Archive Category: Places
Freedom
Posted on January 27, 2005 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
How Civilized
Exporting democracy by reducing 2,500 years of civilization to ashes. Fit for idiots, fit for a self-proclaimed religious president!
Surely, what’s wrong with digging trenches and setting up a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain when an arrogant, insensitive, ‘bring-them-on’ culture is taking over.
Posted on January 16, 2005 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
Hongkong
Hong Kong is an extraordinary place. It has an area not more than 1/70 of Ireland and yet its population is twice as many as in Ireland. Although there hasn’t been any significant upturn in its economy since the property bubble bursted in 1998, its GDP is still surpassing many of the European countries, including the Celtic Tiger which has been enjoying substantial economic growth in recent years.
For a place of its size (and for just a tiny Chinese terrority), it can boost its own Google HK, Yahoo HK, MSN HK. It is quite amazing.
Now even the fate of our only Olympic Gold will be decided in Hongkong.
Posted on November 2, 2004 02:53 AM | Comments (0)
Freedom of the Press
Worldwide Index of Press Freedom is complied by “Reporters Without Borders”, Ireland, together with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and Switzerland topped the Year 2004 list as a haven of peace for journalists.
For the United States of America where where one would typically expect “Fair and Balanced” reporting, its ranking is 23, at par with Beligum, just ahead of Jamaica but behind Bosnia and Herzegovina - the republic which gained its independence from Yugoslavia in the 90s.
Posted on October 31, 2004 01:34 PM | Comments (1)
The Wall of Politicide
Security. Sure.
And it is also turning Palestinian communities into dungeons, cutting the West Bank into 16 isolated enclaves.
It also claims some of the most fertile lands of the West Bank and extends Israel’s control of critical water resources, which Israel and its settlers can appropriate as they choose, while the indigenous population often lacks water for drinking.
As for the Palestinians who find themselves in the seam between the wall and the Green Line, they will be permitted to apply for the right to live in their own homes. Israelis automatically have the right to use these lands.
The Israelis settlers will now enjoy ample land and fresh water yet one million Palestinians barely survive with their meager water supplies.
“Behind the security rationales and the seemingly neutral bureaucratic language of military orders is the gateway for expulsion.” ~ Amira Hass
Posted on August 2, 2004 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hillwalking
We have had nearly a full week of beautiful sunshine; this coupled with a mild 12-14[o]C temperature is perfect for some hiking. The area I am living in not mountainous and we will probably be spending some time in Achill island this weekend.
Posted on June 5, 2004 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Torpedo IT!
“As the World Trade Organization negotiations entered their final hours, business leaders feared that efforts to strike a ground-breaking deal on trade distortions harming the developing world were in the balance.
A high level source in the UK delegation told The Observer said: ‘It’s difficult to know what the Americans want. They’re staying in their hotel. They’re behaving like the Soviet Union in the Eighties. It’s making it difficult to know what they want.” ~ The Guardian
Torpedo it. Export subsidies and waters down commitments to improve market access are getting dull and uninteresting after all these years.
I don’t know much about farming but my wife used to run a couple of fashion boutiques. What amused me was that a high quality jean would cost €10 if bought direct in the China open market. It’s sold here in Ireland at €90. We could smuggle the goods in and “illegally” made €80 profit before freight charges or we could pay some wealthy middle men who happened to hold the necessary textile quota. The consumers would still pay €90 for that €10 jean, we would make €20 as a designer/retailer for the jean, the Chinese manufacturer would make €2 and the middle men who had absolutely nothing to do would make €60, risk-free. It’s just a trade game but it’s not a fair game.
Farm subsidies is a regressive reality but at least we are now seeing the growing alliance between Brazil, India and China - surely a good sign which may give us hope to reverse the dangerous trend toward regionalism, bilateralism and unrestrained power politics in world trade.
One billion people struggle to live on $1 a day, European Union cows net an average of $2 apiece in government subsidies. Japan was NOT a miracle - it prospered like no other by virtue of its ability to gain access to foreign markets for its televisions and cars on the one hand and yet retain her astronomical rice tariffs on the other.
Posted on September 14, 2003 06:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
R U Well Paid?
Check out how rich you are compared to the rest of the world?
This vividly illustrates the worldwide distribution of Wealth.
Posted on September 11, 2003 10:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spotted Dick
Spotted Dick has been re-introduced to the Irish Menu as Cheney’s Popularity Soured
We just tackled the origin of “Dick” as a nickname and a few other usages—a riding whip, an apron, abbreviation for “dictionary,” a policeman, a declaration, and (of course), the penis.
With all these varied usages, you got a problem with “dick” being also derived from “pudding”? My sources all pretty much agree with the derivation, without being specific how. However, I can see “pudding” become “puddink” becoming “puddick” and then just “dick.”
The word “dick” has appeared in any number of strange places. Around the 1840s, “dick” was used to mean a type of hard cheese; when treacle sauce was added, it became “treacle dick”, and finally when currants or raisins were added (looking like little spots), the “spotted dick” was born.
The earliest recipes for spotted dick are from 1847. For non-British readers, “spotted dick” is a boiled suet pudding, with bits of dried fruit (usually raisins or currants) that (as already noted) look like little spots.
The Oxford Companion to Food comments that, strictly speaking, “spotted dick” is made by taking a flat sheet, spreading sugar and raisins on it, then rolling it up. A similar dessert is “spotted dog,” a plain cylinder of suet paste with the raisins and currants and sugar stuck into it, so that the spots are visible on the outside. Both spotted dick and spotted dog were traditionally boiled (or even steamed) in a cloth, but nowadays they are usually baked.
The dessert is slightly different in Ireland. In Ireland in the late 1800s, the tradition of yeast-bread manufacture was not strong, so most breads were raised with bicarbonate of soda and an acid, rather than with yeast, and thus called soda breads. Thus, the spotted dick in Ireland is sweet soda bread, with sugar, currants, and raisins, and it’s also called the spotted dog or railway cake.
Here is the recipe.
Posted on August 29, 2003 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Toy? TV? Fashion Accessories? Camera? Email Reader?
Toy? TV? Fashion Accessories? Camera? Typewriter? Email Reader?
Surely, a mobile phone can be any one of the above except being a phone.
Japan continues to maintain its network and handset lead over the USA and Europe despite over 10 years of a slumping economy. Wherever you are, you will actually find more people ‘looking’, ‘playing’, ‘typing’, ‘shooting’, ‘posturing’ with their mobile phones instead of talking to them.
Posted on August 24, 2003 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack