Monthly Archives: January 2011

“We see politicians on the television, in the Dáil or in the newspaper and we see bitching, arguing, in-fighting and talking double speak. We see old age, lack of women and the shackles of tradition that continuously let down this country. We see staged performances. We do not see truth, integrity or a connection to anything we hold dear….

“…We do not want a politics of family dynasties bred in the way of the old, weighed down by history, familial responsibility and cronyism.”

Generation Emigration Must Be Given Hope (Irish Times)

Also: Cystic Fibrosis sufferer.

Pic: Emily Quinn/ WeeklyEdit.ie

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMcpEaYsb7M&feature=player_embedded

Long version

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFJV9RZ716A

One minute version.

1) Labour focus groups had shown voters wanted their candidates to be more obnoxious and shrill.

2) She was literally monged on gin, Red Bull and quaaludes.

3) Her advisers told her: “Go out there and do a Mansergh.”

4) Hey, you spend the afternoon selling out your principles and then go to an industrial estate to be grilled by a sighing, mad-haired loon, and not end up a jibbering wreck. Try it.

5) Twink wrote a musical about it.

6) Joe Higgin’s slightly creepy, melodious voice twisted her melon.

7) Fierce – sadly unrequited – pash for Coveney (It’s a Clark Kent thing).

8 ) She’s Palin to Gilmore’s McCain and she’s ‘gone rogue’.

9) Vincent dropped the hand in the green room.

10) Because referring to oneself in the third person is always a precursor to losing one’s shit.

Video via Squid Limerick

“Although Mr Cowen will not fight it, he has surely done for his party, whomever it scrambles to put in his place. The party that allowed bankers, builders and landlords to gamble away a nation’s prosperity deserves to be swept from power. But how much will truly change with the administration is unclear.

“This month Irish workers are noticing that their pay packets are lighter, thanks to December’s austerity budget. Few believe a change of political personnel will alter their personal circumstances. That scepticism is well-founded. Last night’s cross-party jockeying aimed to salvage the finance bill, and served as a reminder that – aside from the drawbridge economics of Sinn Féin – the electorate’s choice is between flavours of deflation.”

It’s not funny cos it’s true.

Full transcript here.

Previously: That Financial Times ‘Ireland’s Meltdown’ Editorial In Full

Evangelical church groups: now embracing their hipster brothers and sisters.

Nutshell: ‘They’re selling hippy wigs in Woolworths, man.’

The end is nigh.

Here’s a riddle: A young man walks into a building. From the outside, it looks like a nondescript, run-down, abandoned warehouse. Inside he finds mood lighting, music with throbbing bass, and young people wearing skinny jeans and superfluous scarves. A bar off to the side offers drinks of some sort, and a frenetically lit stage is shrouded in fog. Jumbo screens display what appear to be music videos. Everywhere people text on their iPhones.

Question: Is the man in a bar? Or is he in a church?

HipsterFaith (Christianity Today)

pic: PoorlyDrawnPeople

‘Government Win Finance Bill Deal’ is how PA is reporting the plan tonight to dissolve the Dail “sometime between Saturday and Tuesday”.

Or, put another way, Opposition Parties Lose Finance Bill Deal. Except Sinn Fein, who walked, calling it a “grubby little deal”.

Pearse O’Doherty’s maiden speech, Caoimhain O’Caolin’s unravelling of Cowen’s golf outing and now this.

They’re wily, shadowy and still frighten the horses. But that hasn’t stopped Sinn Fein being right. And often.

Alternatively…

(Photocall Ireland)