The Champs Voice

Let's Be Weird Together

27/10/2014

I’ve never really understood online dating, the way I see it is that you’ve a bunch of people who have all failed to establish a relationship in the offline world, often referred to as reality, gathering together in the ether with the mutual agenda of establishing a relationship. With everyone in this virtual room having the same goal it’s easy for dating sites to boast success, as ultimately relationships will form in this tightly controlled game theory experiment, whereby it’s in everyone’s best interest to find a date so long as they co-operate with one another and admit that they have failed to construct a positive relationship in the offline world. Thus they mutually overcome the stigma attached to being online and make some awkward small talk followed by some chat about what they do in their free time, which they have a lot of because after all they are alone. Once feelings of loneliness have been established the two test subjects come to a realisation that their negative emotions have subsided as a result of their brief dos based companionship and then they are ready to meet in public, usually over a drink so as that they can overcome any additional anxiety with the use of alcohol and perhaps blame any abnormal flirting techniques on the toxin.

Now online dating calls this a success, but does the relationship hold any integrity and what happens if the relationship breaks down?

For the latter part of this question these relationships can be detrimental to the individual if they break down, for after all the person has already ruled themselves out of the offline dating community and sought refuge in .com land where they’ve now tasted failure and have been left with a feeling of lost hope, all the feelings of a normal breakup perhaps but on a rollercoastered online version. Without hope of finding a meaningful relationship and after lowering their self esteem by visiting lastchance online, they’ve basically created a relationship vacuum where love can never exist. The only thing that will return the individual to the dating scene is if they have a strong enough bias to believe they will not live alone.

For the online relationships that do last we must question if they hold any integrity. Obviously the individuals concerned still have an under lining fear of failure, for instance if the relationship hits a rough patch are the two individuals going to be brave enough to walk away, return to their previous world of loneliness, let’s not forget it’s in the test subjects best interests to find compromise and maintain the relationship no matter how bad it may become. So for this reason it’s worth questioning the integrity of the success of any online relationship, as it may not be based on things you would expect to find in a real life relationship, things like mutual love may not be as prevalent as individual fear of failure.

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The Best Bio's on Twitter

23/10/2014

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So I was doing a piece on social media and I was thinking about the reasons why we love twitter, and why we ‘follow’ people we don’t even know. Subsequently I discovered that I like to follow people with funny and/or amusing tag lines, so I made a list of my favourite ones. I hope to update this every now and again. I also hope to have my social media piece published this weekend so keep an eye out for it.......here’s my 'Top 25' list of Twitter Profile musings:

Crazy People

1) I'm just your average vigilante jedi, fighting crime in my underpants after the sun goes down.

2) Knows where my towel is; Constantly prepared for the zombie apocalypse

3) I'm like a candle, forget about me and I'll burn your house down!

4) Descendant from the seal people, I lure sailors to the depths and store their souls in vials in my velvet drawstring purse.

5) Id like to own a penguin.. Or a cartoon hippo!

Inspirational

1) Dropping Knowledge...Raising Consciousness

2) Life goal is to have my face on postage stamps   @kevconnell

3) Everything happens dor a reason

4) Life's like a cup of tae..it all depends on how you make it

5) There Is Always Hope. I'm a dreamer & skittle eater.

Food Based

1) Cereal enthusiast. Heel wearer.

2) Hate when I'm making a milkshake and all the boys just turn up in my yard

3) Ranch Dressing is the AntiChrist @ChrisMasonMason

4) Peanut butter dont ask questions, peanut butter understands

5) Welcome to my Twitter page. Make yourself at home and help yourself to whatever is in the fridge

Comedians

1) Stand Up Comedian who likes the name Juan..   @MrAshleyCoghlan

2) Lover of all things tea, cat, comedy and doctor who related. Sometimes I stand up and attempt to make people laugh

3) Member of Comedians Without Borders, but we don't get out of town much.   @sam_jackel

4) Joke maker. Food enthusiast. I write erotic novels for children. They're wildly unpopular

5) Writes words for money & seems like a thoroughly nice bloke once you've known him for a few years.

Sports & Entertainment

1) Im a musician based in Galway city. My hobbies include poor life decisions

2) Ed Sheerans concert was better than my birth

3) One day there will be a blue tick beside my name. Mixed Martial Artist

4) In life always choose to be yourself, except when you can choose to be xabi alonso always choose xabi Alonso

5) No one is invincible. Even Achilles was only as strong as his heel.

If you find yourself on this list and you’d like to increase your chances of having a real life stalker just pop me a message and I’ll tag your twitter name beside the post

Eg All views blurred by myopia   @willhanafin

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Drink Me

8/10/2014

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When ever I hear the word democracy I think of freedom, fair elections and a people’s government. When someone says the word Republic I think about the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. So I’ve always been instilled with a sense of pride when people talk about this little land of ours, the Republic of Ireland. I’ve often thought how much better we have it here, compared to one of those horrid countries you see on television. You know those countries where the governments decide how the labor force is fed and educated, where the people have no control over their own wealth and as a result they’re denied the opportunity to improve their living conditions, where people are ruled with an iron fist, a country where people are denied the freedoms we take for granted.

Yeah we’d all hate to live in one of those countries right?

The thing is that lately I can’t help thinking that perhaps we’re living with the wool over our eyes here in this little Republic on the Prairie, where democracy has brought us the illusion of grandeur and a tax system to match one of those despotic governments you scorn at on the television.

For example the average worker in Ireland pays 20% of their earnings in income tax, and approx 4% in USC, meaning a quarter of all his/her earnings goes straight to the government to begin with. Next off he/she might go to the supermarket to do their weekly shop, everything they buy has VAT charged to it also, at the rate of 23%. So if they spend the rest of their wages in the supermarket nearly half of their earnings go directly to the government.

If you’re lucky enough to save anything the government look to get their cut there too, taking 33% of any interest earned in what’s called Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT). Of course most of us don’t get to save that much anyway, every aspect of life in Ireland has a tax now; I pay motor tax to keep my car, septic tank charges to use my loo, a dog license for my best friend, a tv license to listen to the radio, Local Property Tax to live local - or remotely - or where ever it is that I’m living, as long as I’m living there I’m paying for it.

So it was no surprise to me when the government announced they were going to be charging us for water in a country where it doesn’t stop raining. I wondered why though, why another tax, why another tax when we pay so much tax already.

‘It’s so we can have better quality water’ they said, ‘to maintain the upkeep of water treatment facilities’.

To this extent I thought sure, sure that’s reasonable if it helps improve the quality of water supply, if it helps get clean water to our hospitals, to ensure our elderly get good clean water, that our children have access to good clean fresh drinking water. That’s reasonable right?

Because I have no problem paying for the treatment of water, especially if it’s good for us, but what if it’s not? What if the government are actually poisoning our drinking water with fluoride?

See if you’re like me you might have thought fluoridation is part of the water treatment process, that it’s required to clean the water, but you’d be wrong, it’s completely separate. After the water is treated someone comes along and adds the fluoride so that we can have better teeth, because apparently we eat too many sweets and don’t brush our teeth! Hello Mammy Ireland, thanks for the fluoride and the cancer that comes with it.

I hear what you’re thinking, surely fluoride doesn’t give us cancer, surely the government aren’t actually giving us cancer?

Well scientific research says otherwise. In 2001 researchers at the University of Tokyo published findings in the Journal of Epidemiology which reported a significant association between water fluoridation and cancer. Researchers undertook detailed statistical analysis of cancer incidence rates and water fluoridation in the USA, comparing fluoridated and non-fluoridated states. Of the 36 cancer sites in males and females examined, 69% were significantly associated with water fluoridation. The reason given by the authors for the higher cancer incidence rates in fluoridated communities was the extended presence of fluoride in plasma and urine and the infusion of fluoride into the brain and other organs.

But hey, what do they know in Tokyo right, are we going to get scared by one little report coming out of Asia telling us about the water we drink?

Well they’re not alone in their research. In 2006 the US National Academy of Sciences completed a comprehensive & balanced scientific review on the health effects of fluoride in water. Its 500-page report, representing three years' work by a panel of 12 scientists, acknowledged adverse effects from even low levels of fluoride ingestion, effects including thyroid impairment, type 2 diabetes, moderate dental fluorosis, bone fractures & arthritis, as well as lowering of IQ and brain damage.

Still dismissive, thinking why governments would do this if it is so bad, well it turns out that they don’t. Governments don’t do this; it’s pretty much just us, as it happens Ireland is the only EU country and one of only two in the world with a national mandatory public water fluoridation policy.

In fact fluoride is considered so dangerous in the USA that all fluoride toothpastes carry a poison warning, by federal law. It states, "If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, you should contact a poison control centre immediately."

A POISON CONTROL CENTRE, if you were hit by a bus in this country you’d be lucky to see a doctor after you've spent the night on a trolley, not to mind gaining access to a poison control centre, and imagine the reaction you’d get when you finally get to see a doctor and you tell them you’re concerned that you’ve drank too much water today, which is exactly what you should do because the amount of fluoride which requires a poison warning in the US is the same amount of fluoride found in one glass of tap water in Ireland, a glass which carries no warning.

All of this would make you wonder, perhaps we’re one of those horrid little countries you see on the TV, where the government decides how they treat their people, where the government dictates what’s ‘good’ for the public. Have we really turned into a country where we have no control over our own health? Is there any power in this democracy of ours? Do we have any say about how we’re taxed or about what’s in our water? Are we really going to sit back and swallow this?

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