Singing the praises of our government
Our gubmint has been fierce busy over the last couple of days, despite being on their long well earned holidays.
For those of you living in foreign climes, we have been having a little rain over here.
Things work reasonably well over here provided it is calm and reasonably warm, but if we have any kind of weather things tend to grind to a standstill. An inch or two of snow is more than sufficient to grind the entire country to a standstill; wind is great for knocking or electricity grid into the middle of next week, and rain? A couple of inches of rain and we are totally fucked. Great swathes of the country now lie submerged as the entire island tried to emulate Atlantis. Towns across the land are competing to become the Irish version of Venice. All in all, Ireland could reasonably be classified as wet.
So what is our gubmint doing?
Well, first up was our deputy leader, The Screecher Burton. She attempted to prove that she could walk on water but sadly ended up getting her Gucci boots all wet when she fell into a road that had become a river. She is now suing Irish Water, The Inland Waterways Association and Paul Murphy for attempting to drown her.
Then our Glorious Leader appeared from the sky [in a helicopter] and announced that he had the ultimate solution for all those unfortunate enough to find their homes, farms and businesses submerged. Take note of this, all you people in the UK who are having similar problems. We are prepared [being good neighbours] to share this brilliant solution with you lot too.
All the people have to do is move their homes, farms and businesses to higher ground!
Is that so elegant in its simplicity? Why did no one think of this before? No wonder Dame Enda is our Glorious Leader!
In the meantime, Fatso Reilly is staying at home as his is one of the few houses to remain dry. In fact I doubt any river would dare invade his property as he is well known for his temper and bully boy tactics, and most rivers would be too scared.
Fatso has much more important things on his mind that mere flooding. He is busily trying to find ways to ban e-cigarettes here and is trying frantically to ignore the UK study that electrofags are essentially harmless. He has hitched his wagon to the idea that if Americans think they're dangerous then the Brits must be wrong. He is following the logical path of finding research that fits with his preconceived notions and ignoring everything else, which is after all the true way of Tobacco Control.
So you have to hand it to them.
They may be on their holliers but they're still working hard.
Would some of your flooding problems be linked to a housing boom based on building new estates on flood plains, contrary to old-fangled advice from the kind of folk who grew up in those parts? Certainly the case in the UK – not that it should make us less sympathetic to the poor sods now flooded out of the only homes ever within their means.
As some have been saying in the UK, if this was happening in India there'd be street collections and overseas aid donations by now. But because the victims are working people ill-mannered enough to try and own their own homes instead of putting up with state hovels all the middle class Oxfam and Greenpeace groupies do is point and sneer.
I'm also surprised the professional fuss-bucket class haven't found a way to link climate change to that annoying peasant predilection for fags & booze yet, but it'll come.
I feel for those who are affected by the flooding. The real culprits are the various planning departments who gave permission to build on flood plains and other areas liable to flooding. Others to blame would be those who interfere with the natural flow of the rivers [looking at you, ESB with your "environmentally friendly" hydro schemes?]. Not only will they have to pay massive insurance premiums, assuming they can get insurance at all, but they will never be able to sell their properties.
And did you not know that cigarette smoke contributes 58 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each day?
I'm just waiting to hear the leader of a political party promise free rowing boats to householders on the Shannon and other flood plains. Then when the general election is over the new government will slap a tax on all rowing boats.
At least our army and navy have found a purpose at last? They are rapidly becoming Ireland's transport service.