A measure of sanity prevails. God bless Ireland.

This has made my day!

In response to an EU supporter who lamented that 5 million Irish could speak for all of Europe, a Times reader replied: "Better 5 million Irish than a small handful of European elite".

Go, Irish!

Well done Irish !

The Irish save civilization again?

The UNHRC - a collection of thugs directing attention away from their own abuses. Can we now officially declare the UN completely, totally and thoroughly useless?

Are any of our politicians listening?

No doubt the libs and NDP see the EU as some great and noble goal that will improve the world.

But do at least the conservatives of this land understand what a cancer the EU will become?

In England, sadly, the so called Conservatives are not better than labour in this regard.

Watching the EU evolve rapidly in the past few years into an increasingly aggressive bureaucracy is like watching a slow motion disaster unfold. Their Human Rights Commissions will probably have massive financial support and the full support of their socialist parliament. Orwellian will be the right word for what the EU will turn into.

I don't really believe Ireland can seriously slow the EU trainwreck. They'll find some way around it unless somehow this evokes some British nationalism into forcing a referendum there. Beyond that, though, the European sheeple seem unable to resist as long as the "trains run on time".

My hope with the EU project is that it fails economically because of the inherent weakness of large socialist economic models (i.e. they can survive with external funding, but not when they have to be self-funding).

On the other side of that, though, the EU is getting DEEP into bed with the oil-rich Arab nations, and oil wealth could fund EU inefficiency for a long time.

rsp - that's a nice comment. One could also say that the Irish are speaking for themselves and by themselves. They don't want someone else speaking for them.

Interesting. Hitler tried to set up a hegemony in Europe by war. The EU has tried to do it by a bureaucracy in Brussels.

Seems that both are failing - and that shows that the nature of a robust human population is, first, its direct connections to local realities and then - to the non-local realities. The EU has tried to reduce the local realities, which include the local right and power to make decisions - to nothing - and to put all power in the hands of a far-off elite.

That centralism is also what the Liberals in Canada set up, with a governance focused in Ottawa-Montreal. Harper is deconstructing this centralism and this elite bureaucracy, to return power (as in the BNA Act) to the regions.

Isn't it funny how people don't vote for these things when asked? Anyone would think they wanted to be free or something.

Let me get this straight. A council which includes Saudi Arabia (!) has demanded that the desirability of the British monarchy be put to a referendum.

Saudi Arabia could be accurately characterized as an oil-rich country run for the sole benefit of its ruling royal family.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

The last stand for free men in Europe!
Who would have thought?

My bet is that the Euro-Crats make a move to exclude Ireland and try to go ahead with their plans.

And here I thought the Celtics had the miracle comeback last night. Freedom wins! Go Irish!!!

Wow, finally some people with guts!

Ah the Irish do give a tinker's damn after all!

Not a bad Friday the 13th for the Eurocrats.

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht
Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

So the UN Inhuman Rights Council wants to abolish the Queen.

Bloody HELL!?!

Why don't we bring back Oliver Cromwell?

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing, depart I say and let us have done with you.
In the name of God go!"

Perhaps we should apply the same to the UN HRC as we do with the CHRC. Mount the ramparts, load your muskets the revolutionaries are at the gate!

Damned insurrectionists!

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht
Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

Bless the Irish. It appears they recognized a gray dull collective when they see one.

One principle for ensuring individual freedom is that power reside at the most local level possible. Countries should not be regulate what provinces can reasonably regulate. Provinces should not regulate what cities and towns can regulate.

Why does this ensure individual freedom? Because when the regulations or taxation in a city or town becomes onerous, people can easily vote with their feet. Power-tripping city councils soon find themselves with a diminishing population.

Over-regulating provinces are more difficult to avoid, but it can still be done. Quebec is a good example of this.

When the federal government decides to regulate something, however, it's far more difficult for the citizenry to avoid. They have to emmigrate.

The European Union and the UN have taken this to a new level. We may soon have to leave the planet to ensure our freedoms.

St. Patrick's presence lingers on in Ireland, keeping the EU snakes at bay.

Good on you folks!!

The Brits will be next, count on it. This is a very nasty blow to Brown and Labour. It looks like an English speaking fault line in Europe is taking shape again.

There is something about our common language and the people that use it, could it be the lack of nuance, that refuses to accept limits on free speech and ideas.

Oh, and, the Irish press had it so wrong if you looked the past few days. Typical.

Erin Go Bragh!!!!!!

Ban the EU and it's socialist cronies.

The next step: Find the current regimes of the other EU countries who didn't allow votes guilty of treason...

Hey if they had voted to join then it would have been a done deal. The elites and the bureaucrats always find deocratic elections messy and seeingly uncesessary.

If and when the Europeans desire or have a shared identity that outweighs their historical one then they will feel comfortable transferring power to a central government. Until such tie, or it is accoplished by force of arms, then the Eurocrats will continue to be largely irrelevant.

Why they cant just stick with what they have, free ovement of goods and people across national boundries and local control is beyond e. It sees to work. Give it another 20 years and then maybe.

I wonder how the French would vote if they were allowed to....might be no as well.

Someday the Irish are going to kick Muslim ass and save Britain. After which they will take over England and put the Royal family to work scrubbing floors somewhere.

you would enjoy sue townsend's book called 'the queeen and i.".....a very amusing kindly satire of the royal family mixing politics and perception......before this i hadn't laffed out loud for a good number of years when reading anything..

God save the Queen!

Coming on 100 years since the Irish won their freedom from Britain through war, they don't seem keen on seceding it to Europe at Large.

I used to converse with Scottish Nationalist Party supporters, and they were very big on the EU. I couldn't understand how they thought that Brussels would be more responsive than London.

Well, the Irish have made me proud of my roots again. Way to go, Ireland, in standing up for the human right of democracy as an alternative to international socialistic authoritarianism!

The UN tells the UK to abolish its monarchy?

Well, I think we should make it tell the Islamic World to abolish Islam. I'd like to witness the hypocrisy of the Islamic states behind the "order" in their response thereto.

Taking orders from a criminal organization calling itself the "United Nations"? What's next, taking orders from the Hells Angels, the CAIR, the "Human Rights" Commissions, the ACLU, etc.? Hell, no!

Good news today. Irish patriots deliver a kick in the knackers to the Eurocrats and, in so doing, may have empowered every man & woman-in-the -street European in UK, France and elsewhere. The governments of those countries cynically allowed no vote on the proposed EU Constitution.

Here's wishing an end to the elitist, politically correct Eurocrats. Long live Ireland.

I think most of you are missing the point here. The Irish vote is probably a bad thing for Canadians. After all, if it had passed, the Lisbon Treaty would have been approved and Europe would have been crushed even deeper by regulatory overburden from Brussels, increasing the speed by which Europe eliminates itself as a competitor to other OECD nations like us.

Instead, the Irish may have saved Europe from a hideous blunder, at least for now, giving at least the theoretical possibility of Europe making sensible choices to our detriment. However, it may be only a temporary respite. After the Treaty of Nice was rejected by Ireland, it was simply brought back for a second referendum.

Of course, in the current situation, there will be mass confusion, anger, shouts of outrage and casting of blame in Brussels anyway over the Irish behaving like typical Celts, so this may very well be a "heads I win, tails you lose" for us.

"Sire, the peasants are revolting!!"
"They certainly are."

CGH:

Europe would have been crushed even deeper by regulatory overburden from Brussels, increasing the speed by which Europe eliminates itself as a competitor to other OECD nations like us.

You seem to think that trade is like a hockey game, where there is always one winner and one loser.

It isn't. Trade is primarily win-win. It's to our benefit not to beggar our neighbours, but to enrich them.

In other words, a Europe shackled by the burden of over-regulation and over-taxation harms Canada.

Welp, either way, the Irish just sent a message to Brussel's Un-elected Officials who denied the other 26 provinces a vote that Freedom and Democracy were still alive in Ireland.

Bloody Well Done.

There was a wild colonial boy Jack Dugan was his name He was born and bred in Ireland in a house called Castle Maine He was his father's only son his mother's pride and joy and dearly did his parents love the wild colonial boy.
,

May I suggest that if the citizens of each member country were allowed a say, one would be hard pressed to find any of the EU proposals accepted. The British people were denied a referendum by their leftist government and it is much the same throughout Europe. None of the EU officials are elected and they have no interest in according a say to the "common" people. The EU has more to do with Evil United than European Union.

What do they call citizens of Lisbon?? Lisbions or Lisbonese? Or is it Lesbians?? Seriously! The Queen Mother wasn't all that bad. I can only speak for Canada, however we were much better of with the Queen at the helm than Trudeau and the Quebec separatists. I liked the Union Jack much better than what is really the logo of the Liberal Party of Canada. (Ever see sugar maples west of Winnipeg??) Being independent is great, but it almost always sends you to the poorhouse.

A lot of common sense coming out of Ireland. They're known for their wit now their wisdom is obvious.

..either way, the Irish just sent a message to Brussel's Un-elected Officials who denied the other 26 provinces a vote..

Was this the message to "the other 26 provinces"?

"A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!"

Maybe we should be humming that tune here in Western Canada.

Actually, it was the governments of the "other 26 provinces" that denied their citizens the vote.

FC:

Excellent point. Why should the Irish, whose history is one long bloody struggle against foreign rule, now voluntarily submit themselves to the same?

God does not have son
god create Jeisis as god can do anything he want to do and he has power

jeisis is not dead and he still alive and will back whne world close to get will ended

allah is one not three

one power made all thing around us called Allah
we do not have three god or allah

but if Jeis has power it does not means he is god he is propeht

first is god
second is prophet
third are heaveny people as god promise them that if you do not do sin or follow his order you go to heaven therefore heaven is not place of only prophet we have heaveny peopl

fourth people who are sinner but can ask forgivness from god if human can not forget or forgive god can forgive you if you are not repeat your sin

fifth are people who are not beliver

to Lesbian and gay:
you need to do some cure yourself
first talk to pschology then talk to sex therapist to cure you you can live with men but not sleep and sex with man
you gay like woman that is you wear and act like woman

you need to do research about this group and thier jenetic background
if you have child when you are drinking and doine wrong way teh child can born with mentally disorder to become gay

if gay increase woman force to becom lesbina or protetiture nd not have a children to born

gay and lesbina can change all family life and chane you not you if you are woman need to act woman if you are man need to act man you can not pretent to be other sex when you are not
you can not ignor other sex when you like them as god create men to l ike woman to complete not seperated from each otehr
change lesbian and gay to change thier bad behvaour and do not change our community confused
help them to understand the law and reuls relgion should help them to stop being whatthey do they may damage society of their freedom
gays history started from England translated like Cancer to Canada and USA study why?

rabbit - nice post; I agree with your focus on local governance and how it operates. If people don't like the regulations, then, they can leave and the town council will realize that those regulations have harmed the community.

And also, nice post on the economy. Exactly as you point out, trade has to be a win-win, not an act of impoverishing the neighbour.

I think that in 2005, France rejected the EU Constitution. So did the Netherlands.

I live in the USA and I would have to guess that most of my Canadian friends would respond to the UN's request using just one finger!

Townns, are you Haye's brother, or are you just tryibng to make Haye?

Using my Scottish cousin's words, "Do you remember the man with the small moustache who wanted a united Europe? Why did all of those guys die, if this is the outcome?" Obviously the Irish vote pleases us both.

einebeln union can't trump st.brendan.Why they ever picked that dumbassed place, bruxelles, vs other great places is anyones guess. But it probably doesn't matter as the euromarxs are sniffing around.

Hoist a few for the Irish at least until the EU Facists show up to tell them there vote is worth nothing. Watch as there government caves.

I get very iritated at assaults on the Monarchy. Despite the repugnance at a right by inherirance (Justin Who?, Ted Who?), the British Monarchy did MORE for this world than it did harm. The British modernized most of the Globe. Think of it, were it not for Captain Cook,why would anyone ever go to BC? If you want fruitcakes(or Fly's) you could go to California. Without the Monarchy would the Americans ever have found the slaves? Where would Denzil Washington be now? Lawrence Joseph would be singing to buffalo (not energetic enough to hunt), or on the otherhand, another brave would have killed him for assaulting his s...mate. North America would be in ruins, no welfare, no res school lottery, no casinos (agreed to by blackmail), no free school, no taxfree status etc etc etc. Yup, our native people back the monarchy. Wouldn't opposing the monarchy be a violation of the "human rights" of our Native Canadians? HEADLINE: "HRC SUPPORTS MONARCHY", that should settle it. It would be forever a crime to oppose the monarchy!

Ghost of Ed, haye aka Townns aka I've forgotten the the entire moniker sequence to date is sort of like your basic bug-splattered-on-the-windshield scenerio, kind of annoying, a little bit sad, even comic sometimes, but, ultimately ignorable.

He's like Roadrunner, nothing, and I mean nothing, that Wylie Coyote did or Acme sold him is stopping this nut. So, I'm just sitting back and trying to not notice the splatter spot.

YES! YES! YES! It's NO!

The EUreferendum blog has a good piece on the EU's plan to get around this inconvenience.

Penny at 1145

The Brits will be next,

No, they've already been publicly denied the referendum that was promised them. The treat has been ratified by Parliament.

A proud day for the Irish!

I second your comment abcd - Ireland saves civilization again! Ireland has reason to be proud of the Irish people today.

I've hoisted more than one Irish whisky tonight, so please foregive the melodrama, but I can' resist posting this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=52I-iGDItOs

Penny

I do not ignore you i have some thing I want to say and shortly soon I will go and leave you for talk by yourslef very soon trust me for this

I do not like to answer you some times

I like Irish they like money
their male are handy man , their female are kind family woman and regard to soctish good for my accountant and English originaly for use their brain and Jewish to become my supervisor and welsh to order the all the workers good
is this multiculturism not a bad idea Canada has

my point is not clear for you while smart people will get my points very soon

why you are nagging and complaining is Penny are you own this blogs
then let me knwo I will go today if not then stay quiet and ignore me as you said that is best you can help here

The treat has been ratified by Parliament.

That is incorrect. It has NOT been ratified by the parliament in the UK as yet.

Celtic Thunder - this brings joy to my heart and tears to my eyes :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlnLk4Y_kKM

The last time Irish voted the wrong way, they simply voted again, until the right resulat was in. So the fight is not over yet.
(I suppose the other EU countries have realized that it is much more efficient to avoid a vote altogether.)

Btw, why does anybody care what the UNHRC says or does? It has about the same credibility as IPCC, i.e. nil.

The Eurosnots are most unhappy about the Irish vote.

Axel Schafer, German Social Democrat leader in the Bundestag committee on EU affairs -
“With all respect for the Irish vote, we cannot allow the huge majority of Europe to be duped by a minority of a minority of a minority. We are incredibly disappointed. We think it is a real cheek that the country that has benefited most from the EU should do this. There is no other Europe than this treaty.”

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano - “Now is the time for a courageous choice by those who want coherent progress in building Europe, leaving out those who despite solemn, signed pledges threaten to block it"

Jema54:

Thanks for that great Celtic Thunder. The Irish seem to have kept something the rest of us in the West have lost. God bless Ireland. And give some of the same pride.

Ireland is an Island on it's own and it is the most westerly point in Europe.

If the Eurocrats want to punish them or disallow them from participating in the EU. It would be great to see them join NAFTA or even become a province or state provided that the Gaelic language and the native culture was respected as equal.

It would be nice if this was the end of "the European Project" but the socialist fanatics will not be denied their dream of a USS of E. They will find some way to isolate Ireland and get around this by hook or by crook. Britain has yet to ratify the treaty as was pointed out above. If Brown gets his way they will ratify it and so will the rest of the EUrowankers without anyone getting a vote on it. The fanatics will not be put off by one no vote rest assured, they have too much to lose.

Kudos to the irish they are wrecking the ideas of the euroweenie union

"CGH:

Europe would have been crushed even deeper by regulatory overburden from Brussels, increasing the speed by which Europe eliminates itself as a competitor to other OECD nations like us.

You seem to think that trade is like a hockey game, where there is always one winner and one loser.

It isn't. Trade is primarily win-win. It's to our benefit not to beggar our neighbours, but to enrich them.

In other words, a Europe shackled by the burden of over-regulation and over-taxation harms Canada.

Posted by: rabbit at June 13, 2008 2:00 PM "

Not quite, Rabbit. We compete with Europe as part of a North American trading bloc more than we trade with them. In competition, there are winners and losers. If the Euros are so silly as to overburden their competitive position, they do so with my blessing. It means more market share for us.