Ok its very seldom I go into the subject of religion (it never ends well) but there is something that really has been pissing me off as of late. 

Militant Atheists! 

You know the type of guys-gals who will immediately protest about religion at the slightest chance. Now don't get me wrong, I'm far from a right wing religious nut. Its just that recently with all these retarded threads, and with a lot of my friends its the exact same **** over and over. Even if we would so much as mention the church here or every time I would in real life pass a church with my friends the following would ensues:

"You believe in something, oh you're retarded, you're wrong, science is the only constant in this world, there is no proof for anything you believe in, rabble rabble"

"But I don't really believe..."

"Rabble rabble rabble, church is wrong, everyone is an idiot except atheists rabble rabble"

The thing is they're not talking about preachers or whatever here, these are just average everyday Joe Soaps like you and me. They don't work for any church, they don't go to prayer meetings or whatever else the religious nut-jobs seem to do.

90% of the time with these people I feel like I'm dealing with born again Christians trying to convert me rather than "scientific minds". And the thing is these are the same people who usually freak out if they see some religious guy so much as handing out flyers on the street. I mean at least he's doing it as part of his church (and sometimes even for a good cause). However these people just seem to love to argue about how religion is only a pack of ****. 

Tl;dr : Militant Atheist types, we get it, you believe in nothing, you find it illogical that people do. However there is no need to shout it from the rooftops every 5 minutes, I don't see any religious people taking such an aggressive stance (except the right wing nuts).

Proposals for the Irish Government

Ok, I’m no ecconomist and I would make a terrible politician but this is a short post to outline some changes I’d like to see in Ireland. The point is that, if you read this, please point out to me why any of these suggestions wouldn’t work. Or, in fact, point out anything I’ve missed. Ok, here we go.

Banking Crisis:
Ok, in all probability, the government can’t change their policy on Anglo because it may reveal their own dodgy dealings. Yes, we all now know that all that successive governments have done is feather their own nests. Dickheads! This notwithstanding, we still need a solution to the problem so here’s mine.
1. Close Anglo Irish Bank with immediate effect. Call all bond holders into a meeting and tell them that the gamble they made didn’t pay off and they’ve just lost a fucking bundle. Tell them that we are not in a position to pay back anything until such time as we have the country back on a paying basis.
2. Seize the assets of all of those - (Sean Fitzpatrick et al) - who engineered this ecconomic calamity and sentence them to 25 years in jail for ecconomic treason.
3. Clear everyone’s credit rating and set up a system whereby they cannot default without fleeing the country. If they are employed, a form from their employer is presented at the branch and the loanee has no control over the payments on that loan, meaning they cannot default. If they lose their job, a form is presented to the Social Welfare office and a reduced repayment is taken out of their dole. This gets the banks back lending and people spending, sending money back into the ecconomy. To this end, you are not guaranteed a loan because a lot of the problem was created by people living beyond their means.

Unemployment and Justice:
Ok, I’ve clubbed these together because I believe that one will depend on the other.
1. Firstly, we are told we have over crowded prisons. This is bullshit. Our prisons are not over crowded. There is a very easy way to ensure that we can increase capacity by 100%. What is it? Two prisoners per cell. “But Cap’n, you can’t be suggesting that these poor unfortunate victims should have to share their cell with another, are you?”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. We need a minister for Shut The Fuck Up. Every time we hear a liberal gobshite, who’s only experience of crime is watching CSI Nenagh, pipe up about prisoners’ rights, they can be summarily told to shut the fuck up.
The point is that, if you are prepared to do the crime, you should be prepared to be punished for that crime. Not one scumbag has any worries about going to jail because they are now like fucking hotels. Ok, so that increases capacity by 100% but, if we go with my loan proposal, we also get rid of the 200 or so prisoners who are imprisoned for loan default. Anyone caught for unpaid fines or failure to pay tv licences or any other such nonsense should get community service. Prison should never become an option in this regard.
If you rape somebody, you give that person a life sentence and your sentence should not be any different. Let’s start handing out proper prison sentences in proper prisons.
We will, of course, need more prison staff for the extra prisoners so that will create employment right there. In addition to this, we will need to refit prisons and take out the tvs from the individual cells and stuff like that. Well, we have a huge amount of experienced construction staff and tradesmen on the dole at the moment. Let’s pay them a decent wage - nothing like they were used to, but decent - and get them back to work on these projects. More employment, more spending etc etc. In my opinion, we probably need another two to three maximum security prisons - because no prison should be anything else - so we could use places like Parkway Valley in Limerick. Construction has stopped there so let’s get people back to work transforming these skeletal monuments to our gambling addiction into prisons.
Member of a criminal gang? Well by definition, you’re a criminal so off you pop to jail there. When will you be left out? Hey, Minister, could you answer this little scumbag’s question? “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”.
2. For further employment, we should have more community schemes that will get people back into the swing of working and give them a sense of purpose.

Freeing up funds:
Ok, so if you look around, you’ll see so many wastes of government funding in one instance and other areas that are completely neglected.
1. We have way too many ministers. Yes, I’m introducing another one with the minister for Shut the Fuck Up but I propose that we reduce the number of ministers to 10. We don’t really need the others. There should be no junior ministers, no Senate and no Presidency. What we will have is an online log, where every decision made by the government is logged and available for public viewing. Any decision made that isn’t included will be considered fraudulent and those responsible will be prosecuted. Those ministers who are ousted, will not be entitled to a golden handshake unless they can show actual evidence of the good they’ve done whilst in office. The new minister for Shut The Fuck Up will oversee this, for obvious reasons. They will also not be entitled to a pension. They’re gone gone gone. The gravy train has derailed, boys and girls, now fuck off.
2 Necessary funding should be introduced. The GAA are wealthy enough to fund themselves. We should not be funding them or giving them any tax exemption. As there will be a brutal severing of the umbillicus between church and state, there will be no tax exemption for any church run enterprises. Some responsiblility will fall firmly at the door of business.
If you own a bar and are hiring cover bands during the week, you will then be obliged to provide space in your premises to the local art community. This is a win win for pubs and venues because they will take revenue from bar sales but will also allow people to exhibit their work or plays or original music or comedy.

Ok, there’s a few suggestions to get you started. Please leave comments with any ideas you have.

Cool is attitude

I'm sitting here watching Steve McQueen in Papillion.

There's a fella who I reckon isn't particularly good looking, and not buffed up by todays gym whore standards but sweet jesus that man is cool. Just by sitting there squinting his eyes in the sun, that man is effortlessly cool.

Like Sinatra and the boys in the pack back in the day, none who were all that fantastic looking but they were gents in suits that you wouldn't f*ck with. Which is cool.

These are men, not Orlando Bloom or Russel Brand types, men who were men and were cool for a bit of attitude and who could carry it. 

I'm struggling to think of many who are around now, maybe it's 'cause of teenies who are dominating whats at the front of pop culture, and footie players are mostly pussies now, remember Cantona anyone??

Sebastien Chabal comes to mind. Clint Eastwood, he could probably say more with one look that most actors would in an entire film. Humphrey Bogart, not afraid to give a lad a smack in the chops if they mistreated a lady. Christopher Walken, by virtue of having his voice and his ice cold demeanor is absolutely cool.

The real cool individuals are the ones who don't have to do much in order to be cool. Look at Dean Martin, the man was cool incarnate even though he spent a lot of time in close proximity to Jerry Lewis. Lewis spent his time mugging for the camera and falling around the stage, where as Dean would just stand there with a drink in hand being effortlessly cool.

Being cool is all about attitude.