And you ride the horse so well, hands light to the touch I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to

The flatmate bought a shiny new dvd-harddrive-recorder thingy recently, and I have discovered that it will play at least one of my “borrowed” episodes of Veronica Mars , which is great, because the laptop won’t. But now I can still rewatch, and on the big screen of a tv as opposed to a little Pavlovian screen. Its also good news because I’ve sort of decided to put off buying a new laptop for a couple of months. I do want a shiny new one, but, they^[1] do say that patience is a virtue.

Anyways, as the flatmate was out last night I recorded Desperate Housewives and so was flicking around the stations after BSG when my attention was caught by a programme on RTE about the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland.

And I was going to post something about them, and how although you have to respect their strength of conviction, it is hard to think about them without thinking about the fact that they were paramilitaries who murdered and bombed people. But I’m not going to. It is such a grey, emotive issue. But I will say that the programme was very interesting and well made, and I’ll have to remember to tune in next week for the second part.

However, am doing a bit of research into the Black and Tans for B#5 at the moment, as he is thinking of doing his special topic for the leaving Cert on them. And you know that old saying about the past repeating itself? Well, its amazing to read some of the views of the likes of Lloyd George and his views on the IRA back then. And whatever anyone says, the IRA/Volunteers of the war of independence are not the same thing as the IRA of the seventies and of today, not even close. In one article David Leeson^[2] says that

The insurgency was defined as a threat to law and order. The insurgents were characterised as criminals…law and order had broken down in Ireland, threatening the conditions of civilised society. The men responsible for this breakdown were murderers, not soldiers ‘The very fact that an attempt is made to describe murder by another name, and to make excuses for it as if it were political action, must demoralise the whole life of any country where such excuses can be made’ [quoting PM Andrew Bonar Law, August 1920]

How easy would it be to replace Ireland with Iraq^[3] And can’t war be described as mass murder with a political reason?

Obviously the situation in Iraq is very different to that of Ireland in the 1920’s, but I doubt very many of the Iraqi insurgents would see themselves as nothing but criminals. This doesn’t make their actions and less terrible or horrific, but wouldn’t you think that people could look at history and see that you can’t fight ideals with nothing but violence.

Well, from Desperate Housewives to suicide bombers, interesting^[4] how that all happened. Feel free to ignore any of the political ramblings. We’ll get back to more interesting things by bring up Battlestar Galtactica. I mean, whats going on back on Caprica? Will Show Spoiler ▼