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...