'CATHOLIC BISHOP of Elphin Christopher Jones has accused the media of being "unfair and unjust" to the Catholic Church through a concentration on the handling by church authorities of the clerical child sex-abuse issue."Could I just say with all this emphasis on cover-up, the cover-up has gone on for centuries, not just in the church... It's going on today in families, in communities, in societies. Why are you singling out the church?" he asked.' - Irish Times.

Oh, it's so, so unfair! Tell that to the victims, you dripping pile of shit. My tip of the day for Bishop 'Christ'opher Jones: face facts, your weird, mystical organization raped children, covered it up, and would not co-operate with the investigation into it. Now is the time to be wholly penitent, not whiningly self-pitying, you heartless fuck.

House Republicans, at their collective wits end after another nine-hour Healthcare borefest in the senate, finally cracked and in a heated floor exchange stated that they were considering mass-suicide and asked the President to 'just give us the God-damned thing so we can sign it'.

In a dramatic move, house Republicans demanded that in order to agree to talk about healthcare reform again, President Obama would have to deliver his next State of the Union hopping on one foot whilst rubbing his tummy and patting his head. Furthermore the President would be required to belch his way through the ninety minute speech; aided by Vice-President Joe Biden and a keg of Heineken.

House Republicans, frustrated at having been lectured at length by the President on three separate occasions in recent months, have tabled a motion in the senate urging the President to 'get to the fucking point'. Senator Chuck Gibble (R. Arkansas) told reporters that he and his GOP colleagues had tabled the motion because they 'simply couldn't stand another one of those God-damned six-hour meetings'.

A prominent techno-diva with a penchant for dressing-up like a mentally ill chimp that's been kicked through the BBC costume department, changed outfit in excess of thirty times during a live concert last night, in order to divert attention away from the fact that her music is bland, anodyne, sub-Britney knobcheese.

The revelation that nefarious, top secret plans for global domination were left on a London Underground train is the latest in a string of recent embarrassments over data security lapses for the Illuminati.

This despite denials about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is safeguarding all of Iran's nuclear material.

This also despite all of the United States' intelligence agencies consistently saying that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme (pdf).

Yes, it has been only politicians and their media who say Iran has a nuclear weapons programme. Iraqi WMD all over again, and the majority are falling for it. But now the IAEA has a new chief, Yukiya Amano, who may prove to be more compliant with LYING PROPAGANDISTS, as there is now, suddenly, a change in tone in the message coming from the IAEA, with a leaked report containing 'concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile' - but concerns based on what? 'Intelligence reports' from unnamed 'U.S. allies'. I wonder who they could be? And who leaked the report to the media? And who was behind the forgeries two months ago? Who wants war with Iran? Who, who, who? Oh, I'm racking my brains here.

According to the latest reports, the site for a new deepwater port at Bremore may be moved north to avoid a pesky neolithic passage tomb complex that would most likely be more trouble then its worth to pay a shed load of money the developer probably doesn't have anymore, in order to get rid of the feckin' thing.

A spokesman for Treasury Holdings, which is planning to develop the new facility in partnership with Drogheda Port, confirmed yesterday that one of the options now being considered was to "shift it off Bremore headland" for archaeological reasons.

He said it had become clear at an early stage that the neolithic complex at Bremore was "very significant", and the developers would be anxious to avoid it by examining alternative locations, such as Gormanstown...

More Here

Previous shenanigans here

'Negotiations to install Rod Liddle as the editor of the Independent after its purchase by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev are understood to have ended yesterday...after MediaGuardian.co.uk broke the story about Liddle being lined up to edit the paper in January, there were protests from staff, politicians and readers. "He then went through this extraordinary campaign of hostility," a source said.Yesterday's meeting appears to indicate that Lebedev had a change of heart about appointing the Sunday Times columnist to the paper. "The liberal howl-around was so intense that he can't afford to alienate the Independent staff by appointing Liddle so he will appoint someone else," the source said.' Full story Guardian 19 feb 2010.

'Hostility'? 'Howl-around'? Well, live by the sword, die by the sword, Liddle. And I'm baffled that there are those who would accuse the 'liberal mob' for being bigoted against Liddle: the only thing we were 'bigoted' against was bigotry itself, and the Independent needs an editor similarly committed. Liddle is not suitable and there are so many top-selling hate rags he could work for instead.

It looks like we can now declare victory - and that's why I'm posting this, because it's an interesting media story to see such a campaign achieve victory - what else can be achieved in this way, I wonder? - but if you'd like to read more on who Rod Liddle is...

Organisers of the first major conference dedicated to climate-change scepticism have announced that the Easter Bunny will be delivering the key-note speech on April 1st this year.

"Don't Speak With Your Mouth Full of SHITE" - by photographer lurking in the toilets of the George Bernard Shaw, Dublin, last night. It's not often that we post just a photograph as a main blather.net entry, but this just begs to be shared.

From davewalshphoto.com

What's the worst Irish accent you've ever heard? Earlier this week, we asked our Facebook bots to make suggestions for a list of the worst Irish accents ever committed to celluloid. That's every 'begob', 'begorrah' and 'divil alive, musha man' ever uttered by an over-paid, perma-tanned Hollywood twat. The following are some of the findings from our extensive survey.

€500,000: Every Little Helps, I suppose.

According to the Irish Times, British retailer Tesco is intimidating Irish businesses into coughing up large sums of money for the honour of being allowed to put their goods on Tesco's shelves. Sound insane? Well, what makes it crazier is that if you enter the hallowed halls of an Irish Tesco supermarket, there's lots of cheery signs telling you that they stock Irish goods. Yet....

The country's biggest retailer has been telling individual suppliers they must pay sums of up to €500,000 in order to have a presence in its 119 stores around the country, The Irish Times has learned.

Blather suggests that as a corresponding measure, Tesco customers should start charging the supermarket chain for its ongoing presence in the fridges of the Irish Consumer. Tesco makes about €250 million a year in Ireland, apparently about €124 per customer. Blather proposes that Irish Tesco customers start levying a charge of say €5 each time they spend €100 at a Tesco supermarket. That way Tesco can retain this crucial presence in the Irish market. Don't you just love the economics of it?

Blather has forwarded these suggestions to Tesco. We await their response.

The Irish Times: Irish suppliers claim Tesco seeks up to €500,000 to stock goods

Although I had gotten in, I soon learned that this would not be the twelve-student atelier that I had envisioned, but rather a fifty-person lecture. The weekend seminar would cost a whopping $1,450 that I didn't have, and after raising money for my feature I had no stomach to roll out another campaign.

At this point I asked myself: What would Werner Herzog do?

Well, not only does the Rogue Film School's syllabus include forging shooting permits, but I also heard Herzog once say he stole a 35mm camera from the Munich Film School because he "had a natural right to take it." It seemed like he was telling me to forge my way into his film school.

Key quoted quote:
"When Klaus Kinski is foaming at the mouth, raging at you for two hours and a half, you must dazzle him by biting into the last piece of chocolate that you have."

Read More: Going Rogue at Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School »

See also:
Latest Great Herzog Quote
Herzog goes to Antarctica, falls off Motorbike
The Shooting of Werner Herzog

A nice Friday mashup from Ben Double M. In light of the fact that this coming week sees the release of Gabriel's new cover-version project Scratch My Back, we're sure he won't mind this minor copyright contravention...

This is a discussion from Eamon Keane's Newstalk radio show where he and Senator Eoghan Harris discuss the George Lee controversy. It's among the more hilarious things I've heard in some months with Senator Harris calling it like he sees it on women, Dublin south and men who don't fart.

Pamela Geller: ain't she a charmer?

GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.

'MI5 faced an unprecedented and damaging crisis tonight after one of the country's most senior judges found that the Security Service had failed to respect human rights, deliberately misled parliament, and had a "culture of suppression" that undermined government assurances about its conduct.The condemnation, by Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, was drafted shortly before the foreign secretary, David Miliband, lost his long legal battle to suppress a seven-paragraph court document showing that MI5 officers were involved in the ill-treatment of a British resident, Binyam Mohamed.'

- Guardian.

Let that be a lesson to all torturers and I hope now that there'll be no more of that carry on. David Miliband of the UK government should now do the right thing: write a letter admitting he is evil, and commit suicide.

See also: 'The court of appeal has highlighted the way our leaders have placed the suppression of torture revelations above citizens' welfare' - Guardian.

'Miliband loses...' - Independent.

[DUBLIN] Scandal and screaming in Dail Eireann as TD George Lee peppers the chamber door with assorted toys fired from an armoured pram.

To say the least. NATO missiles a few miles from Moscow, what a sensible idea that is!

Details about that in the New York Times.

Predictably, 'President Dmitry Medvedev approved Friday a new military doctrine identifying NATO expansion as a national threat and reaffirming Russia's right to use nuclear weapons if the country's existence is threatened.'

See the Reuters story.

And I say thank you, thank you thank you thank you Mister 'Nobel Peace Prize' Obama, for ending all life on Earth! O, thank you! Cheers! It's been a pleasure! Don't run for office on any other planets, by the way!

Idiot.

Read the Long lost theory and let's raise Great Cthulhu once and for all!

A 1991 gem for you this week, '101' from Finitribe.

Little Green Footballs, the American site which tracks (amongst other things) what seems like the increasingly more moonbat trajectory of the American right's thinking, has posted results of a poll of Republicans voters on everything from Obama's motives to the inclusion of Creationism in schools. The results are... well, you can see for yourself. But should we be surprised? Is there anything new here? Or is this just the latest manifestation of a narrative which has been growing and replicating this last sixty years or so, only now brought to a head by the presence of an African-American in the West Wing?

In May of 2010, Blather.net will be thirteen years old. That's thirteen. Puberty, ladies and spambots, is imminent and the wearing of short trousers will no longer be tolerated. In light of this disturbing turn of events (and the increasingly litigious, cut-throat monitoring of general web-activities by THEM), we have felt it necessary to update our Terms and Conditions to reflect this momentous period of change.

There's an old joke about Irish politics: that the second item on the agenda of any new political movement's first meeting is the split. The Tea Party, the notional emerging third party of American politics, already seems to be heading in the same direction.