Why do they do it?

They win oscars.


They earn millions.



They make rock 'n roll history.




They even help bring the Cold War to an end.



Why do they do it?

George Clooney brought to you by Nespresso.
Brad Pitt brought to you by Tag Heuer.
Nicole Kidman brought to you by Chanel.
Products selling products.
Because you're worth it.
Because you're loving it.
The whole world in one bank.
Embracing ingenuity.
Think Different.
Engineered to Move the Human Spirit.
Driven by Passion.
Think. Feel. Drive.
We look at life. So you don't have to.
Just do it.
Wherever you are, so are we.

Some fell among thorns

America I've given you my all & now I'm nothing.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
-- Allen Ginsberg


And he spake many things unto them in parables

Shameless

Sindo editor Aengus Fanning helps Phelim and Cliodhna Drew to reflect on their father.

Mr Fanning was at Ronnie Drew's side for 'seven months -- seven months of terminal illness -- that it took to record his last album.' The editor 'found himself taking on the role of an errant son, working as driver, dogsbody and amanuensis.'

The accompanying article was written by Donal Lynch, who doesn't feature in the photograph. Note the air of easy gaiety that Fanning creates, as Phelim Drew casually plugs his father's biography. Drew's last recording lies on the table, while a portrait of the Dubliner hangs above Cliodhna. The photograph was posed in O Donoghue's pub, well known for its Dubliners decorations.

Remembering Ronnie:

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/news-gossip/remembering-ronnie-1550180.html

Change

'He has successfully projected a rhetoric of change as a function of greater coherence and managerial efficiency, rather than as a means of much more radical departures from established policies.

…regeneration the US infrastructure, health and educational systems have caught the popular mood...

It has been a brilliant campaign, which has marshalled the energy of a new generation...if he can deliver he would provide a stimulus for a world which seems to have reached a policy impasse on how to escape from recession or prevent it turning into depression.

- Irish Times on the election of Bill Clinton, 3 November 1992

Budget Glas

The Finance Bill published today has a distinctly green taste.

1 aim, 4 objectives
Announcing the Bill Mr Lenihan said he wants:
to put in place measures to enhance our economic performance,
to maintain and enhance our international competitiveness,
to support enterprise
to restore stability to the public finances

4/7 Green measures
The Bill contains about 7 headline makers, 4 of which will please green supporters:

€200-a-year levy on car parking spaces in urban areas
€10 departure tax on airline passengers
Tax incentive for certain energy-efficient equipment
Tax relief of up to €1,000 a year for the purchase of bicycles and cycling equipment.

AMDG measures
Two more are concerned with social justice:
3% levy on incomes over €250,000 (should bring in €60m)
Minimum wage earners excluded from 1% income levy.

Finally the Capital Acquisitions Tax, which covers inheritance and gifts, increases by 22%.

The Next Steps:
The rest of our near future will be decided by the governor of the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr Lenihan received all three yesterday, and is expected to either decide a way forward based on what they tell him or commission a report which will put their opinions in a glossier format.

Sensing a bargain, international private investment firms are expressing an interest in buying stakes in one or a number of our banks.

The brightness that was before

The Taoiseach today told the Dáil that the Government is:

Considering all options on Irish banks
Wants to minimise the exposure of the taxpayer.
Has received a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report said:

The 6 banks covered by the State guarantee scheme had more capital than required by the regulator on September 30 when the scheme was announced.
The banks will have enough capital until 2011.

What does this mean? The Taoiseach trenchantly reaffirmed in the Dáil that he is unsure. But he is sure of the following:

The banks’ capital is diminished.
Irish banks need a lot of capital.
If they don’t get it, they will have to reduce their loan books.
Unless the banks’ loan books are big the economy will be crushed.
Businesses will be starved.
And Ireland shall become heaps,
A dwellingplace for dragons,
An astonishment,
And a hissing
Without an inhabitant.

Recapitalisation is not a panacea, said Mr Cowen, though he conceeded that the brightness that was before is now a thick cloud.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny launched a blistering attack on Moloch, the near eastern deity that requires costly sacrifices:

‘Moloch whose mind is pure machinery,’ said Mr Kenny. ‘Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone. Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks. Moloch in whom we sit lonely.’

In response to this unprecedented criticism Mr Cowen could only say ‘international market expectations in relation to capital levels in the banking sector have altered and meeting these expectations may be challenging.’

Haughey nostalgia

'There is no avoiding them and anybody who suggests that they can be avoided is misleading the public. It is absurd for some people to say that they are in favour of reducing Government expenditure in general, but then oppose every single particular reduction that we make.'

- Taoiseach Charles J Haughey, 14 October 1987
(six months after the MacSharry Budget)

On this day £485m cuts in Government expenditure were announced. It was touted as the severest measure in thirty years and 8,000 State jobs would be lost as a result. Agriculture spending was down 18%, roads and housing down 11%, education spending down £86m which would mean 2,500 fewer teachers in the next academic year. The Government expected 256,000 unemployed in 1988.

The following April a deal was struck with teachers unions and parents representatives that would guarantee a maximum primary school class size of 39. The deal was welcomed.

*

There are a number of remarkable parallels between the preceding few months and the events of 1987.

Financial meltdown of Black Monday, 21 October 1987
The Government fights a Europe referendum
Huge opposition to the Budget cuts.

May 22 1987: 15,000 protest in Dublin against the health cuts. Minister for Health Rory O Hanlon’s response? – This year’s constraints are likely to be a feature of next year. Cries of ‘shame on you’ and that threat the public should never issue: We won’t forget this!

Meanwhile the Government is looking to see which State bodies it can scrap. Haughey circulates a note to his Cabinet:

‘A radical approach should be adopted and no expenditure should be regarded as sacrosanct and immune to elimination or reduction. We do not want a series of justifications of the status quo or special pleadings,’ it says.

This is more of the same. Fianna Fail had come to power on a wave of discontent with the Coalition, which was so disunited that it made only the slightest of efforts to get a Budget together, knowing the harsh measures needed would would collapse it. Just before the first MacSharry Budget at the end of March one backbencher said: 'we’re going to make the other crowd look like the Vincent de Paul.’

*

With hindsight, the same old issues come up before the Single European Act. Haughey had little time for them.

Fears about our neutrality are only ‘foolish’, he says. ‘Don’t let that keep you from ratifying it. Sure look at Austria, nice and neutral and hoping to get in.’ An even better rebuttal of the other side was this: ‘Some opponents of the Treaty are ‘really opposed for ideological reasons.’

The Week Ahead

Monday
Daily Mail leads with headline ‘RIPD’

Louis le Broquy’s 92nd birthday – the artist unveils a simple computer programme that can reproduce his portrait style after he’s gone.



Second installment of RTE’s Bertie. Meticulously researched on wikipedia, with interviews of Drumcondra intimates for colour. The first episode took us from 1977 – 1989 and ‘revealed’ that Mr Ahern was ambitious from the get go, went with the anti-drugs semi-vigilante vibe in his constituency and cut his negotiating teeth as Minister for Labour. Music by Yann Tiersen adds depth and feeling to clips of Ireland before the boom.

Mr Ahern, who has reviewed books for the Irish Independent (on Man Utd) and the Irish Times (on Jack Lynch), and who has hosted Up for the Match, listens to supporters’ concerns that media bias may be a stumbling block to his bid for the Presidency.

Tuesday

Czech President Vaclav Klaus takes a break in his State visit to dine with Declan Ganley in the Shelbourne. John Drennan and Brendan O Connor hang around the bar, wondering what Aengus Fanning will make them write about next. The word ‘lurching’ is sure to be in there somewhere. Barry Egan drifts in.

Wednesday:
95 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer. Mary Harney reveals she never believed in the PDs.

Rupert Murdoch reveals headline of the year for 2011: ‘Shortchanged.’ It will lead a searing indictment of Barack Obama’s first two years as President.


Thursday: Articles ‘informing’ us that ‘Obama’s biggest is test yet to come’ continue to be published.

Gerald Kean is interviewed on Prime Time about comments he made in the Sunday Independent. The celebrity sollicitor feels the Government is ‘terrifyingly out of touch’ with the electorate and that the standard of hygiene in Irish hospitals is poor.

Kean also peddles Haughey nostalgia (CJH had creativity, you can’t knock that) – a bold contrast to the Ahern nostalgia (we wouln’t be in this mess if Bertie had a been here…the medical cards would never a happened for one) currently doing the rounds.

Mark Little earnestly lists the similarities and differences between Obamanomics, Cowenomics and ergonomics. The world financial crisis, according to Little, is ‘as complex as the Gordian knot.’

The Mullingar Accord launches an attempt to transfer Obama’s message of change to an Irish context.

Friday:
The indignation and solidarity that Roth, Rushdie, Coetzee, Marquez and Pamuk feel about the Kundera ‘affair’ peters out.



Sean Dunne annouces plans to build another 37-storey tower, this time in the Garden of Remembrance. Earnest debates begin – is a public park really the most appropriate place for such a development? Dunne assures locals that Remembrance Tower will bring 5,000 jobs to the north inner over the next six years. He admits to a personal wealth of € 477m, and to owing the banks €624m, but doesn’t ‘see that as a problem.’

Saturday & Sunday:



Tens more books are reviewed in all the newspapers. Topics include:

the struggle for liberty & justice at any time in human history
the messy birthplace of the modern intellectual world (place chosen by author)
the obscenification of everyday life
the fratious and febrile year of [choose year]
more ‘magisterial’ biographies
the Third Reich

We were the Leopards, the Lions

Health Minister Mary Harney told delegates in in Mullingar this morning that she ‘feels like Gorbachev in 1991. I’m basically a Minister without a party. It’s time to face facts.’

‘The PDs were born by the vexation of Dessie O Malley’s soul, to oppose wickedness and deceit-uttering tongues. We cut rivers from rocks. Our eye saw every precious thing, and refrained from taxing it. We walked with uprightness.’

Ms Harney recalled the highs and lows. The media honeymoon in early 1986. The subsequent decline in popularity and dismal opinion polls of 1988. Their policies had found no favour with the electorate – she recalled the Godless constitution fondly.

Then there was the threat of extinction in 1989, the loss of Michael McDowell and Geraldine Kennedy. The party would have petered out were it not for the intervention of an unlikely benefactor. How O Malley praised Haughey’s ‘courage and skills’ for going over the heads of his party to create the first Fianna Fail coalition. But it wasn’t until 1997 that the PDs came into their own, and for a decade brought a Reaganite sensitivity to the health service, and a Thatcherite tolerance of Berlin as well as Boston.

‘The PDs are a testament to the democratic process,’ said Ms Harney. ‘What power we wielded, what change we brought, what moulds we broke, and will such a small percentage of electoral support.’

‘We have always said that self-interest blinds some, but enlightens others... We did what we came to do, and after twenty-three years, despite I believe it is time for us to call it a day. Let us consult together with one consent. We were born amid a stubborn and tumultuous generation. We leave Ireland happier, more prosperous, more pacified, more jealous of their graven images, more stout-hearted, more glorious and excellent than it has even been.’

400 delegates are expected to attend today’s meeting and a result is expected around teatime. The party is due €250,000 a year in State funding until the next election.

Beef industry to subsidise flatulent cattle

Minister for the Environment John Gormley said today he was ‘very surprised’ to learn how Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith argued against reducing cattle numbers.

‘I’m near speechless,’ he raged, cracking a pencil in two and flinging it from his Custom House eyrie. ‘Smith knows about the Government’s sub-committee on climate change.'

According to Mr Gormley flatulent cattle account for 27% of all our greenhouse emissions, which Ireland has pledged to reduce by 30% by 2020. Green orthodoxy has it that unless the number of cattle in Ireland is drastically reduced, most of the profits from the beef industry will go towards offsetting carbon credits.

‘If we cut our cattle numbers, our beef would simply be replaced on world markets by beef produced in a much less sustainable way - actually making the global climate change situation worse,’ Mr Smith told Teagasc.

'Typical Fianna Fail stroke politics. I should have known,' Gormley screamed, before attempting a pun with the Fianna Fail leader's surname that was related to the topic.

Dances with Waves

The Garda National Drugs Unit launched Operation Fluorine yesterday. Twenty-two so-called ‘head shops,’ which stock herbal products that might cause a natural high, were targeted around the state.

Gráinne Kenny, international president of Europe Against Drugs, congratulated the Garda on yesterday's operation. She said many shops around the country were ‘selling drugs that are potentially very risky.’

Europe Against Drugs (Eurad) is a Wango (World Association of NGOs) member and held its conference in Bucharest this September. Founded in 1988 Eurad believes that Europe’s ‘drug problem is like the Black Death’ of our times.

Ms Kenny, who believes that all drugs are bad and cannabis is a drug, strongly favours the elimination of potential risk in all areas of life, especially for the youth.

West rebukes Chinese Premier

Western leaders have reacted badly to a Chinese proposal on climate change. Premier Wen Jiatao yesterday called on rich countries to abandon their ‘unsustainable lifestyle’ and help poor nations who bear the brunt of Western energy abuses.

An angry missive was penned just minutes after Mr Jintao’s remarks. Bank ki-Moon, Nicholas Sarkozy and Speaker Nancy Pelosi drafted the note, which has been signed by over fourteen rich nations, including all G8 members.

‘China doesn’t tell us what to do,’ the note begins. ‘Hey Jintao, since when did the East become the moral conscience of the world? Where was China during Srebrenica? Or when the Hutus massacred the Tutsis? Or when Serbia needed bombing? Who came up with Kyoto? Or the idea of halving poverty and disease everywhere by 2015? Sure we’ve had our faults in the past. But by-gones, Jintao. Let's turn our eyes instead to the recent past. In the last ten years China has become one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world...’

Mr Jintao suggested that wealthy nations divert 1% of their economic worth to paying for clean technology transfers and helping the Third World overcome damage from the rising temperatures.

This Chinese obduracy recalls a ten day environment conference held in Stockholm in 1972. The 120 nations were having difficulty getting a final declaration and China was blamed for having issued two unreasonable demands. Firstly, it wanted the United States and the Soviet Union to admit they bore the largest part of guilt for the destruction of the environment in the Third World, and secondly, the Vietnam conflict, which the Americans didn’t want to talk about, should be discussed. Mao was never strong on diplomacy.

EU Supremo Nicholas Sarkozy told a press conference in Paris: '1%?! Has no one told him some of us already give 0.7% of our GDP for pete’s sake? Do you think we can afford some quixotic chinoiserie at a time like this?'

Then Mr Sarkozy addressed the Chinese Premier directly:

‘You’ve had your Olympics Jintao, and you’d better learn there’s a time to keep your mouth shut.’

Sheriff of Wall Street an 'okay guy'

The U.S Department of Justice has unveiled a ground-breaking new filter system for the prosecution of crime. Prosecution of infringements can now be dropped if the Department decides that public interest doesn’t run high enough in the matter.

The first beneficiary of the new system is former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

U.S. Attorney in Manhattan Michael Garcia explained:

‘In light of the policy of the Department of Justice with respect to prostitution offenses and the long-standing practice of this Office, as well as Mr. Spitzer's acceptance of responsibility for his conduct, we have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter.’

Mr Spitzer, never one to shy from the prosecution of white collar crime when in office, resigned as governor in March when it emerged that he regularly employed a $1,000-an-hour prostitute. Yesterday the 40-year old ‘Sheriff of Wall Street,’ revealed his participation in a sex ring known as the Emperors Club VIP.

‘Listen,’ said Mr Garcia. ‘We did a thorough investigation and found no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds. It was more a case of a hypocrite brought to light than anything else. And I stress, the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter. Spitzer's an okay guy who just took a wrong turn.’

The DPP, Mr James Hamilton, is looking into the matter and has signalled that this jurisprudential shift may become part of Irish law in the near future.

Obama concedes victory

'Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wide enough, to keep change from coming,' an emotional president-elect told his ecstatic Chicago audience last night.

'There is no wind, there is no rain.' he continued. 'Our love is alive. Way down in our hearts although each change is miles apart. If any friend ever needs a helping hand we’ll be there on the double. As fast as we can. There ain't no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to you.'

The 47-year old first-time Senator, who has a penchant for lists, went on:

'Young and old, rich and poor, happy and sad, tired and emotional, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Jewish, Quaker, Native American, descendents of Aztecs, gay, straight, transexual, the severly, moderately and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be the United States of America.'

Listeners went wild at the prospect of the United States of America always being the United States of America.

'No doubt some of you are wondering: where will I invade? What will be my Vietnam, Afghanistan, my Iraq? Where will I intervene? El Salvador, Nicaragua, Serbia? Who will be my Pinochet, my Marcos, my Hamid Karzai?

Let me tell you. I will not mess up the presidency like LBJ, Nixon, Clinton and Bush. I will not continue unpopular wars or tap phones. I will not fornicate with interns. I will not send the proceeds of covert arms sales to guerrillas in Central America. I will not run up a deficit like Reagan. And I will not be forgettable like Ford, Carter and Bush Senior.

John McCain and I fought a hard battle. Turned out he fought like Michael Dukakis. But no more of that. The true victor is Change. Cambio. Wechsel. It's been a long time coming. But now, together, we're gonna make a Bureau de Change out of the White House.

The Day in Photos

Terrorists? she said. You should check upstairs. And by the way guys, you're doing a great job here. Can I just say that?

Marv and Dave just weren't sure what to make of these people any more.




‘The superglued dentures smile. Works every time,’ thought Mc Cain.




‘One clap and he winks. Two claps and he invades Iraq. Let’s crank it up,’ thought Dick Cheney. ‘Let’s see what happens with three claps.’



Initially, it had been the kiss of life for the McCain campaign.




'Don’t get me started on Air Force One. I'm going bring so much change with that baby.'

With that, the Illinois Senator made a whoosing noise to illustrate the speed and sound of change.



Designer Natasha Glazkova embraces burka chic, empowering women in the process.




The Celtic Tiger awoke, startled. Three months had passed since it could remember anything. Where am I? it thought.

Government to bail itself out

In a spectacular turn around Taoiseach Brian Cowen has sided with public opinion on the over-70s medical card issue.

‘I am now convinced there should be an automatic entitlement to everything,’ he said earlier today.

‘We are a country that needed to borrow €12 billion to enable us to live within our means. And yet we were able, as a Government, to guarantee bank assets to the tune of €485b. It didn’t seem to add up. So I said to Brian [Lenihan], why don’t we bail ourselves out? Initially taken aback, within minutes he was on board. It is a bold idea, one that will cause ripples with our European partners, but it is no bolder, and no more improbable that the banks’ bail-out.’

‘I want to be clear on this: Tuesday’s Budget is now cancelled in its entirety. The 1% income levy on gross incomes up to €100,000 and all the wealth taxes. The 8% increase in tax on the litre of petrol. The €200 charge on all non-principal private residences. And, of course, the means test for the over-70s medical card. The status quo ante Tuesday returns.’

‘Secondly I want to announce that the 2007 Programme for Government targets will nonetheless be reached. We will continue to roll out infrastructure nationwide, deliver a fully modern, patient-centred health service, maintain our troops in Camp Ciara in Chad, and we will even, can I add, continue our efforts to cut carbon emissions and implement a 40% use of renewable energy in all state bodies by 2020.’

‘No Government in our history has attempted such a measure. But these are difficult times, and tough times are bad enough without me asking you to make sacrifices.’

Jörg Haider, dead at 58

The death of Jörg Haider occurred in the early hours of last Saturday morning. He was driving at 142kmh with four times the legal limit of alcohol in his system.

Mr. Haider was a populist comedian known for his strong anti-immigrant and anti-European Union stances. He was notorious for a series of outrageous stand-up routines, which included seemingly positive riffs on the Waffen-SS and the employment policies of the Nazi government.

‘He was more controversial than any other, but also one of the most comedically talented individuals in the country’s history,’ said Thomas Hofer, an independent political consultant in Vienna.

Mr. Haider’s death has led to an outpouring of emotion hardly ever seen in Austria, compared by some observers to the swell of mourning in Britain after Princess Diana’s death in 1997.

Gerhard Dörfler, a fellow comedian working the circuit in Carinthia, said, “The sun has fallen from the sky.”

Mr. Emmerich Tálos, professor of political science at the University of Vienna, said that Mr. Haider’s legacy would be the way that he brought the right wing back into the mainstream of Austrian comedy, from a position of weakness in the 1970s and early 1980s.

'He embodied the spirit of mischief,' he said.

Rifle seized by Americans in Iraq

After months of talks, US and Iraqi officials had reached agreement on a pact that would require US forces to withdraw from Iraq by 2011. But all this could now change with the discovery of a rifle (pictured above) in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is considering a draft deal with Iraq that would provide a new legal basis to keep American forces there after a UN mandate expires on December 31st, the Pentagon has said.

The rifle ‘goes a long way to showing that the threat to the United States is far from neutralised,’ Lt. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. The situation in Iraq is still dire,’ he said.

Could we set up a process?

Besieged from all sides, Taoiseach Brian Cowen uttered a passionate, visionary cry on RTÉ's This Week radio programme this afternoon.

‘The present proposal as we enunciated it clearly is not ultimately the proposal that will be decided upon because it does not merit or have the wider public acceptance that it would need to have and I'm addressing those concerns and I think that those that have concerns can be assured of that,’ Mr Cowen said.

Heart-attack on the hustings

Presidential hopeful John McCain has shocked the Obama camp by performing a heart-attack on the hustings.

‘They make out that I’m an old timer ready to pop his clogs. They say Sarah is just a heart-beat away from the Presidency. Well I can tell you, that really is –'

At this point Mr McCain broke off, apparently having a seizure. He gripped his chest as the assembley held its breath, but a moment later he sprang back to full animation shouting repeatedly ‘fooled ya’ and laughing uproariously.

The audience went wild.

‘This guy here’s a funny. Obamer smiles a lot, but what’s he smiling at? I haven’t heard him do any jokes. This here McCain has a sense of humour.’

The stunt has done much to reduce Mr Obama’s four point lead, which has all but vanished as the McCain clip spread across news stations in America.

Obama's recession

‘What recession?’ said Barack Obama.

The Illinois Senator raised $66 million in August. More than one-third of the total $458 million raised by his campaign has come from supporters who donated $200 or less.

Justice in Ribbons

Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman has said the 2008 – 2009 term should see the Supreme Court striving to be ‘even more conservative.’

‘It’s easy to hark back to the glory days of Nicolaou and Norris, but we shouldn’t forget recent decisions like Osayande, TD, O’ Donnell v South Dublin County Council, Kavanagh v Govenor of Mountjoy Prison and of course, the Sinnott case.’

‘There are still plenty of areas to be conservative in. Anything to do with the allocation of resources and straight off alarm bells are ringing. We’ve shown we can stand up to the unenumerated rights lobby. We’ve shown that we can reverse liberal decisions in favour of Travellers and that we frown upon transexuals seeking to change their birth register. With regard to homosexuals, if they think DeValera meant them when he said ‘the marital family’ then they’ve got another think coming.’

Mr Justice Hardiman is credited with the maxim: ‘a Supreme Court must always keep the floodgates in mind.’

The majority of the Irish Supreme Court admires their counterparts in the United States.

‘They have increased their workload incredibly this year, hearing the usual two cases in the morning, but then returning for a third after lunch,’ said Hardiman J.

Last year the court decided the fewest cases since the 1953-54 term, but there was an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.

Its most notable decision was the overturning of the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. The court interpreted the Second Amendment to mean that everyone had the right to cherish a gun; membership of a militia was not necessary.

The court also voted 7 to 2 that the Protect Act 2003, which makes it a crime to offer child pornography, regardless of whether the depictions are of real children or computer-generated images, could be squared with the First Amendment. In both of these cases Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion.

In another stark decision, punitive damages against Exxon Mobil for damage caused by a supertanker oil spill in 1989 were reduced from $2.5 billion to $500 million.

There were further decisions on the humane administration of the death penalty and reduction of the right of Mexicans on death row to be granted new hearings.

The court’s liberal wing scored a victory when a majority decided against the death penalty as the punishment for raping young girls. Justice Kennedy wrote that death was ‘a disproportionate penalty for even so devastating a crime when the death of the victim did not result.’ Predictably, Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts didn’t agree, but they took it on the chin.

Mr Justice Hardiman hopes to see the Supreme Court bench embellished in the furture by the presence of Mary McAleese, who has just received a higher diploma in canon law from the Milltown Institute, and Mr Michael McDowell. ‘Michael deserves to be catapulted like I was,’ the judge said.

Ireland has the fewest number of judges per 100,000 population and spends less on its court system relative to national wealth than any other state in the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, according to the Commission for the Efficiency of Justice. Unsurpringly for a country whose Taoiseach receives a higher salary than the President of the United States, Ireland’s judges are among the best paid in Europe, earning seven times the average wage.

Ireland scores very well in its provision for legal aid.

War on Climate Change in jeopardy

France, Germany and Austria are seeking to downsize ambitions to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and curb carbon dioxide emissions.

‘They’re doing this in the name of caution, but we are surrounded by a deadly web of climate change that will lead to droughts, floods and rising sea levels if not checked immediately,’ said Luxembourg lawmaker Claude Turmes.

A failure to tackle climate change head on will result in a ‘bottomless pit,’ according to John Gibbons of climatechange.ie. ‘And out of the pit will arise smoke, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air will be darkened by reason of the smoke from the pit. And out of the smoke will come locusts, and unto them will be given power. And in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it.’

The European Union had planned to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020.

Eastern European states, still economically far behind their western counterparts, have been reluctant to put the breaks on their expansion. If they do not, France, Germany, Austria and others fear they will look like schnooks by adhering to the rules.

Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who today launched a consultation paper on removing inefficient light bulbs from the Irish market, is critical of France, Germany, Austria.

‘The world is a lot like a light bulb,’ he said. ‘It can be switched on as well as off. It can be efficient as well as inefficient.’

Since becoming Party leader, Mr Gormley has toured the country advocating a remission of carbon sins, encouraging penitent travellers to contribute money to offset their carbon credits. To this aim, he has composed a charming ditty:

‘As soon as a coin in the coffer rings
your carbon footprint from purgatory springs.’

Next year Mr Gormley is to announce a jubilee indulgence, with all proceeds going to the construction of wind turbines, the funding of low-energy lightbulbs, the development of low-energy electricity and the cultivation of sustainable vegetables.

In the face of pressure from other EU states the Minister for the Environment has pledged to jealously guard Ireland's carbon neutrality.

Ahti-sorry

Finland's former president Ahtisaari has beaten contenders, among whom was former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, for the Nobel Peace Prize.

An Iar-Taoiseach had made the short-list. ‘I feel like Sebastian Barry,’ he said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee felt that Mr Ahtisaari’s peace credentials were worthier than Mr Ahern’s because he had been longer in the peace game and had covered more ground. The Committee awarded the 71 year old man the $1.4 million prize ‘for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.’

‘Martti is only man I know who has made peace on three continents’ said former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. ‘He also makes one heck of a potato and white bean ragout.’

Mr Ahtisaari brought some serious peace to Indonesia’s tricky Aceh province in 2005, and until March last year he dialogued with Serbs, Albanians and Kosovars, bringing them to the brink of an agreement on semi-autonomous, ethnically sensitive waste management facilities.

Nobel committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes took the unusual step of doing down Mr Ahern’s pretentions to the prize. ‘In 1989-90 Ahtisaari was helping Namibia become independent. What was Ahern doing then? He was Minister for Labour, playing second fiddle to MacSharry and Reynolds. What was he negotiating? Haughey into power with the PDs. There’s no comparison.’

Mr Ahern has vowed that either he or his daughter Cecilia will one day win a Nobel prize.

Democrat blames Republican

An 84-year-old Democrat today blamed a 62-year-old Republican for ‘everything.’

Former President Jimmy Carter cited the ‘atrocious economic policies’ and ‘profligate spending’ of George W Bush as the cause of the current financial crisis.

Endorsing Mr Obama, Mr Carter made no mention of his own record in the White House from 1977-1981.

President Carter was seen as a poor leader by Helmut Schmidt and Valery Giscard d’Estaing, and Denis Healey, chancellor of the exchequer in the Callaghan government (1976 – 1979), called Carter ‘a moral puritan and an economic profligate.’ These criticisms were not recalled by the former President, who was formidable at winning primaries.

Life after office has been kind to Mr Carter, as it has so far to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Peace Envoy to the Middle East, who has recently begun teaching a course on faith and globalisation at Yale University.

It is rumoured that following his retirement next January President Bush hopes to lecture part-time in Havard on modern Argentinian literature. A position as UN Representative for Sustainable Economics has also been mooted.

Liquiditas

The Government’s guarantee scheme is to be extended to foreign-owned banking groups with ‘significant’ operations in the State, the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said today.

In a statement the Minister said Ulster Bank and First Active; Halifax Bank of Scotland (Ireland), IIB Bank, owned by Belgium's KBC; and Postbank, a joint venture between Belgian-based Fortis and the Irish post office; would be eligible for the scheme.

The Minister for Finance said the scheme was being extended ‘to certain banking subsidiaries in Ireland with a significant and broadbased footprint in the domestic economy.’

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has threatened Irish consumers that if confidence in global financial institutions is not restored by Monday the Government will continue to nationalise institutions. Insurance companies, public houses and ailing restaurants will be the next businesses to avail of the guarantee.

The Taoiseach has warned he will not tolerate any abuse of the Government’s bail-out scheme.

By including the foreign-owned banks the State is increasing its potential liabilities under the scheme by approximately 10 per cent to €440 billion. As the Budget deficit amounts to €9 million, the scheme has raised concerns regarding the ability of the State to shoulder the guarantee.

‘We don’t have the money ourselves,’ said the Minister, ‘but our credit’s good.’

Hadith with them

This afternoon saw share prices again fall sharply on the trading floors of the New York Stock Market.

‘But it’s an ill wind that blows no good,’ said Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar.

Addressing followers during the holy day of Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, Mr Omar told followers that the heroin trade was booming once more, a business that sends $100 million a year into the Taliban’s coffers. This should speed up decentralisation by destabilising the Kabul administration and giving power back to local warlords.

The Afghan warlords and drug barons have stressed the importance of education. Significant sums have been pledged for local madrasas which have tirelessly fought against underfunding to promote the rote learning of sacred texts, as well as the study of Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic history, Islamic home economics and Islamic maths.

It is hoped to further increase funding to this area, to provide for children with Islamic learning disorders and give pupils the option of exchange programmes to Indonesia and Pakistan. By 2012 Mr Omar hopes to introduce universal free circumcision for girls, which ‘helps stabilize their libido.’

United States intelligence has been frustrated by the ‘rampant corruption’ of its puppet government, led by Hamid Karzai, since it was first brought to power in December 2001.

The poppy trade counts for at least 50% of Afghanistan’s economy.

Coalition of the Willing to hit Ireland

In a last ditch attempt to win the War on Terror President Bush has deployed troops to the West of Ireland.

After unsuccessful action in the Tora Bora mountains and Iraq, United States Counter Intelligence has lead the War on Terror to the Aillwee Caves.

The President pledged seven years ago to smoke terrorists out of their caves.

There is more than a kilometre of interconnected passages underneath the karst landscape of the Burren, the perfect hinding place for ‘the focus of evil in the modern world,’ according to Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.

Ireland could be called, according to Pennsylvania Avenue, ‘if not a rogue state, then a state with a significant soft spot for rogues.’

According to the New York Times, unbeknownst to the Irish Government, ‘Bin Laden had flown in dozens of bulldozers and other pieces of heavy equipment from his father’s construction empire, the Saudi Binladin Group, one of the most prosperous construction companies in Saudi Arabia.’

U.S Intelligence has hypothesised the existence of miles of tunnels, bunkers and base camps under the Burren, which feature a ventilation and a power system created by a series of hydroelectric generators. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources was stunned to learn that this underground network has even got broadband. An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 well-trained, well-armed men could be hiding out there now, eating olives, sipping sugary mint tea, dressed in their camouflage jackets and shooting tin cans with Kalashnikovs.

For a number of years now, terrorists have been elaborating secret plans to attack and conquer America, using systems so sophisticated they are undetectable.

United States Counter Intelligence is to investigate with ‘rigour and determination’ anything that might conceal chemical weapons. Stalagtites and stalagmites, in which the Aillwee caves abound, are to come in for particular examination.

‘I like Irish people,’ said President Bush. ‘Especially their mania for finding roots in United States presidential candidates. That’s a hoot. But if they have allowed a deadly web of terror to take hold, I can assure them…’ he said, breaking off his speech to wag his finger.

Terrorists may have gained access at the ticket office. Entrance for adults costs €15, a paltry sum for Bin Ladin, even if he paid for all of his fellow-terrorists.

The news has come as ‘something of a shock’ to Taoiseach Brian Cowen, but he has conceeded that ‘in the interests of the world economy’ a short, successful military intervention is needed somewhere. After assurances from President Bush that the invasion would not violate Ireland’s neutrality Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon O Cuiv merely shrugged his head and called it ‘a regretable, but necessary step.’

The President expects the move to shore up confidence in the international banking system. A $700 billion bailout plan in the U.S has yet to fully reassure traders, retailers, corporations and the little man that last week’s crisis is behind us.

‘What America needs now is a small-scale terrorist attack to distract us, to unite us, to give us back our confidence,’ said President Bush last week.

‘Confidence is low,’ he said yesterday. ‘Let’s blow it up again.’

Irish forced to marry abroad

Conclusive evidence of the recession arrived this week, when figures published by the CSO revealed that just under 4,000 Irish couples (of a total 19,000) have been forced to tie the knot abroad so far this year.

‘It’s cheaper,’ said Deirdre Grant, of Irish Weddings Abroad.

Penurious couples have had recourse Sorrento, Rome, Cyprus, Malta and the Algarve in order to make their vows in a cost effective ceremony.

‘We’ve had this problem before. In the Eighties and the Fifties, Irish couples had to postpone marriage because the cost of housing was too high. Something similar plagued us during the nineteenth century,’ said celebrity historian Micheál O Siochrú.

‘Now the reality is that the actual cost of a wedding is prohibitive. Without these cheap foreign alternatives the marriage rate would drop dramatically, which could result in the kind of fall off in population that hasn’t been seen since the time of Cromwell.’

Budget plan revealed

Two key cuts have been revealed by the Minister for Finance this weekend.

In a decision that may prove unpopular, medical cards for over-70s are to be withdrawn.

‘This isn’t as bad as it sounds,’ said the Minister for Finance. ‘I have an uncle in Westmeath who’s always at the doctor’s, but it’s just to socialize. In some ways the waiting room is the new pub in rural Ireland. Taking your perscription is just something to do.’

‘At that age, having to remember anything keeps you on your toes. During the Celtic Tiger such practices were viewed benignly. But in the current climate the elderly will have to find ways of fighting isolation that are less costly to the public coffers.’

The second move is sure to send ripples of discontent through all Departments. In a move that will generate hundreds of millions for the exchequer, Mr Lenihan plans to let the entire civil service go.

The Finance Minister’s dislike of quangos was expressed as far back as two years ago, but his concern over the quality of the civil service has been longstanding.

Peeling the Orange

Irish students are not interested in the history of Northern Ireland, according to Vincent Rogers, Secondary School Curricular Officer at the Department of Education.

The theme of bigotry that comes good in the end has failed to capture the imaginations of school goers.

Pupils aged between 14 and 18 find the topic ‘full of pettiness, intransigence and meaningless violence.’

New Media Learning techniques will be in place from next September, when the history of the North becomes a significant component in the Leaving Certificate.

NML reaches out to students in their own language. Traditional book learning is to be supplemented with powerpoint presentations.

One of the most exciting pilot projects will have teachers, standing at the top of the class, sending text messages which explain complex problems in the space of 260 characters to their pupils. It is hoped that in the near future most of the lesson will be carried out via text.

Under the Clock

The Editor of the Irish Times, Ms Geraldine Kennedy, had to be forcibly restrained by staff on Friday night, after she demanded an editorial on the restoration of the newspaper’s clock.

The clock, which Ms Kennedy billed as ‘iconic’, received a front page coverage, with a large photograph accompanied by a 363 word article. This was followed by a further 692-word article on page three. Staff watched as Ms Kennedy orchestrated an on-line slide show to compliment the coverage.

Rumblings of discontent began when Ms Kennedy, who earns a basic salary of €323,000, announced plans to make the clock the subject of Saturday’s editorial.

‘It was a step too far,’ said Alison Healy, who was made pen the articles.

Three years ago Ms Kennedy faced down a significant staff rebellion, provoked by the lavish salaries of senior management. The Sunday Independent reported on 7 August 2005:

‘Geraldine Kennedy and five other directors were paid a total of €2.6m last year - an extraordinary 20.5 per cent cut of the paper's total profits. The rest of the 544 staff shared just four per cent of Irish Times profits among them.’

Insiders say the paper is being torn apart by ‘divisions that only Fianna Fail has known.’

Frank McDonald, Kathy Sheridan, Lorna Siggins, Miriam Lord, Shane Hegarty, Michael Viney, Eileen Battersby and the pol cors are firmly in favour of good quality, low cost domestic reporting.

This is in stark contrast to high-end faction, led by Roisin Ingle, who last week traveled to India for a three page article on therapeutic massage.

Divisions were symbolically on show last week when Brian O Connell wrote a piece about getting an expensive Dublin haircut, only to be followed a day later by Fiona McCann visiting the capital’s charity shops, a subtle criticism of the high-enders.

Insiders are waiting to hear from paper heavy-weight Fintan O Toole, who is both open to six month trips to China and critical of the ‘fat cat’ mentality.

The clock was originally erected at the newspaper’s offices in Westmoreland Street, at the beginning of the tewntieth century; it can now be viewed outside the paper’s news offices on Townsend Street.

Defender of Democracy

In an interview with the Sunday Independent today Libertas leader Declan Ganley claimed that he ‘caught the European Union by the beard and I smote it,’ in this way ‘delivering Ireland out of the paw of Brussels.’

Since his June victory the Libertas leader, one of a small number of Irish people to speak with an English accent, has never been seen without a helmet of brass on his head and five smooth stones in a sling. The stones do not have their origins in the EU.

Mr Ganley, a man of ruddy countenance and mysterious wealth, also revealed that he sent the late Liam Lawlor on a humanitarian mission to Albania. ‘I wanted him to warn the people out there of pyramid schemes.’

In the manner of another Fianna Fail Minister Mr Ganley has sought to draw in line in the sand on the subject of Libertas’ funding. His ‘clear and concise’ clarification is as follows:

‘We complied with the rules to the letter. Finished.’

Mr Ganley admitted he admires Henry VIII, who is best remembered as Defender of the Faith. ‘Henry was a man who was faced with bureaucracy, not from Brussels, but from Rome. Like Libertas, he refused to be told how to run his domestic affairs by the diktats of a foreign organisation.’

Mr Ganley will speak on the Lisbon Treaty at UCD this Tuesday evening.

Obama’s Ageism

Barack Obama has refused to support Ireland’s Positive Ageing Week, fearful that his remarks could be seen as an endorsement for the McCain campaign.

The revelation came when Taoiseach Brian Cowen, in New York to address a high-level UN summit in New York, asked the Illinois Senator for ‘a supportive comment, a soundbite, just something to raise the Week’s profile.’

‘We were quite taken aback,’ said Lorraine Dorgan, deputy chief executive of Age Action.

Positive Ageing Week began on Friday and will continue until 4 October.