“I was only doing my duty”

According to an Irish Times report, the Irish Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, “will propose to the Cabinet a constitutional amendment deleting the constitutional prohibition on blasphemy when the children’s rights amendment comes up”.  Game over, then? [Hopefully… - Ed] Although there’s still the other jurisdiction to worry about…  ANYhoo… Atheist Ireland welcomes the commitment and notes an earlier Sunday Times report.

Ahern, who was criticised for increasing the fine for blasphemy to €25,000 last year, said he never regarded the provision in the new Defamation Bill as anything more than a short-term solution. “There was a lot of nonsense about that blasphemy issue and people making me out to be a complete right-winger at the time,” he said. “There was an incredibly sophisticated campaign [against me], mainly on the internet. I was only doing my duty in relation to it, because clearly it is in the constitution. The attorney general said ‘there is this absolute, mandatory thing… it is an offence, punishable by law.” A final decision on a blasphemy referendum rests with the cabinet, but if Ahern remains justice minister after this month’s reshuffle, he is likely to propose that it be added to the autumn list. The government is already committed to referendums on children’s rights and establishing a permanent court of civil appeal.

Once more then, just for fun. [We’ll never shift those beards now… - Ed]

Pete Baker @ 11:06 AM | Comments (4)

“It was very nice to get the call.”

To celebrate the week we’re in, I think, the Irish Times have commissioned those delightful Duckworth Lewis chaps to compose a new national anthem… You can listen to it here [mp3 file]

Walsh doesn’t yet know whether Ireland, Ireland! will be embraced as an alternative anthem, but he’s hopeful. “We’re completely at the whim of The Irish Times and the nation. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but we’d like them to sing it before the Scottish game this weekend.”

Indeed.

Pete Baker @ 10:32 AM | Comments (4)

Sinn Féin to sell water (this weekend)?

Erm, at their Ard Fheis this weekend that is. The water is from Ulster, but on the Co Monaghan side of the border. Celticpure.ie do customisable bottles, and Sinn Fein have developed their own ‘brand’ for the weekend.  Níor bhíodh sé chreidte agam dá nach raibh sé leite agam…

Mick Fealty @ 11:18 AM | Comments (52)

“Sure, he’d always be buying tickets to draws and stuff like that…”

Notorious gambler, and former Taoiseach, Bertie ‘Lucky’ Ahern, has apparently scooped the rollover jackpot of €10,000 in a draw for a soccer club at the Beaumont House pub in his northside constituency - the scene of two of his previous “whip-rounds”.  Over to the Irish Times’ Miriam Lord

All those millions of raffle tickets he purchased down through the bubble years are worthless now. If it wasn’t for his pension and TD’s salary and various other bits and bobs rolling in, the man would be as penniless as he was during those minister for finance years. But do they care in Leinster House? They do not.

The man himself wasn’t around yesterday. No sign of him in the chamber, so we don’t know if he joined his fellow deputies and Senators in clocking into work for the first time in Irish political history. Perhaps the Bert was back in his office, trying to work out whether he should put his winnings into the bank or into a biscuit tin. Bertie didn’t have a lot of faith in the banks when he was officially on his uppers back in the 1990s and unofficially awash with money.

Pete Baker @ 10:52 AM | Comments (6)

“They can slaughter pigs for fun, but making pretty shapes with the bladder is a bit of a mystery.”

At the Telegraph’s sports blog, Kiwi Eric Janssen has a question about the weekend Six Nations rugby

Will Greenwood wrote on Saturday that he believed Brian O’Driscoll was Ireland’s defensive weak link. Did Paul O’Connell agree and therefore kick his captain in the head? We demand to know!

Heh.

Pete Baker @ 07:45 PM | Comments (2)

“As the slogan says: Citius, altius, slidius, positive discriminatius.”

I’d been looking for an excuse to link to Dara O’Briain’s Guardian Sports Blog.  And this is as good an excuse as any.  This week he’s cheering the Irish bobsleigh team’s kicking Antipodean arse at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver after the Australians’ bid for inclusion threatened the Irish duo’s place in the competition.  Over to you, Dara.

This isn’t the big story of these Games – Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn and what may be an incredible men’s hockey final between Canada and the USA tomorrow are – but beneath the hoopla and hype, it was a nice little victory. Gods make their own importance.

Pete Baker @ 11:46 AM | Comments (3)

“Don’t forget that we are talking about the Eurovision”

I mostly managed to avoid last year’s Eurovision, when Graham Norton took over Sir Terry Wogan’s duties with the mic and Ireland’s RTÉ‘s entry

failed to progress to the finals. Not that the BBC entry did much better.  Still, at least they weren’t actual turkeys.  Or even stuffed ones.  But since it’s a quiet news day, so far… RTÉ have announced the five Eurosong 2010 finalists, as selected by the RTÉ panel.  From the list the official Eurovision site leads with previous winner Niamh Kavanagh (1993), while the BBC picks out Boyzone member Mikey Graham (and gets the date of Niamh Kavanagh’s win wrong Now corrected).  The Irish Times, on the other hand, notes the return to the fray of their columnist John Waters - despite having his flowers crushed in 2007.  Is he still not taking it “all that seriously”?  From the Irish Times report

Waters’s first foray into the field of Eurovision songwriting occurred in 2007, when he co-wrote Ireland’s entry, They Can’t Stop the Spring , with Moran. It finished last, with five points. Waters said it was always his intention to return to song- writing. While he had previously described his Eurovision experience in negative terms, he added: “One can’t be imprisoned by one’s fast emotions.” He described the song, which he and Moran have been working on since September, as “a dance number”.

Hmm…

Pete Baker @ 03:36 PM | Comments (1)

“You may have identified these leaders already…”

In the Irish Times Newton Emerson identifies the “six-point structured negotiating framework” of The Process™ available at “the new Conflict Transformation Initiative from the University of Portadown (Lurgan Campus).”

4. Identify Solutions
Once you have identified the leaders, the problem and the opportunities, you have already identified the solution. However, you might still need to remind the leaders to take this opportunity to solve the problem. This is where the media can be useful, because everyone enjoys stories about goats and caramel squares.

The University of Portadown’s Conflict Transformation Initiative is available now, price £10 billion. Please allow up to 28 years for delivery. Read the whole thing.

Pete Baker @ 10:31 AM | Comments (13)

Déjà vu, all over again..

As Mark Devenport says

Tomorrow looks like it will involve yet more talks , and as a number of people have pointed out to me February 2nd really is Groundhog Day.

Although, I think a different link might be more appropriate.

Pete Baker @ 08:16 PM | Comments (11)

Quote of the day…

From a friend in the Ulster Unionists (whose party line, incidentally, is that The Plough IS a better eatery than The Hillside):

Inside sources indicate that the only delivery at Hillsborough Castle today will be a Dominos Pizza…

The same source further suggests we start a sweepstake on what hour Sinn Fein will walk out… Hmmm, I couldn’t possible comment on any of those weighty matters… but you might like to…

Mick Fealty @ 10:34 AM | Comments (13)

The DUP: From individual tragedy to an 18th Century Irish farce…

What follows here was triggered by a flashback to my schoolboy recollection of ’ A School for Scandal’ by Richard Brinsley Sheridan who was writing in the second half of the eighteenth century. I am in no sense true or faithful to the original text in my portrayal of the main character at play ‘Confidence.’ In other words this is about ‘farce.’ Here we go: “Will someone go upstairs and tell ‘Confidence’ to come down?”

Eamonn Mallie @ 11:16 AM

“It’s obviously an alien probe”

The Professor has some fun with the discovery of a mystery 10m-wide Near Earth Object, 2010 AL30, which flew past today missing the Earth by about 80,000 miles - about 1/3 distance to the Moon.

DUH — IT’S OBVIOUSLY AN ALIEN PROBE. Friendly and sending back pictures? Or hostile and dropping lethal nanobots? We’ll know soon!

And I, for one, welcome our new alien nanobot overlords.

Pete Baker @ 12:55 PM

Quote of the day…

From a great thread on Malachi O’Doherty’s Facebook page in which I expressed concern about the likelihood of the Slugger Awards running next Autumn… to which this reply:

“Perhaps you could introduce a “Scandal of the Year” award.”

Mick Fealty @ 08:42 AM

That’s not a “Little Planet”, it’s a dwarf planet..

If you thought the last honk for Pluto was to be heard in the Illinois Senate, you’d be wrong.  From the Professor comes news of the perfect Christmas gift for your inner space geek.  MSNBC’s Cosmic Log’s Alan Boyle’s The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference.  Available at all good book stores.  Samizdata’s Dale Amon was at the launch.  Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell sent her apologies.. Just don’t mention plutoids..

Pete Baker @ 04:32 PM

When Gordon beat David (by an Irish Mile)...

It may be advertorial, but this is the best thing I’ve seen in a while in British politics...

Mick Fealty @ 12:29 PM

“new recruits would not initially be expected to recognise the infallibility of Richard Dawkins”

If we can note a hostile take-over bid between groups of supernaturalists [and we can - Ed], we can certainly note “a gesture which dramatically parallels [it]” by a group of atheists [Is that a sceptic of atheists? - Ed] Possibly.. or a cynic..  As spotted by Will Crawley.  From the New Humanist blog

New recruits to the [Rationalist Association] were given some reassurances. “We are,” said the spokesperson, “not at all averse to agnostics maintaining some traditional forms of speech, such as ‘You can’t help feeling that there is something up there’, but obviously they’ll be expected to gradually forsake their uncertainty about who made the world.” In a further gesture of conciliation, the spokesperson confirmed that new recruits would not initially be expected to recognise the infallibility of Richard Dawkins.

Heh.

Pete Baker @ 03:36 PM

“That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”

Nasa’s LCROSS mission didn’t make the splash expected with its double impact on the Moon [video below the fold] - as the BBC’s Spaceman says, it will be up to Nasa to explain the significance of that result.  And, via the Guardian’s live-blog, we have LCROSS’ final [twittered] thoughts.

“And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round,”
“it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’!”
“That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”

Heh.

Pete Baker @ 09:37 AM

“The following is an address by the President of the United States..”

It’s more gentle mocking than biting political satire, but it’s a start.  Saturday Night Live on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize - official announcement here.  Well done, the US, for electing someone the Norwegian Nobel Committee approve of..  Next, Ireland gets a Nobel for passing Lisbon II.

Pete Baker @ 04:21 PM

NAMA - “The Only Show in Town or Criminal Theft?”

The next Leviathan is going to go on tour out of Dublin… The subject is just the next but one nightmare on Fianna Fail’s growing nightmare list… NAMA… A scheme which Joseph Stiglitz accused the bankers of robbing the taxpayer. His recommendation: ‘re-privatisation’ (in other words, what the Swedes did: nationalisation). Here’s the blurb:

Mick Fealty @ 07:24 AM

Blogburst: Gordon’s flesh wound and the President’s manic depressive maltese terrier…

Okay, kicking off I’m afraid with another Gordon Brown blog, this time from Angus in the western Isle’s whose response to the Labour leaders call to arms is to post up Monty Python’s Black Knight video...

Mick Fealty @ 03:49 PM

“Little People!”

At Irish Election, Mark Coughlan has footage of a possibly adulterated “Yes” campaign poster..

Pete Baker @ 08:20 AM

“I captured my first Kerry animal a few years ago…”

There’s a football in Croke Park this Sunday, apparently… Meanwhile, down on the Cork/Kerry border… H/T Vic in Amsterdam…

Mick Fealty @ 03:06 PM

If you want to see a comedian die on his arse youve got to see a gig up north man…

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know… That’s us, btw…

Mick Fealty @ 06:19 PM

“It’s getting ugly at the Stormont interface.”

Nice bit of satire from the BBC NI political editor.  In response to the tale told here and here.

One gang tossed a 43 page document entitled “Rights and Respect” over the peace wall. The other responded with a 75 page draft called “Building a Better Future”. “They may look harmless when you just open them up on your computer as a PDF file” the CRC DMSU officer explained “but put that in a ring binder and toss it over a 12 foot high wall and it can give you a very nasty cut”.

Pete Baker @ 12:59 PM

There are no snakes in Ireland..

Well, there are no native species..

A python measuring 10ft (3.08m) in length has been removed from the River Slaney.

Update iol reports that the python was “believed to have been about 10-years-old and recently dead” and adds

Dr Cathal Gallagher, Central Fisheries Board director of research, warned about keeping exotic and dangerous animals. “The real message from our point of view is that we have a lot of problems with invasive and non-native species,” he said. “Although this is very unusual.”

Good.

Pete Baker @ 01:09 PM