Archive Category: Living

Soak Up the Sun

We do not have too much sunshine here in Ireland and when it does, we enjoy every bit of it.

Posted on July 15, 2005 12:12 AM | Comments (0)

A Long Walk to Politcal Justice

(left to right) Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, Jean Chretien of Canada, Jacques Chirac of France, Tony Blair of Great Britain, Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and George W. Bush of the US

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you say
I’ll be watching you

Posted on July 4, 2005 12:42 AM | Comments (0)

Red Nose Day

Today is Red Nose Day - a fundraising event held by Comic Relief every two years.

Do it.

Posted on March 11, 2005 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

Art

All about Creation.

Posted on February 21, 2005 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

Open Arms

For those who are living in Bush’s fantasy island, take a look at these recent pictures from Iraq. These children are not hopeless; they are future jihadists.

Posted on January 25, 2005 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

Generosity

Can we assimilate the scale of this disaster into terms to which we can relate?

If only we can tie this in with some forms of “fight against terrorism”, these people are not going to get, in aggregate, what is being spent in Iraq on a daily basis. Is this it?

And aren’t we glad that not every one of us has this sort of mentality which is arrogant, ignorant and selfish. We despise people holding these values and attitudes, not because they are American, French, Japanese, German, Chinese or Australian.

There is no need for any permission to save somebody’s life.

We are not sticking our hands into some poor people’s pocket like they do in Iraq.

We are merely talking about selective compassion: about being compassionate enough to spend a thousand times more to “liberate” people who either do not want or are not ready for the values forcefully imposed upon them while being not so compassionate and start pooh-poohing all sort of excuses why we are not doing more when there is an urgent and genuine need for help.

Being selfish is not too much a sin nowadays. Generous or not is for us all to judge. There is little point to compare the generosity of a poor man who give his day’s earning of €20 with that of a billionare who give millions.

Posted on December 30, 2004 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

Happy Holiday

In an unlikely place, the world’s biggest single snow sculpture of Santa Claus has been built in the Jingyuetan National Forest Park in Changchun, capital of Ji lin Province, Northeast China.

It measures 80m long and 17m high (about 260ft x 55ft) made by thirty-five ice and snow artists.

Posted on December 24, 2004 03:20 AM | Comments (0)

What Do You Want to Do with Your Life?

Twinkler has some suggestions. Build a list and see how many other people share your goals. Here is my list.

Posted on December 1, 2004 07:00 PM | Comments (0)

Give Them a Chance

Posted on August 19, 2004 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Day After Tomorrow

You have seen the movie and here now are some facts¹:

1. Air - Bush policies have rolled back protections in one of the strongest and most health-protective environmental laws ever written, the Clean Air Act, allowing old power plants to continue polluting without taking steps to clean up their operations and without any threat of meaningful enforcement.

1. Water - Bush’s stated support of the Clean Water Act contradicts his policy decisions that diminish funding for clean water infrastructure, increase water pollution, and do not adequately protect wetlands.

1. Toxic Waste - The Bush administration has been content to allow the Superfund (a program to address the effects of toxic waste on New Hamsphire’s environment) to go broke, and in March 2003, the Senate killed a Democratic attempt to reinstate the tax, thereby slowing cleanups and jeopardizing the health of those who live near toxic waste sites which are treatening the surface and drinking water supplies.

1. Global Warming - After only sixty days in office, President Bush violated his campaign promise to support mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the primary cause of global warming. In addition, he withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the international agreement targeting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

1. Energy - The Bush administration shows unwavering support for the coal and oil industries, while giving mere lip service to alternative forms of, and methods for, securing efficient technologies and clean energy resources. In addition, this administration has cut the budgets of renewable energy programs over the past 3 years, and in the proposed budget for FY2005, the administration proposes cuts in efficiency improvement programs for vehicle efficiency technology research, industrial efficiency projects, renewable energy and liquid fuels from farm products, and state energy programs.

And in Oregon, what the White House did were:

• Repeal of the roadless rule, which protected nearly 2 million acres of federal forests in Oregon
• An initiative that allows logging of large healthy trees in the back country under the guise of fire protection
• Repeal of the old growth habitat protection rules in the Northwest Forest Plan

¹ source from Environment 2004

Posted on July 30, 2004 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack