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• ireland.com – The Irish Times – Sat, May 26, 2007 – McDowell quits politics after losing Dáil seat to Gormley
  The Mighty McDowell resigns from politics after loosing his seat. Say what you want but the people always express their opinion of individuals rather than party politics.
  (tags: ireland irish politics michael mcdowell government resignation resign election 2007)

Following closely, the election aftermath and it looks like it is a foregone conclusion that Team Bertie will resume in office for the next government. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and mark the fact that the people of Ireland despite wanting so many changes in society have failed to vote for change. This is the first time in a long time that Fianna Fail will return to government at a time when a fall in the economy is likely to happen, and inflation is set to rise steeply – for once it cannot be blamed on an alternative government. Please remember that, whatever happens over the next 5 years that it is entirely the actions of Fianna Fail and you the voter, nobody else is culpable. That is all that I will say.

Moving onto another issue, regular readers of my blog will know that I have never been a fan of Mr. McDowell. I have been very critical of his actions, attitude, general personality and arrogance. In response to this a number of people have responded to me, saying that I should stay quiet, that I should respect him as he was an elected member of government and a political leader, that I was the person with the problem and not him. Well to all those people, I now say that a larger body of people than I have now spoken and that I am not the minority any more. Furthermore I always believed that McDowell, a hugely talented and respected barrister, was only ever an attention seeker rather than a politician: His resignation from politics after failure to retain his seat is simply a resounding reinforcement of this idea. Rather than be a politician and serve the community, trying to make a difference, it would appear that Mr. McDowell only wanted a slice of political life if he was head of the team. Again that is all I will say for now. source: The Irish Times

Note: Irish Times article may require login

I’ve always admired Bob Geldof as a man who is never afraid to say the words that come into his head. He’s a tireless human rights campaigner with strong beliefs and the balls to back it up. Today however, I have even more respect for him having just been conferred with an honourary fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons or what he called “the Royal College of f ***in Surgeons!”. Kudos Bob. Anyone who can go to receive a fellowship and utter such words about the bestowing body while still attacking the government on its aid provisioning deserves a serious round of applause. You never get stories like this at the beginning of a week but always on a Friday, remind me again why I don’t like Mondays… source: The Irish Times

Note: Irish Times article may require login

Badda Ba Ba Ba

Originally uploaded by jbwan.

Well everyone else is making parody posters for the election. Why not me? Click the image above to enlarge.

So the day is finally upon us, the centres are open and the booths are no doubt indelibly marked with the impressions of so many aggressive voters’ pencil scribblings. Election 2007 is underway. Just hours before the gates opened to voters, the INO finally calls an end to its strike action, possibly the best orchestrated campaign of this entire election. They’re now down to 37.5 hours per week and heading to the benchmarking body for a 10% pay rise while the tax payer foots the bill for the establishment of a commission to determine if they should get a 35 hour week instead. Boy oh boy did I pick the wrong career path. Needless to say however, the majority of nurses got what they wanted and will head to the polling booths today to vote for their appeasers. A masterstroke really.

All along this election build-up I have been completely unimpressed with any of the candidates from around the Waterford constituency. My reasons have been cited previously and are best summed up as a lack of visibility on their behalf. As such I am in a great dilemma today – to vote or not to vote, that is my question. It kills me to think of not voting but what happens if you don’t think that any of the representatives are worth voting for and you don’t agree fully with their policies? What do you do? I’ve often thought that voting should have a “none of the above” option that was selected by default on a pollsters vote, thereby being submitted if they elect not to vote. At least this way none of the above would have a count and could be used to show that people really don’t want to vote for anyone. Furthermore it might entice people to vote as while there is a certain detachment from not voting for somebody, I don’t think that folk would like that decision made for them. I’m probably talking nonsense right now, my head is very much in a muddle. Should I vote for progress, change or revenge? I don’t believe in spoiling votes as that’s simply a waste of my and the tallyman’s time. Ironically the provisioning of multiple bad choices may well have just provided me with none…

Hadn’t seen this in ages and accidentally stumbled across it today. High quality humour at its best.

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• So you want to create WordPress themes huh? » WPDesigner
  So, I’m a little behind the times and am only starting to regain interest in developing themes for sites. Go ahead and judge me!
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