Month: September 2004
The Prez 2004: Open Up a Can o’ Kerry
From our man in the States, Alex DeJong. For me, John Kerry is like a wonderful, shiny can of beans: on the outside it appears appetizing and delicious, on the inside disappointing and vapid. I just spent a half an hour listening to legitimate Republicans and Democrats argue about Kerry’s stance on Iraq. After desperately wishing that I could somehow recoup the past thirty minutes of my precious short life, I came to the conclusion that Kerry is a vessel designed simply to bring about brain farts, nagging self-doubt, and the wholesale destruction of the Democratic party. The conclusion of the discussion was ambiguous at best due to the “I think he’s sayings”, “He would have done’s”, “He might be’s”, and “What he’s trying to say’s”. The Democrats say that Kerry would not have gone to Iraq had he been in possesion of the information he has now (there is...
The Haunting
Blather correspondent Lyra is living in a haunted house. No, really. Read and post comments... tell us what YOU think! In May of this year I moved house. My new home is an ordinary semi-detached mock Tudor house, around 20 years old, situated in a housing estate here in Galway. The area is quiet and the house looks onto a piece of old woodland, which is quite pleasant. In fact it was the woodland that really decided me on the house. I moved into the house alone on the first of May (which is tempting fate as far as faeries go!). My flatmate Megan was to be joining me in a few days and we had yet to find a third flatmate. So I was alone on my first night there, all except of course my trusty hound Lola, my bull terrier cross. I was not unnerved by this, having...
Carrowkeel 2: The Return
The Dublin Forteans follow in the footsteps of the great and powerful Blather on a day trip to Carrowkeel. Original article ‘Is it much further?’ ‘Dunno, I can’t see anything other than sheep and fields.’ ‘Well the mountain is back that way. Who’s got the directions?’ ‘Umm, I do, blather says he turned right up the hill.’ ‘We went left.’ ‘Yeah’ ‘So really, we’re just walking around some farmers field at the moment.’ ‘Yeah.’ We’re lost. Again. It turns out when we got to the third and final parking lot we should have turned right straight up to the top of the mountain, and not gone left down the gently meandering path. Back up the path, we’ve added an extra half hour onto our walk, but it’s all in the name of fun and the pursuit of knowledge so we don’t mind. Much. At the top, the wind is unrelenting....
The Prez 2004: Is John Kerry ‘The dude’?
Our new regular look at the fight for the Oval Office by our man in the States, Alex DeJong... A couple months ago, my vote was in the Kerry/Edwards camp. I looked forward to watching Kerry easily pick Bush apart and saunter into the oval office. Unfortunately this has not been the case and now my eagerness to vote has followed a similar path to that of the notorious Zeppelin. Not wanting to vote for either camp I am considering wearing a blindfold when the time comes. It is not difficult to see why Kerry has been accused of “flip-flopping” based on his blatant wavering on several issues. In today’s Boston Globe, Kerry was quoted during a speech in Canonsburg, Pa. saying, “I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq”. Kerry continued by declaring, “It’s the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” After...
Florida No More: Will Hurricanes Lose Bush the Election?
Because there's no Florida left to screw up the voting! Received from the future: Late October 2004 During August and September, a series of violent hurricanes (Charley, Frances and Ivan) completely destroyed the US state of Florida, forcing President George Bush to reduce the number of US states to 49. The entire state vanished, swept away into the ocean by the extreme weather. 'Florida just ain't there no more', said President Bush at the time. 'And now I got my brother Jeb and his family camped out in the Lincoln bedroom. They're driving me batshit crazy. I can tell you, the Bush family has never experienced a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude'. But worse was to come. The Bush Administration had spent four years ignoring the effects of industrial pollution on the atmosphere, as well as the threat of global warming and extreme weather. It had failed to ratify the...