Knowing which side thy bread be buttered :: Iran

Wednesday February 08, 2006 11:57

by iosaf

Thanks to our good manners, lack of religious hatred, and famed inter-cultural tolerance, the Irish people have in the last week become one of the few predominantly blue eyed pasty skinned nations of northern europe with a bit of viking past not to be threatened with armageddon. Our cartoonists and children book authors are safe. Our museum of Islamic literature with its oft overlooked iconoclastic illustrations un-molested, Our embassies proud and inviolate. & our butter sales have gone up. Time my friends to remind ourselves of our commercial relations with the state of Iran.
____________________________________________________

you'll have a cup of tea and a buttered scone.

As reported by RTE the state news provider of Ireland which has only ever gone off air once (for 4 hours in 1972 nobody remembers why) Irish dairy products are enjoying a slight increase in sales.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0208/food.html

We have much in common with the new fan base of Irish cholesterol. Like us their state begins with an "I" just like in "indymedia". And like us they don't have nuclear power. Because like us, they are a green lot. In fact green is one of their favourite colours and environmental issues are right up there, "the Tara of East".

And it wouldn't be surprising therefore to know, that succesive Irish governmental regimes have taken advantage of such proximity of character, to promote Irish trade and of course the interests of the European Union and its predecessor the European Economic Community in that far off land.

Therefore one Larry Goodman, ranked in 2004 by the British Sunday Times newspaper as being worth £234m (€339m).
[The "m" stands for "million"] and at position 17 (or 18) on the European businessman richlist. was entrusted by both FF and FG led governments to sell our Iranian pals meat.

Nothing wrong with that.

Ah but! the meat had already gone through the books of the EEC/EU as having been turned into stew, plopped into cans, and distributed amongst the poor of the realm, so that they might have protein, grow big bones, and feel loyal Europeans one dole day a month. No-one could really get their head around it. And therefore the finest minds of the time, the young progressive democrats legal team, were comissioned to open a tribunal in Dublin and argue about it for many many years.

For those of you with short memories this all happened in and around 1990- a little reminder from the press of the time (October 1990)
"The week started with politicians hurling accusations at one another. It did not quite reach the "No, I didn't! Yes, you did!" level of debate but came close. Fine Gael and Labour demanded that the Government come clean about which Minister(s) made representations to a German bank on behalf of Goodman International. A Government spokesman said that there were absolutely no grounds for such accusations. He went on to counter with the claim that the last Government Minister to publicly align himself with Mr Goodman was Fine Gael TD Austin Deasy, who, three years ago, accompanied him to Iraq. That was topped with the accusation that Dr Garret FitzGerald, as Taoiseach, "maintained a very close liaison with Mr Goodman". Mr Deasy said they had it wrong. He visited Iran, and later Cairo, with Larry Goodman and a number of other beef exporters; nothing wrong with that! Dr Fitzgerald's response was that describing his "limited contact" with Mr Goodman as a close liaison suggested a level of desperation in Fianna Fail. While this lot were in full swing Proinsias de Rossa, leader of the Workers' Party, demanded that both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael confirm that they received donations (£100,000 and £30,000 respectively) from Goodman interests during the 1987 election campaign. He was all but ignored by both parties. By Wednesday evening the German Commerzbank issued a statement denying that it received any assurances from the Taoiseach or any other Government minister in respect of Goodman International. The Government immediately demanded an apology from the opposition parties. Alan Dukes, who was in the thick of the "debate", was just as quick off the mark saying that no apology would be forthcoming. Later in the week after it became known that Ray MacSharry was involved (see below) the two main opposition parties demanded that the Dail be recalled. The Taoiseach dismissed this request out of hand."]

oh yes murkey stuff.

And RTé even got complaints from Mr Goodman who during it all was a regular coffee drinker ( I kid you not) in Bewleys Grafton Street. But they went unheard. In fact most people forgot about how young PD lawyers had come to prominence and the fully paid mortgage, and both butter vouchers and tins of sloppy beef were abandoned by the EU/EEC as it accordingly abandoned its "Social conscience" and turned "big business". (I'm keeping this simple).

So we didn't hear from Mr Goodman for a while, and he went on expanding his beef business in all of europe and the middle east but obviously not India, because they're very sensitive about eating cows in India. [ I'll explain that another time. ]

But in the mid 1990's he roared like a stomping bull back onto the national stage, as our neighbours the dirty unhygeinic brits invented "Mad Cow Disease". This was in fact a secret service attempt to counter the long term effects of americanisation and junk food diet which NATO and Marshall Aid had brought the briton. Resulting in them becoming the most obese people in the EU/EEC. Mr Gummer the minister for food of Mrs Thatcher, stole the recipe for "SBE" from a WMD lab in the Anatarctica and in no time, no-one would touch a Briton's hamburger.

Unfortuanately, the foreigner was less au fait with European geography in those days, and banned all beef grown in the EEC/EU from their shops.

But the government asked mr Goodman to visit Iraq, Iran, Syria and Jordon to sort it out for them.-
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1997/12/29/bhead.htm

And he did suffering only 2 TV programmes from the ungrateful nest of stickies in Donnybrook for it, andthough he complained they didn't uphold them!
http://www.bcc.ie/20th%20Annual%20Report%20of%201999.doc
(Thankfully for us all, the ungrateful nest of sticks in Donnybrook are now a thing of the past, and have all gone into retirement).

I'm sure I left out some important details.
Hopefully other readers who are older and wiser than I
will append them together with succint and witty comments.

our most holy and $acred cow.

save preference

Comments (10 of 10)

our bread is buttered on the side of being a poorer smaller country where everyone earns more.

by ajax

Mon Jun 22, 2009 00:42

. . . . . . . . . . . .Iran . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ireland

GDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $289.9 billion per year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $256.1 billion per year
GDP at parity . . . . . . . .$859.7 billion per year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $198.5 billion per year
GDP per capita . . . . . $3117 per year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $48 640 per year
GDP real growth . . . . 5.888%per year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4.823%per year
gini index . . . . . . . . . . 0.43 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.32
unemployment rate . 12.5% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2%

population . . . . . . . . 71.2 million people (world rank 18) . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 million people (world rank: 122)
pop. density . . . . . . 43.5 people/km2 (world rank 162) . . . . . . . . . . 62.4 people/km2 (world rank: 141)
pop. growth . . . . . .1.04%per year (world rank: 129) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.67%per year (world rank: 84)

life expectancy . . . .71.1 years (world rank: 136th) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78.2 years (world rank: 47th)
average age . . . . . . 26.4 years (world rank: 121) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34.6 years (world rank: 66th)

source : http://www46.wolframalpha.com/

Juxtapositions

by Goldilocks

Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:47

Merckel and the Holy Cow:

Twenty four hours afer Bush used his 'Presidential veto' to veto the vote
on stem-cell research, Angela Merckel withdrew funding from stem-cell
research in Germany.

Ireland is currently engaged in a similar debate wherin the Catholic leaders
are lobbying for a moral discussion on when life begins- they are angry because
they do not believe that a high court judge can within Irish legislation decide
on when life begins. Legislation being hopelessly gender-biased and centred
in the right, they may have a point.

The prevalence of a creationist ethos and a severe right wing in Europe, consisting
of Bushites and apologists for war would indicate that the new world order envisaged
is fasistic in nature. and when the wars end, a new market place will open for
the neo-liberals based on a creationist ethos, an aryan phenomenology
and the use of women's bodies to perpetuate this ethos.

or we could resist the silliness and fight for democracy.

Mr Bush has cleared Hugo Chavez of any military threat.

by bread puddin iosaf - back on my "let's invade iran" campaign. surreal isn't it?

Tue Aug 01, 2006 00:09

The president of the USA commenting on Hugo who as we know has spent the last week touring Russia - where he bought arms - Qatar where he celebrated their birthday - Iran where he got a medal - Vietnam where he's checked out the USAF jet in Saigon's park - has decided "he's not a military threat"....."but he's still not democratic" http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=pol...False

- this is obviously in response to alarm amongst bible bible voters in the homeland who saw telly of Chavez with the Iranians, and saw how his birthday hosts Qatar keep voting against them in the UN security council. [ they're all very smart in bibleland ]

Now keeping the comment on topic... above is a great article about how former brickie & university teacher Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went from being unpronouncable to getting his own "UN resolution". It happened because no-one wants him to have nuclear power - unless of course the Russians who'll help him, the Chinese who sort of approve, all his neighbours and everyone who can get Nilesat Telly (800,000,000people), most of South America (over a billion), a fair wedge of Africa.... make it simple - most people on teh planet no longer care if Iran irradiates itself.

but not you.
nor the USA, Israel, UK, or Greenpeace.
because nuclear power is dirty.

meanwhile on the other side of reality :-
Angela Merckel is in a bit of a mess, some people want her to send german boys and girls of te army and polizei to sort out Lebanon. She's decided Israelis are right in suggesting german soldiers will just get the people who wave "nazi flags" or "posters with stars of david and swastikas" on them excited. So just the polizie will go. http://english.bna.bh/?ID=48168 {she's really saying her grnd coalition is out-politicked http://english.bna.bh/?ID=48168
}
Tehran is laughing. by the psychic pubes... they have till august 31 to comply with the UN.
Or else they'll get sanctions which won't hurt them. & no-one really reckons they can be invaded anymore. But if they do stop their nuclear program they still have all the little bits left over.

How did all this happen?

please look at the illustrations & read the text

Lets all condemn the Iranians for being better politicians than us & ask Bush to
invade them!
bring it on!

I'm sure I left out some important details.
Hopefully other readers who are older and wiser than I
will append them together with succint and witty comments

I'm all for demos...

by Gay Geori

Sun Feb 12, 2006 04:50

gaygeori at graffiti dot net

... but it would be much for effective to boycott Iran and start a campaign to divest from that country.

Of course, with our beloved "president" and form legal representative for Catholic Bishops at the All Ireland Forum, Massas MacAleese, in the Middle East at present this would be a fine tim to embarrass the fuck out of the greedy capitalist pigs in the IDA and Irish Beef Industry entourage with here. And I suggest that THAT is the reason that the Irish press won't publish the cartoons - they'd have a hard time explaning the loss of profits to their cronies in the Irish exporting business...

Some Sense of Humour...

... and the laughed at Pat Buchanan

"Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?"

Sat Feb 11, 2006 12:00

the governments of Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and France, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund have kindly "made possible" a conference this weekend in Kuala Lumpur entitled "Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West?"

Their blurp goes on - "Is the Muslim world a monolith? Is the West a monolith? How can we improve mutual perception between the two parties through the media?

its all Co-sponsored by New York University's Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West and Malaysia's Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), the conference is taking place at the Shangri-La Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

ooooo "shangri-la hotel" gets my dancing feet a-tapping and reminds of JFK.

Now the important bits (is Bono going to be there & will he take off the sunglasses?)

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia will open the conference and participants will include former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami; Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu; Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amre Moussa; Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Mustafa Ceric; Oxford historian and author Timothy Garton Ash; Rockefeller Brothers Fund President Stephen Heintz; and Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research Ronald Lehman.

Quite a list. I'll just highlight former president of Iran
Mohammad Khatami, coz he has said the Muslim world is ready for a major transformation. Now quite what did he mean by that? Of course he is at the moment "very close" to where Iran has put its money since it divested from European and US stock markets. But I'll go into that another time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4703260.stm

the site of the conference
http://www.islamuswest.org/events.html

& a nice saturday morning extra bonus titbit of trivia on Khatami :
http://indymedia.ie/article/69302&comment_limit=0&conde...37851

flying a kite.

by @ .:. / €$% /+ *

Thu Feb 09, 2006 20:36

lets be honest the US doesn't want to invade Iran. Neither Bush nor Rumsfeld really want to pursue that option. They had their opportunities before, and bringing a theatre of war to the border of Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan and Iraq really isn't in their interest.

So.....

Lets ask them to invade Iran.

I promise you that as much as Iraq was a "bush republican thing" Iran is a "democrat thing". It is now 25 years since the US democrats' humiliation and the subsequent collapse of the Carter (are you voting well?) regime which was the "Iranian hostage crises". Carter attempted to fly in the CIA and get the 66 diplomats and other US citizens out, but failed miserably. They remained hostages for 444 days. We have ( I kid you not ) 2 years till any US regime will consider risking the lives of americans in an Iranian adventure. And one which so far would be sold on the label "anti-zionist" or "irreligious (!?)".

So....

Lets ask them to invade Iran.

"why Iran can not be allowed by civilised nations to develop nuclear power"

by .:.

Wed Feb 08, 2006 23:06

Ok. let us get down to brass-tacks.

Iran Embassy
72 Mount Merrion Avenue
Blackrock
Co. Dublin

Tel:(+ 353) 1 288 0252
Fax:(+ 353) 1 283 4246

Any state which sponsers and incites street violence not only in its own territory but beyond in the name of insult by a European state demanding censorship which subsequently denies the Holocaust {in which millions of European citizens were denied their citizenship, educational qualifications, homes, jobs, put to enforced labour, tatooed, starved and subject to experimentation and then murdered systematically} in its _own press_ is not a state which may be allowed to screen a labour force (unionised or not) to work in, build, maintain, or secure a nuclear facility for the simple reason that : a state which censors foreign media & internet is responsible alone for the conditioning of hatred, prejudice and xenophobia amongst its own population of labour-force.

the Holocaust was and is a European issue.

A long time ago our neighbours the dirty unhygienic brits lost their embassy to Iran, but they got another one. Things work that way.

16 Prince's gate
London
SW7 1PT
Tel(+44) 207,253000.
Fax( +44) 2075894440.

Blame the Arabs

by viewer

Wed Feb 08, 2006 20:39

Was watching RTE news bit about the Danish boycott closing firms down there, was like How can these things take effect over night?

I was suspicious that it was a handy excuse for employess who had already has problems or maybe it was my lack of knowledge and appreciation of the fast turnover of business but no as we got further into the newsbit it turned out that this particular dariy farm was already on its way to be closed before the cartoon row erupted... but now was a excellent opportunity for the employers to Blame the Arabs(tm)!

Sample letters

by Leon

Wed Feb 08, 2006 19:23

I'm always delighted to jump on any ant islamic bandwagon so if people can't think of their own letters use mine.

Dear Iran,

Everything is my business especially comics in Farsi.
I condemn you for killing all those Jews in the 1940s.

Jai Hind

Leon

or maybe

Dear Iran,

Everything is my business especially newspapers I don't (and can't) read.
Why didn't you stop those Muslims from joining the SS.

Yours Disrespectfully

Leon

or maybe

Dear Iran,

Are you taking suggestions for cartoons?
Could we please have a cartoon of Mohammed 2 penises one circumcised and one uncircumcised and making his decision that muslims have to be circumcised based on his preference for the cut dick?

Yours in Allah,

Leon

I invite readers whom I believe to be of different class to the Holy Cows of Ireland to condemn Iran

Wed Feb 08, 2006 14:38

the Tehran daily 'Hamshari' has started a "cartoonist" competition.
And yesterday saw 3 cartoons aimed at insulting the Holocaust and its survivors.

Israel has not republished the "cartoons". And rabbis throughout the world have condemned them along with representatives of Ireland's main religious groups, and spokespersons for Ireland's main "left" groupings.

The Holocaust or Shoah is not a solely jewish legacy, and Europeans of many and no religions were sent to the camps.

amongst them many milions of slavs.
amongst them many thousands of masons and minority christians.
amongst them a quarter million spanish republicans.

And throughout it all, an "islamic" battalion of the SS fought allied to the Nazis.

Please condemn Iran for this.

Iran Embassy: Iran Embassy
Address: 72 Mount Merrion Avenue
Town/City: Blackrock
Co. Dublin

Telephone: + 353 1 288 0252
Fax: + 353 1 283 4246

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Knowing which side thy bread be buttered :: Iran

Comments (10 of 10)