changing the wording of the Our Father prayer, I no longer recognise Jorge Bergoglio as Pope of the Catholic Church and would counsel Bishops, priests, nuns, Christians and people of good will to withdraw their consent from him.
On a lighter note, I do recognise Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people and the land of Israel as their home.

me and you and a muslim named boo

Flicking through the channels on the sexevision.
I alight on the paradoxically sexless CNN.
A spokesman from an Iranian proxy terror army styled Hamas is commenting on President Trump's decision to locate an American embassy in Jerusalem.
The Hamas spokesman Abu Binder Seendat through gritted teeth enunciates: "He has opened the gates of hell."
Somewhat ruefully I reply: "What, again?"
Talking back to the TV.
The first sign of wisdom.
But isn't it rum.
Muslim Jihadis don't just themselves refuse to recognise Jeruslam as Israel's capital.
They presume to threaten the rest of us with destruction, conflagration, mayhem, torture, sabotage and death if we dare to make up our own minds on the matter.
I flick the channel.
The BBC is earnestly suggesting that the current wave of forest fires across California has been caused by climate change.
I suppose when they're not colluding with corrupt British police officers to frame Cliff Richard for child abuse, the BBC likes nothing better than propagating fiction about the weather.
Here is the news.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its Al Qaeda and Isis franchises have been using forest fires as a weapon of war in Europe, Australia and America for more than a decade now.
There's no excuse for not being aware of this or for down playing it.
The Jihadis have initiated and accelerated forest fire war for ten years without any attention whatsoever being turned on their strategy by the BBC, CNN or any other left wing media organisation.
I flick the channel again.
Now it's Ireland's national broadcaster RTE, an atheistic, abortionist, Bolshevick anus of a channel (no disrespect to any anuses who may be reading this) financed through compulsory taxation on the gulpens of Ireland who by law are not allowed to set up a television station to compete with it.
(Gulpens? Citizenry surely - Ed note)
RTE's news programme is giving a pattycake report on a security forces rehearsal this week in Dublin for Muslim terror attacks.
Ah yes.
Rehearsing for what we'll do after they kill us.
The daintiness of the reportage is striking.
The RTE reporters are positively tiptoeing through the tulips.
(Tiptoeing through the Jihadis - Ringo Starr note)
Tiptoeing in the sense that while reporting yesterday's Irish army preparations for a Jihad attack on Ireland, RTE somehow are not mentioning Jihad, Muslims, Islam, the Prophet Muhammed, the Quran, Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Isis, mass Muslim immigration into the West, or indeed anything, anything at all, germaine to the issue which might even mildly offend the Muslim Jihadis of Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Isis et al, (particularly Al, he's the worst of them) who intent on Jihad slaughter are flooding into Ireland and who inspired by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammed are preparing even now to attack and kill as many of us as they possibly can in any way they possibly can, whether by head hacking, truck ramming, night club shooting, concert bombing, stabbing, poisoning, or indeed anything and everything they've been doing everywhere else for fourteen hundred ****ing years.
RTE can't even mention Jihad in a report on an Irish army pre-emptive training exercise to prepare for what we all know is coming next.
Oh baby.
And we're actually rehearsing now for what we know the Jihadis are going to do to us.
Our indolent soldiery are being drilled on looking tough and purposeful amid the corpses and burning buildings AFTER the thing has happened.
I suppose it's a form of security.
The army manoeuvres which RTE failed to effectively describe or analyse or even question a bit, actually involved the deployment of 500 soldiers on the streets of our capital in a what-if exercise built around a scenario where Jihadis kill eight people in a city centre attack while Irish intelligence suggests more attacks are imminent.
Not the least unreal aspect of this scenario is that Ireland doesn't have any substantial functioning intelligence service.
When the Irish police want to know what Jihadis and Muslim gangs are getting up to here, they read my old articles about the Black Jackets.
That's all they've got.
But here's a thought.
If we're deploying our army on the streets of our cities because we expect a Muslim Jihad attack, why not simply arrest and expel the Jihadis before they attack us?
I mean all of them.
Ho hum.
Probably more fun for the soldiers this way.
Getting paid to pretend to do something about the Jihad threat.
It sure beats fighting real Jihadis.
Safer too.
At least until the Jihadis step out of the shadows for real.
And you know folks, when the real attacks come, I fully expect RTE, the BBC and those sexless heroes of CNN, to attribute them to climate change.
I flick the channel in search of something lighter.
Like a pilgrim coming home, I arrive at MTV.
Ah MTV.
A group called Electric Six are hamming it up with a new version of one of their old hits.
It's objectionable but kind of good.
The bloke from Electric Six has grown a beard and is wearing Middle Eastern robes in order to make some point or other.
Seen from the right angle he looks a bit like the Ayatollah Khomeini.
He sings in that uniquely maniacal style of his:

"Jihadis in the disco
Jihadis in the disco
Jihadis in the Taco Bell
Jihadis in the disco
Jihadis in the disco
Jihadis in the gates of hell
Gates of hell
Nerdle ner ner ner ner
Fire in California
Fire in Portugal
Fire among the infidels
Fire in Australia
Fire in India
That's what we mean by
Gates of Hell
Nerdle ner ner
Dontchya wanna know why we keep starting fires
It's in our Qurans
You stupid morons
It's in our Qurans
Dontchya wanna know why we keep starting fires
It's in our Qurans
You stupid morons
It's in our Qurans
Nerdle ner ner ner ner ner
Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Danger, danger
High Muslims
When we hack
When we slash
When we kill
Danger, danger
High Muslims
When we murder
When we crash
For the thrill
Ner ner ner ner ner 
Dontchya wanna know why we keep derailing trains
Cos we're insane
Cos we're insane
Dontchya wanna know why we keep derailing trains
Cos we're insane
Cos we're insane
Nerdle ner ner
Danger, danger
High Jihad
When we slaughter
When we torture
Danger, danger
High Jihad
When we butcher
When we murder
Ner nerdle ner
Train derailments across India
Train derailments across Russia
Train derailments in South America
Train derailment in Lac Megantic Quebec
Nerdle ner
Train derailments in New York
Train derailments in Boston
Train derailments in Sant Iago De Compostela in Spain
And all across Russia
Ever more train wrecks
Nerdle ner ner ner ner
Nerdle ner nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Dontchya wanna know why we keep beheading people
They're not people
They're just sheeple
Dontchya wanna know why we keep beheading people
They're not people
They're just sheeple
Nerdle ner ner
Nerdle ner ner ner
Beheadings in London
Beheadings in Paris
Beheadings in the Philippines
Beheadings are really swell
Beheadings in Syria
Beheadings in Iraq
Beheadings across Africa
Beheadings in your town as well
Nerdle ner ner
Dontchya wanna know why we keep ramming cars and trucks into human beings
Cos we're obscene
Yes we're obscene
Dontchya wanna know why we keep ramming cars and trucks into human beings
Cos we're obscene
Yes we're obscene
Truck ramming in Barcelona
Truck ramming in New York
Truck ramming on London Bridge
Truck ramming in France
Truck ramming in Canada
Truck ramming in my fridge
Nerdle ner ner
Truck ramming in Jerusalem
Truck ramming in Glasgow
Truck rammings in Tel Aviv
It's not a sin
Truck rammings in Finsbury Park
Truck rammings in Nice, Nantes, Lyons and Dijon
Truck rammings in old Berlin
Danger, danger
High Muslims
When we head hack
When we torture
When we kill
Danger, danger
High voltage
When we slaughter
When we murder
For our Jihad thrill
Oh come on
Lover"

Like all Electric Six videos I think it goes too far. For a start,, using 'fridge' to rhyme with 'London Bridge' is a bit of a stretcher. And I've long been concerned about the mental and spiritual health of the lead singer. I'd say he's not a well man.
But the song is finely wrought, fabulously studio engineered, strikingly performed, and it does have a message.



*******************




Footnote: I wonder did the Glasgow reference mean the attack on Glasgow airport in 2007 which Al Qaeda claimed; or could it have meant a possible proxy attack in Glasgow via a Range Rover driven by William Payne which ran down two girls in 2010; or perhaps it was an oblique teaser reference to the mysterious helicopter crash in Glasgow in 2013 where a helicopter hit a pub and killed ten people; or might it not have been a reference to an out of control bin lorry with driver Harry Clarke behind the wheel which killed six people in Glasgow in 2014. Lots of things going bump in the night in Glasgow.

the empires of the future will be empires of the mind

Dublin in the rain.
A conga line of oriental monks winds past me beating drums and tambourines and chanting something about Prince Harry.
The last monk in the line abruptly breaks away and turns to face me.
Like the others he is wearing a robe of matted hemp with the colour orange predominating.
He is bald as a coot.
There appears to be yellow paint on parts of  his face.
He eyes me speculatively.
"Hello Mr Healy," he says.
He says it a bit like the baddie in the objectionably violent Matrix film introducing himself to Keanu Reeves for the first time and intoning every syllable of "Hello Mister Anderson," (Mr Anderson being Keanu's character) with an odd admixture of civility, relish, cruelty and threat.
Sinister undertones.
It's a greeting but it's not that nice.
And I don't know this guy from Buddha.
I goggle.
The monk correctly understands my bewilderment and moves to explain how he knows my name.
"We've pioneered new mind reading techniques," he says. "Krishna consciousness enables us to know who you are on sight."
I goggle again.
"Okay actually I'm Bill Baines," he continues. "I used to live across the road from you in Kilcullen. I worked for your Uncle in the saddlery."

a modest proposal

(for reform of Ireland's social welfare system)

1. Remove the adversarial qualities of the system.

2. Reduce unemployment benefits generally, paying say 50 Euro a week up to the age of twenty five, 100 Euro a week up to the age of thirty five, and an upper rate of 190 Euro per week only over the age of forty five.

3. Redefine unemployment benefits as entitlements, the notion being that if you are unemployed in Ireland you get this amount and it cannot be taken from you. If this measure wouldn't break the economy it should be done, as the behaviour of trade unionised employees at the Department of Social Welfare towards the general public is killing people now. I am suggesting that reductions in the amount of benefit being paid will be acceptable to unemployed people if the capacity of Social Welfare staff to intimidate, to hector and to arbitrarily remove benefits is ended.

4. Redefining benefits as entitlements will further save money by reducing the mental health issues that are induced when people feel overwhelmed by the way they are being treated in Social Welfare Offices. I am postulating that the suicide rate will also fall. The social gain from removing the recurrent and constant frivolous confrontations of the present adversarial system will be immense.

5. Redefining benefits as entitlements will end the dysfunct currently built into the system whereby a large number of people have themselves falsely designated as unfit for work in order to obtain a disability pension in place of the entitlements they are otherwise having difficulty accessing.

6. The signs in Social Welfare Offices which warn the public: "If you are rude to our staff you may be arrested," should be removed as the proponderance of rudeness issues arise when Social Welfare staff are rude, wrongly advise, intimidate, or otherwise exceed their authority in dealing with the public.

7. Clarify to all Social Welfare Staff the reason why their department has been renamed the Department of Social Protection, to wit, that their duty is to protect the people who come to them seeking to access their entitlements.

8. End the IRA mafia's control of trade unions in Ireland.

9. Provide an advocate to sit in at meetings for any citizen who has dealings with the Social Welfare Office and who feels his rights are not being protected.

10. Insist on the right of citizens to written notification in advance of any changes to their receipt of entitlements with a clear right of appeal in all circumstances.

11. Consider the possibility of introducing an entitlement for any citizen who wishes to register for it, to have at least one job offer a year, generated internally by the system, and which may be accepted or refused without prejudice at the discretion of the citizen. The State would generate these job offers across all sectors, forestry, the police, the army, the civil service, transport, education, television, media. Again this should be done if it wouldn't break the economy. The positions would be entry level positions on reduced wages, explicitly for anyone who really wants to work. Difficulties will be presented by the trade union movement which will regard such a policy as an attentat upon trade union power. Nonetheless I think we should look at this as a way to directly address the unemployment situation.

12. The aim of these proposals is to end the incivility towards the citizen implicit in the present administration of social welfare systems in Ireland. An additional aim is to end the cultural intellectual log jam which has led to the prevalence of the notion that structural, ie permanent, unemployment (officially running above ten percent in Europe with real figures much higher) is inevitable. It is inevitable only until we find a way to deal with it. The thinking that we can and should provide the option of a job for everyone is a first step to providing a job for everyone.

pardon me but there's an eschatological angel in my soup

"Why do you always sit up at the front in church?" wondered Aunty Teresa over tiffin.
"To show the world," quoth me, "that handsome, attractive, intelligent, vibrant, vital people come to the Catholic Church for guidance, mercy and peace."
"Oh."
"But I didn't see you. Where were you?"
"I was right down at the back."
"So how did you see me?"
"I recognised your bald patch."

time does not stand still

Bare trees like skeletons waving bony fingers at the grey sky.
A Padre strolling ahead of me through a slush of Autumn leaves in the grounds of Newbridge College.
I hurry up to him.
"Hi, I'm wondering is Father O'Reilly still working here. He was very interested in the Irish language. He used to teach me and I'm thinking of establishing a group to speak the language together regularly."
The priest gave me a queer look.
"Father O'Reilly," he said slowly, "we haven't had a priest by that name here in thirty years."
He walked off.
The ghost of Thomas Hardy appeared at my shoulder.
"Ah no the years oh," quoth he quothing himself, "how the sick leaves reel down in throngs."
It's true too.

an open letter to eilish o'regan of the irish independent newspaper

Dear Eilish O'Regan.

An article be you in the Irish Independent newspaper last week covered events surrounding the death of Malak Thawley at the National Maternity Hospital, Hollis Street, Dublin.

Malak Thawley was killed during a routine operation at the hospital in 2016.

In your article you referred twice to the wound which killed Malak Thawley as having been inflicted by accident.

As you will be aware Malak Thawley died on the operating table at Hollis Street hospital during minor surgery.

An Irish coroner's court has concluded that she died as a result of medical misadventure.

There are ongoing concerns and public disquiet about the manner in which the fatal wound was inflicted on her during surgery and about the manner in which she was allowed to bleed to death on the operating table.

I am of the opinion that there is a significant possibility that Malak Thawley. a Syrian woman married to an American man, may have been murdered on the operating table at Hollis Street hospital.

A range of people have been calling for a full independent enquiry into her death.

Those calling for a full independent enquiry into Malak Thawley's death on the operating table at Hollis Street hospital, include her husband Alan Thawley, the former Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, and me.

My question for you Eilish O'Regan, is this: How exactly did you establish that the wound inflicted on Malak Thawley was accidental?

None of the rest of us have been able to establish how that fatal slashing of her artery took place.

Yet you claim it was an accident.

I would note that the National Maternity hospital is run by Rhona O'Mahony and her brother in Law Peter Boylan, both prominent campaigners for the provision of abortion operations in Ireland.

I would note that another medical institution Saint Vincent's hospital, which is run by an order of Nuns, recently gave permission for the National Maternity hospital, Hollis Street to relocate to the Saint Vincent's hospital campus.

Following the nuns granting of permission for the location of Rhona O'Mahony and Peter Boylan's National Maternity Hospital at Saint Vincent's hospital campus, Peter Boylan began a media campaign to have the nuns removed from the running of their own hospital.

Eilish O'Regan this campaign was conducted largely through your newspaper but also through the Irish Times and the broadcaster RTE.

The abortion advocate Peter Boylan has been successful in his campaign to have the nuns excised from the running of  their own hospital.

His manoeuvre represents a reverse take over of Saint Vincent's hospital by the charnel house hospital run by himself and Rhona O'Mahony at the National Maternity hospital, Hollis Street, Dublin.

Peter Boylan claims to have instituted his media campaign against the nuns of Saint Vincent's hospital at the behest of his sister in law Rhona O'Mahony.

I have a further question for you Eilish O'Regan.

Are you and your newspaper deliberately downplaying concerns about the death of Malak Thawley in order to protect the reputations of abortion advocates Rhona O'Mahony, Peter Boylan and their hospital?

You're a big girl now Eilish O'Regan.

It's time to grow a conscience.

James Healy

good ere innit

It is a little known fact that for many years Adolf Hitler tried out a variety of different ideological approaches but none seemed to suit him until at last he found his own little Nietzhe.