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Pray for rain?

Remember this guy?

He wanted it to rain for Obama’s open air speech on Thursday. It didn’t happen, in fact it was a gorgeous evening. He later claimed it was only meant in jest.

But the GOP must now change plans for their convention, not because of rain, but because of a hurricane of biblical proportions. It even looks like George Bush won’t be able to make it, and McCain is considering changing it into a fund raiser for potential storm damage. “I wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but it is a very perplexing challenge,” said a GOP official planning the event.

Is God trying to tell Republicans something?

Wordle in print

I convinced the powers that be in the Irish Examiner that a wordle cloud would make a good graphic to go along with Barack Obama’s speech. It will feature in tomorrow’s paper. I’ve not seen Wordle used in an Irish paper yet, but since I don’t look at print newspapers that much (I read them all online) I might have missed them!

It will be on Page 14, all in horizontal. ‘Promise’ was the most frequently used word.

Who started it?

Kirsty Wark is still using the line that Saakashvili himself started the war. At the very least, we do not know who started the conflict on August 7/8, and for the BBC to assume that they do is unprofessional. There are various accounts of who started the conflict, most recently from Michael Totten in Georgia, who asserted in no unncertain terms that it was Russia who started the most recent conflict. Saakashvili himself denies starting it.

At this juncture it might be better to stop asking Saakashvili how or why he miscalculated. It might be better to ask who did start it.

This video from Fox is all rather strange. It’s very emotive, and it looks scripted and rehearsed. What do you think?

Travel plans

I’ve been working hard to prepare for a significant amount of traveling in the coming months. I have pretty much finalised my timelines, with all flights booked and accommodation sorted. Blogging, in a variety of forms, will be as regular as circumstances allow.

I should warn everyone that I will be playing with and testing a variety of new formats and all of these efforts should be considered strictly BETA. Some of it might be iffy, some of it might be boring, some of it might be something you could laugh at, but it will all be genuine effort to better tell stories.

During my travels I hope to update and upload regularly, using this blog as a testing platform. Video, photos, audio and the written word, with the intention of using technology to better tell a story. I might be successful, or I might not, but I want to flag it with regular readers so they can be aware of the changes. I think it’s worth giving it a go.

For now my provisional travel plans are this:

September 20 – September 24: Tbilisi, Georgia
September 25 – September 26: Telavi, Georgia
September 27 – September 30: A trip westwards is on the cards for now, perhaps as far Batumi. I will be following Michael Totten’s line, but hope to cover more ground in the time that I am there (I think I may be staying longer than Michael).
October 1: Tbilisi

October 2 – October 4: Munich: Oktoberfest!

October 4 – October 22: Cork

October 23: Washington DC
October 24 – 26: Toronto
October 26 – 29: Windsor, Ontario; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois
October 30 – November 5: Washington DC (Election!)
November 6 – November 8: New York
November 9 – 10: Washington DC

November 11: Cork

Of course the best laid plans… So I am being optimistic with my planning. I will see how it pans out. I hope you all enjoy the ride. 🙂

Vice President Joe Biden

It’s looking like an Obama/Biden ticket. Steve has called it.

I was impressed with Joe Biden’s speech back in 2005 at a conference I attended in Washington. I blogged a little about the conference here. You can watch videos from the conference here. You can also watch Biden’s speech here.

I guess we can expect the Irish media to start talking up Biden’s Irish-American credentials. His Irish roots come from both sides, though most directly from his mother Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan.

He quotes William Butler Yeats at the start of the speech. Towards the end of the speech he says:

Let me end – I’m always quoting Irish poets – my friends kid me and say I do it because I am Irish. That’s not the reason. I do it because they are the best poets in the world. Seamus Heaney, in his poem The Cure at Troy, for which he won the Nobel prize for literature in the mid 90s said in one stanza – which I think should become our anthem because I believe it with every fibre of my being… You talk about all the dangers but what about the opportunities?

We, if we are smart, if we are bright, if we are persistent, if we are a little lucky and if we follow our values, in a tough minded way… I really think we have a chance to change history on the margins, at least in the margins, for the 21st century. And I think a stanza from ths poem should become our anthem. He said in one stanza, he said:

“History says. Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up.
And hope and history rhyme.”

I honest to god believe after 33 years of doing this job, we still have a shot, we still have a shot – to make hope and history rhyme. If we trust our people, follow our instincts, and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary. Thank you all very much.

Cat update

I don’t know what our Polish neighbours call their cat, so he is just referred to as the Polish cat. He is, shall we say, not ‘friends’ with my own cat, Mr Puds. I have never seen them fight, but I have heard them. And Puds has limped home a few times.

So I wondered what Polish cat was looking at outside my window today:

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Hmm. I walked out to take a closer look with a camera, fearing the worst. What could that black blob be?

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Sure enough, Mr Puds was up in the tree. ‘Scaredy cat’ doesn’t quite cover it. What’s strange is that Polish cat is perfectly friendly, and plays with the neighbours’ kids while my own cat simply runs away. What is Puds afraid of?

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He jumped from the tree just after I took the photo:

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Here is Polish cat’s response to Puds running away:

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Puds then ran back inside, to take up position on the couch and look out the window:

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Polish cat seems to just want to be friends. Mr Puds is having none of it.

Bill Hicks movie

Finally. But who will play the lead role? Comedycentral makes a stab at it. Punchline are saying Russell Crowe is up for it.

Here is my humble Bill Hicks transcript that I put up in 2002. It still gets regular visits and referrals. The red bits were cut out of the video release, I transcribed them from an audio version I listened to back then.

Here is a clip from the show:

Russia revises Ossetia death toll

Surprise surprise. I, along with many others, indicated recently that the alleged death tolls as high as 2,500 put forward by Russia were entirely without a basis in fact. Now, according to the BBC:

Russia has issued new, reduced casualty figures for the Georgian conflict, with 133 civilians now listed as dead in the disputed region of South Ossetia. The figure is far lower than the 1,600 people Russia initially said had died.

133? That sounds closer to fact. But Russia Today has been using the 2,000 figure across its ticker for over a week. This would polarise viewers very quickly, and I imagine now many would accept that figure as fact. It was a figure largely accepted by Western media, though always with the proviso that it was based on Russian media/government reports.

And in a further chilling of Western-Russian relations, Russia has said it is to cut all military ties with NATO.


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