Year: 2004
Incinerators in Ireland
Burn baby burn... I posted a message about incineration on the Greenpeace Forum a couple of weeks ago. It seems to me, that in Ireland at least, we're hellbent on creating as much rubbish as we possibly can, without any care about how to dispose of it. A trip to Tescos or Marks & Spencers means returning with a crazy amount of plastic and styrofoam. On bin day, I see households - that have no more than 3 or 4 residents - putting out 3-4 black plastic sacks. That's a lot of crap per person per week. So, while I'm not so utopian that I think 'Zero Waste' is easily available, I think it should be a target of sorts. Instead of building massive landfills and commercial incinerators, retailers and suppliers should be made accountable for the huge amounts of non-biodegradable packaging that they generate. Unfortunately, it's in the interest...
New Blather Forums – Paranormal, Conspiracy and more…
At last, we've setup our own message boards.... Good Grief. Yes, brethern, at long bloody last, we've setup a bunch of forums for regular Blather readers. Pretty much anything goes - Paranormal, Cryptozoology, Conspiracies, Archeology, and more. All suggestions welcome. No holds barred, but we do recommend civility (trolls will be skewered). Visit the Blather Forums and sign up! The original P45 Forum still exists too.
David Moore’s Accidental Pilgrim
A friend of Blather publishes a book about his travels - hot on the heels of St. Columbanus... The Accidental Pilgrim by David Moore charts the journey of one man and his bike as he travels from Ireland to Italy in the footsteps of the bad-ass seventh-century Irish saint Columbanus. Here you'll find sample chapters, reviews, photographs and extra information about the writer, the journey and the saint. Yours truly appears in the The Accidental Pilgrim as David's cycling guru... Visit The Accidental Pilgrim website »
Bill Hicks
On February 26 1994, William Melvin Hicks, better known as Bill, the man who I consider to be one of the most visionary voices of the late 20th century, died. The world has not been the same since. 'The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers, and non-participants in the true agenda of our governments - which is to keep us separate, and present an image of a world filled with irresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might one day, somewhere in the never-arriving future, be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America, keep watching TV.' - Bill Hicks I first heard about Bill Hicks a little over three years ago. I was having a drink with some friends and I was complaining vociferously about my job. In particular, I was venting ire about the machinations of the evil marketing...
George Bush Plans Invasion of Ireland
The country's number one chieftain limbers up to single-handedly repel the infidel... Plans of a secret US attack on Ireland have been announced. This summer, an airborne invasion led by US war hero George Dubya Bush will strike at the very kidneys of the Irish countryside - Shannon Airport. As Aircraft carriers clog-up the Shannon estuary and Apache helicopters haunt the streets of Limerick, Chieftain Bertie humourless will be having his sword sharpened, and his armour polished. Clad in animals skins, his long flowing hair tied behind him, handsome Bertie will sit astride his horse 'Enda' and lead the brave men of Fianna Fail in a charge across the country to see off the American barbarians. This is, of course, bollocks. Sure won't wee Bertie be over beyond in the Shite House for Paddy's Day? Our brave Taoiseach today announced that Dubya himself will be visiting Ireland on June 25th...
EU Pollutant Emissions Register and the Slaney Valley in Ireland
Walsh finds that two of Ireland's biggest polluters are in his neighbourhood... Update on the Slaney story here » I read the Irish list of polluters this morning, as listed on the EU Pollutant Emission Register website. I was both appalled, yet unsurprised to find that two of the top 150 polluters in Ireland are less than 2km from where I grew up. It's a stunningly beautiful piece of countryside on the edge of the river Slaney in Wexford, South East Ireland/ One of the polluters is the Rennard pig farm, in Crossabeg. I can remember the stench of slurry whenever the prevailing winds blew up the river. Once, when I was a kid, I went wandering around, and my dog of the time, Oscar, walked on to the encrusted surface of one of the slurry pits. The surface cracked and he fell through, and nearly drowned. He stank for...
Virtue and Vice… and all things nice
Supreme decadance and ribald catholicism... I'm sitting here working on an article, sipping a glass of La Fee absinthe, and eating a hot-cross bun (Lent is almost upon us). Virtue and Vice... and all things nice.
Bush, Science and the New Holocaust
Lies, Lies and more damned lies from the White House So. Herr Bush and his staff have long been claiming that Global warming isn't even a reality. Not so according to a report written by Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network. According to them in a report which The Observer has got its hands on: "...abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' " All together now, "Armageddon days are here again" Read the full article...
Alien Big Cat report from Co. Kildare, Ireland?
Big cat sighting near Naas! I received this email Tuesday 17th of February. It's from Sórcha Bracken-Conway, with the subject ' Large cats in Kildare?' We're posting it on her approval, and in good faith. As she says '...feel free to add the mail I sent ya to your site, I'd be interested in finding out if anyone's had similiar experiences!' The other day I was driving from Mullacash (outside of Naas, Co. Kildare) to Kilcullen with my boyfriend. It had just started to get properly dark as we left. About 5 or 6 mins up the road from his house we spotted something in the hedge up ahead of us. I slowed my car down quite a bit, it is a rural area and there's often some sort of wildlife about! We crept past it in silence until my boyfriend turned and said to me "What the hell was...
Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity online
As the man said - 'The map is not the territory'... The entire text of Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity is online, albeit in pdf format. I can't claim I've gotten through the entire book myself... it's been bending my bookshelf for quite a while now. The origin of this work was a new functional definition of 'man', as formulated in 1921, based on an analysis of uniquely human potentialities; namely, that each generation may begin where the former left off. This characteristic I called the 'time-binding' capacity. Here the reactions of humans are not split verbally and elementalistically into separate 'body', 'mind', 'emotions', 'intellect', 'intuitions', etc., but are treated from an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment (external and internal) point of view. This parallels the Einstein-Minkowski space-time integration in physics, and both are necessitated by the modern evolution of sciences. - Alfred Korzybski It is vital to have a constant awareness or habitual...