I note with interest that celeb gossip blogger 'Perez Hilton' has been allegedly assaulted at some Canadian music video awards show.
'Hilton' is in reality an overweight gay Latino wannabe called Mario Lavandeira, and he has for a long time now been desperate to parlay his blogging nerdery into a place at the table with those he spins scandal about.
Hence the bizarre scenario whereby this overtly gay man ends up judging the Miss America contest, which predictably results in controversy when he decides to get outraged because one girl's a devout Christian and doesn't agree with gay marriage.
I don't know if this pointless cretin was really hit or not. Certainly, he appears to have got his video camera out and filmed himself crying like a little girl, though.
So, buried under layer upon layer of self-importance and self-regard, is the tiny possibility that someone really did the world a favour by slapping this bitch up.
And the inadvertent comedy of those 'tweets', in which 'Hilton' pleaded with the public to rush to his hotel to help him with the 'bleeding' will raise a smile for some time yet.
Should I be showing more solidarity for my fellow blogger? Should I not show sympathy for someone unfairly struck down? After all, according to the self-publicist, 'violence is never the answer.'
Except, of course, if the question is: "What word beginning with V describes the sort of act of aggression that is the correct response to dealing with whining, self-important, duplicitous gossip queens without talent when they accost you at a music awards ceremony in Canada?"
Let me be clearer still: 'Perez Hilton' is the bleeding edge of all that's wrong in the modern media. He inhabits the nexus where the internet, web 2.0 and social networking intersect with reportage and old media.
You'd hope for better from such an intersection - a democratisation of information, perhaps. A gripping real-time account of revolutions, such as we thought, for a second, we were going to get in Iran (until we all realised that the protests are a CIA funded activity.)
Instead we get this poison - 'Perez Hilton' breathlessly puffing other pointless inanities, but most of all himself. It upsets me that people care enough about such vacuous irrelevances to keep 'Perez' thinking that he's important.
So that's why I'm delighted today to see that he's cupping his eye and crying for teacher, just like the mouthy, bitchy little wanker in the playground who thinks he's fantastic being full of cheek to all the other kids until eventually someone stops him with a fist.
Because it seems to me that 'Perez' is still living in the playground. A dose of playground morality, therefore, doesn't seem amiss.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Pogrom That Wasn't
A week on from screaming headlines all over the globe, what are we to make of the anti-immigrant pogroms in Belfast?
It made for perfect headlines for the world's media. To the outside eye, the North of Ireland has always resembled a boiling pot of irrational hatred and sectarianism.
Logic dictates that if these neanderthals are prepared to kill each other, despite sharing language, culture, skin colour and a God, what wouldn't they do to foreigners?
And that's what we got, all over the world, last week. Endless handwringing articles about a 'return to hatred', hectoring PC sermons from fingerwagging commentators in other countries, multiculturalism 'experts' warning ominously about the slide toward Nazism.
It always helps to return to the facts, and on this occasion, they didn't really get aired at all (although fair play to some of the local media and indeed Myles Dungan on RTE for eventually getting round to reporting the facts.)
So what happened? Same as everywhere else in Europe - a load of Roma gypsies moved into a nice area and made shite of it. Robbed, begged, intimidated local elderly people, and howled racism when asked to stop.
Wellington Park and Wellesley Avenue are NOT some Loyalist shithole full of 'For God and Ulster' meatheads. It's a mixed area next to the university and always has been. Go back two decades and it was probably one of the few areas of the city where a foreign face could be seen. Many Chinese and Indians live in the vicinity, as do many foreign students.
It's a nice, peaceful residential area, and it's not the sort of area that would easily accommodate a family of thieves, living in squalor 30 to a house, intimidating the locals.
Now let's deal with the lies. No one put copies of 'Mein Kampf' through any letterboxes. No glass bottles rained down on the 'anti-racist' march. No organised campaign by Loyalist terror groups or the BNP or Combat 18 or any other far right group took place. There is, in fact, no evidence of ANY FORM of far right or racist involvement whatsoever.
The only organised element in these whole proceedings where those of the sinister far left Socialist Workers Party. These demented Trots, none of whom come from or live in the area, saw a bandwagon to jump on and did so with gusto.
They organised an 'anti-racist' march through the area, pissing off all the locals and attracting abuse from drinkers at a local pub. Petrol on the flames as far as the Roma were concerned, I'd imagine, but far be it from the Socialist Workers to think of others. They had an issue to hijack after all.
So they lied to the media about being struck down in a hail of bottles that never happened. They lied to the media about copies of 'Mein Kampf' being put through letterboxes. They lied to the media about the involvement of a who's who of far right organisations. Not a word of any of it was true, but the media lapped up the headlines and repeated them unquestioningly.
There is a Polish shop on that street, but no Poles came out even for a minute to show solidarity with either the bussed-in Socialist Workers or the Roma. However, plenty of Romanians could be found protesting AGAINST the Roma.
How so? Well, who knows the Roma better than their compatriots? Who suffer more from being confused for Roma than other Romanians? Who are most upset at the good name of their country being dragged through the gutter by the behaviour of Roma gypsies than Romanians? And so Romanians were also involved in the protest against this particular clan of gypsies.
Where are we now? The world's base opinion of Northern Ireland is once again confirmed thanks to the clever media spinning and lies of a tiny coterie of crazy Trots. A bunch of thieves who should be facing charges are instead hiding in churches and claiming to be the victims of racism, while they await free flights home.
The losers are the good people of South Belfast, and a special neighbourhood that always accommodated everyone, even at the height of the Troubles. They have been maligned, and libelled, and lied about.
The winners as always are the Roma. More free food and clothes and accommodation and someone else to pay for their flight home from the squalor they've made in yet another foreign town.
And in two months time, they'll be back, in Belfast or Dublin or Galway or Leeds or London or Paris or Naples or Munich or Valencia, squatting in a house they don't own, fifteen or thirty of them, living like animals and creating a hygiene problem for the neighbours, who they will threaten with their big knives even as they beg from them and steal from the local shops.
Until once again, either the authorities will take their children into care and arrest them or deport them. And so the merry-go-round spins again.
The people of South Belfast are not the problem. Romanians are not the problem. Racism is not the problem. Far right organisations are not the problem. Policing is not the problem.
The Roma are the problem, and that problem was deliberately and disgracefully compounded by the pondlife of the Socialist Workers Party, a political movement of such extremity that they do not dare run candidates in elections.
Belfast has suffered many pogroms in the past. My own family were burnt out of an area in the Seventies during one of the most dangerous ones. The Thirties also saw some horrific pogroms too.
And of course, in the furore about the rights of thieving foreign gypsies to intimidate local communities, we have all seemingly forgotten how a Catholic man was kicked to death in Coleraine, his wife and a pregnant woman assaulted too, only a few weeks back.
That's a REAL pogrom, but 'Loyalist bootboys still murdering Catholics for kicks' isn't as sexy a headline as 'Race riots in Belfast' even if it has the benefit of being true.
But this week saw a new chapter being written in Belfast - the pogrom that wasn't. Despite the lies and the headlines, I think that's progress.
Related posts here and here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Moonlighting for the Irish Left Review
At the request of the Irish Left Review, I've done some in-depth analysis of the Dublin Euro election and the Dublin Central by-election and the Dublin local authority elections.
The story of the transfers reveals both crisis and opportunity for the many-headed hydra that is the Dublin political left.
Read more here.
The story of the transfers reveals both crisis and opportunity for the many-headed hydra that is the Dublin political left.
Read more here.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Elections 09 - Parsing the Prelude
As even the bookies are now offering only 1-2 odds on a general election this year, it seems we have entered dead government walking territory.
Hence, these local and European elections aren't just a referendum on the government's performance, they are a prelude to the main event of a general election.
As I write, the three Dublin seats have been filled, with sitting MEPs Eoin Ryan and Mary Lou McDonald making way for Socialist leader Joe Higgins. In a sense, that tells half the story of these entire elections: a slump in support for the government parties, Sinn Fein disappointment and the rise of protest Independents.
We saw the power of support for protest independents on Saturday at the Dublin Central by-election too, where Maureen O'Sullivan, the 'Gregory' candidate, managed to parlay her friendship with the late Tony Gregory into a Dail seat.
And the government slump has seen the Greens hardest hit, cut to the very bone for dancing with the Fianna Fail devil. Their organisation is now reduced to a handful of councillors, their MEP candidate lost her deposit and came in behind Independent Green Patricia McKenna, and now no Green Dail seat can be considered safe.
Fianna Fail themselves must look hard for positives. The backwoods of Westmeath and Roscommon offer a starting point. They actually improved their representation in those areas. And given the trend among some nervous FF-ers to go independent in order to ensure election to local authorities, Fianna Fail will find their numbers boosted as the likes of Tony Fox return to the fold. So this is not quite the tsunami that it initially looks.
There is further upside for Fianna Fail in the return of some dozen former PDs to local councils as independents. The PDs may be gone as a party, but as the cart which led the FF horse for over a decade, the working relations of PDs with Fianna Fail remain strong and ideologies remain compatible. FF are therefore boosted by their presence too.
Fine Gael's Christmases have all come at once. Historic is actually the word for it. George Lee elected first count in a by-election, 3 Dublin South TDs for the first time since the early 80s, the biggest party in the state for the first time ever.
No wonder Enda Kenny spent much of yesterday evening in the RDS grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
But the downside is that even if FG can maintain momentum into a general election, their simple lack of political nous means that they will not maximise their representation in Leinster House.
Tomorrow, Enda Kenny will overshadow the Dail debate on the Ryan report into clerical abuse by tabling a motion of no confidence. This is exactly the sort of politico-nerd behaviour the public despair of in the FG leader, and it is why Fine Gael should still consider thanking Enda for his great work so far and promoting Bruton to leadership in advance of a general election. But they won't.
The biggest winners of all appear, paradoxically, to be Labour. I say paradoxically, because one might have assumed it was a poor election for them, what with losing both Dublin by-elections and having a stiff race in the Ireland South European constituency.
But their representation across the country means that they, rather than the now-stalled Sinn Fein, are the main left challenge pretty much everywhere. If they had only fielded more candidates, they'd have maximised their representation even more. Labour for the first time in a generation have a national base to build on. And with a soft Fianna Fail vote there for the taking, Labour may well feel they can make it a three horse race in future.
What does this mean for any possible general election? Well, if the bookies are right and we see one in the next six months, it is fairly certain that Enda Kenny will be Taoiseach of a FG-Labour coalition.
The Greens can expect to be annihilated in their current form, while former Greens like McKenna and Maher could end up being the eco-representatives in Dail Eireann.
Sinn Fein appear to have reached their glass ceiling of 10%. Mary Lou will get a seat next time out, but they won't grow their vote until they outgrow the dodgy Northern leadership that too many Southerners find toxic.
The heart will be out of Fianna Fail campaigners for another election. They were anonymous on the ground this time and will be even more so in a general election. This is an opportunity for Fianna Fail to rid itself of much dead wood.
Perhaps they will be especially smart and de-select some of their sitting TD cohort in advance. Why bother running what the electorate wants shot of? Run the young candidate instead, give them a base from which to build. But FF are ultimately a party of gombeens shafting each other, as Mary Fitzpatrick could tell you, so don't expect this to happen. It's too sensible for them.
When will we see this election? Very soon. The Green leadership is panicked, trapped in power with their party and their voters deserting them. They're actively looking for the exit.
And Brian Lenihan is promising another hairshirt budget to punish the electorate for voting against Fianna Fail. That is likely to be the catalyst to bring people onto the streets to demand the removal of this government, which clearly now has no mandate left.
Hence, these local and European elections aren't just a referendum on the government's performance, they are a prelude to the main event of a general election.
As I write, the three Dublin seats have been filled, with sitting MEPs Eoin Ryan and Mary Lou McDonald making way for Socialist leader Joe Higgins. In a sense, that tells half the story of these entire elections: a slump in support for the government parties, Sinn Fein disappointment and the rise of protest Independents.
We saw the power of support for protest independents on Saturday at the Dublin Central by-election too, where Maureen O'Sullivan, the 'Gregory' candidate, managed to parlay her friendship with the late Tony Gregory into a Dail seat.
And the government slump has seen the Greens hardest hit, cut to the very bone for dancing with the Fianna Fail devil. Their organisation is now reduced to a handful of councillors, their MEP candidate lost her deposit and came in behind Independent Green Patricia McKenna, and now no Green Dail seat can be considered safe.
Fianna Fail themselves must look hard for positives. The backwoods of Westmeath and Roscommon offer a starting point. They actually improved their representation in those areas. And given the trend among some nervous FF-ers to go independent in order to ensure election to local authorities, Fianna Fail will find their numbers boosted as the likes of Tony Fox return to the fold. So this is not quite the tsunami that it initially looks.
There is further upside for Fianna Fail in the return of some dozen former PDs to local councils as independents. The PDs may be gone as a party, but as the cart which led the FF horse for over a decade, the working relations of PDs with Fianna Fail remain strong and ideologies remain compatible. FF are therefore boosted by their presence too.
Fine Gael's Christmases have all come at once. Historic is actually the word for it. George Lee elected first count in a by-election, 3 Dublin South TDs for the first time since the early 80s, the biggest party in the state for the first time ever.
No wonder Enda Kenny spent much of yesterday evening in the RDS grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
But the downside is that even if FG can maintain momentum into a general election, their simple lack of political nous means that they will not maximise their representation in Leinster House.
Tomorrow, Enda Kenny will overshadow the Dail debate on the Ryan report into clerical abuse by tabling a motion of no confidence. This is exactly the sort of politico-nerd behaviour the public despair of in the FG leader, and it is why Fine Gael should still consider thanking Enda for his great work so far and promoting Bruton to leadership in advance of a general election. But they won't.
The biggest winners of all appear, paradoxically, to be Labour. I say paradoxically, because one might have assumed it was a poor election for them, what with losing both Dublin by-elections and having a stiff race in the Ireland South European constituency.
But their representation across the country means that they, rather than the now-stalled Sinn Fein, are the main left challenge pretty much everywhere. If they had only fielded more candidates, they'd have maximised their representation even more. Labour for the first time in a generation have a national base to build on. And with a soft Fianna Fail vote there for the taking, Labour may well feel they can make it a three horse race in future.
What does this mean for any possible general election? Well, if the bookies are right and we see one in the next six months, it is fairly certain that Enda Kenny will be Taoiseach of a FG-Labour coalition.
The Greens can expect to be annihilated in their current form, while former Greens like McKenna and Maher could end up being the eco-representatives in Dail Eireann.
Sinn Fein appear to have reached their glass ceiling of 10%. Mary Lou will get a seat next time out, but they won't grow their vote until they outgrow the dodgy Northern leadership that too many Southerners find toxic.
The heart will be out of Fianna Fail campaigners for another election. They were anonymous on the ground this time and will be even more so in a general election. This is an opportunity for Fianna Fail to rid itself of much dead wood.
Perhaps they will be especially smart and de-select some of their sitting TD cohort in advance. Why bother running what the electorate wants shot of? Run the young candidate instead, give them a base from which to build. But FF are ultimately a party of gombeens shafting each other, as Mary Fitzpatrick could tell you, so don't expect this to happen. It's too sensible for them.
When will we see this election? Very soon. The Green leadership is panicked, trapped in power with their party and their voters deserting them. They're actively looking for the exit.
And Brian Lenihan is promising another hairshirt budget to punish the electorate for voting against Fianna Fail. That is likely to be the catalyst to bring people onto the streets to demand the removal of this government, which clearly now has no mandate left.
Friday, June 05, 2009
I'm voting against Fianna Fail today
In the locals, in the by-election and in the European elections.
I will carefully arrange my preferences to insure my vote doesn't come within an arse's roar of benefiting any Fianna Fail candidate.
Thankfully, given the abysmal candidates they have offered me, there is no confliction whatsoever for me in doing so.
Were Seamus Brennan Sr running, for example, there might be a slight twang of regret at putting his preference bottom, below non-entities like George TV and kerazees like that O'Gorman punter.
But thankfully they've made it oh-so-easy for me to punish them completely and properly for their corrupt mismanagement of this nation to their own selfish ends by running some of the most unqualified, shirking, gombeen eejits one could ever dread to meet.
These people are the wannabes (or in Eoin Ryan's case the hasbeen) in an institution that has lined its pockets and those of its wealthy benefactors at our expense.
They are the party that beggared the nation, who destroyed the economy for generations, and who are still doing so. A party so bereft of morality that, far from apologising for their many, many corrupt and shady deals in government with developers, rapist papists, and giving away our natural resources, they are still in utter denial of having done anything wrong.
These are the people who stole our gas, who let rapists away with it and paid for their sins with our money, who puffed property to the sky for their developer funders so that ordinary couples are now in debt for generations with only a shoebox in a dormitory burb to show for it, who took brown envelopes to rezone sites of national heritage for motorways.
Vote Fianna Fail LAST. Give them the very dog-end of your preferences.
Go right down the ballot, past the fringe parties, past the Shinners, past the single issue candidates, past the kooks, the loons, the anti-immigration nutjobs and the psycho Catholics, past even the Green lapdogs all the way to the end. And then vote Fianna Fail with your bottom preferences, or no preference at all.
It's time they were held accountable for their crimes. Let it start on Friday with a ringing rejection of all they've done to us. Let's get off our knees and kick the gombeen bastards in the bollocks.
Thankfully, given the abysmal candidates they have offered me, there is no confliction whatsoever for me in doing so.
Were Seamus Brennan Sr running, for example, there might be a slight twang of regret at putting his preference bottom, below non-entities like George TV and kerazees like that O'Gorman punter.
But thankfully they've made it oh-so-easy for me to punish them completely and properly for their corrupt mismanagement of this nation to their own selfish ends by running some of the most unqualified, shirking, gombeen eejits one could ever dread to meet.
These people are the wannabes (or in Eoin Ryan's case the hasbeen) in an institution that has lined its pockets and those of its wealthy benefactors at our expense.
They are the party that beggared the nation, who destroyed the economy for generations, and who are still doing so. A party so bereft of morality that, far from apologising for their many, many corrupt and shady deals in government with developers, rapist papists, and giving away our natural resources, they are still in utter denial of having done anything wrong.
These are the people who stole our gas, who let rapists away with it and paid for their sins with our money, who puffed property to the sky for their developer funders so that ordinary couples are now in debt for generations with only a shoebox in a dormitory burb to show for it, who took brown envelopes to rezone sites of national heritage for motorways.
Vote Fianna Fail LAST. Give them the very dog-end of your preferences.
Go right down the ballot, past the fringe parties, past the Shinners, past the single issue candidates, past the kooks, the loons, the anti-immigration nutjobs and the psycho Catholics, past even the Green lapdogs all the way to the end. And then vote Fianna Fail with your bottom preferences, or no preference at all.
It's time they were held accountable for their crimes. Let it start on Friday with a ringing rejection of all they've done to us. Let's get off our knees and kick the gombeen bastards in the bollocks.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Tiananmen: 20 years of silence and oppression
We have to remember Tiananmen Square.
It's two decades to the day since the Chinese people demanded their freedom from the despotic, mass-murdering junta that rules their nation.
It's twenty years since they stood in Tiananmen Square and sang songs and demanded that the Communist dictators quit power.
It's twenty years since the power-hungry psychotics turned tanks on their own people and murdered them for asking to be free, killed them, jailed them, sent them to re-education gulags where they were tortured horrendously.
It's twenty years in which more terror has been inflicted on the people of occupied Tibet, the Uighur nation, and the other minorities within the Maoist monolith.
Twenty years in which the hypocrites of the West facilitated China's leadership by hiring their slave labour, buying their bloodstained products at dirt cheap prices, handed back free Hong Kong and Macao into their anti-democratic hands and helped them block the internet from reaching their people, and let them hold a propagandist Olympics that will go down in history as stomach-churning as Hitler's Berlin Games in 1936.
Twenty years in which their template for terrorising their own people has been exported elsewhere, to other stubborn juntas who will not countenance democracy or liberty or freedom of choice, in places like Burma.
It is not anywhere near as long since I was in China. But the people there still yearn for freedom.
We cannot allow the Chinese government to exercise their blanket control over information. We cannot let them rewrite history. We cannot permit the spirit of Tiananmen to be ignored.
Because one day, the proud Chinese people will be free from the sixty year nightmare of Maoism, and they will legitimately say:
"Yes, for much of that time, we bowed to the terror and let ourselves be ruled. But one day we rose and sought our freedom, and we were brutally beaten down. And you in the West did nothing. Rather than insist on our freedom as you did for the people of South Africa, you instead rewarded the Communist cadres and made them millionaires."
Remember Tiananmen. Remember what they did.
Remember how democracy was stillborn in China twenty years ago, and how we still trade with the murderers.
It's two decades to the day since the Chinese people demanded their freedom from the despotic, mass-murdering junta that rules their nation.
It's twenty years since they stood in Tiananmen Square and sang songs and demanded that the Communist dictators quit power.
It's twenty years since the power-hungry psychotics turned tanks on their own people and murdered them for asking to be free, killed them, jailed them, sent them to re-education gulags where they were tortured horrendously.
It's twenty years in which more terror has been inflicted on the people of occupied Tibet, the Uighur nation, and the other minorities within the Maoist monolith.
Twenty years in which the hypocrites of the West facilitated China's leadership by hiring their slave labour, buying their bloodstained products at dirt cheap prices, handed back free Hong Kong and Macao into their anti-democratic hands and helped them block the internet from reaching their people, and let them hold a propagandist Olympics that will go down in history as stomach-churning as Hitler's Berlin Games in 1936.
Twenty years in which their template for terrorising their own people has been exported elsewhere, to other stubborn juntas who will not countenance democracy or liberty or freedom of choice, in places like Burma.
It is not anywhere near as long since I was in China. But the people there still yearn for freedom.
We cannot allow the Chinese government to exercise their blanket control over information. We cannot let them rewrite history. We cannot permit the spirit of Tiananmen to be ignored.
Because one day, the proud Chinese people will be free from the sixty year nightmare of Maoism, and they will legitimately say:
"Yes, for much of that time, we bowed to the terror and let ourselves be ruled. But one day we rose and sought our freedom, and we were brutally beaten down. And you in the West did nothing. Rather than insist on our freedom as you did for the people of South Africa, you instead rewarded the Communist cadres and made them millionaires."
Remember Tiananmen. Remember what they did.
Remember how democracy was stillborn in China twenty years ago, and how we still trade with the murderers.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Stop the taxpayer bailout of Anglo-Irish Bank
Are you annoyed that 4 billion euro has just been added to the national debt in order to bail out the big property speculators and Fianna Fail funders who owe around 7.5 billion in bad debt to Anglo-Irish bank?
Do you feel sickened that your grandchildren will still be paying taxes in order to save the asses of a small golden circle of ultra-rich elite?
Well, then it's time to ask the EU to block the deal. Brian Lenihan cannot go ahead with this robbing of the taxpayer to bail out his cronies if Europe blocks it.
So, let the EU know what the Irish people think of this shoddy backroom backscratcher of a deal.
Send an email to this address, SG-PLAINTES@ec.europa.eu , and highlight your feelings about the bailout NOW. Tell Europe you object to this deal and believe it is a betrayal of the Irish people.
Because it is.
Do you feel sickened that your grandchildren will still be paying taxes in order to save the asses of a small golden circle of ultra-rich elite?
Well, then it's time to ask the EU to block the deal. Brian Lenihan cannot go ahead with this robbing of the taxpayer to bail out his cronies if Europe blocks it.
So, let the EU know what the Irish people think of this shoddy backroom backscratcher of a deal.
Send an email to this address, SG-PLAINTES@ec.europa.eu , and highlight your feelings about the bailout NOW. Tell Europe you object to this deal and believe it is a betrayal of the Irish people.
Because it is.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Truth
Congratulations to Michael O'Brien for telling the truth to the world last night.
A Fianna Fail minister was told in 1955 about the abuse in these schools and did nothing. And Fianna Fail kept assisting the church to cover it up and avoid its responsibilities for decades.
Even after the truth first emerged, they sent battalions of lawyers in to the Laffoy tribunal to browbeat victims of rape and sodomy. They obstructed Justice Laffoy to such an extent that she quit the tribunal in disgust. They indemnified the Church from paying compensation for their many crimes.
Fianna Fail are complicit in the mass rape and abuse of children for nearly half a century, and are still on the side of the rapists and not the victims.
Let's not forget the truth.
A Fianna Fail minister was told in 1955 about the abuse in these schools and did nothing. And Fianna Fail kept assisting the church to cover it up and avoid its responsibilities for decades.
Even after the truth first emerged, they sent battalions of lawyers in to the Laffoy tribunal to browbeat victims of rape and sodomy. They obstructed Justice Laffoy to such an extent that she quit the tribunal in disgust. They indemnified the Church from paying compensation for their many crimes.
Fianna Fail are complicit in the mass rape and abuse of children for nearly half a century, and are still on the side of the rapists and not the victims.
Let's not forget the truth.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Commemorate 1798
It's time the Irish nation commemorated the United Irishmen and the rising of 1798 properly.
Their vision of a free, equal society throughout all of Ireland offering liberty and prosperity for all Irish people, be they Protestant, Catholic or Dissenter (or, we could well add today, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, of all faiths or none) is as essential and enlightened today as it was 211 years ago on this day when the United Irishmen first arose against colonial oppression.
We have two bank holidays back to back in Ireland - May Day, an increasingly tokenistic vapidity allegedly in the name of working people, and the June bank holiday, which has no point to it at all save a day off work.
Let us replace one of these with a national day of celebration of ALL Irish people on May 24th, the anniversary of the 1798 rebellion.
Let us abandon the Paddywhackery of the 17th of March to the diaspora and the Catholic church. It is their festival, not that of Ireland and its residents.
Let us claim our OWN day of celebration, and there is no better one to celebrate than May 24th, the day when brave men and women sought to claim freedom for all the people of Ireland.
Please sign the petition to call on the Government to initiate a national day of celebration on the anniversary of the 1798 rising to commemorate that vision of the United Irishmen, in the hope that one day we might create the nation that they dreamed of.
Sign your support for a national day to commemorate the vision of 1798!
Their vision of a free, equal society throughout all of Ireland offering liberty and prosperity for all Irish people, be they Protestant, Catholic or Dissenter (or, we could well add today, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, of all faiths or none) is as essential and enlightened today as it was 211 years ago on this day when the United Irishmen first arose against colonial oppression.
We have two bank holidays back to back in Ireland - May Day, an increasingly tokenistic vapidity allegedly in the name of working people, and the June bank holiday, which has no point to it at all save a day off work.
Let us replace one of these with a national day of celebration of ALL Irish people on May 24th, the anniversary of the 1798 rebellion.
Let us abandon the Paddywhackery of the 17th of March to the diaspora and the Catholic church. It is their festival, not that of Ireland and its residents.
Let us claim our OWN day of celebration, and there is no better one to celebrate than May 24th, the day when brave men and women sought to claim freedom for all the people of Ireland.
Please sign the petition to call on the Government to initiate a national day of celebration on the anniversary of the 1798 rising to commemorate that vision of the United Irishmen, in the hope that one day we might create the nation that they dreamed of.
Sign your support for a national day to commemorate the vision of 1798!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Recycling: some questions
I went to a dump in Belfast, and dumped some wood. I had a pane of glass too.
There being no place to dump glass (only bottles) I asked the lad where he wanted it.
"Glass? That goes in soft furnishings," he said.
What?
A few months back, I went to a dump in Dublin and dumped some gardening waste.
I was charged money for the privilege of doing so.
And they wonder why people fly-tip like tinkers in the Republic.
So my questions are fairly simple: why isn't using recycling centres free in the Republic in order to encourage people to USE the damn places instead of fly-tipping sites of natural beauty in the middle of the night?
And if glass counts as soft furnishings, how efficient is recycling anyway?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
None of this is real
While watching the Vinnie Browne show, I took refuge in reading this academic study which concludes, on the basis of an overview assessment of modern scientific discoveries, that none of this is real.
You're not real, I'm not real, Vinnie Browne isn't real, the recession isn't real. In fact, the world, and the entire universe, are not real.
Instead, apparently we are living in a virtual reality projection.
This theory apparently resolves all of the major insoluble issues facing science currently, such as the Big Bang and the universe's possession of a maximum speed, as well as the many bizarre things occuring on a quantum level, such as the existence of quantum equivalence and the uncertainty principle.
That doesn't mean The Matrix, by the way. There is no ur-reality in which we slumber while we dream this one. As the paper states, unlike the virtual realities we have created, like The Sims, we are unable to see the reality through the guiding interface, because we're entirely contained within it.
I dunno if that helps anyone worrying about the global downturn or suffering from depression to know that their concerns aren't real, though.
So, how do you all feel about being virtual?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A question for unionists
I have a question for anyone who considers themselves to be a Unionist. It's something I've always wondered about, so I'm putting it out there now.
What aspects that you, as Ulster Unionists, envisage about the prospect of a United Ireland make you opposed to it?
It seems to me that given the lack of any actual presentation of a vision for unifying Ireland by either Sinn Fein, the SDLP or the Southern parties, that there is no actual vision on the table. Rather, the idea of a United Ireland is a vacuum, an absence, a tabula rasa.
So since a unified island nation could potentially be anything you wish it to be, what is it that you, as Unionists are concerned about?
Rules of Engagement: Entitlement to British citizenship is already secured under the GFA, and the Republic isn't a Catholic theocracy.
Therefore arguments based on an attachment to a British (or to be accurate a Northern Irish or British-Irish) identity or opposition to the Catholic Church aren't valid for the purposes of this discussion.
Trolls posing as Unionists and those suspected of being such don't get to play, and non-Unionists don't get to second-guess or mindread what they think Unionist opinions on the issue really are.
What I'm really curious about here is what do Unionists believe a United Ireland might look like, what do they fear or oppose in that, is there a form of United Ireland acceptable to Unionists, and if not, why not?
I await your answers with eager interest. The floor is yours.
What aspects that you, as Ulster Unionists, envisage about the prospect of a United Ireland make you opposed to it?
It seems to me that given the lack of any actual presentation of a vision for unifying Ireland by either Sinn Fein, the SDLP or the Southern parties, that there is no actual vision on the table. Rather, the idea of a United Ireland is a vacuum, an absence, a tabula rasa.
So since a unified island nation could potentially be anything you wish it to be, what is it that you, as Unionists are concerned about?
Rules of Engagement: Entitlement to British citizenship is already secured under the GFA, and the Republic isn't a Catholic theocracy.
Therefore arguments based on an attachment to a British (or to be accurate a Northern Irish or British-Irish) identity or opposition to the Catholic Church aren't valid for the purposes of this discussion.
Trolls posing as Unionists and those suspected of being such don't get to play, and non-Unionists don't get to second-guess or mindread what they think Unionist opinions on the issue really are.
What I'm really curious about here is what do Unionists believe a United Ireland might look like, what do they fear or oppose in that, is there a form of United Ireland acceptable to Unionists, and if not, why not?
I await your answers with eager interest. The floor is yours.
Friday, May 08, 2009
How corrupt is UEFA?
I'm now officially suspicious about UEFA.
Normally, when people refer to corruption in football, they mean attempts to fix matches by dodgy Far Eastern gangs. The discussions focus on whether players 'threw' games, whether they might have taken a 'bung', whether the betting patterns reveal a coup.
But I'm beginning to wonder about UEFA's role in a couple of very odd incidents.
The first relates to whether they have been rigging the draw for the Champions' League in order to manipulate the big box-office matches that they want. Last year, the quarter final draw was revealed to a Liverpool fans website two hours before it was made.
Now, that's either a 104-1 lucky guess, or else it is overt corruption. According to UEFA, it was just a lucky guess. They then refused to say anything further on the matter.
However, the original post which revealed the draw suggested that not only was the draw a pre-decided issue, but that the details had come from a disgusted UEFA employee and that bookies had ceased to take bets on the matter, which they indeed had.
But things got even stranger on Wednesday night. My sympathies go out to Chelsea, who were effectively robbed of a second successive Champions' League final appearance by the extremely erratic, if not downright bogus, behaviour of the referee, who is now in hiding after he denied Chelsea at least two legitimate penalties.
Feeling hard done by, one Chelsea player chased the ref about the pitch yelling in his face, while another roared his disgust at the TV cameras, and a third has since come out stating that he believes the ref was 'under orders.'
Sour grapes? Perhaps. Until, that is, you hear that the UEFA website posted the result of the game HOURS before it even kicked off!
The 'test' post was supposedly a dummy run. But it had the correct score and even named the players who were booked!
Chelsea's manager, one of the most respected and experienced names in football, has openly speculated that the referee was under orders not to allow Chelsea to proceed to a second final against Manchester United, because UEFA thought a second all-English final looked bad.
Of course, UEFA have dismissed suggestions of a fix. But they also ordered the match referee to go into hiding and not to talk to the press.
Books such as the excellent 'The Ball is Round' have examined the corporate corruption of UEFA, and its parent body FIFA, and revealed how football administration at the very top is run by some extremely dodgy people.
I'm now wondering just how dodgy they are. Dodgy enough to rig a draw? Dodgy enough to rig a game? Dodgy enough to pick and choose who should play in the world's biggest club football game - the Champions' League final?
Perhaps they are.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Investing in Education, or Old Skool discos for middle-aged men?
The government's all about education, they say. You know the buzz words - fourth-level learning, research and development, the knowledge economy.
Apparently none of this stretches as far as actually investing in education, of course. We'll be seeing third-level fees re-introduced after a two decade absence shortly (to add to the existing four figure sum 'non-fees' for 'registering' in college.)
And kids in schools with leaky roofs, no hot water but hot and cold running rats and roaches will have to take comfort in the fact that the education minister has secured additional funding this year - for renting prefabs, some of which have been in situ since the Eighties at this stage.
So, in this morass of misery that is the Irish education system, it does one's black heart much joy to see Irish universities hosting major international conferences into ground-breaking areas of research of significant importance to us all.
University of Limerick, take a bow. In these times of recession and Dell lay-offs, heaven knows the Mid-West is miserable now.
So fair play to the eggheads, who last year started something they couldn't finish. But this year they did finish it - two full days of a symposium dedicated to the work of Morrissey.
Seriously, they spent funds on studying the works of the old misery monger for two days. Don't believe me? Here's the awful, academic-meets-Manc-quiff proof of it all:
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm not entirely convinced that indulging fortysomething daffodil-inspired obsessives is where our university system should be focusing its funding and attentions.
No doubt everyone present were charming men, but ultimately, what difference does it make?
Actually, shoehorning Smiths songs into a blog post may be fun, but spending state education funding on this sort of thing isn't justifiable when working class kids are forced to abandon third-level plans and kids are dodging the rodents in their pre-fab classrooms.
Silly and indulgent research events like this one might have been grand at one time, when we as a nation had the cash to be frivolous. But today?
That joke just isn't funny anymore.
Apparently none of this stretches as far as actually investing in education, of course. We'll be seeing third-level fees re-introduced after a two decade absence shortly (to add to the existing four figure sum 'non-fees' for 'registering' in college.)
And kids in schools with leaky roofs, no hot water but hot and cold running rats and roaches will have to take comfort in the fact that the education minister has secured additional funding this year - for renting prefabs, some of which have been in situ since the Eighties at this stage.
So, in this morass of misery that is the Irish education system, it does one's black heart much joy to see Irish universities hosting major international conferences into ground-breaking areas of research of significant importance to us all.
University of Limerick, take a bow. In these times of recession and Dell lay-offs, heaven knows the Mid-West is miserable now.
So fair play to the eggheads, who last year started something they couldn't finish. But this year they did finish it - two full days of a symposium dedicated to the work of Morrissey.
Seriously, they spent funds on studying the works of the old misery monger for two days. Don't believe me? Here's the awful, academic-meets-Manc-quiff proof of it all:
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm not entirely convinced that indulging fortysomething daffodil-inspired obsessives is where our university system should be focusing its funding and attentions.No doubt everyone present were charming men, but ultimately, what difference does it make?
Actually, shoehorning Smiths songs into a blog post may be fun, but spending state education funding on this sort of thing isn't justifiable when working class kids are forced to abandon third-level plans and kids are dodging the rodents in their pre-fab classrooms.
Silly and indulgent research events like this one might have been grand at one time, when we as a nation had the cash to be frivolous. But today?
That joke just isn't funny anymore.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Una Hardester should be jailed
This is Una Hardester. She works as a human rights activist. But for most of her short life, she didn't give a crap about the human rights of a life she did her best to destroy.
She has admitted that she wrongly accused her neighbour Michael Feichin Hannon of sexually assaulting her when she was ten years old, even though she had never met the man.
As a result, he has spent over a decade living in the shadow of public approbrium, with the world assuming he was a child-abusing scumbag.
In reality, Una made up the allegations to assist her father who was having an ongoing spat with his neighbours, the Hannons.
Her father is a successful American bit-part actor who left Ireland in 2000 with his family after scoring a payday in 'Saving Private Ryan'. Michael Feichin Hannon, on the other hand received a criminal sentence for his troubles and is, in his own words, 'a shadow' of the person he used to be.
Una Hardester finally admitted to her lies in 2006, claiming that her father had prevented her from doing so earlier. She has not explained how her father was able to do so. Michael Feichin Hannon had his case declared a miscarriage of justice and is now expected to gain up to one million euro in compensation from the state.
I want to know why we, the Irish taxpayers, are shelling out for Una Hardester's lies. I want to know why she is not, as she expects, facing jail for perjury and for her false accusations.
Her father is an affluent man and by all accounts appears to have been a major influence both in this case coming about and in delaying its resolution. Why isn't he shelling out the compo to Michael Feichin Hannon?
We've had this with the banks already. Why is the Irish taxpayer underwriting the mistakes of private entities and individuals?
And why is it apparently okay to accuse an innocent man of child sex abuse?
Una Hardester has spent recent years as a human rights activist. It's such a terrible pity that she didn't give more thought to the human rights of Michael Feichin Hannon, which she herself so egregiously destroyed.
She should be jailed.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Overcrowding: Third World style
In the Third World (as we used to call it before we decided they were developing), the most popular beast of burden is not the horse, the ox, the yak or the llama.
It's the combustion engine - specifically a two-stroke motorbike, often adapted into a three-wheeler tuk-tuk. And by goodness do some people work those little engines hard.
When I was in India earlier this month, I used to play a little mental game to ease my nerves while being propelled through the mass deathwish that is Indian traffic.
Basically, I couldn't shut my eyes to the perpetually imminent risk of horrific accident, so instead I'd try to distract myself by counting the people perched on the back of motorbikes or in the seat of a three-wheel tuk-tuk.
I soon developed a mathematic theorem to describe the maximum number of people per vehicle by reference to the number of wheels. Basically, 2 to the power of the number of wheels is the maximum.
For the innumerate, that means 2 X 2 (4) on a motorbike, 2 X 2 X 2 (8) in a tuk tuk, and 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 (16) in a car.
However, I was soon proved wrong. Within days, in Jaipur, I saw a tuk-tuk (which is built to carry three people, including driver) carrying TEN people in total. And five on a motorbike became a regular sight. And I never saw more than four or five in a car (because cars in India are for the rich and they don't like to be crowded out.)
I was in Cambodia in the past too, and they're also big fans of overcrowding their metallic beasts of burden. But I can honestly say I never saw eight people on the back of a bike before.
But there you go. Four adults and four kids (plus a bag of shopping and large tin of something heavy looking) all on one little motorbike. If you squint you might see some of it between their many legs.
It's a chastening thought for anyone sat alone in their car in Ireland, giving out about the traffic.
It's the combustion engine - specifically a two-stroke motorbike, often adapted into a three-wheeler tuk-tuk. And by goodness do some people work those little engines hard.
When I was in India earlier this month, I used to play a little mental game to ease my nerves while being propelled through the mass deathwish that is Indian traffic.
Basically, I couldn't shut my eyes to the perpetually imminent risk of horrific accident, so instead I'd try to distract myself by counting the people perched on the back of motorbikes or in the seat of a three-wheel tuk-tuk.
I soon developed a mathematic theorem to describe the maximum number of people per vehicle by reference to the number of wheels. Basically, 2 to the power of the number of wheels is the maximum.
For the innumerate, that means 2 X 2 (4) on a motorbike, 2 X 2 X 2 (8) in a tuk tuk, and 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 (16) in a car.
However, I was soon proved wrong. Within days, in Jaipur, I saw a tuk-tuk (which is built to carry three people, including driver) carrying TEN people in total. And five on a motorbike became a regular sight. And I never saw more than four or five in a car (because cars in India are for the rich and they don't like to be crowded out.)
I was in Cambodia in the past too, and they're also big fans of overcrowding their metallic beasts of burden. But I can honestly say I never saw eight people on the back of a bike before.
But there you go. Four adults and four kids (plus a bag of shopping and large tin of something heavy looking) all on one little motorbike. If you squint you might see some of it between their many legs.
It's a chastening thought for anyone sat alone in their car in Ireland, giving out about the traffic.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Let's hope Swine Flu becomes a pandemic
It's important to cut through the shrill 'Sky News' breathless scaremongering and establish some facts about Swine Flu.
Let me endeavour to do just that, because once the facts are known, it is likely that many people might join me in hoping that Swine Flu breaks out globally and becomes a dreaded pandemic.
Firstly, you should know how influenza works. It's a vast family of viruses, constantly changing, some of which affect birds, some pigs and some us.
Because it's always changing, and because there are literally hundreds of strains out there at any given time, it's not possible to create a perfect flu vaccine.
So Swine Flu is basically a pig flu that has jumped species to humans and is now being passed from person to person. So, no, eating Irish bacon is not a risk (unless they've filled it with dioxin again, of course.)
Every year, tens of thousands of people die from some version of the flu. They tend to be older, frailer people. But every now and again, a strain of flu comes along which most people have little or no immunity to.
Basically, it comes out of nowhere and is so different to the previous strains that no one's body has ever seen anything like it.
When that happens, a pandemic (global epidemic) can happen. And often with pandemics, it's mostly young, healthy people who die.
The last pandemic was in 1968, over four decades ago. That means that one is WAY overdue. But, the world, and especially our part of it, has never been better prepared for a pandemic.
We've got loads of anti-viral drugs that seem on first impression to be a bit effective against the Mexican Swine Flu strain.
And last year's flu jab contained a quite similar strain, so it might offer some protection to anyone who got the jab last Autumn.
But the best news is that this particular strain doesn't seem particularly fatal. When you consider that the Spanish flu of 1918 killed more people than World War I, then you can imagine what very fatal flus could do in this age of modern air travel and the global village.
But while many people have died in Mexico, it seems that for the most part they had delayed some time in getting medical help.
In other countries where travellers have returned with the illness, so far no one has died because they got medical help in time.
Since we're overdue a flu pandemic, I'd rather we had one that wasn't particularly fatal. And perhaps a successful global response to fighting a common enemy, like an epidemic, might be the catalyst the world requires to snap out of the recession slump.
In short, don't lose any sleep over Swine Flu. Equally, don't go holidaying on Mexican pig farms either.
This has been a JC Skinner public health announcement.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Dermot Ahern and Fianna Fail still hate fathers
It appears that Justice Minister Dermot Ahern and his Fianna Fail cronies still hate fathers.
In a parliamentary question, Deputy PJ Sheehan asked the Minister to explain why unmarried fathers are still forced to go and queue with junkies in order to get their names on their child's birth certificate, and why they are still required, unlike married fathers, to apply to courts to be guardians of their own children.
Inevitably, the answer from the powers-that-be, petrified as they are of the single mummy mafia, is that no change is forthcoming.
In fact, according to our esteemed minister, the current situation is a 'comprehensive' solution, based on 'the welfare of the child'. Which is nonsense, clearly.
It is prehistoric to discriminate between fathers on the basis of their marital status in this manner, and I look forward to the day when someone challenges this in court or via equality legislation.
But I have little or no faith in the Irish legislature, which has a lengthy track record of ignoring the needs of fathers and their children for each other, in reforming itself.
Given the latest reiteration of hardened attitudes and ignorance from the Justice Minister, one can only conclude that they still hate fathers, and still fear the mommy mafia, who are entrenched in opposing rights for fathers despite their odious rhetoric about equality when it comes to demanding ever more state funding for child care, single mommy allowances, free education and back to work allowances and so on.
One day, likely at the insistence of the EU, we will eventually concede in Ireland the fact that fathers are immeasurably beneficial to the development of their children and that the status quo we have espoused for so long amounts to nothing short of human rights violations and child abuse.
In the meantime, we still have to put up with crap like lesbian lovers being granted parental rights over fathers, like fathers being accused slanderously of various crimes by bitter mothers in closed courts, and like children being denied equitable parenting from the moment of birth on the basis of their parents' marital status.
In the meantime, because Dermot Ahern and his cohort are so lazy and fearful of a feminist backlash, fathers will have to continue to queue up with the junkies to get on the birth cert, plead with courts to know how their children's health and education is proceeding and face ongoing denial of their and their children's rights to justice.
Fuck you, Dermot Ahern. I genuinely hope that you find yourself in a family law court one day, slackjawed with shock because the other half has accused you of sexually abusing your kids in order to get back at you for divorcing her, or because she simply doesn't want to have to deal with you at all.
I hope you enjoy the endless months of expensive legal applications, the monitored visits with social workers in tow, and then ultimately the success of paying half your wages in maintenance to live in a rented bedsit and see your kids in McDonalds every other Saturday.
It's not normally a prospect I'd wish on my worst enemy. But I wish it upon you, Minister for Injustice, because it is exactly that fate that you, in your ongoing refusal to reform Irish family laws, have condemned other fathers to indefinitely.
PQ and answer below:
In a parliamentary question, Deputy PJ Sheehan asked the Minister to explain why unmarried fathers are still forced to go and queue with junkies in order to get their names on their child's birth certificate, and why they are still required, unlike married fathers, to apply to courts to be guardians of their own children.
Inevitably, the answer from the powers-that-be, petrified as they are of the single mummy mafia, is that no change is forthcoming.
In fact, according to our esteemed minister, the current situation is a 'comprehensive' solution, based on 'the welfare of the child'. Which is nonsense, clearly.
It is prehistoric to discriminate between fathers on the basis of their marital status in this manner, and I look forward to the day when someone challenges this in court or via equality legislation.
But I have little or no faith in the Irish legislature, which has a lengthy track record of ignoring the needs of fathers and their children for each other, in reforming itself.
Given the latest reiteration of hardened attitudes and ignorance from the Justice Minister, one can only conclude that they still hate fathers, and still fear the mommy mafia, who are entrenched in opposing rights for fathers despite their odious rhetoric about equality when it comes to demanding ever more state funding for child care, single mommy allowances, free education and back to work allowances and so on.
One day, likely at the insistence of the EU, we will eventually concede in Ireland the fact that fathers are immeasurably beneficial to the development of their children and that the status quo we have espoused for so long amounts to nothing short of human rights violations and child abuse.
In the meantime, we still have to put up with crap like lesbian lovers being granted parental rights over fathers, like fathers being accused slanderously of various crimes by bitter mothers in closed courts, and like children being denied equitable parenting from the moment of birth on the basis of their parents' marital status.
In the meantime, because Dermot Ahern and his cohort are so lazy and fearful of a feminist backlash, fathers will have to continue to queue up with the junkies to get on the birth cert, plead with courts to know how their children's health and education is proceeding and face ongoing denial of their and their children's rights to justice.
Fuck you, Dermot Ahern. I genuinely hope that you find yourself in a family law court one day, slackjawed with shock because the other half has accused you of sexually abusing your kids in order to get back at you for divorcing her, or because she simply doesn't want to have to deal with you at all.
I hope you enjoy the endless months of expensive legal applications, the monitored visits with social workers in tow, and then ultimately the success of paying half your wages in maintenance to live in a rented bedsit and see your kids in McDonalds every other Saturday.
It's not normally a prospect I'd wish on my worst enemy. But I wish it upon you, Minister for Injustice, because it is exactly that fate that you, in your ongoing refusal to reform Irish family laws, have condemned other fathers to indefinitely.
PQ and answer below:
77. Deputy P. J. Sheehan
asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Deputy Dermot Ahern):
Under the law as it stands - section 6A of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964, as inserted by section 12 of the Status of Children Act 1987 - an unmarried father may apply to the court to be appointed a guardian of his child. Alternatively, where there is agreement between the parents, they can make a statutory declaration under section 2(4) of the Guardianship of Infants Act, as inserted by section 4 of the Children Act 1997, conferring on the father the status of guardian.
Under section 11 of the 1964 Act, a guardian may apply to the court for its direction on any question affecting the welfare of the child, including directions as to custody and access. In addition, the section provides that the unmarried father of a child, even if he is not a guardian, may apply to the court for orders on custody and access. Section 3 of the Act provides that, in deciding on an application relating to the custody, guardianship or upbringing of a child, the court shall regard the welfare of the child as the first and paramount consideration.
These legislative provisions are comprehensive. They permit the court in cases of disagreement to decide on arrangements for the child’s care and upbringing having regard to the child’s best interests. The vast majority of applications by unmarried fathers for guardianship are granted by the court.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The unanswerables
At what point does just wanting to chill out in the house become clinical sociopathy?
How many nightly headaches are required for a diagnosis of brain tumour or loss of libido?
In a time of rising prices and recession, is installing a bar in the house a shockingly unnecessary luxury or a money-saving scheme?
Does food you buy in IKEA have to be assembled before eaten?
If you can't control your own currency, can you be said to manage your economy? And is that as relevant for people as countries?
Why does Coca-Cola need to take eight litres of water to make each litre of their toxic waste sugar drink? And why do they keep locating their bottling plants in drought regions of the Third World? And why do people still drink the stuff, anyway?
Where will they put all the unused aircraft currently parked in Nevada if it starts raining there?
Can whiskey ever really be considered an investment?
Would it be better to be spectacularly successful early in life and then spend the rest of your existence in a sort of afterlife, or would it be better to be moderately successful late in life, when you might appreciate it better and go out on a high?
Why doesn't democracy work? Would more work, or less? Do we really get the governments we deserve?
Why are the worst recreational drugs legal and the least addicting, least socially hurtful, least personally damaging ones prohibited?
What are we here for? What if we're not here for anything?
Jetlag makes me pensive. Time to crack open the duty-free, perhaps.
How many nightly headaches are required for a diagnosis of brain tumour or loss of libido?
In a time of rising prices and recession, is installing a bar in the house a shockingly unnecessary luxury or a money-saving scheme?
Does food you buy in IKEA have to be assembled before eaten?
If you can't control your own currency, can you be said to manage your economy? And is that as relevant for people as countries?
Why does Coca-Cola need to take eight litres of water to make each litre of their toxic waste sugar drink? And why do they keep locating their bottling plants in drought regions of the Third World? And why do people still drink the stuff, anyway?
Where will they put all the unused aircraft currently parked in Nevada if it starts raining there?
Can whiskey ever really be considered an investment?
Would it be better to be spectacularly successful early in life and then spend the rest of your existence in a sort of afterlife, or would it be better to be moderately successful late in life, when you might appreciate it better and go out on a high?
Why doesn't democracy work? Would more work, or less? Do we really get the governments we deserve?
Why are the worst recreational drugs legal and the least addicting, least socially hurtful, least personally damaging ones prohibited?
What are we here for? What if we're not here for anything?
Jetlag makes me pensive. Time to crack open the duty-free, perhaps.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A thousand unemployed call centre workers cheer...
It's happening in India too. Three cities in a row, I've found that waiting and kitchen staff in hotels in India were predominantly Chinese.
Fair enough, a lot of people like Chinese food, even in India. But I cannot fathom how it could be cost-effective for employers to take on migrant workers ahead of one of the lowest- paid workforces there is.
Perhaps the Chinese government is subsidising this as part of some sort of training programme? Does anyone out there know if there is method behind this madness?
Surely when Chinese staff are populating the rosters of hotels in a place like India, we've already exceeded even the flimsy economic purpose for mass migration?
And how can the Indian authorities justify these jobs going to non-Indians, given the poverty and deprivation in the country?
And have they foreseen the negative effects on their tourist industry?
After all, it wasn't that long ago that they were hiring hotel staff for Connemara in Newfoundland because so many complaints were coming in to Bord Failte from American tourists about non-English speaking staff in Irish establishments.
And with no Irish forthcoming for the jobs, they looked for staff in the one other place where people sounded and looked Irish. There is, it appears, a premium of authenticity that tourists attach to visiting places like Ireland or India that involves interacting with locals and not with imported Chinese labour.
So why are Indian hotels hiring from China? Does anyone know?
Fair enough, a lot of people like Chinese food, even in India. But I cannot fathom how it could be cost-effective for employers to take on migrant workers ahead of one of the lowest- paid workforces there is.
Perhaps the Chinese government is subsidising this as part of some sort of training programme? Does anyone out there know if there is method behind this madness?
Surely when Chinese staff are populating the rosters of hotels in a place like India, we've already exceeded even the flimsy economic purpose for mass migration?
And how can the Indian authorities justify these jobs going to non-Indians, given the poverty and deprivation in the country?
And have they foreseen the negative effects on their tourist industry?
After all, it wasn't that long ago that they were hiring hotel staff for Connemara in Newfoundland because so many complaints were coming in to Bord Failte from American tourists about non-English speaking staff in Irish establishments.
And with no Irish forthcoming for the jobs, they looked for staff in the one other place where people sounded and looked Irish. There is, it appears, a premium of authenticity that tourists attach to visiting places like Ireland or India that involves interacting with locals and not with imported Chinese labour.
So why are Indian hotels hiring from China? Does anyone know?
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Superclass and the Untermensch
I'm the underbelly. I'm the untermensch.
Though it can be hard to remember that while being ferried by taxi to a five star hotel.
Now, global rich list might say otherwise. But I don't feel like one of the priveliged people, even if I am in the lucky-enough position of being able to say 'fuck it' when accommodation somewhere like New Delhi goes belly up late at night, and can buy my way out of trouble temporarily.
There may be air-conditioning, and all-night net access and a fresh water swimming pool and special slippers. But I'm just visiting, and paying a large price for the privilege. I don't get to live here.
But some do, and it is worth remembering that. People would like you to forget. I see them in their chosen environment on my rare visits, though. I see them, in their suits, with their expense accounts picking up the tab, and they're relaxed, off the hook, among friends.
Over a few drinks in the hotel bar, they look almost human.
But you can't forget that these people are the ones running the world for their own personal benefit, so that they can have the air-con on full blast while Delhi swelters, and their pick of Scotches from the bar.
All over the world, especially in the developing world, your prospects in life are closely defined by one perameter only - your proximity to the superclass.
I've been reading David Rothkopf's fascinating eagle-eye account of the superclass in his book that came out last year. I've been meaning to read it for some time. Another benefit of time off is catching up on the reading.
Rothkopf was a regular attendee at Davos. He rubbed shoulders with the extremely small coterie of people exercising nearly all the power and managing most of the money on the planet for decades.
And even though he is utterly an insider with an unjaundiced degree of admiration and affection for them, he is enough of a journalist and writer to point out the simple fact that the whole planet is run by a very small number of extremely connected people.
In a very real sense, we're currently in a re-run of the late Nineteenth century, when most of the most powerful people in Europe were all related to Queen Victoria. Late imperial battles where invariably also family squabbles writ large.
At the top of investment banks, major economies, trans-national industrial entities and diplomatic circles runs the same small number of people in tight little circles encompassing each other's boards of directors, advisory councils, Bilderberg and Carlyle, Halliburton and Davos.
Rothkopf reckons that the large bulk of wealth and power on the planet inhabits a little over 6,000 people, most of whom he has at some point or other met.
They all know each other, is Rothkopf's point, and they know and like each other a lot better and have much more in common with each other than they have with the rest of us, the untermenschen.
Rothkopf's qualifying criteria for his chosen few is admittedly somewhat arbitrary. But power is not a simply transparent thing to measure, any more than wealth is.
But it works out at an exceptional few, almost entirely male, mostly white, each one a one in a million compared to the number of us who aren't part of the party.
It's also a shifting feast, with some in and some out each season in keeping with current policies and fashions.
So Bono and Peter Sutherland are in, Mary Robinson and John Bruton are too, Bertie was until recently, but McAleese and Cowen never were and likely never will be.
Whether you accept this tiny coterie of the superclass as a beneficent oligarchy or not, that's what they amount to. Democracy is little more than tokenism and the methodology for ensuring a small crack open to permit new blood.
Their loyalties, ultimately, are to ensuring they can have the air-con on full blast while Delhi swelters. Their interest in the underbelly is only to make sure they stay above it.
Though it can be hard to remember that while being ferried by taxi to a five star hotel.
Now, global rich list might say otherwise. But I don't feel like one of the priveliged people, even if I am in the lucky-enough position of being able to say 'fuck it' when accommodation somewhere like New Delhi goes belly up late at night, and can buy my way out of trouble temporarily.
There may be air-conditioning, and all-night net access and a fresh water swimming pool and special slippers. But I'm just visiting, and paying a large price for the privilege. I don't get to live here.
But some do, and it is worth remembering that. People would like you to forget. I see them in their chosen environment on my rare visits, though. I see them, in their suits, with their expense accounts picking up the tab, and they're relaxed, off the hook, among friends.
Over a few drinks in the hotel bar, they look almost human.
But you can't forget that these people are the ones running the world for their own personal benefit, so that they can have the air-con on full blast while Delhi swelters, and their pick of Scotches from the bar.
All over the world, especially in the developing world, your prospects in life are closely defined by one perameter only - your proximity to the superclass.
I've been reading David Rothkopf's fascinating eagle-eye account of the superclass in his book that came out last year. I've been meaning to read it for some time. Another benefit of time off is catching up on the reading.
Rothkopf was a regular attendee at Davos. He rubbed shoulders with the extremely small coterie of people exercising nearly all the power and managing most of the money on the planet for decades.
And even though he is utterly an insider with an unjaundiced degree of admiration and affection for them, he is enough of a journalist and writer to point out the simple fact that the whole planet is run by a very small number of extremely connected people.
In a very real sense, we're currently in a re-run of the late Nineteenth century, when most of the most powerful people in Europe were all related to Queen Victoria. Late imperial battles where invariably also family squabbles writ large.
At the top of investment banks, major economies, trans-national industrial entities and diplomatic circles runs the same small number of people in tight little circles encompassing each other's boards of directors, advisory councils, Bilderberg and Carlyle, Halliburton and Davos.
Rothkopf reckons that the large bulk of wealth and power on the planet inhabits a little over 6,000 people, most of whom he has at some point or other met.
They all know each other, is Rothkopf's point, and they know and like each other a lot better and have much more in common with each other than they have with the rest of us, the untermenschen.
Rothkopf's qualifying criteria for his chosen few is admittedly somewhat arbitrary. But power is not a simply transparent thing to measure, any more than wealth is.
But it works out at an exceptional few, almost entirely male, mostly white, each one a one in a million compared to the number of us who aren't part of the party.
It's also a shifting feast, with some in and some out each season in keeping with current policies and fashions.
So Bono and Peter Sutherland are in, Mary Robinson and John Bruton are too, Bertie was until recently, but McAleese and Cowen never were and likely never will be.
Whether you accept this tiny coterie of the superclass as a beneficent oligarchy or not, that's what they amount to. Democracy is little more than tokenism and the methodology for ensuring a small crack open to permit new blood.
Their loyalties, ultimately, are to ensuring they can have the air-con on full blast while Delhi swelters. Their interest in the underbelly is only to make sure they stay above it.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
I know nothing about the budget
I'm abroad and I've been deliberately ignoring all news from home. We all need a break.
So, I've heard nothing about the budget and now I'm afraid to look.
Could someone break the news to me gently?
(I'm assuming it's bad.)
So, I've heard nothing about the budget and now I'm afraid to look.
Could someone break the news to me gently?
(I'm assuming it's bad.)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Cowboys and Indians
I'm forsaking the cowboys of the Irish economy for a well-deserved rest from the recession.
I'm off to India for a couple of weeks or so instead.
Firstly to remind myself what real poverty looks like, after having been affected by the weeping and gnashing of teeth from the buy-to-let 09 beemer class in Dublin.
But also because I want to see what an economy on the up, built on actual industry and not on bubbles or bullshit looks like.
By the time you read this, I'll be en route or there already. I may or may not post while I'm away. I will try to pop in and read any comments, though.
So happy Easter, y'all. See you on the other side.
I'm off to India for a couple of weeks or so instead.
Firstly to remind myself what real poverty looks like, after having been affected by the weeping and gnashing of teeth from the buy-to-let 09 beemer class in Dublin.
But also because I want to see what an economy on the up, built on actual industry and not on bubbles or bullshit looks like.
By the time you read this, I'll be en route or there already. I may or may not post while I'm away. I will try to pop in and read any comments, though.
So happy Easter, y'all. See you on the other side.
Friday, April 03, 2009
What the government is really doing
The current titles of our Government departments are almost meaningless. They certainly are bearing increasingly little relevance to their actual tasks.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, for example. Seriously? There is no enterprise in Ireland worth talking about, trade's gone down the shitter with the sterling and dollar exchange rates and employment is a distant dream.
So I propose that we start renaming the departments to reflect what the Government is actually doing.
Department of Health and Children:
Department of Privatising and Outsourcing Health
Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform:
Department of Enabling Nigerian Asylum Scammers and letting Scumbags out on Bail
Department of Foreign Affairs:
Department of Letting Britain run the North and letting Europe run the rest of the country
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food:
Department of Paying Farmers to do Nothing
Department of Social and Family Affairs:
Department of Welfare Tourism for Eastern Europeans
Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs:
Department of Unjustifiable Grants for Pretending to Speak Irish at Home
Department of Transport:
Department of Repeatedly Taxing Motorists
Department of Defence:
Department of the Ministerial Helicopter Taxi Service
Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government:
Department of Putting Motorways through National Historic Monuments
Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism:
Department of Subsidising Bono and Gerry Ryan, and Begging rich Yanks to Visit
Department of Education and Science:
Department of Subjecting Kids to Squalor and Overcrowding
Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources:
Department of Suppressing Broadband and Giving Ireland's Oil and Gas Away for Free
But I imagine you could do better?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
I hate drunks
I don't mind tipsy people. Or merry people.
I don't mind people who enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner.
I actively seek out the company of people who appreciate the virtues of a good whiskey.
I don't mind people who go out for a few pints once or twice a week.
I DO mind people who have destructive drinking habits, who cause rows or violence when drunk, who fail to accept that their drinking is problematic, who end up in A+E with self-inflicted injuries, who drink unhealthy volumes on an almost daily basis, often on their own.
I mind the arguments and hurt they cause, the vomit they produce, their unreasonability, the stink of alcohol on their breath, their red, rolling eyes, their slurred speech, their failure to see the harm their dysfunctional drinking causes.
If we were starting over with our drug laws, we'd probably ban alcohol. Which from my point of view would be sad, because I genuinely do appreciate a good whiskey, a fresh artisan beer, a carefully distilled gin, a finely matured wine.
But I think I'd actually accept prohibition of alcohol if I could be sure it would rid our world of 100% of arsehole drunks. It wouldn't of course, because prohibition doesn't work.
So I guess we're stuck with the drunks and their fucking up. Presumably they're all someones sons (or daughters.) Probably they were all decent skins once before their drinking got out of hand. Or maybe not.
I don't care. They're a pain in the arse and they are conduits of misery, spreading it like a cold in November among everyone else.
I fucking hate drunks.
I don't mind people who enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner.
I actively seek out the company of people who appreciate the virtues of a good whiskey.
I don't mind people who go out for a few pints once or twice a week.
I DO mind people who have destructive drinking habits, who cause rows or violence when drunk, who fail to accept that their drinking is problematic, who end up in A+E with self-inflicted injuries, who drink unhealthy volumes on an almost daily basis, often on their own.
I mind the arguments and hurt they cause, the vomit they produce, their unreasonability, the stink of alcohol on their breath, their red, rolling eyes, their slurred speech, their failure to see the harm their dysfunctional drinking causes.If we were starting over with our drug laws, we'd probably ban alcohol. Which from my point of view would be sad, because I genuinely do appreciate a good whiskey, a fresh artisan beer, a carefully distilled gin, a finely matured wine.But I think I'd actually accept prohibition of alcohol if I could be sure it would rid our world of 100% of arsehole drunks. It wouldn't of course, because prohibition doesn't work.
So I guess we're stuck with the drunks and their fucking up. Presumably they're all someones sons (or daughters.) Probably they were all decent skins once before their drinking got out of hand. Or maybe not.
I don't care. They're a pain in the arse and they are conduits of misery, spreading it like a cold in November among everyone else.
I fucking hate drunks.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Battlestar Galactica as modern theology
With the recent end of long-running sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, many of the nerds were unhappy with the apparent theological conclusion to the space opera.
Moans of 'God did it! What a cop out!' seem to me to expose the huge gulf in understanding between those of a sci-fi (or scientific) bent and those of a more religious one.
One of the things I greatly appreciated about this fine TV show was its many attempts to incorporate difficult contemporary debates into its story arc.
It questioned the nature of democracy and its tendency towards demagoguery. It examined the legitimacy or otherwise of terrorist insurgency when under occupation. These were brave, maybe even dangerous discussions to hold in Dubya's America.
And by bringing them to the TV-consuming sheeple, one might even say that the producers and scriptwriters of BSG were serving a vital purpose in providing a platform for such essential debates in the US at that time.
But the element that intrigued me the most was how BSG, of all recent dramas, gave serious airtime to relative theologies.
The human contingent of the colonies were clearly depicted as polytheist, worshipping a Greco-Romanesque pantheon known as the 'Lords of Kobol.' They believed their Gods appeared, like the Roman and Greek pantheons, to be amoral, flawed and constantly interceding in their lives.
But in many ways, the classical names masked a more Eastern polytheism. From the Gayatri Mantra that was the show's theme music, it is clear that Hindu elements played a part too.
Seers, visions, prophecies all fulfilled important roles in the human theology, implying a much more Hindu vision of polytheism than the names Ares, Apollo and so on might indicate.
On the other side of the war, the Cylons were depicted as rigid monotheists, believing in a one true God. Their Abrahamic theology is particularly focused on predestination and fate, indicating a Calvinist or Jansenist vision of progression that is at odds with the concept of free will - which makes sense in the context of software for a brain.
Others have discerned elements of Mormonism in the show, while some have even posited the thought that the a la carte approach to belief systems presented in BSG could be a template for the future of religious faith in America.
And in its depiction of how women gathered around Gaius Baltar, the programme showed clearly how guru cults are formed, which is the point of origin for all religions we know today, be it an Abraham cult, a Jesus cult, or a Krishna, Buddha or Mohammed cult.
The ending of the series, however, resolved itself in a concept of human history as cyclical, requiring enlightenment of those involved in order to break a cycle of suffering, illusion and destruction.
This, in a nutshell, is the core belief of Buddhism. But even that Buddhist finale was undercut by a vision of angels on the streets of Manhattan, speculating about the amoral, Manichean nature of a solitary godhead.
The result is that the series offered a melange of theological positions, and gave each its own space to be considered in conjunction and in opposition to others.
It's rare these days to see such serious considerations of theology outside of factual documentaries featuring Michael Wood or the like. I for one welcome it.
I hope that one day someone qualified will produce some good academic research that teases out all of the relative theologies and their relationships with science and technology in this superlative TV show.
Some people have made initial attempts, and I suppose this post is mine.
In the meantime, perhaps it will have provoked pause for thought among its many viewers, who may not have been exposed, or taken seriously, other theological positions before. It's possible that the viewers may also take the same a la carte approach to religious beliefs as the authors of the show did while writing it.
I don't see that as anything other than positive. Exposing oneself to alternative beliefs is a creative and productive process, one that destroys sectarian interests and broadens the mind and one's conception of the universe.
And for the nerds who moaned about the presence of God in a fiction, I think they've missed the point and been blinded by their own blinkered attachment to the concept that science is atheistic.
It need not be, as recent research indicates.
I'm an atheist, but I loved the spirituality and relative theologies present in BSG. I hope the debates it raised will run in its viewers' minds long after the show is consigned to late-night satellite station re-runs.
PS: I claim 'Geek of the Week' for learning off the Gayatri Mantra as set to the music of the BSG soundtrack. Maybe that's enlightened of me, or maybe it's just sad. I dunno. But I do find it very soothing.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Taoiseach has no clothes
UPDATE!
I called the Gardai to ask, in the light of their raid on the offices of Today FM, how many man hours had so far been expended on investigating the non-crime of placing pictures in galleries.
They said they couldn't tell me because the investigation is 'ongoing'. I asked what crime they were investigating, and they said they were unable to tell me. Go figure!
This country gets more and more GUBU by the day.
Yesterday, it emerged that some genius had not only painted passable portraits of Brian Cowen in his birthday suit, but had also smuggled them into the National Gallery and the RHA gallery and then hung them on the walls!
As a form of peaceful protest, highlighting how Cowen is full of shit and how the emperor has no clothes, it was a fantastic act altogether and highly successful, given the media coverage it received.
You'd think those in power might note the message being conveyed. But no. Instead, they responded like the Soviet politburo of old, who brooked no criticism of the glorious leader no matter how mild.
The Gardai were called, and are seeking the guerrilla artist with the intent, no doubt, of sending him off to the gulag for 're-education.'
And now the national broadcaster has been forced by Zanu-FF to air a grovelling apology to the Taoiseach and his family (just how are they affected by a painting, may I ask?)
In reality, of course, it is Brian Cowen who should be apologising to everyone of us. Clearly there is no limit to the hubris, arrogance and puffed up self-importance of the government.
Perhaps they need more reminders that in fact they are not the statesmen they imagine in their heads, but are in fact a corrupt little cabal of one-time teachers, housewives, rural solicitors and the like who lucked out by either inheriting Daddy's rotten borough or else glad handing the right backers.
Some talented individual out there took time and effort to make a witty and genuine criticism of our political leaders and now the thought police are out searching for them while those in power seek to silence all such criticism.
If ever proof of the artist's thesis was required, that is it. They ARE full of shit. And the Emperor DOES have no clothes.
(And RTE remain the spineless lapdogs they always have been, needless to add.)
I called the Gardai to ask, in the light of their raid on the offices of Today FM, how many man hours had so far been expended on investigating the non-crime of placing pictures in galleries.
They said they couldn't tell me because the investigation is 'ongoing'. I asked what crime they were investigating, and they said they were unable to tell me. Go figure!
This country gets more and more GUBU by the day.
Yesterday, it emerged that some genius had not only painted passable portraits of Brian Cowen in his birthday suit, but had also smuggled them into the National Gallery and the RHA gallery and then hung them on the walls!
As a form of peaceful protest, highlighting how Cowen is full of shit and how the emperor has no clothes, it was a fantastic act altogether and highly successful, given the media coverage it received.
You'd think those in power might note the message being conveyed. But no. Instead, they responded like the Soviet politburo of old, who brooked no criticism of the glorious leader no matter how mild.
The Gardai were called, and are seeking the guerrilla artist with the intent, no doubt, of sending him off to the gulag for 're-education.'
And now the national broadcaster has been forced by Zanu-FF to air a grovelling apology to the Taoiseach and his family (just how are they affected by a painting, may I ask?)
In reality, of course, it is Brian Cowen who should be apologising to everyone of us. Clearly there is no limit to the hubris, arrogance and puffed up self-importance of the government.
Perhaps they need more reminders that in fact they are not the statesmen they imagine in their heads, but are in fact a corrupt little cabal of one-time teachers, housewives, rural solicitors and the like who lucked out by either inheriting Daddy's rotten borough or else glad handing the right backers.
Some talented individual out there took time and effort to make a witty and genuine criticism of our political leaders and now the thought police are out searching for them while those in power seek to silence all such criticism.
If ever proof of the artist's thesis was required, that is it. They ARE full of shit. And the Emperor DOES have no clothes.
(And RTE remain the spineless lapdogs they always have been, needless to add.)
Friday, March 20, 2009
The Irish Whiskey Tasting Championships
This is what Mammy Skinner raised me for, I have no doubt.
Last night I achieved a podium finish in the Irish Whiskey Tasting Championships!
I came third, and won a nice bottle of Connemara Cask Strength which I suspect will get polished off by my better half.
This marks a modest but notable improvement on my respectable joint fourth finish in the Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship last Summer.
Fair play to the lads at the Celtic Whiskey Shop for organising the event.
Hopefully one day the nascent Irish Whiskey Society will take over the reins of running the tasting competition, though.
There were some very interesting drams included in the tasting last night, which meant that everyone had a chance to taste something new to them.
I was especially pleased to try the now legendary Red Breast 15 year old again, and the sherried Connemara single cask.
Needless to say, my head hurts this morning!
Last night I achieved a podium finish in the Irish Whiskey Tasting Championships!
I came third, and won a nice bottle of Connemara Cask Strength which I suspect will get polished off by my better half.
This marks a modest but notable improvement on my respectable joint fourth finish in the Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship last Summer.
Fair play to the lads at the Celtic Whiskey Shop for organising the event.
Hopefully one day the nascent Irish Whiskey Society will take over the reins of running the tasting competition, though.
There were some very interesting drams included in the tasting last night, which meant that everyone had a chance to taste something new to them.
I was especially pleased to try the now legendary Red Breast 15 year old again, and the sherried Connemara single cask.
Needless to say, my head hurts this morning!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Happy (Saint) Paddy's bingefest 09
Well, it seems the annual bingefest is upon us.
Soon, deluded Americans will stand, shivering, on O'Connell Street in Dublin, perplexed at a series of crap floats trundling by in the drizzle.
Later, locals decked out like leprechauns will commence binge drinking in earnest, while their teenage children pass out mid-afternoon from too many Smirnoff WKDs, or have sex in public.
Later again, very drunk people will urinate on each other, vomit on each other, punch each other until blood flows from each other.
Eventually, everyone will pass out, get up late for work the following day and limp in ruefully clutching a handful of paracetemol.
When did celebrating a Christian feast day become this horror show?
You'd think, well, the one positive element of this tawdry annual bacchanalia is that at least it can't get any worse. I've news for you. Sure, it can.
I heard the head of the 'St Patrick's Festival' on the radio yesterday morning. He's reportedly a very nice chap, Donal Sheils by name. He's only the front man for the event, so in a sense cannot be personally blamed for everything.
A priest rang in to complain, legitimately in my opinion and I'm an avowed atheist, that it was ridiculous that Christian themes were barred from the St Patrick's parade.
This festival bod Shiels then wittered on about how the 'festival' wasn't anything to do with a Christian saint - it was a 'celebration of the people and the country' and therefore couldn't have any narrow religious elements whatsoever.
Then he added - to my growing incredulity - that "there will be a float entitled 'City Fusion' in the parade, celebrating 20 different nationalities and 14 different religions will be represented on that."
So, in short: St Patrick's day is neither a day (it's a festival) nor is it anything to do with a Christian saint.
Instead, it's a secular inclusivist 'celebration' of Ireland and the Irish. Hmmm. But let's run with even that debased and state-enforced definition. If it's a celebration of Ireland and the Irish people, then what are they doing with a float with 20 nationalities on board from 14 different religions?
I couldn't care less for the annual bingefest. At it's best it was self-regarding kitsch, and at its very best it was self-regarding kitsch enacted by diaspora descendants in other places. After all, the first parades were in New York.
But as if the annual bingeathon wasn't bad enough, this multi-culti state-funded gobshitery that St Patrick's Day has been turned into is a classic of that odious genre - the public celebration designed by committee.
It represents neither me nor my nation, and consciously denies the feast's origins in Christianity. It is, in short, a state-enforced propaganda spectacle, aimed at proselytising a specific political ideology while seeking to destroy existing ones.
St Patrick's Day, in the hands of Donal Shiels and his paymasters, has become Ireland's Arirang - a thought-police spectacle:
The thought police ideology is, like all such ideologies, utterly simplistic:
Catholic Ireland - bad. Christian Ireland - bad. Irish Ireland - still bad.
But secular Ireland - good. Multicultural Ireland - very good.
Mention of celebrating Patrick's Christianising of Ireland is officially verboten. Instead, we're permitted only state-vetted Paddywhackery with an obligatory side dish of multiculturalism.
The irony is that when the Orla Barry radio show went onto the streets to ask people what the festival meant to them, not one of the foreign born respondents said it meant anything to them other than a reason to drink Guinness, perhaps.
I'm proud to be Irish - not all of the time, but most of the time. I'm proud of Ireland, again not all of the time, but most of the time. One of the times I'm ashamed to be both is on a day when we're told to ignore the origins of our culture and debase it into kitsch and alcohol.
Count me out.
Soon, deluded Americans will stand, shivering, on O'Connell Street in Dublin, perplexed at a series of crap floats trundling by in the drizzle.
Later, locals decked out like leprechauns will commence binge drinking in earnest, while their teenage children pass out mid-afternoon from too many Smirnoff WKDs, or have sex in public.
Later again, very drunk people will urinate on each other, vomit on each other, punch each other until blood flows from each other.
Eventually, everyone will pass out, get up late for work the following day and limp in ruefully clutching a handful of paracetemol.
When did celebrating a Christian feast day become this horror show?
You'd think, well, the one positive element of this tawdry annual bacchanalia is that at least it can't get any worse. I've news for you. Sure, it can.
I heard the head of the 'St Patrick's Festival' on the radio yesterday morning. He's reportedly a very nice chap, Donal Sheils by name. He's only the front man for the event, so in a sense cannot be personally blamed for everything.
A priest rang in to complain, legitimately in my opinion and I'm an avowed atheist, that it was ridiculous that Christian themes were barred from the St Patrick's parade.
This festival bod Shiels then wittered on about how the 'festival' wasn't anything to do with a Christian saint - it was a 'celebration of the people and the country' and therefore couldn't have any narrow religious elements whatsoever.
Then he added - to my growing incredulity - that "there will be a float entitled 'City Fusion' in the parade, celebrating 20 different nationalities and 14 different religions will be represented on that."
So, in short: St Patrick's day is neither a day (it's a festival) nor is it anything to do with a Christian saint.
Instead, it's a secular inclusivist 'celebration' of Ireland and the Irish. Hmmm. But let's run with even that debased and state-enforced definition. If it's a celebration of Ireland and the Irish people, then what are they doing with a float with 20 nationalities on board from 14 different religions?
I couldn't care less for the annual bingefest. At it's best it was self-regarding kitsch, and at its very best it was self-regarding kitsch enacted by diaspora descendants in other places. After all, the first parades were in New York.
But as if the annual bingeathon wasn't bad enough, this multi-culti state-funded gobshitery that St Patrick's Day has been turned into is a classic of that odious genre - the public celebration designed by committee.
It represents neither me nor my nation, and consciously denies the feast's origins in Christianity. It is, in short, a state-enforced propaganda spectacle, aimed at proselytising a specific political ideology while seeking to destroy existing ones.
St Patrick's Day, in the hands of Donal Shiels and his paymasters, has become Ireland's Arirang - a thought-police spectacle:
The thought police ideology is, like all such ideologies, utterly simplistic:
Catholic Ireland - bad. Christian Ireland - bad. Irish Ireland - still bad.
But secular Ireland - good. Multicultural Ireland - very good.
Mention of celebrating Patrick's Christianising of Ireland is officially verboten. Instead, we're permitted only state-vetted Paddywhackery with an obligatory side dish of multiculturalism.
The irony is that when the Orla Barry radio show went onto the streets to ask people what the festival meant to them, not one of the foreign born respondents said it meant anything to them other than a reason to drink Guinness, perhaps.
I'm proud to be Irish - not all of the time, but most of the time. I'm proud of Ireland, again not all of the time, but most of the time. One of the times I'm ashamed to be both is on a day when we're told to ignore the origins of our culture and debase it into kitsch and alcohol.
Count me out.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Saturday, March 07, 2009
UN prohibitionist website hacked
The UN office on Drugs and Crime, long run by notorious "Drugs are baaaad, mkay?" moron Antonio Costa, has had its website wonderfully hacked.
Before normal prohibitionist service is resumed, I thought I'd take a screengrab of their hacked jobs page for all to see and enjoy.
While it's still up, feel free to enjoy reading some sense about drugs policies on the UNODC's website for possibly the first time ever here.
But you better be quick. They'll be back to hiring shills to sell the world on prohibition very soon.
Congrats to the publicly minded IT wizards behind this splendid hack.
Before normal prohibitionist service is resumed, I thought I'd take a screengrab of their hacked jobs page for all to see and enjoy.
While it's still up, feel free to enjoy reading some sense about drugs policies on the UNODC's website for possibly the first time ever here.But you better be quick. They'll be back to hiring shills to sell the world on prohibition very soon.
Congrats to the publicly minded IT wizards behind this splendid hack.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Football without the bollocks
Football without the divas.
Football without the multimillionaire brats smashing up Ferraris and getting arrested in nightclubs.
Football without the Beckham soap opera.
Football without the expensive flight abroad, mandatory overpriced two nights in craphole hotel and dreadful seats so high in the stadium you'd get a nosebleed.
Football without the fawning commentary from bitter ex-pros with vapid insights who missed out on the lottery cheque paydays.
Football without the mind-numbingly bland autobiographies, ghostwritten by anonymous sports hacks who don't get credited, that invariably feature a chapter on kicking a ball against a wall as a kid, a chapter on cleaning someone's boots, and a chapter on their debut game, but entirely gloss over the teen roastings, coke snortings, attacks on people in nightclubs, rows with t he trophy WAG in the mansion and six figure gambling debts.
Football without the bribed refs, fixed matches and corruption scandals.
Football without the Sky Sports network dictating the kick-off time.
But...
Football with the passion, the skill, the talent, the excitement, the drama.
Football played by ordinary guys in your local area at a reasonable ticket price where you can get right up close to the pitch without remortgaging your house.
Football with heart, with soul, with community.
Football as it used to be and ought to be.
Welcome back, the League of Ireland. Go watch your local team this season.
Football without the multimillionaire brats smashing up Ferraris and getting arrested in nightclubs.
Football without the Beckham soap opera.
Football without the expensive flight abroad, mandatory overpriced two nights in craphole hotel and dreadful seats so high in the stadium you'd get a nosebleed.
Football without the fawning commentary from bitter ex-pros with vapid insights who missed out on the lottery cheque paydays.
Football without the mind-numbingly bland autobiographies, ghostwritten by anonymous sports hacks who don't get credited, that invariably feature a chapter on kicking a ball against a wall as a kid, a chapter on cleaning someone's boots, and a chapter on their debut game, but entirely gloss over the teen roastings, coke snortings, attacks on people in nightclubs, rows with t he trophy WAG in the mansion and six figure gambling debts.
Football without the bribed refs, fixed matches and corruption scandals.
Football without the Sky Sports network dictating the kick-off time.
But...
Football with the passion, the skill, the talent, the excitement, the drama.
Football played by ordinary guys in your local area at a reasonable ticket price where you can get right up close to the pitch without remortgaging your house.
Football with heart, with soul, with community.
Football as it used to be and ought to be.
Welcome back, the League of Ireland. Go watch your local team this season.
Monday, March 02, 2009
The Celtic Tiger disease
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Image courtesy of The Community Voice.I was listening to Start The Week tonight. (Well, it beats watching Prime Time, obviously.)
Epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson was on explaining how come a disease researcher like him ended up penning a book about why societies need to be more equal.
His book is top of my 'must buy and read' list already. But if I got him right, basically he was researching illness caused by lifestyle (stress, obesity and so on) and found it more prevalent in the most unequal societies, even if they were overall very affluent.
By contrast, more equal societies like Sweden have much lower levels of all these social and personal ills, despite having less disposable income overall.
Then he looked into things like violence, and found again that deeply unequal societies have the worst violence. What was really interesting was that he discovered that the very rich elites in these societies suffer too. Their wealth merely takes the edge off the risks.
He made the very good point that in such unequal societies - America, Britain, us, but also places like Singapore and Portugal, as well as the obvious African despotocracies - everyone suffers from status anxiety.
In other words, having the big car is no comfort because someone richer has a bigger car. And meanwhile, everyone works harder to earn the money which they then squander on such status symbols instead of using it usefully to develop their lives and society in a genuinely positive way.
Any of this sound familiar?
This goes to the core of the Celtic Tiger lie. The rising tide may well have lifted many of the boats (although you'll always meet plenty of people who it completely passed by.) But it didn't improve Irish society or make our lives more fulfilling and happier.
Instead it made us work harder to live in worse conditions (boxy apartments in dormitory estates miles from anywhere) in order to support the ostentatious consumption that was thrust forth as the be all and end all of our human existence.
Now that the Irish people are finally waking up from the nightmare, we can come to acknowledge that the squandering of the wealth we created wasn't just the fault of bankers, politicians and a golden circle, culpable though they all are.
We're all collectively responsible, and that can be seen in the fruits of our labour. The Celtic Tiger disease is best expressed by what we wasted our money on.
The rise of vacuous celebrity magazines, trumpeting the values of vapidity like the Beckhams or Jade Goody is possibly the most defining symptom of our collective disease.
So was the proliferation of bling, the pointless plumage of the self-obsessed. As were the overt penis-extensions like the big cars, the McMansions and the endless foreign holidays where people went to ever more exotic locales with the sole intent of boasting of it afterwards.
There is a cure for both this emptiness and for the deep social inequality that caused it. But that cure is currently a dirty word. Don't believe me? Listen to the shills scaremongering.
Let's start with a personal favourite, the Sunday Independent, mouthpiece of 'Sir' Tony O'Reilly, the man who got our gas and oil for nothing who now resides as a tax exile in Barbados and who closed Waterford Crystal, such is his commitment to our economy.
Here's his trustworthy senior journalist Jody Corcoran, a hack who previously excelled himself by accusing the late Liam Lawler of being with a prostitute when he died in a Moscow car crash (the poor woman was his interpreter.)
According to Jody, there is a battle for the hearts and minds of Ireland, and our Jody fears - gulp - that the battle may already be lost. Apparently the future of Ireland is socialism.
Yup, the S word. The word that the neo-cons successfully, and utterly inaccurately, linked so directly to Soviet gulags and Stalinist purges, to Mao's mayhem and famine and death, that even socialists themselves rapidly felt the need to rebrand as social democrats all over the world.
The word that Bertie Ahern once risibly sought to claim.
Socialism, the big boogyman, the dangerous ideology that would destroy our society.
How did we not see this 'reds under the bed' nonsense for what it is the SECOND time they played us with it? The truth is that it was the exact opposite of socialism, the inane, greed-driven inequity at the heart of neo-conservatism that destroyed what was good about Ireland.
I hope Corcoran is right (that's possibly a first for me.) I hope the future of Ireland IS socialism and for one very simple reason - we already tried the alternative he and his ex-pat billionaire employer espouse, and it's brought us to the brink of destruction.
We've destroyed our social cohesion, squandered our wealth and bankrupted our nation, while simultaneously abandoning the sickest in society to the vicissitudes of Harney's marketplace, and beggaring our young families on lifetime long mortgages for piss-poor accommodation.
Don't let the very people who beggared you, who stole your healthcare and social services, who sold you on extreme debt to fund crap you don't need that enriched only their already obscene bank balances - don't let them scare you any more.
The only way out of our current crisis is to recognise it for what it is, and wake up from the nightmare we sleepwalked into. The way out is to build a more equal society. The way out is to adopt the one political vision that this country has never tried in its entire history.
The disease, as Dr Wilkinson rightly diagnoses, is that we replaced a slightly unequal society with a desperately acutely unequal one.
The cure for that inequality is socialism.
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