atoast2toast.com

The toast blog has seen over 300 posts since March. I have to use my time concentrate on other things instead. There are still many things that I see on a regular basis that are patently crazy but don’t bear repeating. It is only when something is over the line that I deem it “toastworthy”.

I was up at the Dundrum town centre today to get some sushi and to see the amazing new movie District 9. I heard two 50-60 year old ladies from Dublin talking to each other while having a cigarette outside the door in the rain. One of them complained how there was very little in the way of sales and how they would want to cop on. It was immediately apparent that they did’nt know each other. The one who was doing most of the talking said something that I found very interesting. She started to say how they ruined the place with crap apartments that nobody wants to live in and the walls should be broken down to make 2 into 1. I turned to her and said “you are well informed”. She said “who wants to hear their neigbours”. I told her that I hear mine at 6am clomping around with heels and hard soled shoes (- albeit less since they denied doing it and then stopped anyway).

She quoted her son who said it is only the Irish and Americans who are obsessed with home ownership. I pointed to the newspaper in my hand and told her that people want NAMA to re-inflate the bubble, to get it started up again. She was leaving and said she was delighted that these people had ther cumuppance because of their greed.

It was then that I saw the future and confirmation of a lingering suspicion I had of emerging optimism and realism. The people who were progressive are on one side and the luddite paddies are on the other. I think this is Ireland’s second Saipan. If Irelands participation in the World Cup (with a team of plastic paddies) was instrumental in building national pride I find it Ironic that Roy Keane set out the blueprints to those of us who want to stand up to the bullshit.

Now it is almost all over beside the shouting and there are people who come out ahead. The gamblers curse had befallen the pig-men with the beige blazers. Like Brian Cowen on the Late Late maybe they know that “if they knew then what they know now they wouldnt have spent so much”. They still desperately want to grab what they can and fuck everyone else a second time. They turned a tenner into a thousand and a thousand into a million but they learned the hard that “house always wins”, with no pun intended.

It was like the banker bailout in the States where the masters of the universe got massive pensions. There are similarities in Ireland – where is the blame? When will any of those involved in illegal insider share trading be sent to jail?

This is telling and annoyed me an awful lot during the week: irishtimes.com:

Asked if they supported the Government’s Nama proposal as a way of removing bad loans from the banking system, 26 per cent of voters said they were for it, 40 per cent were against and 34 per cent had no opinion. When asked if they favoured nationalising the banks, 36 per cent said they were for, 38 per cent were against and 25 per cent had no opinion.
…
In terms of social class, the strongest support for Nama comes from the best-off AB and C1 categories, with 32 per cent for and 42 per cent against. The strongest opposition comes from the poorest DE category with 19 per cent for, 39 per cent against and 42 per cent having no opinion. In terms of age groups, the strongest support comes from the 25 to 34-year-olds, while in regional terms voters in the rest of Leinster and Connacht Ulster are significantly more supportive than those in Dublin and Munster.

Who the hell are the people with no opinion? The demographics are warped. Are these 25-34 year olds either completely stupid or up to their eye-balls in debt or both. The suspicions of a lot of people are right. It is a red letter day when you see letters in the newspaper about how our entire GDP will be buried for decades. Why would anyone believe Fianna Fail after all the lies and bullshit up to this point. They are down to 11% support and should get wiped out if there was any fairness and we could have a general election but alas those in Govenment want to go the term to make sure they get their pensions.

The lunatics in Coir are trying to derail the Lisbon vote. They are the same people who in part drove the No campaign last time with this shit:

This post caused me some memorable problems with one of the many confused canadians out there.

I must go and see where I can get some “Yes to Lisbon, No to Nama” sticker.

What I see in my own home is fairly controlled, be it science fiction or an interest in general social or economic issues or just plain observation of human nature through researching violence in controlled/real and simulated environments (UFC and online FPS games). When I leave my house the world I enter is different and my powers of observation are honed from choosing my fights carefully. I notice a lot of insecurities among people. Every time I see a new SUV I generalise and think it is a family who are paying a mortgage 50 miles away and are in negative equity while fearing for their jobs. I am certain that the guys driving these cars know they are guilty and their smugness was ill considered. They are responsible for the blight on the Irish landscape and the sale of our collective futures to allow them to put lipstick on their pig heads. They now feel the need to drive legally and use their indicators again and park properly instead of dumping on the flashers while parked on double yellows to pick up some food from Diep. They were aided and abetted by corruption without punishment. It is indeed a banana republic.