Category Archives: In the news

Carole Coleman: "I wanted to slap him"

Carole Coleman made headlines when she interviewed George Bush last year in the White House. Here was a reported who didn’t want to hear the same regurgated speel again and again.
In this extract, she tells why, I wanted to slap him, and recalls the aftermath of her intereview with “the leader of the free world” too.
(Side note.. nowhere is Carole COleman quoted as saying “I Wanted to slap him”, did the Times take creative license with the title of their lead story?)

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan takes Bush on over his nomination of Harriet Miers to, “be one of only nice justices on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

Unicef bombed the Smurf village in a new ad campaign to raise money. This has been doing the rounds for a few days and as one Metafilter userpointed out, “what’s sadder, bombed smurfs…or the fact that people are so unfased by bombed people that we have to resort to bombed smurfs…news at 11”.
Says something about our “caring” society.

Sunday Times – stories and articles

From last week’s Sunday Times:

  • Sig Hansen – fisherman and skipper on the Berring Sea, one of the deadliest jobs in the world.
  • The pen is mightier – how a pen saved the astronauts of Apollo 11 on the Moon!
  • Sin cities – Britains’s inner city streets are awash with guns. Here’s the story how one minor incident ended up with the deaths of many and cost the police £5m to resolve.
  • American royalty – What was it like to grow up surrounded by the Kennedy family? Christopher Keddy Lawford tell us. Part 2 was published this week.

"Young People of Ireland, I Love You"

Pope John Paul II has just been laid to rest in the Vatican. It’s strange how emotional that makes me feel.
You can follow further coverage on or The Pope blog and elsewhere.
You can read more about the Pope’s visit to Ireland at crookedtimber.org. (also look at Ditching Constantine which explores the idea of Church as Empire)

Ken Bigley Executed

Despite all that his family did to publicize his plight, how others others protested and tried to get help for him, and the fact that the Irish Government issued him with an Irish passport, Ken Bigley was executed yesterday afternoon.
The same on Aljazeera.com.

Commenting on the new report, Paul Bigley said: “I have heard nothing at all.

“I have been optimistic and remain optimistic.”

Paul said he was praying the news turn out to be untrue.

RTE's Bush Interview

Justin has a lot more on RTE’s Bush Interview that I mentioned previously. He notes that the White House complained to “RTE, the Irish Embassy, the Irish Government, and the reporter herself” aftewards. hehe.
He includes links to the realvideo version of it as well as an mp3 audio-track too. I recorded the realvideo streaming version using the following command:

mencoder -o primetime56.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc rtsp://streaming2.rte.ie/2004/0624/primetime56.rm

The Sunday Times – Online

Colm on pointed at an article I had previously read in the Sunday Times which had reminded me of my own unfortunate troubles with the US immigration just over a year ago.
That reminded me that I should look for the Sunday Times website which I did, and it redirects to the most recent edition. Great reading there, especially their D-Day coverage.
Here’s the article about that Brother Columbanus I mentioned yesterday. (Unfortunately you have to register to view that content!)

Close

Ad-blocker not detected

Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.

  • uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
  • Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
  • Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.