Isnât that what you do with them all?
Constantin Gurdgiev cleaning house tonight. Worrying stuff
Fair play to Vinnie. Carmel from Reuters is another intelligent cracker.
Another FG simpleton being exposed here.
They really are an incredibly stupid lot, not a competent politician between them, which says a lot about the Irish electorate in general.
Vincent wearing the same suit two nights in a row under glaring TV lights.
Tottis influence is spreading.
Is he wearing the same shirt?
Is Joe Higgins a spoofer?
Forza Totti
Vincent seems to be determined to expose him as such.
Fagan, I would like you to know Iâm just after giving an appreciative nod to my laptop screen after reading your excellent post.
speaking of the featured wardrobes, why is yer wan wearing tights on her arms?
[quote=âMr. Totti, post: 276578â]
Fagan, I would like you to know Iâm just after giving an appreciative nod to my laptop screen after reading your excellent post.
[/quote] I hope it was grammatically correct.
That yoke yer one Siobhan is wearing makes her look like she has tattoos all over her upper arms.
Intriguingly weâve already had quoted research by The Credit Unions and Credit Suisse
It was great Fagan.
Who is that smarmy looking bitch on the left of the screen?
Joe Higgins can make some good points until he starts advocating the overthrow of the capitalist system. It doesnât help that he sounds like a county board PRO.
Alison OâConnor of the Indo apparently. First article I found from her:
Alison OâConnor: We donât want a president with skeletons in closet
By Alison OâConnor
Monday September 26 2011
I donât much like Northern Ireland. The last time I visited the North was a trip to IKEA in Belfast in early 2009 and since the Swedish flatpack superstore opened in Ballymun I havenât been back over the Border. In truth thatâs the way I like it.
There is no need to look any further, I hold my hand up and admit that Iâm one of those âpartitionist in my thinkingâ types that Martin McGuinness so dislikes. The 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Agreement dealing with the removal of the Republicâs territorial claim to the North was no wrench to me. I reckon itâs a murky little middle-class secret kept by myself and many others â we feel we shouldnât think this way but we do â that the North is not something we like to dwell on, let alone visit, and for this we feel guilty.
Not guilty enough, mind you, to do anything about it â not unless there was an extra special weekend offer in a fabulous Belfast hotel. Even then though, it would be a push.
I remember on that last trip to IKEA it was a wet and miserable day, and owing to a malfunction of the sat-nav we got lost. Iâve no idea where we ended up but myself and my friend, in our southern reg car, sure as hell were nervous â although at the time we were too embarrassed to admit that to each other.
I breathed an even bigger sigh of relief than usual as we crossed the Border that day.
So to say McGuinnessâs bid for the presidency puts it up to me in terms of my attitude is an understatement. Last week, in the immediate wake of the announcement of his candidacy, I wrote instinctively that I did not believe he should be our next president.
As the days have passed I realise that itâs a bit more complicated than that, in my own head at least. Over the next few weeks we are going to have to confront those prejudices that we prefer to keep hidden.
Growing up in an apolitical house, I was only vaguely aware of the North as a child. Later, as a young journalist, I remember being sent to Belfast to work and disliking it intensely. Part of that was my sense that I really did not have a good grip on the situation, with all its complexities, and was terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing.
One of my first assignments was to investigate the issue of disputed marching routes in Co Fermanagh. I attempted to get to grips with the issues, not least the fact that there was a group called the Black Preceptory, with links to the Orange Order, who were particularly upset. It all seemed quite incredible. As time went on it was just awful to see such hatred and suffering and such murderous rage.
Later covering the peace process, and waiting hours and days for the politicians to come out and report some meagre progress, I became convinced that there were far too many egos at play. If there had been a media blackout of a few weeks the entire thing would have been sorted a lot faster.
Whatever else we may learn about Bertie Ahern or Tony Blair, I will never lose my admiration for how the two of them showed such incredible patience, in the face of extreme provocation.
Of course this attitude could be regarded as ridiculously impatient given that these negotiations were ultimately all about saving lives and bringing peace to the North.
My instinctive belief is that McGuinness is good enough to be deputy first minister in Stormont, a job he does incredibly well.
But that doesnât mean I am ready for him to be our president. If there are shades of hypocrisy in that then so be it. But there also major differences in the two situations, no matter how much Sinn Fein would tell us otherwise.
Iâm finding it impossible to make up my mind on his prospects â especially this early on â but people I know who have an excellent nose for politics reckon he has a really good chance.
You also hear of possible votes for him from unexpected sources, such as the friend who had a coffee with a large group of south Dublin mothers a few days ago who said their husbands were very taken with McGuinness. Thatâs hardly a natural constituency.
It may seem an odd thing to say but I reckon McGuinnessâs biggest hindrance in reaching out to voters who wouldnât naturally be inclined to vote for him â but are tempted to do so â is his party.
Sinn Feinâs stridency, smugness and daft economic policies are no boon to McGuinness. Would they really be able to resist the temptation to politicise the office of president?
In many ways, the Derrymanâs appeal transcends his party and their policies.
He is an extremely charismatic figure whose easy charm holds a strong attraction for voters.
However, youâd have to wonder how many of those non-Sinn Fein voters will be able to look beyond his violent past.
Itâs beyond belief to hear him say, as he did on Thursday, that he never killed anyone or had a part in anyone being killed.
IF that, and his assertion that he left the IRA in 1974, are both true, how then did he command such enormous respect in terms of getting the IRA to give up their arms?
Iâm not sure as a country whether we want or need a president whom we suspect could have huge skeletons clattering out of his closet at inopportune moments. And yet he might just get elected.
- Alison OâConnor
Alison O Connor from the Indo.
Well he does have impeccable kerry gaa credentials
Vinny getting very testy with Joe Costello