Santa's Wonderland Update

Following on from my earlier post - it was meant to look like this.

http://magic8ball.has-the-best-website.com/LaplandVillage_About.html

Sounds like Fr Ted

In what sounds like a scene from Fr. Ted, an English company offered a Winter Wonderland completed with real log cabins, a nativity scene, husky dogs and other animals, as well as a "bustling" Christmas market for the bargain price of £25 per person, click on the link to see what that gets ya these days. has to been seen to be believed.

link

Behold the Christmas market!



Marvel at the wonderful animals in their natural environment!

The worst is over

I've been hearing this a lot lately, especially concerning house prices

Brokers Believe Worst Is Over and Recommend Buying of Real Bargains

Wall Street in looking over the wreckage of the week, has come generally to the opinion that high grade investment issues can be bought now, without fear of a drastic decline. There is some difference of opinion as to whether not the correction must go further, but everyone realizes that the worst is over, and that there are bargains for those who are willing to buy conservatively and live through the immediate irregularity.

-- New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1929

Don't believe a word of it myself...
lifted from Seeing The Forest.

(Edited 17.11.2008, forgot to add last sentence)

Gnomes are not real!

This is really funny;

The gnomes, along with plastic flowers and other decorations such as teddy bears, have been called "inappropriate" and tacky by the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

The church banned the garden figures from Wrington and Congresbury cemeteries in Somerset, and have said they will remove any that they find as part of new guidelines issued by the Chancellor of the Diocese, Worshipful Timothy Briden.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Bath and Wells said: "There is no such thing as a real gnome so why should we have such unnatural creatures in churchyards?"

link.

thanks to Pharngula for the link

The Crash

On the day that Ireland officially enters recession here is an interesting interview on the roots of the crash;

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09192008/watch2.html

There has been lots of coverage of the proposed bailout by the US government, an interesting clause in this plan would, in effect, make the US Treasury Secretary one of the most powerful dictators in the world;

"Section 8. Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." In other words, no lawsuits allowed by aggrieved investors or American taxpayers. No complaints later from ignorant pols who didn't know what they voted for. Take it or leave it, suckers.

link

Atomic TV

Amazing this.

Seven Czech artists who faked a nuclear explosion in a stunt broadcast live on national television were acquitted yesterday of spreading false information, escaping a potential prison term of up to three years.

The Ztohoven group of young artists admitted hacking into a live panoramic broadcast of the Krkonose Mountains in the north of the country on June 17 last year, after climbing a television tower to attach a computer.

I have to admit it would have fooled and frightened me, fair play to the lads

Religion in Ireland

Todays Irish Examiner has a study of Religion in Ireland, they contrast the latest poll results with the results in previous years;

the proportion in Ireland who said they believed in God

• In 1981 it stood at 97%
• In 1990 it was 98%
• In 1999 it was 96%
• In 2008 it is now 84%

Numbers attending mass or other religious service on a weekly basis.

• In 1981 the figure was 82%
• In 1990 it was 81%
• In 1999 it was 59%
• In 2008 it is now 45%

Numbers who say they pray, be it regularly or just on occasions.

• In 1981 the figure was 81.5%
• In 1990 it was 84%
• In 1999 it was 82%
• In 2008 it is now 84%

I was pleasantly surprised by the drop in the number of believers and not at all surprised by the drop in religious observation. However that fact that so many people still pray shows that a lot of people still have 'faith'.

Praying has been described (by Dawkins I think) as "the temporary suspension of the laws of the universe to benefit an individual" which, when you put it like that, shows just how ridiculous it is and yet it's as popular as ever. Why?

I suppose you could say something about the stress of modern living but my guess would be two fold.

First, these people are hedging. They understand the religious institutions are corrupt and out of date but they want to believe in "something" as, after all, faith is continuously portrayed a necessary trait of any happy, well rounded individual. Plus, if you don't think about it too much, the god you where raised to believe might just exist and it's better to be safe than sorry. And finally there is also all that brainwashing to deal with which is way to much hassle especially when you don't realise you've been brain washed.

Secondly (and worryingly) I think many people don't realise they have the option of giving up faith. I'm coming around to Sam Harris' point of view that we don't need the word "Atheism" as it has so many negative connotations many people back away from it on instinct alone. If I'm right about this then the enlightenment message isn't penetrating very deeply into our society which means the creepy old virgins and their minions have a firm a grip as ever on the levers of power in this country.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke

Science Fiction God Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday. Every mention of his death includes a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey which to my mind is more Kubrick's achievement. What Clarke did do was write some terrific and influential novels, Childhoods End being so influential in fact that most people have never heard of it, but everyone knows the image of gigantic spaceships hovering over the worlds cities.

Ahmadinejad in Iraq

I didn't hear much about this so this post was an eye opener.

How interesting that Ahmadinejad, unlike a U.S. president who has to be airlifted unannounced into ultra-secure bases, was able to convoy in from the airport in broad daylight on a road that U.S. dignitaries fear to travel. His love fest with Iraq President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who fought on Iran's side against Iraq and who speaks Farsi, even took place outside of the safety of the Green Zone, adding emphasis to Ahmadinejad's claim that while he is welcome in Iraq, the Americans are not.

HSE asks boy (5) to prove he 'hasn't grown a leg'

OK, well all know the public service in general and the HSE in particular are staffed by bureaucratic idiots, but this one takes the biscuit;

A mother has told how she must constantly "prove" to the HSE that her five-year-old son "hasn't grown a leg", so she can claim medical support.

Newstalk106 have been covering this story and others like it the past couple of days and apparently this story is not unique - another person has to prove their son still has autism every year or so while another has to prove her son still has cerebral palsy.

No wonder the system is so clogged, such a mind numbing waste of everyones time!

E.U. Woo's Serbia

According to the Irish Times ....

The European Union urged Serbia today to make clear it saw its future with Europe and laid out incentives on visas, education and transport to try to boost the bloc's image in the Balkans.

[snip]
But the row with Belgrade over Kosovo has raised concerns that Serbia could shun the EU and turn towards Russia in future.

This reminds me of abusive husbands to hit their wifes and then buy them flowers afterwards. How many E.U. states would be happy for some foreign power (say China) to come along, slice a part of their country off, declare it independent and then demand they be happy about it? Serbia should remember abusive boyfriends don't change and stick with Russia.

Mary Beard on Prince Harry

Mary Beard is a historian with a blog on the London Times website that I happen to like and yesterday she posted about Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan and used it to segue onto Roman Emperor's sending their relatives off to war. The post itself is pretty interesting (if you like that sort of thing) and I gathered that Mary is not a fan of either Prince Harry or war. Whats interesting however is the bile in the comments section, it's amazing. Dare to criticise a stupid war or a prince and your lynched! I've posted one of the comments below which is typical of the lyncher's, many of them seem to have a problem with the fact that Mary is a woman who should really just shut up and bake something, others appear to be a bit misty eyed by the "fight for freedom". Of course freedom should never be used to express an opinion or criticise important people.

It's presumably this kind of 'sh*te' that Harry was talking about on his return from Afghanistan recently.

Only a dullard could write such a dithering piece as this.

He's done a good job and wants to go back. What is not to lke about it all? He's just a boy who lost his mum trying to grow up and do something positive.

Stick to making jam, Mary.

A Difference take on Prince Harry's Trip

Cry 'God for Harry, England and St George'

It's better than Kitchener's "Your country needs you." Skilfully and chillingly, it speaks to this century and through the most modern media.

The Brits are eating more Free Range Chicken

Good!

Sales of factory-farmed chickens have slumped since a high-profile campaign raised awareness of the cruelty at the heart of the poultry industry and implored consumers to pay more to improve the animals' welfare.

Hopefully this trend will continue and expand.

Is this the start of an Islamic Reformation

My first guess would be "doubt it", but one never knows. Anyway, from the BBC comes this story of Turkish attempts to modernise the religion;

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.

I really can't see this getting very far, the Vatican was able to update (somewhat) Roman Catholicism because

1. There is a single head of the organisation
2. It already had the Protestant examples to pick from
3. It was already 300 years overdue
   

Clearly this revision is picking from modern humanist principles a.k.a. "The Secular West" so I can't imagine any firebrand mullah worth his salt won't be able to shoot this down as an evil zionist plot or something. Still, the match has to be light somewhere.

More on Kosovo

Kosovo declared independence last week and the mainstream western media declared it "a triumph of freedom and democracy" - so you know instantly it's not that. Via informationclearinghouse comes this essay by Paul Graig Roberts as to possible reasons why the U.S., Britain, Germany etc where so quick to recognise the breakaway province while simultaneously so quick to demonise (again) the Serb's for daring protest the ripping apart of their own country

To neocon Khalilzad a province of Serbia is nothing. It is merely real estate to be given away by US recognition bestowed on a break-away movement led by what some consider to be a gang of Muslim drug runners.

Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian response to the US giving away part of their country to be “intolerable.”

There is also this essay by Jeremy Scahill which gives a little more background to Serbia's current woes

A month before the [1999 ]bombing began, the Clinton administration issued an ultimatum to President Slobodan Milosevic, which he had to either accept unconditionally or face bombing. Known as the Rambouillet accord, it was a document that no sovereign country would have accepted. It contained a provision that would have guaranteed US and NATO forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout" all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. It also sought to immunize those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]," as well as grant the occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment." Additionally, Milosevic was told he would have to "grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the Operation, as determined by NATO." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years later, Rambouillet mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in accordance with free market principles."

[after the bombing stopped] It didn't take long for the US to begin construction of a massive US military base, Camp Bondsteel, which conveniently is located in an area of tremendous geopolitical interest to Washington. (Among its most bizarre facilities, Bondsteel now offers classes at the Laura Bush education center, as well as massages from Thai women and all the multinational junk food you could (n)ever wish for). In November 2005, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described Bondsteel as a "smaller version of Guantanamo." Oh, and Bondsteel was constructed by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Banana Republic

[News Item]
Serving Prime Minister of XXXXXX has admitted to using party funds to buy a house for this then girlfriend Ms C in the early 1990's. Although he called it a loan the money was not repayed until 15 years later during an investigation of his tax affairs. Many of Prime Ministers cabinet and and party have stated they still support the man.

Does anyone seriously think that is XXXXXX= Gordon Brown that Grordon Brown would still be in office this morning?? Yet thats exactly the situation here in Ireland. Set XXXXXX = Bertie Ahern and we get the shoulder shrugs, the "Ah Sures" and various other cute whore euphemisms. The guy is corrupt, maybe not spectacularly corrupt, but corrupt none the less - it's and embarrassment that he is leader of this country!

Listen to Newstalk 106

Over the past week Newstalk 106 have been covering the shambles our health service is in under the umbrella title "Health Famine". I've listened to some of it and its been quite good, but the worms in the HSE aren't happy with the attention and are trying to silence the station by pulling its advertising.

The HSE is meant to run our public health service however it seems it is nothing more than a bureaucratic P.R. shop intent on running the system into the ground so the whole lot can be privatised. I suppose when that's your brief you may as well undermine democracy while your at it!

As usual there's been barely a squeak from 'Official Ireland', what a feckless bunch of wankers they are!

£1.99 chicken

This is a disgrace! Tesco in the U.K. have slashed the price of a whole chicken to £1.99, the timing of this seems (to me) to be a riposte to Jamie Oliver's attempt to broaden awareness of the chicken industry to encourage consumers to be a little more ethical on the food they eat..

Tesco slashed the price of a whole chicken to £1.99 yesterday, in a move that critics warned would heap financial pressure on the poultry industry and make it harder to the improve welfare of factory-farmed animals.
....
Dr Lesley Lambert, the CIWF's director of research and education, said: "£1.99 doesn't reflect the real price of producing a chicken. At the moment, farmers make only 2p per chicken, so this will push them to the limit."

Now this is sick

Really, if the father had shot the guy in front of the judge who would have blamed him;

Driver drops bid to sue family of boy he killed

A Spanish businessman withdrew a controversial lawsuit Wednesday against the family of a teenage boy he struck and killed while driving a luxury car.

Tomas Delgado had filed a suit asking the dead boy's parents to pay him €20,000 ($29,400) on the grounds that the collision that killed their teenage son also damaged his Audi A-8.