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Books
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Against Remembrance – Seminar & Book by David Rieff
Tweet Is the best way to overcome the legacy of conflict simply to forget about it? Author and journalist David Rieff spoke on this subject last week in a seminar at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) at Trinity College Dublin. Rieff has recently written a book titled, Against Remembrance (published in Ireland by [...] read our review »
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What Ireland did right (and what it needs to do)…
Tweet It is difficult to believe now that one country recently sent 19 delegations to Ireland to study how well our economy was managed. The revelation that our model of economic management featured positively in political and economic discussion in countries including Estonia, Greece and Scotland may also come as a surprise. As we survey [...] read our review »
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Robert Kee, hero of journalism and the television history of Irish nationalism
Tweet Slugger should note the passing of Robert Kee, historian, TV and print journalist and RAF bomber pilot, who has died aged 93. In this age of revisionist debate, his TV history series first shown in 1981 and The Green Flag, the written history of Irish nationalism which accompanied it, were well timed and still stand [...] read our review »
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 6 May 2011 at 10:08 am
Oracle
The SDLP long term future looks as bleak as an unfinished apartment complex on Dublin’s Quayside.
They try hard to be pragmatic and inclusive and indeed go out of their way to observe the Political version of the Marquis of Queensbury rules in the squabble for the nationalist hearts and minds with Sinn Fein.
“What they comprehensively fail to understand no matter how simply it is explained to them, or how often it’s explained to them, or for that matter how graphically it’s described to them is that they are in a” monster bitch-fight” and they just don’t have the ballax for a bitch-fight, especially one to the death!”
“Only fools cowards and evil people believe in God”
No, the good people believe in God. The fools, cowards and evil people pretend to believe in God. That’s the confusion. You’re just not able to tell the difference between the good and the evil people.
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 7:10 pm
Nun
“Who created the men’s ability to kill one another ? You would say God.”
Yes, with the firm indication that heaven is more fun. Your argument seems to be to keep killing them until you win, implying that heaven is less fun.
Faith goes a long way [that is, beyond learned stupidity].
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 5:54 pm
Nun
“To the contrary, it would have been an acceptance of barbarism, a statement of toleration for murder and sadism, a passive thumbs up to genocidal, expansionist tyrants.”
You have no sense of irony at all. The above is exactly what it became.
A situation like Saddam isn’t there to validate violent intervention. It’s to prove that it didn’t work. If people want change then they have to assert a principle that can be rewarded, like Jesuit tyrannicide.
How far will God go to push that rule? I refer you to the 9 million men who died during WWI.
What was Hitler all about? Suffice to say that a British goverment met with him for peace talks before the war. Would anybody care to save 30 million people by sacrificing their life? Not a British thing to do.
Instead they got a little bit of validation for their perfection of the Irish, lost their empire and their money in the battle to beat a tyrant. In other words, they became indebted to the USA, and the Irish effectively won.
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Comment on Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan
on 5 May 2011 at 4:25 pm
Oracle
“Peaceful protest only works if the subject for protest is easily embarrassed like commercial companies other that that it achieves nothing….. it changes nothing”
In the context of God the rules are that if you use violence against an oppressor who uses violence, there is no incentive for God to make a point. What point would God make by rewarding the oppressed in that context. No, the point is that in the eyes of God, the strong have a right to assert their domination. To assert otherwise is to say that there is no law and that violence will be the norm.
That’s why all change in Ireland, from O’Connell to Parnell, to Hume came from non-violence. God was asserting the rules.
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Comment on Midlife crisis man
on 5 May 2011 at 12:07 am
Jesuit self awareness, if I do say so myself.
JO’C
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Comment on One last hustings (#bele11) in case you can’t sleep …
on 4 May 2011 at 11:07 pm
good luck to all our sdlp candidates
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Comment on Sinn Fein’s one stop election shop…
on 4 May 2011 at 11:01 pm
the last shall be first and the first shall be last, or something like that
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 9:16 pm
“I am completely humbled by the experience of meeting Our Lady yet again, an experience I write about below. I understand that every sentence is meaningful in this cosmic interaction. The last time we met was on Apparition Hill in Medjugorje in August 2009 where a lady with six children, the number of child visionaries involved in the first encounter with Our Lady in June 1981, led me up and down the hill, meaning that she was with me during my whole journey through life.
“I submit two testimonies of the encounter during the royal wedding last Friday, the first on the night of the encounter which proved too soon to completely evaluate the meaning, and the second completed on the night after the encounter to clarify the meaning of the message, a very comprehensive message. The second testimony comes first.”
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 9:13 pm
Mark
At this stage fishing is permitted if you have a question.
I could refer you to the 1986 revelation that is the only constant that accurately defined “history” since. In other words, we’re ready now.
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Comment on #ae11 Reveal your Assembly predictions
on 4 May 2011 at 8:51 pm
Mark
“useful” – no-one uses me, unlike Sinn Fein, you’ll see.
I see I still make you nervous.
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