I was just thinking about that great counter-culture meeting of minds that happens in the Nevada desert every year, the Burning Man Festival. I think that we should have something similar, a celebration of European alternative culture in Ireland. Of course, it would have to have a unique Irish twist.
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Nua Internet Surveys was taken over by Jupiter Media yesterday. The final remaining Nua server will be switched off soon. It is a bit like the final nail in the coffin of an era. Things will never be the same again.
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According to the New Scientist, an Irish researcher, Carmel Mothersill was part of a research team which found that the effects of radiation has had a major effect on sexual habits in the irradiated area.

According to a New York Times article on the CNN site, the American troops got a great welcome in Baghdad. They should enjoy it while it lasts. The Northern Ireland experience shows that no one likes having foreign troops marching around their home town, even if they were sent over to defend your interests.
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Iraq is said to produce 2.8m barrels of oil per day. If they can make USD20/barrel, that’s about 20 billion dollars a year clear. Plenty there to do an awful lot of construction.

Iraq doesn’t need foreign aid, at least in the financial sense. They are loaded with a readily convertible commodity.
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It is almost a truism in Dublin to say that the Digital Hub project, which is supposed to provide an environment to cultivate Ireland’s famous talent for writing and producing, is a bit of a joke. Calling a country where broadband costs are several-fold higher than almost anywhere else in the world a ‘digital hub’ is obviously laughable.

But the joke just isn’t funny anymore. The website and the plans they’ve developed are just plain insulting to hard working people in the Irish new media industries.
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Well, no, not really. There are five anti-war protesters walking around this comfortable south Dublin suburb with placards and handing out leaflets. They don’t look very dangerous. But there are at least 10 gardai (policemen) standing around, apparently watching them. Oddly enough, the Ranelagh traffic camera seems not to be working, even though all the other traffic cameras for the city appear to be operating fine (see menu at the top of AA Roadwatch site). It’s a funny old world.

If ever you are in Baghdad town, tell the taxi drivers that Saddam sent you. Another strange story from Ireland, this time from the Impartial Reporter, in Co. Fermanagh, telling how the middle eastern tyrant saved an Irish schoolteacher from kerbside rip-off merchants.

Thanks to Justin for this one …
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