Ireland's new law, a quadripegic law student, and Britain loses a hero

Hey there my adoring fans, welcome to another edition of my blog, all three of you who'll read this anyways. Today I'll be discussing Ireland's new blasphemy law, a quadriplegic getting screwed over and Britain losing it's last WW1 veteran. So lets get this show started:

Ireland's new law:

I guess things were going a little too well in Ireland so it's government just had to find a way to screw things up. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern as enacted a new law that basically states that if you say something about a religious institute and it pisses off enough people, the the Irish government can fine you up to twenty five thousand Euros. I... I can't be the only one who thinks that that is completely insane right? Here's a law that is damn near impossible to fight in court and gives the local authorities the ablity to decide what is an "outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of a religion."

What I really don't get is why haven't the Irish people haven't done anything about this. There freedom of speech was just taken away so where are the massive rallies? Why are they letting the government decide what they can and can't say? Protect your civil liberties or sooner or later they'll all be taken away.

Quadripegic law student:

So now we go from the Irish losing their freedom of speech to good ol' fashion American bureaucracy. This news story stars Sara Granda, a law school graduate who happens to be a quadriplegic. She got that way due to an accident roughly twelve years ago. Now a quadriplegic completing three years of law school and getting a degree is impressive, but, unfortunetely, that is not why she is in the news.

You see the Cali's state government helped her out financially including paying for her bar exam entrance fee... which is where everything started going wrong. You see the state sent the bar exam her entrance fee directly, by way of mailing them a check. Normally when you register to take the exam online (obviously being the easist way for her to register), they require a credit card number. She talked to the bar association about the fact that her fee was being paid for by a check and they told her it was ok.

Now fast forward a bit, to just about a week before the exam, Miss Ganda finds out that her application to take the test wasn't processed since it wasn't paid online by credit. Yes you read correctly in the previous paragraph that they told her it was alright earlier and then suddenly, oh there's a technically and you can't take the test. Oh and just to let you guys/gals know, it's not like you can just take it next week or something. The next bar exam in california will come in February, as in next year. I give her credit for not letting them know exactly what she thinks of that technically right away and trying to think this through.

So now, she's asking asking the state courts to force the bar association to allow her to take the test. Even California's govener Arnold Schwarzenegger has made public comments in support of Miss Ganda. The exam will be the same week as of the posting of this blog (actually it may be Tuesday), so good luck Sara. Hopefully this will have a happy ending.

Britain loses a hero

I'm ending this one on bit of a sad note. The last living British army veteran of WW1, Harry Patch, has passed away. Mr. Patch died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 111.

He entered the army in 1916 and, after basic training, became a machinegunner in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. A few weeks in, he fought in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, at Passchendaele, where three of his friends were killed by a shell explosion.

At a rememberance ceremony in 2007 Mr. Patch, then the only living british veteran of the war, said "Today is not for me. It is for the countless millions who did not come home with their lives intact. They are the heroes. It is also important we remember those who lost their lives on both sides."

In a later comment, made in the same year, he said, ""I met someone from the German side and we both shared the same opinion: we fought, we finished and we were friends." Ha, spoken like a true warrior.

As a citizen of a fellow allied nation, I salute you for your bravery and thank you for your service. May you join your loved ones and fellow fallen soldiers in the afterlife. Rest in peace Harry Patch.