Monday 23 February 2009

Two posts in a day, must be serious

Oh how I in times like these miss the police state. I'm not quite sure if the events I'm struggling with at present have anything to do with economical down turn (read complete disaster, we're going Iceland here) or whether it really is just another case of the manana attitude.

In Ireland if you're working and paying tax, you can deduct all sorts of things and receive what are known as "tax credits". So with myself having paid rent and medical bills, I thought I'd finally go and claim my money back.

It seems that my employer still hasn't sorted out my tax records for last year and it's bloody February! This basically means I can't claim anything back until I know the exact amount of tax and pay.

Also I'm STILL owed holiday pay from last year after asking her to get it sorted for the last 6 months. I'm seriously considering to ring the revenue and the union and will, if she doesn't do anything very soon. She's sitting on so much of my money, it makes me sick.

Busy

Recently I've kept myself busy with these themes:

Richard Dawkins: The Oxford professor has a very amusing but educational channel going. I specificly like the interview with a former member of the exclusive bretheren. She has some pretty sensible arguments about the effect of cult religion in the development of children. The amusing part of the channel are the life in universe lectures given for the child/teenager audience.

Thomas Nagel and "What it's like to be a bat?"
: Nagel brought out a theory of the mind/body dilemma in the 70s (?). It's a very good read and will definitely make one question about the duality a lot. We had a lot of good arguments against his conclusion as well.

Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War: it is extremely hard not to fall asleep while reading his account of the events but it's amazing to think how old the book is. Thucydides does not escape bias but compared to many other authors of the time, he was able to leave most of his personal opinions out.

Irish history in the 19th c. : The more I read, the less respect I have for the English at the time. I've often criticised the Irish for not having a clear plan on how to do things and how to conduct politics in the past (with the exception of Catholic Emancipation), but the English are getting their fair share of the disapproval the more I read about their bad politics towards the Irish