“The only thing I can add is my schadenfreude at seeing the Great Irishman cut off at the knees by two Nice White Fellows.”

I love that word shadenfreude. It’s now an everyday occurence supported by happenings all around us as those who preached to us are suffering the predictable consequences of their nostrums and tikun olem. In fact when we create our banner, instead of something like “Don’t tread on me,” we may want to emblazon, “Shadenfreude Forever!”

If I remember correctly, Ireland is a net gainer in terms of the funding it both receives from and contributes to the European Union and has certainly grown a lot richer over the last twenty years as a result of EU membership.

I have some sympathy with the view expressed by Amalek above, but what strikes me as curious is Bono’s apparent silence on the issue of the rate of taxation taxation levied by the Irish government. I don’t recall British rock stars in the 1970s (Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin springs to mind) having similar qualms about expressing their feelings regarding the punitive rates of taxation levied by the then Labour government.

That old rogue Charles Haughey was the Irish PM who introduced the Inland Revenue amendments which exempted those artists earning incomes through creative endeavours from income tax. So Bono will not pay tax on his songwriting royalty income, but would have been tax-liable for his share of music-publishing earnings had those operations remained in Ireland.

Back in the Harold Wilson days when earned income was taxed at 83% and unearned income at 98%, the Beatles recorded their protest song, Taxman. It had about as much effect as their anti-immigration number, Get Back.

Bone Head ONO is here in Australia on a concert tour, undoubtedly raising funds for: Freedom Fighters over seas; or the Poor IQ and intellectual repugnant of the world: or to satisfy his own ineptitude and Intelligence with money that his own ego immersed in guilt can not elevate;
What an absolute irrelevant wanker Bone Head OnO, he has even offered talks and advice to PM John Howard to put him in line , and if that is not a ego in overture, then he must consider himself to be the New Mohammad ; The prophet of Idiots in our language and bares the Nick name of Twin Dicks; It is not possible to become that blind and stupid playing with one.

I dream of a world where all the humans can have enough money to buy Bono’s brand clothes

http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/bono031805.cfm

You’ll need rock-star wages to pay for the new “conscious commerce” collection of jeans, hemp jackets and organic cotton tops from Bono and his anti-nukes activist wife, Ali Newson.

Sold under the label of Edun at Saks and Barneys, the duo’s line - made by fairly compensated adults in Africa and South America - starts with $55 logo T’s and goes up to $320 for a rumpled cream hemp blazer for men.

A casual outfit of jeans, a cotton camisole and a blouse totals $435 - more than five times a comparable look from bargain mecca H&M;, which also touts its anti-sweatshop, fair-wage labor practices.

Several Saks shoppers suffered sticker shock over the $175 blouse yesterday.

Ah, the mighty Bono, (top of the morning to u) the mighty Poverty campaigner, the multi-millionaire, the one who’s got houses all over the world

The very one who’s just been criticised by Christian aid for using off shore bank accounts.

The very person who doesn’t want to paid tax, but yet on the other hand puts pressure on governments all over the world to increase the aid to his Africa, but he, himself doesn’t want to pay for it, why should anyone want to go on listening to u?

The very person who using private transport to get around the world, where his Africa, will be the first place to feel the affects of climate change?

Ah, cant see the hypocrisy in there, can u?

The Edge, U2’s guitarist, sounded as edgy as a plump accountant in the 19th hole when he explained the move offshore by saying: ‘Our business is a very complex business. Of course we’re trying to be tax-efficient. Who doesn’t want to be tax-efficient?’

Ha - Edge is the Jew in the band.