Really? Bill Cullen outlines his plans for the Apprentice Ireland.

“We’re going to do it differently; we don’t have to say ‘you’re fired’. We might say, ‘hit the road’, ‘you’re barney bracked’ or ‘Donald Ducked’. We want to show an Irish version of the thing,” he explained.

Well, in the spirit of making it truly Irish it should of course be Your Ma.

[Independent.ie] Fitting the Bill tycoon lines up his ‘Apprentice’.

Tom Higgins, owner of realm, which operates Irish Psychics Live bought Dickens’ desk today at auction. He said:

I actually think it’s worth a lot more than what I paid for it and expected it could have gone for as much as five million (pounds).

But that doesn’t make sense because he must have just asked his psychics what he’d bid and how it would turn out. He also knows how his space flight will turn out. Life must be very dull for Mr. Higgins.

Unless…The Irish Psychics aren’t actually psychic?

The terms and conditions says:

Users should note that The Company does not make any specific claims about the abilities of its Readers and does not imply or mean to imply that any or all of its Readers are capable of foreseeing or predictions future events other than as a matter of personal opinion and Users are strongly cautioned and advised not to act upon any information received or perceived to have been received without recourse to their normal decision making processes

Then on the web site proper it says:

Irish Psychics Live™ is operated by genuine celtic psychics, the most psychic race in the world.

Wikipedia says:

In popular culture the word psychic (pronounced /ˈsaɪkɨk/; from the Greek psychikos - “of the soul, mental”) refers to the claimed ability to perceive things hidden from the senses through means of extra-sensory perception.

So all the language seems to be designed to create impressions in the users head without actually stating anything that is legally refutable.

Nothing new I know, but it’s just all so cynical and depresses me.

Like from this interview in 2006:

Every new customer is a valuable asset and you have to work hard to keep that customer happy and using your service on a regular basis.

At least a subset of those customers are genuinely under the belief that they’re communicating with a psychic. Indeed, the psychics themselves may believe they are psychic. Great. Solves nothing for anyone. Someone ring them and ask them when the next car accident is going to happen and how to stop it.

I can only console myself by enjoying the Skeptics Dictionary Newsletter #68, which tells the whole story of Pat Kenny’s (he got to be a hero and not a plank, this time) interview with Mr. Higgins, and the ensueing BCC complaints, RTE’s response, and the accusations of slander by one of the psychics.

An Irish girl got onto the worldwide skype powered Oprah Book Club web event.

…you’ll try and be in the present moment and then they’ll be like - come on come on - you know - let’s go and do something … which is obviously trying to escape from the present moment…

I’ve no interest to find out more. Beyond asking one question, I thought The Secret was the secret, so why do we need another one?

You can though: eckharttolle.com/a_new_earth

Atheist.ie have ownership of catholic.ie. Hilarity ensues. Check it out: www.catholic.ie.

It’s just a youtube embed of:

How did they get Catholic.ie? Superheroes! Here’s the forum post on atheist.ie about it.

One of the most popular articles on Independent.ie over the last few days was Le pub Irlandais is too Anglais:

McKibbin’s Irish Pub in Montreal is at the centre of the latest language tensions brewing in Quebec.

The owners of the popular pub have been ordered by Quebec’s language police to remove antique advertising posters for Guinness.

But AngryFrenchGuy says on this blog post here:

McKibbin’s Irish pub owners got the world’s media attention with two deliberate lies: that they had been told to take down vintage Irish posters and that they were told the staff spoke to much English amongst themselves. Vintage posters in English or any other language are perfectly legal and there is nothing the law can do about the language employee speak amongst themselves, unless an employee complains he was discriminated against, which wasn’t the case here.

More: The Montreal Gazette tells everyone to calm down.

From Clerical Whispers (which I think is one of the shittest blogs in Ireland) comes news that Pope Benedict XVI takes the problem of exorcism very seriously and is

“setting up exorcism squads to deal with the rampant growth of Satanism.”

Just fuck off already. We have the Pope setting up more exorcism squads, we have the Catholic church in Ireland opposing the lowering of VAT on condoms and we have Cardinal Connell blocking access to important details of clerical sex abuse.

Did you know that at Desmond Connell’s wikipedia entry it points out that he should be referred to as Your Eminence? Eminence is defined as:

A position of great distinction or superiority

A person of high station or great achievements

What a fucking joke.

It’s beyond belief that people are still actually going and listening to these abnormal, close minded fools pontificating on moral issues and remaining attached to an organisation when it has no shred of dignity left and is being exposed daily for the horrendous, evil cult it is.

Roman Catholic priests: Do yourselves a favour and step down from the pulpit and join the human race. Or maybe it should be step up; it’s a matter of history whether you ever had the moral high ground, but you certainly don’t have it now.

For fucking fucks sake with a fucking fuck on top: It’s just so shit. It’s a black Irish pimp. Part of the gag is his attempts to hit prostitutes and it’s funnier every time.

You see, here’s a real Irish comedian, showing off what the Irish are really like [by getting his lad out]:

Robbie has a web site.