July 2003 Archives

Ever wanted to know why, despite the fact that the world is getting richer, there are more people living in poverty than there ever has been before? Ever wondered what it’s all about? Ever wondered why all those people are screaming outside every meeting of the G8, the WTO and the IMF? Ever wanted to know who is in charge of this movement? Ever wanted to know who is really running the planet? Ever wanted to know the truth about capitalism? Ever wanted to know why economies are run the way they are?

Paul Kingsnorths’ new book ‘One No: Many Yeses’ answers all of these questions. Part social commentary, part social document, part travelogue, part rant, part vision – this book has left me breathless for the last five days. Beginning with the story of the rise of the Zapatista movement in Chaipas Mexico, moving to the Battle of Seattle in 1999 and to the horror of Genoa in 2001, Kingsnorth charts the evolution of the first truly global protest movement. More than this, Kingsnorth manages to impart his own burning passion and enthusiasm.

So. Bush has rejected a request from Saudi Arabia to declassify US intelligence on the Gulf state's alleged links to the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

As you can imagine, the Saudi’s are pretty pissed. Prince Saud described the omission as an "outrage" that "wrongly and morbidly" accused Saudi Arabia of complicity in the attacks.

He went on to say: "It is an outrage to any sense of fairness that 28 blank pages are now considered substantial evidence to proclaim the guilt of a country that has been a true friend and partner to the United States for over 60 years,"

Loyalty cards, a subject in which I am intensely interested, has been popping up quite a few times in the last few weeks. Specifically, I am interested in the introduction of tracking devices in supermarkets, customer profiling and loyalty schemes.

I became intrigued by this subject some months ago, when I was given a guided tour around a supermarket by a Category Manager from a large British company who specialised in the manufacture of toiletries. During our tour I asked him many questions about how supermarkets figure out what their customers want. He was more than forthcoming in spilling the beans. What started out for me as a fool’s errand, became a learning experience that left me reeling.

Bus has asked that P45'ers create a version of an oath of allegiance to the Irish Flag. Here's my (ahem) contribution:

"I do hereby solemnly swear to uphold the great traditions of the Irish people, in all my actions, deeds and thoughts. Namely, I shall be a narrow minded begrudging bigot in the face of simple facts: I shall lie, cheat, steal, scam and cute-hoor my way through every business transaction that I ever conduct: I shall have memory lapses the size of a black hole when presented before any member of the judiciary: I shall demand the right to be treated like a King in any country that I visit and reign down a dictionary of curses on any foreigner stupid enough to stand in my way whilst in mine: I shall drive my car at breakneck speed through a one-donkey boreen after skulling my own body weight in alcohol and then complain that it's the states fault for curtailing drinking laws when I get busted: I shall, like a brain-dead, bovine fucking automaton without the basic ability to concentrate on anything more complex than Fair City, vote for the craven scumfucks in Fianna Fail: I shall do so fully knowing the history of Liam Lawlor, Charles Haughey and the myriad other criminal bastards that populate their ranks: I shall do absolutely everything within my power to see that no social progress of any description whatsoever is made, through an interminable letter-writing campaign to the Irish Times waffling out of me about the 'rare ould times': I shall mock any of my fellow countrymen who have the unmitigated audacity to go abroad and make some money or achieve even a sliver of success.

I, a child of Eireann, do swear all of this by the rusted bullets lodged in the walls of the GPO and in the full witness of the one true Catholic God who shall smite his northern heathen bastard enemies when his son comes riding into town opening up a can of biblical whoop-ass on their sorry orange butts."

A thread on the p45 discussion forums has picked up on the subject of Freedom of Information Requests within the Republic of Ireland. It transpires that Fianna Filth have been at it again.

It seems that McCreevy et al, not content with lying through their teeth with a regularity only comparable with the laboured breathing of an asthmatic gofer, have decided to make it even more difficult to get solid information on the internal workings of our Government. They are doing this by slapping a hefty levy on anyone who has the sheer gall to make an FOI request. It can now cost you up to €150 to make one. You can read about this at this article.

Due to some of the more loathsome cretins that had recently tied themselves to the trees in the Glen of the Downs in Ireland, I was nervous around 'treehuggers' and 'eco-wankers' (as i liked to call them) in a way that I normally only felt around elderly German dentists. They jusy made my flesh crawl.

The journey between Brighton train station and London Victoria is an unremarkable one. I make it on average once every two weeks. For the most part I just read, but sometimes when the boredom overcomes me, I take to looking out the window and trying to spot buildings of interest. I rarely see anything more interssting that a seagull shitting on my carriage window.

Mary Harney says that we (that's you and me - the consumer) are to blame for high prices. OK. Now I'm angry...

So according to a piece in today's Irish Indo, Mary Harney has said that the high prices that we face in the post Celtic Bog-Cat Oireland are the result of a failing of us, the consumer. Apparently, we did not shop around enough.

Reee-heee-heally?