chancers

Available Until December 13th

In the midst of the farce that was Ireland’s “is it a bailout, isn’t it a bailout, is it a contingency fund”, RTE got a few things wrong.

But they did broadcast this episode of Scannal last night, about Allied Irish Bank’s insurance subsidiary Insurance Corporation of Ireland which collapsed in 1985. The taxpayer paid to bail out Allied Irish Bank. As far as I can tell, the bailout payments that were levied finished in 2009.

The full version of the program is available here until December 13th. Highly recommended viewing.

Oh Look, Damn International Media Ignoring Government Spin. Again.

Just for posterity, here’s a screencap of the CNN international edition website from this morning. It’s good going for a great little country like Ireland to scoop both leads, no?

 

At the same time, the Financial Times seems to have noticed some of the more important news leaking its way out about not attempting any more bond auctions until after the budget.

The Return of Kebab Lenihan

Edit: As of about 11:30pm it appears that Mr. Lenihan has pulled out of attending this event.

This is John J.May. He has some issues with evolution. Conor Lenihan, Ireland’s Minister of State for Science is attending the launch of this gentleman’s book on Wednesday. You really couldn’t make it up.

“You will be shocked, mocked,amazed, dazed, confused, amused, enraged, engaged, but most of all thrilled and mentally fulfilled by the information you are about to read.” Find out more about this groundbreaking work here (warning, it’s one of those websites that plays music at you for no good reason).

Here’s one of Lenihan the younger’s previous finer moments.

More from atheist.ie. It’s on Reddit and there are 84 comments on scienceblogs.com which is rather embarassing. Well done Conor.

Largely Sufficient

 

I love the “yah-boo, better than you” framing of this –  “but we still have a better credit rating than Italy and Portugal“. Look at us, we’re not Greece.

Or perhaps it’s more a case of “please sir, can I have some more?”

For reference:

“We are not rushing into the banks without knowing precisely what the position is in those banks.” – Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, Nov 2008

We truly live in interesting times

Anglo Irish bank is set to take over Arnott’s department store. Because as was pointed out on Morning Ireland, they proved to be so good at running a bank that running a department store should be no bother to them.

As Anglo Irish is controlled by the Irish state, does this mean that Arnott’s will be the state-owned store of choice? Will this reduce the variety available to the discerning Celtic cubling?

Image via englishrussia.com

In this brave new Ireland, as if we hadn’t already realised it, up is down and black is white. I wonder what else Anglo will move to take over in the next 12 months?