NiallOK’s Blog

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… I’d still vote for Obama.

All very clever though - these posters cropped up yesterday and have become collectors items already. The tagline in the middle is “Let the issues be the issue”… which is a bloody good point.

[More from The Guardian]

(BTW: A classmate of mine thinks Obama looks like Ryan “Tubbers” Tubridy… anyone agree? )

I’m impressed with a few people actually…

I was impressed with the people that turned up at football tonight in our local sports centre - enough, finally, that we didn’t have to call it a day and not play any more. I was impressed with how well they played - and somewhat impressed with myself that I made it through the night, could still hack it with the youngsters and that I actually managed to score a few goals! Good work football playing fellahs!

I was impressed with RTÉ’s new 4-part documentary, Bertie, (or what little I saw of it, at least) which documents the life and times of our last Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. It was made by the same (also impressive) team (Miriam O’Callaghan’s company) who made “Haughey” - about our most infamous Taoiseach. Part two goes out next Monday night. Good work, telly production fellahs!

I was even impressed to learn that there’s an Irish version of Wikipedia… although I guess I should have realised that ages ago… Good work, language loving online encyclopedia localisation fellahs!

I’m somewhat impressed by Barack Obama (as, it seems, are both Damien and Fergal) and would like - and expect - to see him become President Elect of the United States within the next 36 hours. Good work, America’s first black President fellah!

Incidentally, I’m also impressed with Damien himself, in all honesty - with the incredible work he did as Ireland Offline chairman - as well as his creation of both the Irish Blog Awards and the Irish Web Awards. Good work, hard-working comms consultant fellah!

Speaking of awards - well done to Michele Neylon, who won two of the gongs at the NetVisionary awards recently - those being the awards for business blogging and Internet marketing. Good work, ISP running net visionary fellah!

I’m impressed by a few radio DJ’s too… particularly with Today FM’s Ray Foley and his sensible stance on the Brand/Ross controversy. Honestly - it’s a ridiculous situation that’s been blown out of proportion by bandwagon jumping complainers who, for the most part, probably never even listened to Russell Brand - or possibly even to the excellent BBC Radio 2. Seriously - read Ray’s blog post on the issue - it’s clever and well written, and while the story is still unfolding and we have yet to see the results of the BBC’s investigation into the incident, I find myself agreeing strongly with him… so good work, just-a-bit-of-fun-for-your-lunchtime fellah!

At the same time, while he doesn’t want to comment on the controversy itself, Rick O’Shea brings up another point that’s well worth considering… where do we draw the line? How far is too far in comedy? What rules should there be? How should the BBC react? … and so on… Good work, hairy-whiskey-drinking-good-point-making-DJ-slash-blogger fellah!

Finally, more DJ’s I’m impressed with are these two lads from CKY Radio, Montreal - who prank called Sarah Palin in a way that helped showed off her… erm… “qualities” even further. (Good work, prank-calling Canuck fellahs!) As if everything that Saturday Night Live has done to her (not to mention her own performances) hasn’t walloped her credibility hard enough, here she displays her incredible (and I mean “in-credible” in the literal sense) intellect when she believes she’s talking to President Sarkozy of France.

Canada seems cool…

(Yeah, this has just been a post of links… sorry.)

I have to go to court this week… but no, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll explain,…

I had a brief ‘dabbling’ with the courts system a good few years ago when I was arrested by a rookie garda in Dublin city centre. At the time, I was in a group of people walking up a main street in the city. Without going into too much detail, a few guys in our group (whom I didn’t know) started causing hassle with some club bouncers, who then called the gardaí - a number of whom showed up and started - naturally - asking us to clear away from the area.

Having no wish to get in trouble, I started to leave - but stopped for a chat with another of the gardaí present, actually asking him to explain a section of a legal act that I was curious about - and that another garda had quoted me previously - and he was happy to oblige, explaining it in detail. I got the feeling from him that he realised that I was just a bystander, not involved in the incident at the club door, but while he was chatting with me, the first garda - a trainee - the one who had originally instructed me to move on - came over and formally arrested me for being drunk and disorderly and not moving on when asked. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a more “newsy” blog post than normal…

I’ve made it no secret that if I were an American, I’d vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election. The main reasons for this are that America needs a change of administration, and John McCain looks like bringing just more of the same. Plus, while McCain may have a young and vibrant running mate in Sarah Palin - she doesn’t appear to have proven herself capable or deserving of the role of Vice President (or President for that matter), and McCain is old and seemingly out of touch, while Barack seems a lot more down-to-earth, street wise and ’savvy’ than his opposition.

As I’ve said to an American friend of mine on I-don’t-know-how-many occasions, while America has learned and adapted a lot of things from us Europeans over the decades, it’s a pity that those things don’t include the single transferable vote system of proportional representation in a multi-party democracy, and that the political landscape in the US seems destined to be forever dominated by the two goliaths that exist there.

Anyway - back to Obama, and after vocally praising him on numerous occasions recently and being rumoured to be planning to appear at the Democratic National Conference in support of Obama, the man who can’t pronounce his own name - former US Secretary of State for the current (Bush/Cheney) administration, Colin Powell finally crossed parties today and came on national television to publicly endorse the Democratic candidate and promise him his vote in November.

“He has both style and substance. He has met the standard of being a successful president - being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation, coming onto the world [and] American stage, and for that reason I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama”

This is definitely a big bonus for the Democrats, a very strong voice in Obama’s favour, and just one more positive step on Obama and Biden’s way to the White House.