You pays your money

The IMF crowd are down Athens way, and the EU is looking at their books again. Meanwhile they are loking at Ireland.

Here, for example is the Greek situation,

The EU and IMF left a critical audit of Greek finances unfinished on Friday saying more budget work was needed, and the government admitted its deficit target is in trouble.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos conceded that Greece would have to revise its public deficit target for this year, a key condition for continued funding from the 110-billion-euro ($158-billion) EU-IMF-ECB bailout loan agreed last year.

The Greek vacuum is still operating. Slightly better news however comes from Ireland,

The EU has agreed to provide Ireland with the next installment of its bailout package.


Ireland will receive €7.5bn over the next two months from the €85bn package granted by the EU and IMF last year.

The EU said the decision to release funds to Ireland followed "positive" quarterly reviews by the troika.

In a statement released this afternoon, the EU praised Ireland for making progress in the recovery programme and addressing weaknesses in the financial sector.

This isn't good news remember, it is merely not worse news. The bailouts are still necessary, and the crisis is far from over, but the shadow over Greece grows deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, what do they have that could act as collateral?

Will the new Wild Geese ever make it to Chad?

The original Wild Geese were those Irish catholics who fled from the island and joined the service of the French King. Now we have a new breed of Irishmen, being put in harms way for French imperial ambitions.

This week the Irish press has been full of two stories, both linked. There has been questions of the fabled neutrality vis-a-vis the Constitutional Referendum. The No campaign believing that Eire's neutrality to be compromised by aspects of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Yes campaign denying any such thing.

Simultaneous to that has been the great burst of pride as General Nash finally takes command of the EU Force in Chad. A peacekeeping force delayed by many months due to logistical problems.

The problem is that no sooner is the force, which is mostly French but includes Irish and other contingents, off for deployment that it stops.

This all boils down to the fact reported here at the beggining of December and covered extensively in EU Referendum this force is not really a European Force at all but a fig leaf for unreconstructed French foreign policy. France is an ally of the Chadian dictator, and has taken sides. The peacekeepers are supposed to be neutral, so the rebels have declared war on France and by extension its EU allies.

So with the rebel forces closing in on the Chadian capital we discover,

However, a plane-load of 54 Irish special forces did not depart for N'Djamena, Chad's capital, and a cargo aircraft carrying equipment and a dozen Austrian soldiers turned back yesterday.

I was discussing the Irish referendum campaign with a couple of Sinn Fein staffers (politics does make for some strange aquaintances) and the Chad deployment came up,

EH "What would happen if a young Irish soldier came back in a body bag before
the vote"
SF "Can you organise it?"
EH "Sorry"
SFS "It's just that we don't have any active service units in Chad"
EH, "I suppose they are all in Colombia"

The point is of course is that either the sight of dead Irish soldiers returning having died for France, or the sight of Fench soldiers running amok amongst Africans slaughtering left right and centre whilst under the command of an Irish General could have a major impact on the Treaty poll.

War-battered dogs are we,
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time.
War-dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime
Every cause but our own

When I see a spade I call it a...

Just looking through the Irish press to see how the referendum campaign is going over there and I came across this.

If any of you can explain it to me I would really appreciate it.

Changing cattle for cows a 'no brainer'

Dairy farmers were advised to swap all their cattle for cows to make life easier and to make more profit.
This was the opinion of Teagasc advisor, John McNamara, who said that changing cattle for cows was a "no brainer".
Mr McNamara was speaking at the Irish Grassland Association's conference on dairy farming, in Cork, on Wednesday.

My guess is this is in someway about subsidy farming, but really I haven't a clue.