Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

It's been a good couple of weeks for attending things and learning stuff. In the National Museum there was a day-long seminar on matters geological, where I learned all manner of fascinating facts about rocks. The National Library had a talk on Robert Boyle, which elucidated on his work in the field of medicine, of which I previously knew nothing. And yesterday I was in the Science Gallery, listening to a debate on the future of copyright. At that I learned I should buy shares in EMI.

I don't care

So LOL has made it into the dictionary. BFD.

I have a lot of problems with LOL as an acronym (or, for the minority, an initialism), but as for making it into the dictionary, it was inevitable. The BBC tells us that language purists are up in arms, but what does that tell us? That language purists are dicks? We all knew that already.

Of Course We Should Call It a Bailout

Looking back on the past few weeks, it's strange to see how naïve we were as a country. The fear was palpable as the spectre of the IMF loomed over us. Repeated assurances from the government that no digout would be necessary were ignored by everyone; we knew we were fucked. Fianna Fáil were in a position that may well have been unique; we've spent decades assuming that they were all crooks, but now we're not so sure. Can it be that Biffo and his minions were merely being incompetent? That rather than being the mendacious fuckers that tradition and experience would paint them, they were simply incapable of doing anything even remotely effective?

Mr Gorsky Was Obviously Behind it All

Earlier today, I went to a talk in the Science Gallery which asked a simple question: were the moon landings real? Given the location of the talk it was obvious that the answer to this was going to be "yes". I confess, though, that I was holding out a small glimmer of hope that our esteemed speaker was going to try and convince us that it was all a hoax. Alas, 'twas not to be, so I'll have to continue waiting for an opportunity to verbally abuse a guy at a lectern.

The Nightmare is Over... For Now

At last it's passed. The annual irritation; the month of bemusement when your humble blogger must constantly check the calendar to see if something he's reading about has yet to happen or if it's already passed. It's a pain in the hole, and it takes up about ten percent of every damn year.

By now, gentle reader, you'll have inferred that I'm talking about the date. Or, to be more specific, the format in which the date is written down. Those who do the writing broadly fall into three categories, depending on which format they do the writing...

The Devil Cites Scripture for His Own Purpose

I don't know whether it's arrogance or stupidity (or both), but ever since the Catholic church's kiddy-fucking proclivities became public knowledge, our clerical chums have shown a distinct lack of nous when it comes to their public statements. Most of these came from the lower ranks, but occasionally the higher-ups manage it too (this being my favourite from recent times). Even so, I was prepared (for some reason) to give the Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin the benefit of the doubt, and assumed he was the victim of lazy quoting by the Irish Times when they reported on his homily during the Law Mass yesterday. I was, it seems, a trifle naïve.

No way of determining, huh?

At first glance, this story looks like a victory for rationality. And, indeed, it is. But really...

The City Council says it will not be providing them with another property because it has no real way of determining if the claims are true.

I'd be a lot happier if this line read "The council told them not to be so fucking stupid, and to stop living in the middle ages."

They're right, of course; there is no way of proving the non-existence of ghosts. Just like there's no way of disproving the presence of gods, trolls or telepathic centipedes. But it'd be nice if they just told this hapless couple to cop the fuck on.

Plus ça Change, Plus c'est la Même Chose

When the story first appeared in the Sunday Independent — officially Ireland's worst newspaper — two thoughts popped into everyone's head:

1. What a dick.
2. The timing means this can't be anything but a leak orchestrated by Fianna Fáil.

Fianna Fáil Minister in "Smart Move" Shock

A couple of days ago, our esteemed Minister of Science, Conor Lenihan, pulled out of a book launch at the request of its author, John May. The book, The Origin of Specious Nonsense, is about how there's no such thing as evolution by natural selection, and that everything we know about science is wrong.

Just to repeat. Our Minister of Science was launching a book that denied evolution. And did he back out because the idea of a Minister of fucking Science launching such a thing would make us the laughing stock of the entire planet (some southern states of the US excepted)? No. He did it because the author, who obviously had more cop on, requested that he do so.

International Hand-wringing Day

One would like to say "only in America", but the sad truth is that there are dipshits like this everywhere. They just happen to be more public in the US.

I speak of course, of the pastor who decided that on 11th September, he's going to host a Koran burning. The generalissimo in Kabul said that this was going to cause problems there. The White House has said it's a bad idea. Throughout the world, journalists are reporting on how terrible a thing this is. But they're reporting it.

Thing is, it's just one asshole carrying on the noble asshole tradition of book burning. Nothing new there. The most egregious aspect of this story is that we all know about it. We know his name. We know his church. We can see photographs of the dipshit in question standing before a large sign proclaiming his intentions. Why?

There's no doubt that, unlike most of the 1st Amendment nonsense one reads about, he absolutely does have the right to do this. And he should. But there's no reason for the rest of the world to hear about it. We should just let this idiot do his thing, and forget about it. Instead, it's being covered by the AP and countless other organisations, turning one bigoted, uninformed asshole into a cause celebre for bigoted, uninformed assholes everywhere.

Yeah, it'd be cool to bring along a bunch of bibles and have a parallel burning. But that'd still be a book burning. The best option would be to ignore this fucker, and get on with our lives.