Blogging has been slow this week. I've been off university but busy revising and all sorts of freaky stuff like that. Aside from that, the 2 big stories have been done numerous times elsewhere so I'm only going to provide brief highlights in this amalgamated post, but don't worry - I've already started working on something special for next month.

Donaldson Found Dead in Donegal
Dennis Donaldson, outed as an informer for MI5 working within the provisional republican movement in recent months, was found dead on Tuesday night. My immediate reaction, having heard his location exposed by a trashy tabloid (are they to blame?) recently, was that someone within republican circles had heard about this, tracked him down and 'done the business'. Of course within minutes of the story breaking Sinn Fein's Amateur Conspiracy Theorists Society was busy typing away stories about how it was obviously the work of securocrats. Should have expected it by now really. Anyway, like many suspicious deaths in this country, we'll probably never know for sure. One thing is for sure though - it wasn't the provies.

The following morning, Garda at a station near the murder scene in Donegal found this note:

I had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to
Jerry McCabe
Jean McConville
Kathleen Feeney
Dennis Donaldson

Signed,
P. O'Neill

OK, you got me. I made that up.

Devolution Deadline
On the back of this did Tony and Bertie think again about the timing of their announcement for their "big plans"? Did they agree that perhaps a shadow assembly might be the best idea for the short-to-medium-term future, rather than allowing a party linked to paramilitaries into government? Don't be so daft.

Completely ignoring what had happened, Tony and Berte decreed that the local parties will apparently have 6 weeks of assembly 'up time' to agree an executive (including a First Minister and Deputy First Minister) before the summer break. If they fail, they get another 12 weeks in the Autumn, after which their salaries will be withdrawn. Well done on that guys, they'll only have been getting paid their generous salaries in exchange for doing nothing for 4 years by then!

Another threat facing unionist politicians is part 10 of the declaration which stated that if the restoration had to be 'deferred', then Tony and Bertie (well Tony really) will implement some Joint Authority with some advancing North-Southery thrown in for good measure. Once more the British government bows to the whim of Sinn Fein so that we can get 100 incompetent local people doing the work of a dozen incompetent Westminster people.

Things are really looking up, aren't they?