The return of The Celtic Tiger

The return of The Celtic Tiger, a photo by Anima Fotografie on Flickr.

How the Great Satan have fallen...

Remember Neda Agha-Soltan

Murdered by the Basij militia on Kargar Avenue in Tehran last Saturday. She was buried at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, & denied a proper funeral by government authorities. The Iranian government has also issued a ban on collective prayers in mosques for Neda in the aftermath of the incident. Almost exactly 20 years to the day after the Red Army Butchers of Tianenmen ordinary people like you & me are once more struggling & dying this time in Iran for the crime of protesting for simple freedoms that we the lucky ones take for granted...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester)

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/560305...

www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/20090622/neda-angel-iran-voice...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjQxq5N--Kc (Warning - this is graphic)

“Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the bastard is dead, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

Bertolt Brecht

(He was writing about Hitler, but you can now replace him with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)

Hope is alive again, & not just in America

(classified)

Oh shite, we are all (classified).

Variations on a Chequerboard Melody by Zander Zon : Click this link after you've viewed it to see the original

But watch this first! My camcorder was the missing link it seems...enjoy both blissfully beautiful performances here.

:)

The US Civil War (12/4/1861 - 5/11/2008)

Yesterday "Primary Colors" Author Joe Klein said that the American Civil War started with a battle in Virginia* in 1861& that it finally ended 147 years later (yesterday!) when incredibly, the Sate of Virginia gave it's electoral votes to an African American to take him past that magical 270 Electoral College Vote finishing line & make him the 44th POTUS. I watched his speech live here at 5am, tears welled a number of times, but especially when the TV cameras focussed on Jesse Jackson...what thoughts must have been going through his mind - that his friend Martin Luther King, did NOT after all, die in vain must have been foremost. A man with an Asian upbringing, with an African father, & a white American mother with European roots, he's even got a middle Eastern name. Truly the first Global US President for America & the whole world beyond. We finally have permission, after 8 long bleak years - to start loving the Dream that is America again.

YES HE DID!, (made history & brought us all back hope in our future & faith in the Dream that is America). Overnight I have gone to recoiling whenever I see the Stars & stripes to loving it all over again, & everything it stands for...sure is it not even central to my favourite image of all time?

www.flickr.com/photos/snappydessy/123758033/

My kids are "mixed race" too, just like Barack (God I HATE that term "mixed race", but you know what I mean!). So now I can dream about an Irish President one day, called James Ismail Cannon...or maybe even Jemma Ayesha Cannon, (after all we are on our SECOND female President here right now!).

:)))))))))))


:)

Jörg Haider ist tod - Gott Sei Dank

Four times over the alcohol limit. Double the speed limit. Always crossing the line, even in Death.

The television newsreader who announced his death ended her report with the message: "Dear Carinthians, I wish you as much strength as you need to get through this," while Haider's right-hand man Stefan Petzner, the new leader of the BZO, said the "sun has fallen from the sky".

"It's not, it's still there," says Carinthian writer Egyd Gstättner, who observed Haider for two decades. He talks in disgust of a "führer cult" surrounding Haider. On Monday morning, like every Carinthian schoolchild, his 10-year-old daughter was told by her religious affairs teacher to fill up a page of her exercise book with a black cross and Haider's name.

One of Haider's last acts was the establishment of what he called a sonderlager - a special camp for old, sick, and criminal asylum seekers, set on an isolated, 1,200-metre-high alpine pasture. He told his voters he planned to "concentrate" Chechens there, enabling the "final goal" of their extradition to be carried out more smoothly. In other countries politicians would be forced to resign over such issues. According to Florian Klenk, deputy editor of news magazine Falter, "In Austria the typical reaction was, "Well, that's just Haider. And actually he's right."

Save the life of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh!

I can't believe this is happening. Whatever about the rights, (& mostly wrongs) of the Iraqi Invasion/occupation/debacle/tragedy/hell disaster - when I read in The Independent about the fundamentalists inflicting Sharia in Basra or Baghdad, I think - "well the US led invasion opened that particular Pandora's Box, the fools, what can we expect?"

In Afghanistan though, after 9/11, the Taleban hosting Bin Laden, etc...UN Resolutions, a "just" war against the real murderers of 9/11 & thier Allies, etc...the Pandora's Box of Jihadist/Islamic Fundamentalist intolerance & perverted beliefs was quite rightly been kept shut by military force, or at least the miscreants were being put back in thier hate filled & intolerant box by the UN led force in Afghanistan, & for what?

So "Sharia Lite" can now be imposed under the noses of the very Government that was "saved" by this UN led & morally justifiable military intervention?

I mean, HELLO!!!

If this outrageous sentence is not commuted, & indeed if these idiots from within are not stripped of all authority asap by President Karzi - what the hell are British Soldiers (among others) dying for exactly in Helmand Province right now?

What?

THE must have accessory for ALL Creationists!

Intelligently designed & guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Relax - safe in the comfort of your own ignorance!

Told You So

Suddenly, months later, out of the Blue a posting...

To tell the Truth, flickr is now my Blog, until further notice...

Unintelligent Design

ID - Dumber than Scientology?

Dumb & Dumber

ACHTUNG! (If you're still here, & you are) - 5 REASONS NOT TO LEAVE THIS BLOG YET (unless you wanna see my photos first, if so click HERE now!

1. This blog is a warm & I hope witty refuge for you from all the sham & drudgery out there, oh yes


2. I'm a really nice guy, look at cute lickle puppy wuppy

3. I need the publicity, I am NOT ego driven, I have no ego to bruise, just like Mr.Spock (well that's my transendental ambition ultimately). Look , you can go now if you want, see if I care, but don't, please, please read reason three first...

4. Hi, reason four here. I'd just like to apologise for reason 3 there, on behalf of all us other reasons. Reason 2 obviously has issues that need to be explored. The reason I'd like you to stay is that if you have an interest in Life, The Multiverse & those rare moments in your life when you can see the dust we seldom see floating in the air as light streams through your window, & you think to yourself "awe/wonder", then maybe this is the blog for you, really...well for more than 5 seconds at least anyway. Long enough to go to reason 4 maybe?

5. Four here, glad you could make it. So, also, if you are curious to learn/discuss/teach me why Intelligent Design is really silly, Evolution, Spirituality, Digital Photography (Flickr especially), The Strange, The Ridiculous, The Quirky, The Bizarre, Good Movies, Good Music, Human Origins, The Cosmos (Mars especially), how to manipulate URL/HTML (cue my anguished screams), & having a guffaw at George Dubya's expense, well then you'd best stay around here a while, maybe bookmark me, leave a comment even. Not that I ABSOLUTELY CRAVE FEEDBACK, no. Not really. Not at all. No way...

6. OK, so there's a sixth reason, but it's absolutely the one & only time I'll EVER LIE TO YOU. Also, if you are still reading you have just significantly improved my blog stats for which I thank you sincerely, say have we not met before, at that weird party, the one where you woke up in a wardrobe? Maybe not. And oh yes, I nearly forgot, that CUTE LITTLE PUPPY IN THE SANTA HAT will NOT be put in a cardboard box & left on the side of the road in the freezing New Year's rain after Christmas....IF you stay a while. Ok so now Christmas is a distant memory, but he's still cute, (if a bit bigger now) & I've found a bigger box...

Cyberegards
Steiner62

STOP PRESS - Intelligent Design is not evolving! (It's Official)

PRAISE THE LORD!
(Charles Darwin)

Teaching of 'Intelligent Design' is outlawed...

The campaign to try to force schools in America to teach an alternative to Darwinism has suffered a severe setback after a judge ruled that to do so is a violation of the US constitution.

The Judge also said that proponents of the so-called "Intelligent Design" (ID) theory had repeatedly LIED about the religious convictions that drove them.

In a ruling that will reverberate throughout the country, District Judge John Jones ruled the Dover school board in Pennsylvania had been WRONG to ibsist a statement about ID be read to pupils during biology classes. He said the policy represented "BREATHTAKING INANITY".

" The citizens of Dover area were poorly served by the members of the boardwho voted for the ID policy", the judge wrote, following a six week trial. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly & proudly touted thier religious convictions in public, would, time & again, lie to cover up thier tracks & disguise the real purpose behind ID policy".

The ruling is a blow to Christian conservatives who, in more than 30 states, have been pressing for the teaching of Creationism. Many of the members oif the Dover school board which voted for the measure were fundamentalist Christians.

Proponents of Intelligent Design claim life is too complicated to have been created by accident. Opponents say that it is a little-disguised version of Creatonism, which the Supreme Court has previously ruled should not be taught in schools...


HALLELUJA!!!

Steiner62 21.12.05

About 500 Million years ago on an ancient Cambrian shallow seafloor a little creature was buried by an underwater mudslide & preserved for posterity

This little Arthropod, called Marrella Splendens by Paleontologiists, was discovered in The Burgess Shale Fossil Motherlode on a mountainside in present day British Columbia (that's in Canada, George). It represents real evidence, just one among millions of similar fossils that act as an exquisite repost to the non-science non-sense of so called "Intelligent Design"

A Mission Statement & A Disclaimer

A Mission Statement

The "internet" cannot be held responsible for it's content. That's down to us. You DO realise that RIGHT NOW we are living through The Golden Age of the World Wide Web? Already the freedom to do what I am doing right now, is denied to well over over a billion people in China. No www.internet.com there. No Siree. Think about that. If the Chinese Government can block over a billion (1,300,000,000, that many) then anybody anywhere can be potentially erased from the www. The People's Republic Of China, hmm. People's Republic? Yea, right. Yet we turn a blind eye to this. Virtually everything we buy now seems to have "Made In China" stamped on it. Not just the cheapo plastic toys anymore. Expensive stuff too. Most of us buy it anyway (I know I do, somewhat guiltily). We seem to have let time bury our conscience too as far as Tianamen Square in June 1989 goe's too. How long before the Western Powers start to Firewall us/Deny us Access/Spam us - to oblivion? Already, 1.3 Billion people in China cannot read this. Of course all right minded, free* & decent people would like to put an end to this Shiteology. Maybe the army of bloggers (30 million is it in Oct 2005?) now tapping away as I tap will be on the next front line after China has been lost to the rest of us, & us from them. Will George Dubya's so called War On Terror help? I don't think so...

So here's to that Golden Age, our last wonderful Indian Summer of Blogging Bliss on the World Wide Web. Long may it last...

Worse luck, I've just started my blog this month (October 2005 at the time of typing), so I better make the most of it & enjoy it & make some new friends as we all should while we're still able to...

That is my Mission...

Now please do me the honour of reading my statements...

Steiner62
Ocober 2005

*The ordinary decent people of Iraq, Iran, Syria, China, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan & Saudi Arabia et al still await positive developments in this respect...


A Disclaimer

To anybody in a position of power or influence whom I libel in this web log I can only say this much. It was'nt me. They made me do it. Please don't take my headset, not the headset.

Any similarities between people alive or dead that I mention in this blog with any real or fictional characters may or may not be entirely intentional or semi-intentional. If it goe's to court I'll feign insanity, refuse to take an oath & only answer the Judge's questions in Pidgin Finnish, which I am learning at the moment, while gaming with my Finnish Battlefield2 Squadmates Antilles & McSniper. About a word a week. I better mention my other squadmate Partisanjager too because he is a 2m tall Australian with a big new (virtual) sniper rifle.

Herein ends my disclaimer...

So. Let my War On Terror, sorry Shiteology, begin...

Ps. Sorry, I am an obsessive, compulsive, comma user...
Pps. Are you a member of Amnesty International yet? If not, well what exactly is your excuse then?

This blog is dedicated to the fond memory of my dear friend John O'Donohoe (1963-2000). John used this phrase* when indignant, which was often!

Black John, Me, Myself, I & The Wincent (see photo below)
Wolverton Lodge, Barnhill Road, Dalkey, Dublin County, Banana Republic Of Ireland, Saturday, April 15th 1990. John had a very acute Bull-ScheiBe Detector. Whenever he (often) railed against whatever he percieved to be wrong, false, or plain stupid, he invariably described it as Shiteology*.

Dear Reader Please Note - In daily usage among Hiberno-English speakers like me, the word "shite" (pronounced so as to rhyme with "light") is generally considered to be a less offensive, nay, more acceptable version of the coarser, shorter, Anglo Saxon version. Something similar is true of another commonly used word in Irish daily life, the word "feck" as in "feck off out of it will you, you stupid fecker!". Substitute the "e" with a "u" & that last expression takes on a much more aggresive & obscene meaning. Most if not nearly all Irish people find the use of the word feck mildly offensive at the very worst & actually funny in the majority of social encounters. The same is true of the word "shite" (though it is definitely a more risque word to use socially than feck). So when someone uses the word "shiteology" it really refers to something that obviously irritates, with the emphasis being on that irritation rather than being used merely to shock people as a "rude word"! I'm pretty sure my friend John (the main inspiration for my blog - the smartest, wisest, truest, most loyal, & cantankerous person I have ever known) would have concurred, ("oh no I bloody well would'nt have Cannon you're a Shiteologist of the first order" would possibly be an alternative O'Donohoe response to all this waffle). I thought I'd better tease that out a bit for you in any case as I don't want to unintentionally scare off any of the more delicate souls amongst you out there on the web. Ok, that's enough shite from me for now...so double click that pic now to see how incredibly handsome we were, when we was younger...

My definition of Shiteology (with apologies to B.Behan RIP) : Anything someone says or does that gives you a gut feeling that it's

• false
• wrong
  
• stupid
• fascistic
• ignorant
• atavistic
  
• intolerant
• prejudiced
• mean spirited
• gratuitously cruel
• religiously fundamental
  
• unscientific (eg.INTELLIGENT DESIGN, so incredibly dumb it inspired this blog's name!
  
• Anything coming out of George Dubya's top oriface (on Fox News right now probably) also qualifies for this list by default. Well it goe's without saying that I am OBVIOUSLY a pinko, faggot, commie subversive to display such a negative attitude towards that man in the Whitehouse. The POTUS who loves playing golf & chopping down trees on his Ranch. The Texan Millionaire who did FECK ALL with his Silver Spooned life until he turned 40! Yet he still managed to become a (failed) oil Tycoon & State Guvnor of Texas, with no nepotism or family string pulling or financial help at all. A real self made Man. Yessir! The man who said (& I quote) "when I was young & irresponsible, I was young & irresponsible". So now he's Older & more irresponsible than he could POSSIBLY have been when he was getting high & drink driving all those years ago. The world was a much safer place all round when he was wasted behind the wheel of his Chevvy. He could only put a few pedestrians at risk then. Now it run's into the millions. When he's not on vacation of course George is busy putting an end to "Terror". We MUST STOP THE TERROR. I am appealing to all Nations to STOP THE TERROR! Now watch this Intelligently Designed blog...
  

In 2003 George told Palestinian Officials that GOD TOLD HIM TO LIBERATE IRAQ. This recently earned him a 1st Class Masters Degree in Shiteology (MSh)

George Dubya(MSh) acknowledges the warm applause from Satanist folks in the auditorium just after he was conferred with his Masters Degree in Shiteology recently at the University Of Intelligent Design, Palookaville, Texas



The REALLY DISTURBING thing about this photo is it actually depicts G.Dubya being conferred with a real honorary Science Degree! The ID Promotor in Chief - grinning like a Fox who's just squeezed into the Chicken Coop. Maybe that's why he looks so fecking smug in this photo...


"To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole arab world against us & make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero...assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator & condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability"

George Bush Senior

(The saying that the apple never falls far from the tree may not be true in this particular case)

George Dubya(MSh) - The least intelligently designed president of all time ever

Well, I thought that my blog title might flush out some American Shiteology Majors & general Intelligent Design Apologists/Fantasists for starters. Nope! I suppose THAT would be too much to hope for...if you are an Amerikan reading this you are in all likelyhood a DEMOCRAT (East or West coast?). Of course being a European Generic Democrat Liberal type myself, I have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WItH AMERICAN REPUBLICANS, as long as they stay out in the garden. I must admit that IRISH REPUBLICANS make me feel quite ill too though. Anyways, I will defend anybodies ABSOLUTE RIGHT to say & believe whatever they want, as long as they do not try & impose their views on those who don't agree with them by intimidation or force. Was'nt it Voltaire who said (I'm paraphrasing him here in English) " I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your RIGHT to say it with my life" (but preferably with someone else's life, epecially if you're a member of Al-Qaeda or a NeoCon). Well I hope that's clear now, y'all. Incidentally, there's a Town called Youghal (pronounced "y'all") here in Ire-r-land, in East Cork County. So if you're ever in Youghal George, be careful not to confuse the locals - "Y'all from Youghal?". If you do visit, & EVERYBODY IS WELCOME to come & check Ireland out, (unless you're a member of Al-Qaeda or a NeoCon) Make sure you try to LEAVE DUBLIN at some stage during your vacation. Try West Cork County. Especially Baltimore (in West Cork, the original one, not the Yankee one). Tis a little piece of Paradise boy...and you know what? My own County, Wicklow is really nice too (& a lot nearer to Dublin Airport now our Dublin Orbital Motorway/Freeway/Highway/Autobahn/Autostrada/Autoroute, the M50, is FINALLY finished. It took more than TWENTY YEARS to complete about 40km). Dunno Why they called it the M50. We've no M49 right through to 12. We DO have an M11 however, which is about 5 mins drive from my keyboard here, sorry, I digress. If you've bothered to read this far, I may have got away with it. Now please, scroll on...

Ps. What I wanna know is this - how can CREATIONISTS delude themselves that
so called Intelligent Design somehow makes The Universe more wondrous. All THE EVIDENCE accumulated by humanity to date demonstrates that there is no need for an "Intelligent Designer". Why oh why can't each & every person on this lump of rock just open thier eyes/ears/hearts & minds & look & see & learn from ALL THE EVIDENCE SCIENCE HAS GIFTED US that the Universe we know & love actually, on the balance of all evidences & probabilities, happenstanced spontaneously. Maybe that's just too scary an insight to comprehend for a lot of good Christian (& Muslim & Jewish) folks. OK, obviuosly it is, but you know what I mean. Heck, why think for yourself dude? It's all there in the Good Book's. Case closed. Now let's go kill each other over the details. And I know I should'nt start a sentence with "And" but I'm mad as hell, I mean why must they HIJACK those two words, quite good ones. Intelligent. Design. I can't even utter them in this blog anymore, so in future I'll call it "ID". Ok, so I got a bug up my ass called INTELLIGENT DESIGN, shite, typed it again. Sure, I'd love the cosy emotional security blanket & slippers of a Creator God up there in the clouds, creating away, sorting us mere mortals out into convenient piles, one marked "Damnation" (the bigger one), the other marked "Salvation". I'm sorry guys BUT I JUST CAN'T BUY THAT! Those CREATIONIST ZEALOTS have hi-jacked two perfectly innocent & useful words for their own nefarious needs. Intelligent Design = Creationism that's well understood I know. Without a sinlge ATOM of physical evidence (one of my favorite words, definitely) they use those two words to describe their "Theory". Well, is it not an oximoranically & hysterically inappropriate use of the english language? Now I know (it's been commented on here already from another blogger) that I am basically railing & ranting against "ID" in this blog. That I am not putting forward any cohesive & cogent arguments to challenge it logically. Some shite about if I found a watch in a field one day , how would I know if somebody made it, or created it. Jesus. (I'm a lapsed Catholic, so please indulge me the luxury of that expression of exasperation!). Anyway, it would probably have "Made in Japan" (or more bleedin' likely now, "Made In China" engraved on the back of it). All I can say is that minds a helluva lot more focussed than mine, (eg. Professor Richard Dawkins) has debunked "ID" repeatedly & forensically in his published works on numerous occasions. His arguments are extremely well laid out, logical, eloquent & persuasive. His EVIDENCE to counter the non evidence of "ID" is overwhelming. If you are unsure then go to any library, heck it's the Information Age...Google him, it'll all be there for you. Oh bugger, if you are an antideluvian, claminded ID proponent (I just invented that expression, clam-minded = claminded = closed mind!), well you won't be READING this liberal diatribe anyway. Maybe though, you are a teenager who's parents are brainwashing you with all that Christian Fundamentalist Shiteology, & you secretly blogsurf when they are busy away at Walmart buying more ammo for Armegeddon. Do youself a favour if that is YOU! GOOGLE Richard Dawkins NOW!

Phew. Oh. I feel much better now, time for a game of Battlefield 2 now as a reward Des, yes. Cyber Insurgents shoot back but it does'nt hurt (or leave a mess). And the Online Game Maps are so intelligently designed...

10 Reasons you should be laughing more often

• Lowers Blood Pressure
• Reduces stress hormones
  
• Provides a workout for the diaphragm
  
• Reduces pain
• Increases immune function & aids healing
  
• Promotes muscle relaxation
• Exercises the heart
• Boosts the circulation
• Improves breathing
  
• Has no known negative side effects
• Better than crying (optional extra reason)
  

My Favorite piece of Pagan Architecture is the Pantheon in Roma...

Intelligent designs last quite a long time...this is a fine example.

So, what did the Romans ever do for us?
What? You mean apart from codified law & order, the adoption of Christianity, plumbing & sanitation,concreate, straight roads, the modern-day calender, high-rise aparttments, mass production, fire engines, aqueducts...
How about Rome's innovative republican government, which was copied by many of the world's current political systems? Or languages:among others, Spanish, French, Italian and, indirectly, English evolved from Latin. It was'nt all sex & violence, but then that gave us I Claudius, Spartacus, Gladiator & Rome Total War (on my Hard Drive). Last but by no means least - The Life Of Brian

I think about MARS a lot...

If I could pick just ONE person to be beside me (or even better behind me) when the Insurgents hit the fan...

Audie Leon Murphy was & probably still is, the bravest soldier that ever actually lived to tell the tale. He was the most highly decorated US soldier of the Second World War. He did'nt just court death. He actively seemed to seek it out. He consistently failed to get himself killed, through a combination of guile, courage & dumb luck.That's the sort of Warrior I admire. He is reckoned (conservatively) to have ended the war permanently for approximately 250-300 German Soldaten. He was 21 when in one famous encounter he killed more than 50 German soldiers (from a group of 250, supported by SIX PANZERS!) when stranded alone on the back of a burning Tank Destroyer with only the TD's machine gun functioning. The German force eventual wavered & retreated. For this act of courage verging on the suicidal he recieved the Congressional Medal Of Honor (see citation above). If only half of his memoir above is true, it's still an unbelievable story. Harry Trumann called him the "Babyfaced Killer" with good reason. He went on (with the help of one James Cagney) to a lucrative, if artistically frustrating career as a "B" Movie Star, mainly in "Cowboys". His "nervous stomach" (undiagnosed PTSS) was never treated. He slept with a gun under his pillow every night until the day he died, in a planecrash, in 1971...

Ok so I'm ANOTHER Male Sci-Fi Freak

Finally we meet Robbie a half a Century after his finest hour!

Best Science Fiction Movie of all time...apart from Bladerunner, Dark Star , Aliens 1 & 2, The Terminator 1 & 2, Highlander...eh The Thing is great too! Minority Report is really underated I think. Same guy who wrote the story Bladerunner's based on wrote it, Philip K. Dick. I gotta big softspot for Silent Running too...well I was about 11 yrs old the firstime I saw it...

Want to see AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHS?

This is a map of Greater Dublin...

I live in Wicklow County, just South of Dublin County, y'all. I think anyone who grew up in Dublin or North Wicklow for that matter, COMPLETELY takes for granted what a Beautiful Place it is to live. How many European or World Capital Cities can claim to have a number of huge sandy strands just a few minutes drive from it's city centre? (Dollymount & Sandymount Strands). Or a big Tombolo just across the Bay (Howth Head). Or be ringed by Picturesque Mountains (OK so technically they are Hills, but they look like Mountains!). All this, & the best Pubs in the Observable Universe... In my opinion any Dubliners or North Wicklowers who emmigrated to another Country (I never got further than London for five years), & then returned home, can only then fully appreciate what a lovely place it is to live in (OK so the traffic jams can be bad at times & our infrastructure is still at least 10 years, no 15 years behind most of Europe, but we are catching up fast). Hee hee. You can't put a value on a Beautiful Bay & Mountains in the distance though, can you? We've always had that around here. Except when it was under a mile high Ice Sheet Glacier thing. Look, allow me the gloat, we've being waiting for over 800 years to. Bloody English. Only joking, sure, I like them so much I married one.

Meet my country, The Republic of Eye- r -land aka The Celtic Tiger, "Southern Ireland" (UK Only), Eireann, The Ould Sod, Eire

I's a really boring shape. It's an Island. It rains most days. It's got some really beautiful bits that will feed your soul (in a sad sort of way). It was buried, no crushed, under a 1,000m high glacier (on at least four seperate occasions in the last one million years alone), but it alway's bounces back. Literally. It was originally occupied by Hunter-Gatherers during the Ice Ages. Then the Celts (pronounced "Kelts"). Then The Vikings raped & pillaged & helped themselves to a lot of the bits at rivermouths eg. Dublin/Waterford/Wexford (as in "fjord", but pronounced like the car). The Vikings were defeated by an Irish force led by King Brian Boru at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014. Then the Normans (aka the "English") moved in (by invitation from an Irish Warlord, Dermot MacMorrough) in 1169. After 800 odd years of numerous battles with the dreaded English (most of which we lost, with a few notable exceptions), Ireland was finally declared a "Free State" in 1922 after The War of Independence (1919-22), yes we had one too, though it was like a last minute afterthought when one considers it was over 800 years late. Finally declared a Republic in 1937. The Catholic Church used be the Organ Grinder to the Irish Government's Monkey from the foundation of the Free State until a few years ago. Not anymore, thanks be to Jesus. Ireland is also world renowned for it's many fine writers & poets. It manufactures & exports more pharmaceuticals to the Rest of The World than ANY other country. It had NO Freeways at all in 1980 the year I "graduated from High School" (as a guy from Georgia might say!). Now in 2005 it has about 500km of them. It has the healthiest Economy & GDP in the European Union (25 States). Ok, so Luxemburg has a slightly higher GDP, but there's like, about 79 of them in total. All this in a country the same size as a small US State (Ireland has almost exactly the same population, four million, & is the same size, as South Carolina). However our Soccerball team is SHITE at the moment, tragically. We NEVER qualify for the Soccer Ball World Series (World Cup) when it's being held nice & conveniently for the Legendarily Loyal Irish Soccer Fans somewhere in Europe (Germany next, in 2006). We LOVE talking a lot. We LOVE to binge drink alcohol, though we know we should'nt. We have banned smoking in ALL public places where people congregate indoors, which is good if, like me, you are old & sick of years of passive smoking. Nevertheless, even with no smoking to add athmosphere, our Pubs remain the Finest on Planet Earth. We also love our Mobile Phones (Cellulars) too much, which can inhibit us talking to the person actually in our direct company, as we are more & more distracted by them ringing, bleeping, purring, whirring & lighting up endlessly as we TRY to have a meaningful conversation with that person in our direct company. Though often THEY don't notice WE are ignoring THEM, because THEY are also fiddling with THIER Mobile too. We are a Nation of Fiddlers...which reminds me, our Traditional Music is Great too (as long as it steers away from the "Those Bloody Brits have persecuted us for the last 800 years" variety). That's SHITE. I prefer someone like (Dingle, County Kerry-based) Eoin Duignan (www.duigo.com). He composes & plays his own & traditional compositions on Uileann Pipes & Low Whistles...musical Balm for the Soul.


Ps. "Celtic" is pronounced "Kelt-tick" in Eye-r-land.
"Eireann" as in "Air-in". "Eire" as in "Air-ra"

I am COMPLETELY FASCINATED by our story - the origin of Homo Sapiens Sapiens...

The story of our own Genesis on this "Pale Blue Dot" is one of The Greatest Stories Ever Told (based on a wealth of hard sought fossil evidence). That Story is still being told as each new fossil find drops a new piece into the jigsaw. That jigsaw still has many missing pieces. However we do now know an incredible amount of information about our distant ancestors. The bottom line is we all come from Africa! We are all Africans if you trace back our family trees far enough. Science actually proves that not only is ID a crock of shite, predjudice based on skin colour or "race" is too! Because every racist is closely related to every other living human on the planet! We now know that 99.9% of every single living human's DNA is in fact identica! It's the remaining 0.01% that gives us that variation in body form, height & colour!

Our ancestors who lived in Africa evolved dark skin to prevent thier skin getting burned by the high & hot midday sun! As thier progeny migrated North & West, thier skin tone lightened because it was'nt as sunny as it was in Africa! Would you be prejudiced towards another human purely on the basis of the colour of thier eyes? I'd guess not! In evolutionary terms the colour of our skin is about as relevant as the colour of our eyes! So why discriminate against any other human being because of the colour of thier skin? Calling all racists! You are full of shite! Science proves it! Don't take my word for it. Just educate youself! OK, if only it was that easy, racists are evil sonofabitches by default, I just like exposing the poverty of thier evil delusions with Science & Reason. Then again if just one person with pejudice in thier heart is swayed by this argument into being less prejudiced than they were previously, well that would make all this waffle worthwhile then...

If I may diverge from our Human Origins saga for a moment now. On the basis of mounting scientific evidence (go to www.sciam.com - Nov 2005 issue for more on this), we may well all eventually be proven to be all from Mars, long, long before we evolved in Africa! We will be the Martians!! We may well be the Little Green Men!!! (well we Irish are anyway). Y'see, our Prokaryotic Ancestors may well have hitched a ride to Earth from Mars on a Meteorite or two! Who needs the awe & wonder of a Religious Creation Myth, when the Scientific Creation Facts are infinitely more awe inspiringly wonderful! (see my Mars posting for more on this topic). So as I was saying before I went to Mars - There are no "Races", just one "Race", the Human Race. We literally are all brothers & sisters...& cousins. We were related to many other Human "Races". Unfortunately as far as we know, they are all extinct now. Indeed, we are most unfortunate to be the only homonid species here right now. This is a very unusual situation, when you consider our species evolutionary history. Indeed, about 1.5 million years ago up to four (& possibly more) different but related homonid species co-existed around the shores of Lake Turkana in East Africa. This is all based on good fossil evidence. As recently as 12,000 years ago we shared this planet with a completely different human species - see the wonderful reconstruction of a female Homo Floresiensis aka "Flo" to paleontologists! (see above). More on "Flo" later. Please don't refer to her as "The Hobbit" as some commentators insist on doing. That was a fantasy homonid with a split personality in The Lord Of The Rings. She was a real living & breathing & loving sentient being a very short time ago...

Websites that you might like to copy & paste into Google if I have aroused your interest sufficiently...

www.thefreedictionary.com/homo+sapiens
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/herto.html
www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature2/multimedia.html
www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature1/multimedia.html
www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature1/bridgemap.html
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/N/neanderthal/
www.amnh.org/exhibitions/atapuerca/granhumans/first.php
www.archaeologyinfo.com/kenyanthropus.htm

We live in a very average Galaxy, but hey, average is GOOD...

Did you know that our "Milky Way" Galaxy contains about 200,000 billion stars. On a moonless, cloudless night you'd be lucky if you could make out more than 2,000 stars with the naked eye. So at best we can only ever see about 0.00001% of all the stars in our Galaxy! Now look at M87 Virgo A by comparison...yikes!

So. There's an awful lot of (star) stuff out there...

Apparently, all the stuff that we can see or detect out there - Stars, Planets, Galaxies, Nebulae, Pulsars, Quasars, Black Holes, Brown Dwarfs, Globular Clustars & Praline Suprises, well that's only about 5% of the stuff (matter) that we can actully see or detect out there. It's an oft repeated fact that there are more galaxies in our particular Universe than there are grains of sand in all the desserts & beaches Earth. Yet even with all this stuff out there astronomers know for sure (they have robust evidence from various astronomical measurements that there's actually twenty times more stuff out there that we can't directly observe or detect at present from here on The Good Earth. This other 95% of what comprises the total Matter in The Universe is made up of more exotic stuff (Dark Matter, Dark Energy & countless acres of Higgs Fields). This Hubble "Deep Field" image (which took one million seconds exposure time to capture, that's about a week going "snap!" Indeed, the original jpeg image I downloaded, which was already significantly compressed from the RAW Hubble image was still over 64 megabytes!). Every point of light you see in this image is a galaxy not a star! You can make out literally tens of thousands of galaxies in that full res file image. All these galaxies were photographed from an area of space that from earth would not even cover the moon as seen with the naked eye from Earth. Well let's just say that given all that, I am actually twenty times more awestruck than you can actually see or detect...

Intelligent Design 0 Fractal Geometry 1

I'm entranced & intrigued by fractals, epecially when they reveal themselves to me in nature, where they seem to be ubiquitous. I find it strangely comforting to see the fabric of reality itself obeying simple laws that produce breathtakingly complex results. So after considering the evidence all around us, Science can prove that complexity in Nature arises from simplicity, not a deity. Religious Fundamentalists of all creeds also have simple answers to complex questions. Unfortunately in their case, no evidence is required (they would call it "faith"). I believe this is an excellent example where absence of evidence is evidence of an absence (between their ears!). The ferns & stones fractal shots I took myself. Maybe you'll become more aware of them in your world too (if you're not already, which you may well be). I tell you, once you start seeing them, you see them everywhere...

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious" (Albert Einstein)

Albert is one of the three people from history I'd want to meet if we somehow conquered death...

Siddartha Gutama's another (The Budda)

Marilyn Monroe is there too. Waiting for me.

Mama...

"Intelligent Design is a load of Shiteology" (A.Einstein, ret)