To accuse a politician of dealing in 'doublespeak' is usually an insult, but I make a case for the exception.

Anyone who has heard Barack Obama deliver a speech will admit that he is a charismatic orator, regardless of whether or not they agree with the sentiment. Personally, the speech that most impressed me was his 'Call to Renewal' [video; text] keynote address, delivered almost two years ago, which investigated the connections between religious faith and political will.

Since I am, what you might call, an anti-religious atheist, I make it my business to hear the opposing views, and ponder them carefully before I make my criticisms. Obama's speech was complex yet intellectually sound; inspirational yet highly articulate; sober yet entertaining. Full marks there.

While performing my exegesis , I came to separate the manifest content from the underlying meaning and I began to understand that the speech was really about political expediency.

He puts it across so well that the faithful don't recognise the double entendres. They don't see that when Obama says people long for 'a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives,' when he speaks of a realisation that

without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone

when he articulates these ideas, he is actually speaking in code to the agnostics, the realists, the intellectuals, and the skeptics.

The thrust is: America is religious. Religious people only trust people like themselves. If you want to get elected and change the world, you better sign up with a church. Religious beliefs sway political decisions, so get the churchgoers on your side.

All in all, it's a fascinating piece of writing from a thoughtful and literate scholar. Therefore, I was quite disturbed by the recent reports of plagiarism which were levelled at the Senator. Why would he need to steal ideas?

As it turns out, instead of ripping off Alice Walker, Sweet Honey or June Jordan as the accusations would have it, he used (quite eruditely) far older concepts from traditions of the elders of the Hopi tribe, from whom the others had drawn uncredited inspiration.

It's another non-story (such as his request to be sworn in on the Koran, and his refusal to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and his attendance at a Muslim school, all untrue of course) that has gained credence through repetition, the biggest hammer in the Republican toolbox.

As you may know, backbencher Terence Flanagan(FG) denied and then today admitted helping himself to passages from Joan Burton's(Lab) speech from the previous day.

Presenter Seán O'Rourke, while throwing forward to an upcoming piece on the story during this afternoon's RTÉ Radio News at One, scurrilously, flippantly, and slanderously, claimed that Flanagan

might have something in common with Barack Obama when it comes to cogging a good line. [listen at 8m 15s]

In that case, he must be wrongly accused and completely innocent of the charge. Obviously, if you haven't bothered to read up on the facts of a story, you shouldn't cross-reference it with a 'knowing' jibe like that. It shows very little respect for truth, facts and 'the news' itself.

I wonder if they respect the Clintons too much to bring up Hillary's 'cogging'?

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Man locked away naked for a year while on TV secretly

Seriously? Let's not kid ourselves. It's a good story though.

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Maybe it's because the whole Catholic pro-life thing is still fresh in Irish minds that we can only look at this recent statement of Bush's with a raised eyebrow or two.

With now sense of irony, George W.Bush has praised 'faith-based groups' for their sterling work in the (wait for it) fight against AIDS.

Is it just me or does everyone else immediately associate HIV prevention = condoms? Meanwhile the first priority of any decent compassionate Catholic organisation is of course to prevent anyone from using condoms–God knows why, literally.

Yet Bush says 'They are helping to defeat this epidemic one soul at a time.'

Give me a break. In addition, his funding restrictions require that groups advocate his absurd abstinence program, which has been repeatedly proven to be ineffective. Criticism of the 'abstinence-only' approach to sex education has been officially levelled by:

• The American Psychological Association
• The American Medical Association
• The National Association of School Psychologists
• The Society for Adolescent Medicine
• The American College Health Association
• The American Academy of Paediatrics
• The American Public Health Association

So I say, Bush grow up. Just because you didn't get laid until you were 25 (and that was a pity shag) don't spoil it for the rest of the world.

President Bush: Faith key to international AIDS fight – CNN.com

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I'm jumping on the Face of Jesus bandwagon.

A lady reported seeing the face of Jesus in a photo she took at the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Bock has already had a go at it and displayed a little too much scepticism, I felt. He doesn't seem to believe it's really there.

I, on the other hand, not only saw the face immediately but was inclined to think the lady hadn't gone far enough! I was so excited by this miracle that in my state of heightened consciousness, I felt I could make out nearly all of the Apostles (including Zeus) peeping out from the rocks too.

Earlier today I went to the trouble of highlighting the apparitions for unbelievers. Some may take you a while to grasp, but when you see them, you won't be able to see anything else. Not even all the people laughing at you. And that has to be a good thing, surely?

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Way back in June you may remember a Father Con McGillicuddy complaining that Prof Richard Dawkins at the World Atheist Convention had described the Catholic church as 'an evil institution'. His response in the Irish Times letters page relied on that old canard about the 'institutions of death provided by famous atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu and others' — as if somehow atheism has a sacred text which tells you what to do.

As there are Christians who kill, there are atheists who kill. The difference is that there is no atheist creed to instruct the non-believer — he may kill for universal human motivations such as greed, power, lust etc. Whereas the religious killers may do so specifically because of his religious beliefs. Religion makes you do what you're told, not what is right.

I won't rehearse in full the voluminous refutations that have already been offered by atheists time and again to people like the pious Father McGillicuddy, since they never seem to land. If being told that Hitler thought of himself as a good Christian doesn't suit the superstitious padre, then no doubt he'll simply dismiss the fact out of hand. But don't take it from me, here's Der Führer — quoted in entirety (more…)

Some stories just seem to stick in your mind.

I first heard the writer Roger Rosenblatt tell this anecdote in a brief NPR segment for KQED radio in San Francisco back in 1999. Ten years later he reused it in a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College. And thank goodness he did, otherwise I'd never have found it again.

When I was a boy of 12 — knowing then that I wanted to be a writer — I was already exhibiting signs that I dimly perceived would qualify me for the pursuit. I used to memorize certain lines from movies, which I would store in my head, awaiting an opportunity to slip those lines into ordinary conversations. People would be conducting a perfectly sensible chat, and I would be crouching like a lion in the brush, anticipating the moment when I could insert a line from a film. I do so to this day. You may imagine what a delightful social companion I am.

The lines I chose where never the garden variety, such as "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" or "Frankly, my dear…" and so on, but rather ones that an idiosyncratic attraction for me.

For many years, there were two lines I had never been able to slip into any conversation. The first of these, I never did get in. It occurred in Earthquake, one of the disaster films of the 1970s, in which a man was stalking a young woman to do terrible things to her. One would have thought that an earthquake would have been enough to divert his attention, but he was, as they say, focused.

At the height of the quake, he finally cornered his quarry and was about to jump her, when George Kennedy, playing a cop as he always did, appeared, threw the attacker to the ground and shot him dead. Consoling the shaking woman, Kennedy told her: "I don't know what it is. Earthquakes bring out the worst in some guys."

The other line was more unusual and exotic so it presented a much greater challenge. It was spoken by Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson in one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies of the 1940s, when Watson was attempting to impress a couple who were unfamiliar with Holmes's exploits. "Haven't you heard of the giant rat of Sumatra?" asked Watson, referring to one of the great detective's most famous cases.

"Haven't you heard of the giant rat of Sumatra…?"

Decades passed, and I never came close to a moment when I might work that line into a conversation. Then, in the late 1970s I was writing for the Washington Post, and I had all but given up on my quest. One day, some friends and I went out to lunch, and it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the creation of Mickey Mouse.

There was some chatter at the table about Mickey, to which I had been paying scant attention. Suddenly, one of the guys sat up with a quizzical look and asked, "Has there ever been a bigger rodent?"

Naturally, following Roger's admitted failure, I became obsessed with trying to smuggle the George Kennedy line into some conversational exchange with co-workers. One night when a 4.6 quake finally hit the city, I was alone. Sadly, the next morning I couldn't conceive of any device that would casually introduce the phrase. I have all but abandonded hope. Perhaps you may carry the torch?

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Rather than publish the usual long list of "must-have essential" software, I thought I'd just focus on one piece at a time. Since Google recently announced they're wrapping up Google Desktop search, today is the turn of Everything.

It's an unfortunate product name of course, since searching the internet for "everything" doesn't really produce any meaningful results — utterly ironic, given that Everything is the finest desktop search agent you'll come across. (more…)

There's plenty of talk this week about mortgage debt forgiveness — or relief or restructuring, call it what you will — this has got a lot of people very fired up. It's the disease of the week for the talking heads and pundits on the panel shows.

Decent hard-working taxpayers will probably be skeptical of any scheme using  the term "forgiveness", and rightly so. Many pre-Tiger people worked hard for their money, saved up a healthy deposit, and paid off their heavy mortgages with no help or forgiveness from anybody — why should today's debtors be any different?

I wouldn't dare offer a solution of my own or even any analysis, not being any kind of an expert on morgages, debt financing, or other such animals. What I can tell you is a little something you may not know about the most important item: the very money itself. (more…)

A little while back — before the tail-end of the Tiger became the financial crisis, and latterly the 'economic reality' — I wrote something on voting systems. I think I've always been intrigued by the idea of proportional representation's single transferable vote. In essence, this is an attempt to solve the problem of 'one man, one vote'.

Instead of 'your guy lost, tough luck', STV in PR tries politely to ask you if you have any other preferences. It doesn't work perfectly, but then again all voting systems appear to be deeply flawed for some reason — the reason being of course (more…)