I'm so pumped

I arrived back in Ireland yesterday after a long flight. Last night I was feeling tired and sleepy. When slovokia scored their last minute equaliser I just yawned and went to bed. But after a good nights sleep I woke up this morning and saw this ad. Now I'm pumped up and ready for the battle of titans that will be Ireland v Namibia!!

Now heres the ad so you can get pumped up too!




*yes I'm aware that this ad may have been running on Irish tv non stop for (possibly) weeks but its my blog so if it feels new to me then thats all that matters!


bitch

Bertie is back :(

As I made a pre-election post about who I was going to vote for, I guess it's only right to write about the general election again. At this point, Fianna Fail are in the strongest position and may form a coalition with the PD's + Independents, or with the greens.

I was away during the election results and when I got back I was pretty suprised by what the media was saying. The media were making it sound as if Fianna Fail had walked the election and that Bertie Ahern was a genius after all. Any rational person who looks at the figures will see that Fianna Fail lost seats, Fine Gael made the biggest gains in Irish election history, and were it not for the disappointing performance of the Labour Party the alternative coalition would definitely be able to form the new government. Enda Kenny did brilliantly and its a real shame that this is not being commonly acknowledged.

Here's my thoughts on Fianna Fail and their result:

If you voted for these absolute dickheads then shame on you. You are now officially not allowed to complain about anything for the next 5 years. You voted for mediocrity, for wastage. You voted for bland, sit on the fence politics. You obviously think its ok that:

- election promises don't need to be fulfilled (2002 menifesto said metro would be completed by 2007. They havent started building it)
- our environment can be destroyed as long as Dick Roche gives permission
- that profit-driven developers, rather than urban planners, should decide where new houses should be built, with no regard to where schools, roads or clean water are.
- that local councils all over the country are corrupt and under resourced
- that there are serious questions over the personal finances of bertie ahern
- that a valuable natural resource (gas) has been given away for free to shell, and further exploration licences have been issued to them.
- rather than coming up with a realistic manifesto, it's acceptable to just come up with the biggest giveaway manifesto of all time, literally taking every tax cut offered by every other party and bundling them together like some kind of fucking selection box.

Why did the public absolutey slaughter the Progressive Democrats? I presume they were unhappy with the previous government, yet Fianna Fail, holding most of the ministries with by far the largest influence on government policy, received almost none of the blame! All I can figure is that most people are fucking idiots. Which is probably the case unfortunately!

Why I will be voting Green

In Ireland over the last 10 years, the economy has been well run, but our society has not. Now we have the resources to rebalance our priorities. That is why, for me, the main issues in this election need to revolve around improving our quality of life.

Forget global warming. That is certainly not the only reason you should consider the Greens, it just so happens that the factors which damage our environment are also behind the damage to our society, and in the long run, our economy.

Improvements to our quality of life don't have to involve big projects and spending lots of money, sometimes it just means planning for the future, having having the desire to see changes happen. Over the period of the next government, many of us will graduate from college, join the workforce and look at buying a house. Soon, these same quality of life issues will begin to hit us. What are they?

Currently, first time house buyers can only afford to live in satellite towns in Meath, Wicklow and Kildare. Vast amounts of housing estates are being built onto the edges of towns/villages in these areas. While the populations of these towns grows with young families, there has been no associated increase in community services. As a result there are: over-crowded schools, no child care services, inadequate sewage and water systems. Housing often has no footpaths to local village. There are no shops and services near and this creates a reliance on the car, and anti-social problems. Also, no public transport means parents must drive to work, which is often in Dublin. Famously, this creates traffic gridlock, and means parents can spend 4 or 5 hours a day commuting and this is time lost with their families. At the end of the day, this means there is no real community.

Is this the way we should be living our lives? Do you think its acceptable that in 2007 the government is still allowing these mistakes to happen? Imagine life as a kid in your area without any DART or Buses? Why the hell are houses being built in these places, do you think we've run out of space in Dublin?

Rather than spending all our time trying to fix the symptoms of bad planning, why don't we do more to fix it at source, through proper urban planning! We need to stop letting developers decide where houses will be built! This is where the current government has failed miserably.

The Green Party are the only party who I believe would deliver a better Dublin. They propose introducing an new authority to take control of planning. They also are one of the only parties who care about making small changes, like removing cars from our city centre, making it a nicer environment for pedestrians. Small changes lead to big improvements.

Also I feel not enough attention is paid to the greens economic proposals. The greens have by far the most responsible manifesto when it comes to running our economy. They have not been promising everything to everyone. Other parties will reduce income tax, well the Greens will reduce VAT which is one of the most "regressive" taxes around (because it takes no account of peoples ability to pay). The greens say they will actually increase Capital Gains Tax because it is currently lower than income tax, and is a bit of a loophole. It is through methods like this that they can pay for their proposals, unlike other parties who say they will cut taxes and then pay for their policies through unrealistic economic growth predictions.

At the end of the day, I really can't think why anyone would dismiss the Green Party, other than because of ignorant presumptions. I hope others will think about voting for them.

P.S. I also think our local TD Ciaran Cuffe is very good, you can see his youtube page here and his blog here.

Eh, ain't that a bit racialist?

Someone with a bit of a hatred for our celtic land left this interesting comment on the "Flagralicious Movies" post!

FUCK YOU FILTHY PADDY MICKS I HATE EVERYONE OF YOU FUCKERS GO BACK TO FUCKING IRELAND STAY AWAY FROM ME TELL YOUR WORTHLESS CUNTS TO ALSO STAY AWAY I WILL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE OF YOU FUCKERS

PUNJABI PRIDE

Are there really that many annoying Irish people in the Punjab?

*edit* I just checked and that dude is from New York. Maybe he's angry because gays and lesbians aren't allowed to march in the St Patricks Day parade?