Archive for November, 2010

Irish Examiner promotes censorship

November 18th, 2010

The good news just keeps rolling in.

The dominant news is of course the end of our financial sovereignty.  We are now beholden to Europe and have to accept that we are bold children and all our work has to be inspected and passed by teacher before we can submit it.

Be that as it may, I have learned of another lovely snippet of news.

Censorship is now alive and well in the media.

The Irish Examiner has stated [and I quote] -

“John, the editor says there is no way he going to allow his paper to
be used in any way as a vehicle for a lobby  - funded or not – that
condones or promotes the consumption of a hazardous subject  - legal
or not. “

This of course refers to letters about smoking.  The editor is quite willing to give a platform for any halfwit or crank that wants to express their views about the evils of the pernicious weed but does not allow any counter arguments.  So if I write to The Examiner and casually mention that I enjoy a puff on the pipe, I am instantly labelled as a vehicle and am banned.

I always thought freedom of speech meant that anything was accepted provided it was not libellous, was accurate and was relevant.  I have views that a lot of people would find repugnant, and I not only defend my right to air those views but also defend the right of people to oppose them.  I have never moderated views on this site provided they fit the criteria.  I recently stopped a couple of comments about Roisin Ingle, because they were a tirade of abuse against the woman, and while I may agree with some of the sentiments expressed, I refused to publish.  There have been comments that were directed against me, and that is fine.  I always publish them.

The Examiner is a national newspaper, not a parochial rag.  It has a duty to perform and part of that duty is to allow free speech without any bias from the editor.  Yet here we have an editor censoring views purely because he disagrees with them.

I would love to know if The Examiner is going to refuse advertising from the drinks trade.  Is there to be no mention of cars in the small ads?  Either the editor should wholly endorse the Nanny State or he should back off.

Wanker.

Preparing for the future

November 17th, 2010

I suppose I had better think about learning my new national language?

Fuck!

I hate German.

How to cheer the country up

November 16th, 2010

I have a little idea.

It’s not an earth shattering one, but it could save a lot of lives and would cheer the country up no end.

Here in Ireland we have this thing on the television at six in the evening just before the early news.  It’s a hangover from the days when Ireland was dominated by the Catholic Church.  They call it the Angelus, and it takes the form of a dull one minute clip of film and the sound is the dreary sound of a single bell tolling.  It is enough to send anyone to an overdose.

All I propose is that they put something else in that slot: something to cheer us up so that the impending news won’t seem quite so bad.

I put the idea to herself and she thought it was a great idea.  She says that all my ideas are great, but this time I think she meant it.  She suggested a one minute clip of a baby giggling or a cute puppy doing something silly.

I had been thinking along slightly different lines.

How about a one minute clip of Cowen facing the firing squad?

How about CCTV footage of Harney being refused admission for an emergency operation because there are no available beds?

How about film of Fingleton living in the gutter with the winos?

I could with those clips an endless number of times and I imagine I would still laugh every time.

The possibilities are endless.

I think it’s a great idea anyway……

Dustin for Taoiseach

November 15th, 2010

I am heartily sick of hearing about our Gubmint and the IMF.

Every day there are rumours and counter-rumours, and quite frankly I don’t believe any of it.  Leastwise, anything our Gubmint says, I automatically believe the opposite.  They are such accomplished liars, and they genuinely seem to think that people believe the shite they come up with.

They say the Gubmint isn’t thinking of a default on debts.  This actually means that the Gubmint is thinking of defaulting.

They say they haven’t approached the IMF.  This means they have.

They honestly think that they can con the financial markets by saying that everything here is rosy, and they express utter amazement that the markets don’t believe them.  Why the fuck should the markets believe them when the dogs in the street know that they are a pathetic bunch of culchie arseholes who will spin any fucking yarn to save their own skins?

There is only one thing that will calm the markets and that is a change of government.

Just look at the logic.  Why the fuck should the market trust a government that is the very same government that got the country into a mess in the first place and who have done nothing since except run around in circles protesting that the sky isn’t going to fall on us?  I know i personally wouldn’t invest a red cent in Ireland at the moment all the time those incompetent fuckers are in charge.

We need a new government.  It doesn’t matter a damn who that government is.  It could be an opposition party or it could be  the Irish Countrywoman’s Association.  All that matters is that it isn’t the same shower of shites that got us into the mess in the first place.

It has reached the stage that the current crop are destroying the country by their very presence.  Every day they stay in power is another act of treason.

In all seriousness, even Dustin would be fine by me.

He couldn’t be any worse

Grandfather’s clock

November 14th, 2010

There is an old clock in the kitchen here.

When I say ‘old’, I confess I don’t know its exact age but it is somewhere in the region of sixty to seventy years old.

It’s one of those office type clocks that you see on office walls – large, round and with numerals to match.  It’s the kind of clock that office workers throughout the world keep an eye on to check if it’s coffee break time, and how long they have to slave before going home.

Someone once pointed out that the clock is unusual, in that the big red second hand doesn’t clunk around like modern clocks, but glides smoothly and silently as if it has all the time in the world, which I suppose it has.

It’s mains driven and extremely accurate…..  Except when it stops of course.

I dropped it a couple of years ago.  I thought that was the end of it, but I only knocked a chunk out of the casing, and smashed the glass.  I kept the bits of casing ‘just in case’.

Last week the clock stopped.  Normally it needs a bit of a kick if there has been an interruption of power, but this time it stopped for no reason at all.  “Aha!”  I says to myself. “The old man has died”.

Since it stopped, it has been hanging there, quietly saying it’s a quarter to five.  I never realised how much I look at that clock, as I am reminded many times during the day that it is deceased.  The only reason I left it hanging there is that the last time I painted the walls, I didn’t bother painting behind the clock, so there is a dirty great circle of grey up there.

Today, I decided to do something about it.  I’m not quite sure what I intended to do with it, but I carefully removed it from the wall.  I dismantled it and plunged up to my elbows into its innards.  The motor is tiny compared to the clock itself, and it’s full of those fiddly little screws.  I stripped it down and found that the oil from the last splurge of maintenance has viscified.  Is there any such word as viscified?  There should be.  The act of becoming more viscous?  Anyhow, I cleaned it up and applied fresh oil.  Seeing as I had it off the wall I also glued back the bits of casing that have been at the back of the cupboard for the last couple of years.

It’s back on the wall now.  It is silently and accurately telling me the time of day.

The old man ain’t dead yet.

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