The most recent information from the Icelandic Meteorological Service indicates that the eruption
from Eyjafjallajökull has paused. The volcano continues to emit a plume of steam, however no ash
has been emitted for the past 24 hours or so. Issued at 1458 on Mon 24 May 2010.
Speech, by An Taoiseach Mr. Brian Cowen TD, North Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Dublin
City University 13 May 2010 "The Irish Banking Crisis - the Mistakes, the Responses and the Lessons"
... Click here to read the whole speech ...
Some excerpts:
"The advice at the time was that the balance of evidence suggested that the banks had sufficient capital to absorb the likely losses but, that there were vulnerabilities and risks. With hindsight this proven to be fundamentally wrong, however, those were the views expressed at the time.
We now know grave mistakes were made in the judgement of the capital adequacy of the Irish banks and the assessment of future loan losses. It is, however, important to note that no one in the independent authorities ever advised the Government that the capital adequacy was not sufficient or that higher capital adequacy ratios should be imposed".
... and, 2 hours later, I just woke up to the following statement (just kidding ... I've not woken up ... still dreaming this nightmare):
"Given the scale and speed of the emerging crisis in September 2008, Governments throughout Europe and the US were forced to take swift action to support their banking sector. Some actions were implemented secretly but in Ireland the Government decided to take the necessary step of providing a full guarantee to the banking sector based on careful consideration of the advice from the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority and the Department of Finance and their advisors".
... so, my question is, what will happen when, in hindsight, this will be proved to be fundamentally wrong as well ... remember, that these advice were the views expressed roughly by the same advisors ... but hey, don't woory he takes on full responsibility ... as did Bertie ...
While volcanic activity, from Eyjafjallajökull, has recently increased and the ash plume is now reaching
heights of 28,000 to 30,0000 ft (8 to 9 km) ... some distressing statistics have been released today,
showing that April was very poor month for Irish Aviation due to the continued effect of the recession
and the Icelandic Volcano. Commercial over-flights of Irish airspace were down 12.9% on April 2009.
North Atlantic (Europe /US) flights were also down a record 15.1% on the previous year.
The main airports suffered badly in April 2010 with:
- Dublin air traffic down 26.8% on 2009
- Cork air traffic down 25.3%
- Shannon air traffic down 57.1%
- Over-flights of Irish Airspace were down 3.3%
- North Atlantic (Europe /US) flights were down 5.2%
- Dublin Airport Flights were down 19.1%
- Cork Airport Flights were down 13.8%
- Shannon Airport flightswere down 39.1%
The Europe / North America transatlantic routes, which account for over 75% of IAA revenue, were severely impacted over the period and initial estimates are that the IAA lost up to €8 million in revenue during the period. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that in April alone, airlines lost € 1.5 billion because of the crisis.
... what scares me the most, about this financial crisis of ours, is the fact that it is governed
by simpletons ... how else could it be that our Minister for Finance, Brian Joseph Lenihan, while
wearing a sincere, but yet most cheerful face, explains us why it is a good thing for Ireland to
spend 1.5 billion € (we, by the way, don’t have) in the Greek (well actually German and French banks)
bail out ... and that is how it goes:
"Yes, we will have to borrow this money from the EU central bank … but we will get a good (meaning low) interest rate on it ... the Greek, on the other hand, will have to pay us back with a much higher interest rate … so we will actually make a profit" ...
... yippee ... well done Brian ... you’re spot on ... and I should probably go and make some more firewood, because next winter will come with certainty …
Rick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas, describes the oil spill disaster off the coast of
Louisiana as an "act of God" ... and he is right ... God alone created stupidity, greed and the
Republican Party mind set.
Yesterday an attempt failed to covered the leaking oil well, on the sea bed, with a 100 ton heavy steal bell. Designed to collect the outpouring oil. But the freezing condition, in 1500 meters debt, blocked the valves with ice. At the moment work is on the way to build a new device. Meanwhile more oil is pouring out and the blame game, of the involved companies, is on its full swing and damage is hard to estimate.
Response to date:
- Total response vessels: more than 517
- Manpower: more than 10 000 people and 290 boats are set in action
- Boom deployed: more than 1.5 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)
- Boom available: more than 1.4 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)
- Oily water recovered: approximately 4 million gallons
- Dispersant used: approximately 436,246 gallons
- Dispersant available: approximately 120,00 gallons
- Overall personnel responding: approximately 13,000
... don’t forget, that the bail out of Greece is not a bail out of Greece as a Nation ...
it’s a bail out of the banks (mostly German and French) who gambled and lend huge amount of money to the
Greek government ... the people in the streets will not gain anything from this bail out ...
but the aforementioned banks will ...
... we have now a trans national NAMA and that is called Greece ...
[heard on Emaon Dunphys Radio show this morning]
Worries over Greek and EU debt and recent fraud charges against Goldman Sachs dropped yesterday the
‘Dow Jones’ by 1,000 Points ... but what’s the link here ... well ... trough very creative (fraudulent)
accounting, it now appears, the recently bailed out US American investment bank Goldman Sachs cheated
Greece into the Euro zone and kept it there ... with stuff I really don’t understand (no normal thinking
person ever should) ... stuff like "cross currency swaps" and "fictional exchange rates." ... all done
to circumvented EU’s stringent Maastricht rules ... oh, and it won’t help Greece much that another US
investment bank helped Italy, with a similar trick, to mask its true debt as well. Well, at some point
Greece, as any one else, will have to pay up for its swap transactions swindle gains and that will deepen
its deficit even further ... and Goldman Sachs walked away (then), smiling, having charged Greece a hefty
commission, for its expertise and work and sold, in 2005, the whole crap back to a Greek bank.
Will it ever help if Greece and the US Securities and Exchange Commission go on to sue this former Wall Street giant, Goldman Sachs ... probably not ... not if the US won’t apply some sort of a Criminal Assets rule and take away the 'dough' of the very one involved in this financial ‘hasardeuring’ (gambling) ... it strikes me as odd though that the US government, ones, explicitly declined a bail out of Lehman Brothers, at the beginning of the recent (2007) liquidity crisis in their banking system ... and jumped for rescue when Goldman Sachs went belly up ... oh yeah, I forgot, most of the governments financial advisors (Republicans as well as Democrats) worked and learned their ‘Craft’ there ones in their life’s ... and that is while we will end up in the same ‘Schlamassel’ (mess) once again ... it’s a mental, spiritual thing called Capitalism ... and we, as always, will therfore miss the chance to learn and gain from this crisis ...
Because of more ash from Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull that has and is been spewed out tonight and today
all passengers, in the British Isles, are advised to contact their airlines or airline websites
again ...
Aer Lingus has cancelled all UK and European flights in and out of Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast airports until 1pm. The airline said its flights to the US with the exception of EI 105 from Dublin to New York would operate as scheduled.
Ryanair has cancelled all flights in and out of Irish airports until 2pm.
Having heard so many controversial opinion about this, I did a web search and found the following in the:
EU REGULATION (EC) No 261/2004 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 February 2004
It sais: "Passengers whose flights are delayed may be entitled to compensation, when they reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time, they (like passengers whose flights are cancelled) may seek flat-rate compensation from the airline, unless the delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances" Well, that seems crystal clear to me: "unless the delay is caused by extraordinary circumstances" ... and that is exactly what these are "extraordinary circumstances" ...
This law has been actually ratified by a 2009 Court judgment [Sturgeon v Condor Flugdienst GmbH and Böck and Others v Air France SA] ... where the Court observes that such a delay does not give rise to a right to compensation if the airline can prove that the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances which are beyond its actual control and which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.
I wonder though how this will progress, when it becomes a frequent occurrent and it’ll loose to be a extraordinary circumstance" ... will no longer be extraordinary circumstance" ...
Initially I was very impressed with the speed and accuracy how the FBI apprehended the perpetrator
of the bomb laden (or was it Bin Laden) car, at times square in New York ... but hang on ... I just
heard that this arrest was actually not the result of a "CSI" like, high-tech, intelligence success
of the very expensive state agency … but really a mere chance event … because that guy, although
listed on one of these "NoFly-Lists”, sat already in an "Emirates” machine, at John F. Kennedy Airport,
ready to flight out, on a 8000$ first class ticket, to the sunny Dubai ...
Ok, fact is, they got him ... having initially left a trail as wide as a national super highway (he bought that car in his own name (just to mention one) etc etc. ... cheers.
Click here to read more ...
In a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) warns, that the ongoing undermining of the Freedom of Information Act. reflects a deep malaise. Seamus Dooley (NUJ Irish secretary) said that the recently published report of the Information Commissioner and Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly puts in sharp focus the current policy towards openness in government:
At a time when citizens are demanding a role in the future of their Republic the Government is hell bent on keeping them in the dark by excluding key agencies from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act ... there is no justification for a blanket exclusion of Nama from the provisions of the legislation … how can we be expected to have faith in a process which operates in secret, just as the National Treasury Management Agency has done? As a principle every new State agency should come within the scope of Freedom of Information legislation ... and the exclusion of Nama was a cynical exercise ... the government must learn to trust the citizens of this country, treating them as adults who are capable of comprehending information ... the original Freedom of Information Act was brought about by a sustained campaign for openness and transparency, led by the NUJ and the Let in the Light campaign ... the Act was amended by the Fíanna Fáil/Progressive Democrat government coalition, opposed not just to the legislation but to the ethos underpinning the Act."
"The exclusion of the National Asset Management Agency from public scrutiny is inexcusable"
... have you heard what the dogs are barking in the streets ... between Mizenhead and Adelaide ... the
very and only Swiss Heidi, the most prominent Swiss brand in the world (as one calls it), is, in fact, from German
origin ... well, there we go again ... having already lost their beloved Wilhelm Tell to the Scott’s
or even Norwegian ... the good, solid Swiss image to Syria ... and (soon) the bank secrecy to the
World ... that is hard to swallow. And what makes matters worse is that some critics already label
this as an act of Heidious plagiarism ... others, like Peter Büttner, who made this discovery public,
calls it diplomatically “intertextuality” ... and, no surprise, the earnest, Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung
(NZZ ) sees only, if at all, marginal parallels to the original story, which, by the way, was called:
"Adelaide, the Girl from the Alps" and calls this prompt "pseudo scientific bean-counting" ...
and concludes further ... why would a gifted writer (Johanna Spyri) require the uplifting story, of
a third class writer (Hermann Adam von Kamp), as a guide ... yes why ???
New data from the European Union statistics office, Eurostat, show that the Euro zone inflation rose
in April by 1.5 per cent, year-on-year, up from 1.4 per cent in March and estimates further, that
23.130 million men and women in the EU were unemployed in March.
How is that even possible ???
RTÉ presenter Gerry Ryan (53) has been found dead this afternoon at his home in Dublin. Although I
detested Gerry Ryan and hated the way he presented his shows … even the way he spoke ... I am shocked
and feel sad … somehow ... not just because I lost a dear hate figure … but I think to die alone, in
the prime of his live, is a truly sad thing … and not to be wished for anyway ...
PS. ... do I have to fear for Ryan Tubridy now ... I hate im just as well ...
For once I thought Microsoft had really something going here (check out my) ... but now this project is abandoned like a unwanted child ... it’s a shame ... but hey maybe the whole thing was patent riddled (I saw, years back, a similar device under the ‘One Laptop per Child project) and there is not much Microsoft hates more as sharing the ‘dough’ ...
Check my piece: 6. March 2010 - "Vapourware steam or what ... "
The mighty force of the dark (Apple) empire strikes back ... ‘how dare you, you little GIZMODO mouse’ ...
how dare you to annoy the glorious Apple overlord (St.Steven) by revealing his most precious secret ...
the iPhone 4G ...
... initially lost ... then found ... then acquired and then published, in GIZMODO ...
... yesterday, April 25, GIZMODO editor Jason Chen arrived home to discover police executing a search warrant, by Apple, seizing every computing or computer-related device in his home including keyboards, mice, floppy disks, and anything that could possibly have anything to do with this hideous crime ... what crime … revealing, untimely, an Apple secret ... well ... don’t you have nothing better to do, you man and woman of the Force, then pleasing a spoiled and disgruntled Steven ...
Click here to read more:
Johannes Tomasson, at Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, said:
"There is very little lava and ash production, at the moment ... scientists are expecting ash to reduce, or at least not increase ... but it is very hard to predict what will happen next at the volcano, since there is still seismic activity under the glacier"
And Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, of the University of Iceland, said:
"Although the lava is not yet visible, signs of the flow were apparent. The northern crater is very active with sporadic explosions when the lava comes in contact with ice"
Despite the eruption appears to becoming less of a threat to air traffic, experts express concern not to be too complaisant, this still could set off the nearby Katla volcano, which is much larger, since history shows that an eruption at Katla often follows one under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier.
With a view to the ash distribution forecast, the flight zone for Keflavik and Reykjavík Airports have been closed for a certain period of time, see The Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration. In Iceland there are four international Airports, Keflavík, Reykjavík, Akureyri and Egilsstaðir. It is not expected that the ash distribution will reach Akureyri or Egilsstaðir and these two airports will be open for all air traffic. Passengers are asked to monitor flight schedules closely on travel industry web sites.
The sky is actually blue ... but a ban on air travel over Irish airspace had to been reinstated,
to at least 1pm today, due to extended volcanic ash from a renewed eruption of the Icelandic volcano.
Worse, at the moment, Ireland is at the centre of a contamination zone lasting until this afternoon ...
the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) explained in a statement this morning:
"There will be no commercial flights departing Ireland prior to 1pm. An update will be provided mid morning but the restrictions may well be continued to a later time"
All Ryanair flights to and from northern Europe remain cancelled until tomorrow at 1pm. And Aer Lingus has cancelled all flights in and out of Ireland indefinitely.
Click here for details on the extent of the dust cloud and for projections of its future spread ...
It has been confirmed today that ‘Irish Nationwide’ (the Irish building society) losses reach €2.5bn ...
what seems to be more than the companies overall, lifetime, profit (as some analyst calculated) ...
In a RTE News article "Dunlop gives details of payments to politicians" 19 April 2000 19:31 we can read the following:
The Chief Executive of the Irish Nationwide Building Society, Michael Fingleton (picture left), was earlier accused at the Tribunal of adopting a cavalier approach to orders made by the Tribunal chairman. Mr.Fingleton had been ordered by the Tribunal to produce documents relating to accounts in the Cork branch of Irish Nationwide but failed to produce all the required documents. At this morning sitting, Mr.Patrick Hanratty, Senior Counsel for the Tribunal, said Mr.Fingleton's attitude had been cavalier in the extreme. Mr. Justice Flood said it had taken almost 10 weeks to get to this stage and the response from the Building Society had not been appropriate. Mr. Fingleton denied there was any effort to avoid handing over the documents.
Oh, by the way the documents in question were never handed over to the Tribunal ... because ... unfortunately ... they have been destroyed in flooding ... well ...
I know, we should not jump to conclusions ... but in hind side ... all the clear tale tale signs have been ignored and the mess Irish Nationwide and the Irish taxpayer is in now was let to go on ... well done Bertie ...
Oh, have I mentioned, that Mr. Fingleton was one of the highest paid chief executives in Ireland, with a total pay of €2.34m in 2008 and the sole beneficiary of a large company pension fund, valued at almost €28m ... which "entitled" him to a tax free lump sum of €1.5m and an annual pension of between €1.5m and €2m ... and, em, a €1m performance bonus (paid just weeks after the governments guarantee) ... which he has no intention to refund ...
I recommend, that assets should be seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) similar to one of proven drug dealers ...
... a letter by Paul J Shadwell to Mr Jobs (CEO Apple computers) ...
Dear Mr Jobs
"On behalf of the international community of Apple consumers I would like to protest at the way Apple is apparently leaving us out in the cold with the Apple iPad product. We have been fed either misinformation or no information at all and it is starting to cast doubt over Apple's intents, at least it is to me. I live in Switzerland and as yet we have no idea what the Apple iPad will cost here, if it is anything like the international pricing we have been used to to date on other Apple products, then it will certainly not be an "unbelievable price" as stated in your marketing. If the delays and lack of pricing information is due to Apple doing it's level best, to make sure that we are not being ripped off, then I applaud that work. However, as previously mentioned, I am doubting this. Twice to my knowledge you have falsely stated international availability of the iPad and while I do not believe this is any fault of your own, I can imagine that you are not happy being shown as deliberately pulling the wool over the rest of the worlds eyes. Please can you clarify what is happening and why it has taken so long for information to be released to the international community. May I suggest the following: Make it easier for us to purchase your products directly from the USA online Apple store. Many of us would be happy to do so and pay extra for local Applecare".
I look forward to your response.
Best regards
Paul J Shadwell
Steven Jobs response: "Are you nuts? We are doing the best we can. We need enough units to have a responsible and great launch".
The other day I was listening to a radio interview with Patrick Holford, which is a self proclaimed pioneer
in new approaches to health and nutrition. He went on, a good while, on a wide variety of health and
nutrition related topics. What had the most impact on me though was when he explained the following
(citation off by heart):
"Research shows, that the low incidence of cardiovascular disease in Greenland Eskimos appears to be due to their high intake of omega-3 rich lipids by eating mainly seals ...
It has been proven, that our body itself can not easily manufacture omega-3 ... omega-3s are therefore best supplied by our food ... luckily, the one organism that can make them (plankton) is eaten by krill, which itself is eaten by certain types of small fish (Herring) ... which are eaten by bigger fish ... which are eaten by seals ... in every step through the food chain the concentration of omega-3 (per body weight) increases ... and, since Eskimos eat mainly seals the low incidence of cardiovascular disease occur ... therefore ... we have to eat more Eskimos ... "
Well, I don’t actually know how they taste ... but I definitely give it a try ...
The Meteorological Office of Iceland's issued a statement saying that the volcano's black and brown ash cloud tower has shrunk to a height of 5 to 8 kilometres from the 6 to 11 km when it started erupting earlier this week. And, that the volume of magma under the volcano also appeared to be decreasing and that the volcano looked less volatile today, as heavy pulsing and violent explosions turned to steadier eruptions. But a geophysicist at the Meteorological Office, Bergthora Thorbjarnardottir, said the steady eruptions did not necessarily mean the volcano was subsiding.
"The eruption could go on like that for a long time ... every volcano is different and we don't have much experience with this one, it's been 200 years since it erupted last ... we have to watch it carefully because they all behave differently. The last time it erupted it was off and on for over a year"
... I guess, if the weather stays mainly like this, we will experience further aircraft free skies and deserted, empty airports ...
Click here for details on the extent of the dust cloud and for projections of its future spread ...
Yesterday an Icelandic volcano, whose name a non Icelandic person dares to pronounce, Eyjafjallajökull
(“AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul”), errupted a second time ... spewing even more dust and ash 8km high ...
and wind prevail ... threatening air travel in the whole of northern Europe ... and I’m glad now I
came back yesterday night, from London, without any fuss ... although the news are positive that the
airports will open tomorrow again ... but I, honestly, don’t think so ... because the weather (high
pressure) is very stable at the moment and the winds are just feeding more and more of the volcanoes
exhaust, clockwise, down to Europe ... and, what makes matters worse, volcanoes won’t just switch off
quickly, especially not after a second outburst in short time ... 'worser' ... Icelandic volcanologists
expect the bigger neighbour volcano, Katla, to become active and erupt as well ... what reminds me of
an old German saying (I love so much) that says: 'Und erstens kommt es anders ... und zweitens als man
denkt' ... meaning: 'And firstly, it’ll be different ... and secondly, as we think' ... so true ...
but we’ll see ...
The head of NAMA, Brendan McDonagh, has today delivered a damning
indictment of the irish banking system, saying there was a "reckless
abandonment" of prudent lending ... and that NAMA may have to knock
down half-built estates around the country. Just one in three of the
loans are being repaid at the moment. He said:
"NAMA has uncovered a
troubling picture of poor loan documentation, of assets not properly
legally secured and of inadequate stress-testing of borrowers and
loans ... all born of a mindless scramble to funnel lending into one
sector at a considerable pace and of a reckless abandonment of basic
principles of credit risk and prudent lending ... some half-built
property developments were never sustainable, even in the good times"
Yippee ... justice and policing powers were finally returned to the North at midnight last night after 38 years, ending a controversy that led to the collapse of the old Stormont and that endangered devolution ever since.
Pac-Man is one of the most famous arcade and computer games of all time, often credited with being
a landmark in video game history ... developed by Namco, a Japanese video game developer company,
and first released in Japan on May 22, 1980.
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".
... it sounds like a joke ... if it wouldn’t be that serious ... deadly serious in fact ... two man (or should I say scum) Paul Barry (38) and his brother Michael (23) will have to appear in court again tomorrow for the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Toyosi Shittabey, from Tyrrelstown in Dublin. While Paul Barry is charged with manslaughter (?!), his brother Michael is charged with possession of a hockey stick ... and there it is ... even an innocent hockey stick, in some ‘twisted minds’ hand, is a murder weapon ... not to speak about the knife Paul Barry used to stab his young victim. These are seriously sick people.
Gripping words ... coming from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and he probably even
means it. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week ( broadcast on Monday) he said:
"I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it’s quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now ... an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility — that’s not just a problem for the church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland ... I do not wish to give the impression that I want to go on forever hammering home a message of grief about the past, that I am obsessed with the past ... some ask me, ‘Can we not leave all that aside now, proclaim closure and move on? ... I cannot agree. There can be no overlooking the past."
... well said ... true and strait forward ... I just wonder now how the Catholic Church of Ireland will respond to this ... after all it’s the church who nearly spend (as I heard) more money on legal fees, to combat liability claims, than they paid to their child sex abuse victims so far ... an estimate, last year, by the state's financial watchdog, said third party legal costs arising from the Ryan Commission could top €80m and the Department of Finance has been notified that the orders have applied to have their massive legal bills, arising from the Ryan inquiry, covered by the taxpayer ... thank you very much ... and now, wouldn't you agree that the Catholic Church in Ireland has lost 'all credibility' ...
Oh boy, some super tough action, against Quinn Insurance Limited (QIL), by the (new) Irish Financial
Regulator ... risking by the way some 5000 jobs ... the appointment of two provisional administrators
was not taken lightly by Businessman Séan Quinn, head of the Quinn Group, who calls this
"one of the biggest errors ever in the history of corporate Ireland ... pre-emptive, aggressive and unnecessary" ...
What I find strange and worrying is, that there was no warning, no deadline given to Quinn Insurance Limited to sort out the points in question ... and that the regulator said he was concerned that Quinn Insurance has significantly breached its solvency ratios, doesn't sound like hard proof of some criminal ... well, why didn't they just simply asked: "Show me the money" ... somehow I have the bad feeling that something dodgy is going on ... maybe some payback (revenge) for giving the semi state health insurance VHI (Voluntary Health Insurance) a hard time lately ... it wouldn’t surprise me at all ... but then, on the other hand, Seán Quinn admitted of some incredible financial gambles, which ended in the loss of huge amount of ‘his’ money (mainly through 'Anglo Irish')... and that kind of financial risk taking has to be stopped and regulated ...
Most Pubs in Ireland can only serve food and soft drinks today because of the 1927 Intoxicating
Liquor Act, introduced to restrict the use and sale of alcohol on Good Friday and on Christmas Day ...
yes, I said most, and therefor not all, because of a granted exemption by a District Court judge to cover a
special event in Limerick, the Munster versus Leinster rugby match. This allows pubs in Limerick
to serve alcohol between 6pm and 11.30pm today.
Yippee ...
... too 'revolutionary' for the common union member ... I am speaking about the public sector pay
and reform deal agreed during talks with Government earlier this week ... well, it has to be ‘war’ ...
industrial relations ‘war’ that is ... this means a ‘war’ against the citizen of this state ... wow,
I hate to say this, but since they don't like it must have been a reasonable deal ... especially since
people like ICTUs (Irish Congress of Trade Unions) public services committee secretary Tom Geraghty
defends this deal with the following words:
" ... there's nobody dancing a jig in the street at the outcome of this process but so far as those of us who negotiated the outcome are concerned it is about choices. It is not about a wish list ... we've come out with an agreement which in any other circumstance we would not have done but it is an agreement which provides for no compulsory redundancies for four years, no further pay reductions for four years, pay reviews in each of those years and an opportunity for the unions to input into the Government's stated intentions to disimprove pensions ... the only alternative to the outcome of this particular process is to engage in a prolonged, sustained and very high level war, industrial relations war. I don't believe that the vast bulk of public servants want to find themselves in that situation and even if they did, it's not going to change the external factors that are influencing the situation"
... shockingly compelling words coming from an union representative ...
The man with the vision for ‘A Computer for Everyone’ ... Ed Roberts, died yesterday 68 years old ...
OK, I admit his (Personal) computer, the ALTAIR 8800, does not look much like a Personal Computer and
could do even less ... but in 1974 it was a, highly desired, computer miracle ... the real thing ...
so to speak ... pure Bits and Bytes and not much else ... not even a single programs ... just
the means to set some code, execute it and see if it does what you intended the code should do ...
pure and simple ... but inspiring ... very inspiring indeed. Ed Roberts employed two high school
kids to port BASIC (an educational computer programming language) to his ALTAIR 8800 and by doing
so they, ultimately, became the richest people in the world ... I don’t know if you ever heard about
them, it’s Paul Allen and Bill Gates (Microsoft) ... in a joint statement Gates and Allen said of Roberts:
Ed was truly a pioneer in the personal computer revolution, and didn't always get the recognition he deserved. He was an intense man with a great sense of humour, and he always cared deeply about the people who worked for him, including us. Ed was willing to take a chance on us - two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace - and we have always been grateful to him.
In 1977 Ed Roberts sold and left the company (MITS), became a farmer and 1982 enrolled in medical school, receiving his degree as GP in 1986, age 44.
... if you now wonder how it feels to program an ALTAIR 8800. click here for an emulator web page (Java has to be enabled) ...
... oh, a word of advice, read first the programming manual here otherwise you’ll be seriously lost ...
"I am so, so sorry my dear Noel can you ever forgive me" ... Michael O'Leary apologises to Minister
for Transport Noel Dempsey over a letter he wrote to the Minister alleging that Mr Justice Peter
Kelly had publicly criticised the Minister over 'inexcusable' delays in setting up an appeal panel
against proposed new charges at Dublin airport ... and here it is: "... this was incorrect, inaccurate
and should not have occurred, as it incorrectly attributed comments to Justice Kelly, the judge
did not criticise you in any way" ... a 'palm slapped' Michael O’Leary writes.
1:0 for the government, but probably undeserved.
Heavy snowfall and strong winds caused chaos in many parts of Ireland overnight. 300 people
had to be rescued from a mountain road, in Co Derry, after conditions worsened.75,000 homes
were without electricity, while 25,000 were still without power this morning. The worst affected
areas where in the north and northwest of the country.
A 'revolutionary' deal ... Kieran Mulvey, the chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, calls this ... and NO, it's not the court ruling that allows Limerick pubs to open on Good Friday ... to allow people to get pissed in public even at the one and only sober day in the year Ireland has ... NO, its the deal agreed by trade union leaders and Government officials in the early hours of this morning to solve the ongoing labor dispute between the 'public' and the public servants ... it's very early days (quite literally) to make a judgement on this but since the, very good paid, union leaders seems to agree I would be naturally very critical ... anyway it's not decided yet and first critical remarks were already launched ... so we have to wait and see if this deal will help to calm the heated minds ...
... or the 'Government', as well as the Unions, could just be serious with their, highly praised, Social Partnership Agreements ... and reinforce, again, this 1980s Programme for National Recovery that focused primarily on wage moderation in return for lower levels of income tax, policies to stimulate employment and enhanced social protections ...
With a Big Bang (I suppose) two Proton beams collided with 7 TeV (TeraEletronVolt) in the LHC
(Large Hadron Collider) at 13:06 CEST, starting the LHC research programme that will, ultimately,
end the world by sucking us in a, now created, micro black hole (at least that’s what some sceptics
prognoses) ... but the rest of the physicists are truly happy and CERNs Director Rolf Heuer said:
"It’s a great day to be a particle physicist ... a lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends."
... abut, what’s in it for us, the humbles ... well, we’ll soon understand the nature of "the Higgs bosons", the dark matter, the origin of mass and antimatter ... at least the ones of us who reads Wikipedia frequently ...
Oh, and click here to get an idea of whta's going on ...
Scientists, by MIT, published their astonishing findings, in an online-article in PNAS, about how beliefs
in moral judgments can be manipulated/altered by inducing of an electro-magnetic current in a certain part
of our brain (the right temporoparietal junction - RTPJ) ... oh, by the way, the article is called:
Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments.
... and here is a thought, I just imagined what a mobile-phone induce electro-magnetic current could have an effect on our and others morality ... hmm ... pragmatism ...
... you know I couldn’t listen to it because you told me, days before this, to switch off all the lights
and (!) the TV at this very time ... what I did ... so, what did you really say that vening ...
John Gormley's keynote speech at the Green Party party's annual convention in Waterford last night
The arrest (for questioning) of the 59-year-old, former Anglo Irish Bank finance director and (!)
chief risk officer, Willie McAteer, at his home in Rathgar, south Dublin, at 6.30am yesterday,
is the second high profile arrest of this Banks senior figures and follows the 24h detention of
former chairman Sean FitzPatrick last week.
... yesterdays 'Cabinet reshuffle' speech by the tribal leader himself, An Taoiseach Brian Cowen,
was about as dull and uninspiring as the apostolic letter from the Pop ... couple of days ago ...
but does it actually matter ... NO ... and just for the record here are the nominees (sorry ministerial jobs):
Tony Killeen appointed Minister for Defence
Pat Carey appointed Minister for Community, Equality & Gaeltacht Affairs
Mary Coughlan remains as Tánaiste but moves from Enterprise Trade and Employment to the renamed Education and Skills
Batt O'Keefe moves from Education to the renamed Enterprise, Trade and Innovation
Eamon O'Cuív moves from Community, Equality & Gaeltacht Affairs to the renamed Social Protection portfolio
Mary Hanafin moves from Social and Family Affairs to Arts, Sports and Tourism
John Curran has been appointed Chief Whip
Sean Connick appointed as Minister for State
Mary White (Green TD) appointed as Minister for State
Ciarán Cuffe (Green TD) appointed as Minister for State
... does anyone really care ... I mean, except the 5 new miniserial pension holders ...
... some 70-80 staff at (state-owned) Anglo Irish Bank will receive pay increases ... I suppose for extra working hours and extra responsibilities that goes with to keep Anglo afloat and so save their jobs ... I really don’t know what’s wrong with this government but it seems they don’t have to worry a thing ... and, of course, this state-owned zombie Bank refuses to confirm the sizes of these increases ... the cheeky one, owns the world ...
... A 60-year-old woman was stabbed outside a church. Woman dies after stabbing attack. Woman charged over stabbing. Was found unconscious in nearby Cromac Street suffering from a stab wound. A 19-year-old man dies after being stabbed in the chest. Man dead after Galway stabbing. Stabbing death in weekend of knife violence. Gardaí investigate fatal Bray stabbing. Welder charged over fatal stabbing. Stabbing study confirms Limerick's reputation. Stabbing outside pub. Man held after fatal Tipperary stabbing. Murder investigation after a man was stabbed to death. Doctor critical after hospital stabbing. Village in shock over stab death. Man remanded over stabbing. Woman dead after Tullamore stabbing. Woman jailed for stabbing teenager in the heart. The victim had been stabbed during an argument. Stabbing and two shootings overnight. Man injured in stabbing after row. Three detained over Nenagh stabbing. Man critical in horror stabbing. Detectives were hunting a vicious assailant who left his victim brain dead in a savage stabbing attack ...
What’s so very wrong with this picture ... maybe it's the following: "Suspended sentence for stabbing offence" ... "not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter for stabbing to death..." ... I think, if someone goes out and takes a knife with him, constitutes an intent to use it and therefore murder ... why the leniency ...
"DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE CHURCH IN IRELAND, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them" ...
... lukewarm and actually very disappointing (not to say boring) ... but, he, what else can you expect from a career politician (oh, sorry, leader of the catholic church) ...
Click here to read the full text of Pope Benedict's Pastoral letter
A report, just published, by the UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, about the Lehman bankruptcy, showes that the U.S. regulatory authorities and the current U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have long been fully Informed about a dangerous financial imbalance, and had deliberately withheld this information from the public.
Click here to read the full report (Read: Section III.A.6: Government – page 1482)
Rumour has it that Google may really exit China ... on April 10th (so, saddle up Microsoft ...
don't miss your chance ... there is always an idiot that takes over ... where others just didn’t
wanna comply anymore) ... read more about that in the
China Business News ,
where a Google China employee is saying that the company will announce its Chinese plans Monday next
(March 22).
Security researcher Charlie Miller told Heise Security that "Mac OS X
is like living in a farmhouse in the country with no locks ... and
that Windows is living in a house with bars on the windows in the bad part
of town ... Mac OS X is the safest OS because it is miles away from
the action. However it is so full of bugs that any hacker, who wants
to, can easily take it down" and "the attack surface, of OS X, is so
wide you can land a 747 on it ... sideways"
Click here to read this Article at: www.h-online.com/security/news
Finally Microsoft gave in and is showing common sense by announcing that its Internet Explorer
will embrace Web standards with HTML5. For much to long Microsoft walked their own path forcing
Web developers to a dual standard kind of things ... an entire industry built web sites, applications
and online services first for Microsoft's browser and then for everybody else ... generating lots of
cash, for them and Microsoft ... the change will happen with IE 9.
Do you remember the 1,5 tone of cocaine that went over board at Dunlough Bay, here in West Cork, in July 2007 ... ok, the two main conspirators, a Metropolitan Police drug squad detective (Michael Daly) and a former UK fire-fighter (Alan Wells), were sentenced today, with long jail terms, at the Blackfriars Crown Court in London ... "And Lead Me Not Into Temptation" ...
ISS Expedition 22 ends and commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Max Suraev returned to 1G (gravity)
terra level today, touching down in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-16 capsule.
The new ISS Expedition 23 crew now includes Commander Oleg Kotov and flight engineers Soichi Noguchi and TJ Creamer. They'll be joined on 4 April by flight engineers Alexander Skvortsov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko, who'll launch on 2 April from Baikonur.
I know we don't have to cross borders to find ridicules things ... but the "Land of the free"
is always good for an exception and special mentioning ... although for ones for the right reason ...
because an unanimous decision by the three-judge panel appeals court in Philadelphia, on Wednesday,
ruled that the threat of a Pennsylvania district attorney to file felony child pornography charges
against teens who were photographed semi-nude (in Bikini) unless they attended an "education program",
amounted to a "Hobson's Choice" that would retaliate against one of the girls and her family for
exercising their constitutional right to free speech.
"A rare dose of government-issued sanity in the prosecutorial crusade against teenage 'sexting'" ... as one rightly said.
Firstly, the European Commission warns the Irish Government that their key assumptions underpinning its economic recovery plan may be too 'optimistic'.
"In particular, the deficit targets for 2011-2014 need to be backed up by concrete measures and the plans for the entire period need to be strengthened to address the risks from less favourable GDP growth and slippages on the expenditure side."
Secondly, the European Commission has issued a final warning to Ireland for its failing to comply with European Court of Justice rulings concerning the environment ... where it fails to comply with four rulings concerning illegal development, developments that may harm the natural and man-made heritage of the countryside, access to the Irish courts and protection of marine mammals. Surprisingly, the Commission is also warning Austria, Greece and Spain on similar environmental grounds.
... yes, St.Patrick died on March 17th in AD 460 (a date that is accepted by most modern historians)
... but what people, so it seems, don’t know about St.Patrick (Sanctus Patricius or Naomh Pádraig as we
call him here in Ireland ... he, he) is, that he wasn’t a serpent chasing, party beer drinking drunk
and shamrock eating midget from inner Dublin ... that is what all the celebrates (worldwide) are
today ... no, St.Patrick was a Roman Brit, once captured and enslaved by some irish invaders and
kept in misery and despair for over six years before he escaped and returning to his family.
The experienced hardship, here in Ireland, must have inspired him to return, to salvage and end suffering and
superstition as a missionary christian church leader. As a foreigner in Ireland Patrick’s position
was a very difficult one. His refusal to accept gifts (bribes) from kings made him an outsider and
legally without protection ... and, on his own account, he was once beaten, robbed and put in chains,
awaiting execution. Oh, and for the chasing of the serpent myth ... don’t be silly ... there was no
serpent native to Ireland since the last ice age ... at least, that is what science reasonably teaches
us today ... so the serpent stands for, what Christians thought of in historic times, the evil-doers
and from a christian point of view evil-doers are and is everything not Christian ... like the 'good'
old Druids with there lavish and powerful live stile close to the wealthy and the kings ... just like,
irony prevails, the leaders of his own church in the centuries that followed ...
... and what's the moral of the story, if there is any ... there are endless reasons for a party ... even if it's ones 'Todestag' (day of death) ... like here ... so, 'Party on Dudes' and enjoy the celebration of life ... but, hey, don’t drink too much ...
Yes, that’s right, today, 58 years ago, I, Erwin Hofmann was born on a beautiful, but freezing cold,
Sundays morning ... no more to be said ...
Yes, today, 25 years ago, a modern, hierarchical naming system, the Domain Name System (DNS), was introduced into the young Internet ... this naming (address) system brought the meaningful, for us humans readable, naming system we know today and without it the success of the internet (hence the World Wide Web) would not be possible. Imagine you had to remember ‘66.102.7.104’ instead of ‘www.google.com’. Domain Names are composed of three, hierarchically from right to left resolved and with a dot separated, naming elements. First (right) is the top-level domain (com, net, org, gov, edu ...), followed by domain (google) and subdomain (www).
The notoriously dangerous Koobface 'Computer worm' has gone through a
complete refresh over the last fortnight ... Russian security firm
Kaspersky is warning us .... Koobface 'infections' spread via social
network (Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Bebo, Friendster and/or Twitter)
messages ... usually from 'friends' whose computer has been infected.
The message directs the recipient to a third-party website, where he
is prompted to download an update of the Adobe Flash player. If they
download and ultimately execute the file, Koobface infects this
computer system. Koobface installs a DNS filter which blocks access to
most security websites, controls search engine results and redirect to
contaminated websites. So, be extra careful and don't follow (open)
links in messages of this networks.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan just confirmed a pay rise for Nama board members (a startling 70% plus for directors) ... and this just about three months after they started work ... although the original salaries seemed small (too small infact) compared to those (still) paid to irish bank directors, it beggars believe that such an incredible pay rise would be considered in times where public servants have to be persuaded to accept significant pay cuts ... what a stupid, stupid thing to do ... I said stupid, but I actually I think it’s sinister ... this announcement was made just after the 12 days St. Patrick’s Day recess of the Oireachtas ... and the beginning of the weekend of course ... in the hope, I guess, it’ll be forgotten after the festivities ...
Well, to be honest, these additional costs won’t make the financial crisis of Ireland anything worse but what a signal does it send out ... all the wrongs ones ... that’s for sure.
Aer Lingus’s 1200 strong cabin crew (in the Republic of Ireland) are to be let go with notices of
termination of their employment next month ... with a generous offer, of course, of a new contract ...
involving lower salary and change of work practices, which will cut its cabin crew workforce by
around 230. There you have it ... and Impact, which represents cabin crew, lamented that the measures
planned by the airline were "brutal and unfair" ... and called (again) on the Labour Relations
Commission (LRC) to reconvene the parties to find a mutual solution ... after they rejected a previous
LRC agreement ...
Based on information supplied by the FBI Gardaí arrested seven people, yesterday, in connection with
an alleged plot to kill Swedish cartoonist.Lars Vilks over his (2007) drawing depicting the Prophet
Mohammed with the body of a dog ... Vilks was put under police protection after his drawings prompted
al-Qaeda to put a $100,000 bounty on his head.
Although I actually don’t think the cartoon in question has any artistic qualities it sure stirred up a necessary debate about Muslim integration (in predominantly Christian states) and, especially, religion believes in general ... all over the world. As Vilks puts it: "You could not really have the debate here (Sweden) then ... You have one side here and one side there, and in the middle a big hole." ... and I now wait for the wider Muslim community to act and moderate in a modern fashion ... to proof him wrong when he feels "that Islam is no better or worse than Christianity or Judaism" ... and he said that he’d hoped his provocative drawing might help "normalise the Muslim point of view so they don’t take too seriously".
Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly said today, in rare clear words, that the work of her office is being
undermined by "a deficits in our parliamentary and government arrangements" ... she criticised
the Government’s decision last month to vote against a proposal to have her report on a grant aid
scheme for commercial fishermen referred to an Oireachtas committee ... where her findings were subsequently
rejected by the Department of Agriculture. Ms O'Reilly made her point and said: "Unfortunately,
the model of government set out in the Irish Constitution has become more of a fiction than a reality ...
In practice the Dáil, and to a slightly lesser extent the Seanad, is controlled very firmly by the
Government parties through the operation of the whip system ... For all practical purposes, and I
very much regret having to say this so bluntly, parliament in Ireland has been sidelined and is no
longer in a position to hold the executive to account ... With the exception of the election of a
Taoiseach, almost all decisions of importance are taken by the executive and are rubber-stamped
by parliament."
Well, I couldn't say it better my self ...
Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Martin Cullen, announced yesterday evening that he will resign
from public life later this month because of chronic back pain ... well, why did you take on the
ministry of Sport if you can’t handle it ... or, maybe, the 50 Million Euros voting machine debacle
still weighs to heavy on your shoulders and broke your back ... anyway, I never liked you, you are
an easy talker, and so I’m glad you’re gone ...
To date, more than 8 million Toyota cars had to be recalled due to the "sticky accelerators problem"
(the car unintended accelerates ... I do that all the time) ... surprisingly the company denies any
electronic or software problem ... how can they say that since some Toyota owners, who had their
vehicles fixed by the company. complained that their cars continue to exhibit the unintended
acceleration problem ...
I guess Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is spot on when he recommends "switch it off and then switch it on again" ... yes, we heard that before ... somewhere ... Ah ja, Macs (and PCs) ... his wise, but shocking, revelation is: "Everything today has a computer in it, so everything will fail" ... scary ...
I talk about the, the anti Oscar, the 30th Annual Razzie Award (Saturday at the Gala) ... where
Paris Hilton and Eddie Murphy won a 'Worst Actress/Actor of the Decade' Award ... I totally agree
with this ... Oh, and Battlefield Earth was named Worst Picture of the Decade ...
2009’s list of shame lists "Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen" for worst Director, worst Screenplay and worst Picture gongs ... Oh, and my beloved Sandra Bullock picked up worst Actress for "All About Steve" ...
See the full list of Razzie winners
A majority of AerLingus Siptu members (ground operations staff, head office personnel and some cabin crew) have, surprisingly, accept the airlines controversial €97 million restructuring deal, which was brokered at the Labour Relations Commission just before Christmas. The proposals accepted by the Siptu members includes a three-year pay freeze, new work practice changes for some grades and, for some, pay cuts.
There is a problem looming over the whole thing though, since most of the Impact members (cabin crew) reject the deal ... leaving the company with a serious 'question mark' over around 1,100 jobs ...
Vapourware steam or what ... at least, if the rumours are true ... some hot steam ... check out the video I’ve just found ... it seems the concept incorporates a lot of nice things (feature) just the way I like it ... the device shown features a dual 7-inch multi-touch capable screen, with finger and/or stylus input. It will weight roughly one pound and should be not much bigger than 5x7x1-inch (folded).
And, as always ... and 'just by chance' of course ... this rumours appeared on the same day (5th March) as Apple announced the release day (3rd April) of its revamped WiFi iPad version ... you know, the one no one really needs ...
... but enjoy the video presentation (nice CG) ... but, keep in mind, its Microsoft, the biggest vapourware producer of all times ... believe it when it's been sold in the shops.
Besides what goes on in irish politics ... 'Negatively strange' has been quoted today in relation to an experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at US Brookhaven National Laboratory where the transmutation of gold into an entirely new form of "negatively strange" antihypernucleic antimatter took place (allegedly) ... this is, as some one put it: "an ultra-bizarre stuff which cannot possibly occur naturally - except perhaps inside the cores of collapsed stars" ... there you have it ... lucky us ... 'Negatively strange' ... I just love that word ...
The massive earthquake in Chile (8.8 on the Richter Scale) has, according to Nasa, shifted Earth's
axis at about eight centimetres and shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds ...
so, don’t forget to adjust your clock ...
49 year old, air traffic controller, Glenn Duffy allowed daughter and son to direct JFK’s Air Traffic
(16 Feb 2010) ... shocking he ... but click on the speaker symbol (left) and listen to the response
of the pilots ... with a good sense of humor and appreciation ... this is, probably, in stark contrast
to the Airport Authority opinion, who has called this behaviour "not acceptable" ...
... this might be a bit of a "bad judgement call" ... given the environment it is playing in ... but he, we allow (or better force) medical junior doctors, on a 23 hour hospital shift, make decisions of life and death, on a daily base, without any supervision ... so why not allow children 'Pushing Tin' (just kidding ... no,I'm not) ...
The 911 US Anthrax case ... well, now, the US government closed the anthrax case, and the Department
of Justice and the FBI released a 'startling' 96-page summary of the case. They matched the mailed anthrax with
spores from an US biodefense research lab (yes, US not Iraq) ... and more precisely to the Lebanon (Got'ya, Lebanon, Ohio)
born, Roman Catholic, Bruce Edwards Ivins ... a microbiologist and senior biodefense researcher at
the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick,
Maryland USA ... who died (conveniently suspicious) just before his impending prosecution, on July 29,
2008 from an overdose of Tylenol, in an apparent suicide ... hmm ... well, mailing Anthrax contaminated
letters stating "Death to America ... Death to Israel ... Allah is Great" is just the thing a microbiologist
and senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland USA would do ... wouldn’t you just agree ...
One of the world's biggest botnet, with approximately 13 million infected PCs, that infiltrated
more than half of the Fortune 1000 companies, has been taken down and the Spanish ringleaders
arrested.
That’ll give us a rest of about ... well ... 12 milliseconds ... that’s for sure ...
So, there you have it, good old Switzerland, after some beating over the tucked away Jewish
money (World war II) and further banking scandals around foreign tax evasion and the 'Bankgeheimnis' ...
which, by the way, made you stinking rich ... you are getting now attacked by Libyans Moammar
Gaddafi himself ... with not less than the 'holy war' it self ... Jihad ... maybe you should
reconsider and allow some Minarets to be build (after all) ... or stop wining and strike a
pre-emptive 'Shock and Awe' attack against Libya (best before sunrise) ... eradicate Gaddafi
and take over Libyans oil fields ... just, as the US would do ... every one will understand.
The eminent inquiry into the causes of the Irish banking crisis will begin next week and should be completed by the end of May. Two banking and economics gurus, Klaus Regling and Max Watson, appointed by Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance, will conduct a preliminary investigation into the matter.
But don’t keep your hopes up to high, because the result will not point out and blame some individuals but to institutions only ... and, of course, this investigation will be done behind closed doors. So, why bother at all ... we all know who to blame ... don’t waste even more money if you can’t sue and, ultimately, jail anyone ...
Trevor Sargent, offered to donate his ministerial severance payment (€47,000) to charity ... well done Trevor ... but, you can’t win this ... as a commentator on a radio show said today ... that just shows how much they earn ... and that they don’t even need this money" ...
"Cool runnings" final act ...
the Irish bobsleigh team, Aoife Hoey and Claire Bergin, finishing 17th of the 21, last night ...
a remarkable Winter Olympic debut ... their performances will, most likely, boost winter sports
in Ireland ... if only ... we had more snow ...
"We’ve been trying to get media for back home. People have the impression that you’re from Ireland and you don’t have snow but just because you don’t have something doesn’t mean you can’t do it ... we want to encourage people to follow their dreams."
Well said Aoife ... but still ... a bit more snow would definitely help (to beat the swiss) ...
NO COMMENT
I've just heard, at the 6pm New’s, that Trevor Sargent resigned today as junior Minister of State
for Food and Horticulture because of an 'error of judgment' ... in a statement to the Dáil Trevor
Sargent said: "... although my actions in contacting An Garda Síochána were not a criminal offence,
under Section 6 of the Prosecutions of Offences Act 1974, such a communication could be deemed not
lawful, I accept I made an error of judgement. Accordingly I hereby tender my resignation forthwith
as Minister of State for Food and Horticulture." ... well, from what I've heard ... what went
on was really a bad 'error of judgment' thing ... but to accept responsibility and act on it, not
like the 'Trauerspiel' surrounding Willie O’Dea, makes him, in my opinion, actually a most suitable
candidate for a ministerial job ... what I find odd though is the sheer coincidence of two (2)
ministerial resignations in just a weeks time. Remembering an very emotional Willie O’Dea blaming
the Greens (and the world, but not himself) for his 'demise' ... and hinting not shy: "I can
think of other situations affecting Ministers, which I won’t elaborate on now, which were far worse
but they survived. I recall being in a government with one of them and at the time I didn’t call for
his resignation ... in fact I defended him in every way possible." ...
I now wonder why the discovery of the letter in question, written in June 2008, has emerged just now (Evening Herald) ... coincidence ... I honestly don’t think so ... Bauernopfer.
NEW AAP (The American Academy of Pediatrics) POLICY ON CHOKING PREVENTIONFor Release: Monday, February 22, 2010 12:01 am (ET)
"Prevention of food-related choking among children in the United States has been inadequately addressed at the federal level. The US Food and Drug Administration should establish a systematic, institutionalized process for examining and addressing the hazards of food-related choking. The Food and Drug Administration should have the authority to address choking-related risks of all food products, including meat products that fall under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture. Food manufacturers should design new foods and redesign existing foods to avoid shapes, sizes, textures, and other characteristics that increase choking risk to children, to the extent possible. (PEDIATRICS doi:10.1542/peds.2009-2862) ... how about teaching parents to prepare food in a way that children wont be harmed and/or teach children to chew food properly ...
... only in the land of the free ...
Ex Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea has now contradicted Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s own account of his
resignation. While Brian Cowen insisted that Mr O’Dea had come to the conclusion that he must resign
from the Cabinet, just by him self, without any pressure from the Green Party. Willie O’Dea made it
crystal clear that he had resigned from office because the Green Party was considering to quit support
for the Government if he stayed on ... boing ... there is an altruistic element in good old Willie
O’Dea ... but hold on, what is this grumbling, unhappy talk when hi says things like that:
"I can think of other situations affecting Ministers, which I won’t elaborate on now, which were far worse but they survived. I recall being in a government with one of them and at the time I didn’t call for his resignation – in fact I defended him in every way possible."
... watch out Brian, there might be a "loose canon" in your midst ...
I just don’t believe this, but a Twitter Tweet and the found tape, of the interview in question, finally breaks Willie O’Dea’s "neck" ... Green Party Chairman Dan Boyle had tweeted that he believes (contradicting the Greens Dáil vote for "total" confidence in Willie O'Dea) that Defence Minister Willie O'Dea is politically compromised following the disclosure that he swore a false affidavit, in High Court, last year and that this was legally and ethically wrong and that the Minister should resign ... that could actually be a guy I would be willing to vote for ... next time round ...
So, Willie O’Dea has finally resigned and the government is shaking (again) ... but what strikes me as odd is John Gormleys remarks when hi was asked, if his party had made a mistake in supporting a Dáil confidence motion in Willie O’Dea, Mr Gormley said: "No, I think the fact is, there was a situation that had arisen, there was an opposition motion which had to be countered by a government motion, and we were left with no alternative frankly because you can’t vote for an Opposition motion." ... so, it’s like a game of chess ... attack and counter attack ... and no space for legal and ethical considerations ... he, and that is why this political (feudal) system is such a farce ... and quit frankly, politician shouldn’t be allowed to be in politics at all ...
... and if you don't love me I kill your self ...
today, the government passed a Dáil vote of confidence in Willie O'Dea, Minister for Defence, with
Green Party support, by 80 votes to 69 ... no surprise about that on my side ... but, what is it all
about and what “total” confidence in Minister O'Dea can you really have ... let’s see ...
First, in an interview (10 March 2009) with the Limerick Chronicle journalist Mike Dwane, O’Dea made a very damaging and, ultimately, unfounded allegation about a political opponent (Maurice Quinlivan / Sinn Féin) ... accusing him to run a brothel.
Secondly, Maurice Quinlivan lost his court case seeking an court injunction against this accusations, based on a signed and sworn affidavit, by O’Dea, denying making ever such allegations ... portraying, by the way, journalist Mike Dwane de facto a liar and his transcript of the interview a fabrication.
Later, in December 2009, O'Dea and Maurice Quinlivan settled the case, out of court, and Willie O'Dea apologized, publicly, for making "false and defamatory statements". O'Dea also paid an undisclosed sum in damages to Quinlivan. The High Court accepted the “out of court“ settlement and closed the case ... and so the perjury nearly go forgotten .. until now ...
... well, here is the relevant extract from the transcript of the interview between journalist Mike Dwane (Limerick Chronicle) and Willie O'Dea ...
O’DEA: ... while occasionally we send out letters to planning applicants we have never been involved with anybody who shot anybody. or robbed banks, or kidnapped people. I suppose I'm going a bit too far when I say this but I'd like to ask Mr Quinlivan is the brothel still closed?
DWANE: Is the brothel still closed?
O’DEA: Is the brothel still closed?
DWANE: What brothel `is that, Willie?
O’DEA: Do you know the brothel they found in his name and in his brother's name down in Clancy Strand?
DWANE: I never heard about that.
O’DEA: Did you not hear that? You better check with your sources. There was a house owned by him that was rented out and they found two ladies of the night operating in there in the last couple of weeks.
DWANE: Right. The other one I wanted to ask you about Willie was were you disappointed to see Noreen Ryan in the witness box?
O’DEA: I don't want to talk about that ...
(The reference to Noreen Ryan relates to a councillor who left Fianna Fail after giving evidence in a case in which Mr O'Dea was involved.)
... there we go ... he sure didn't wanna talk about that ... and you know now how much "total" confidence you can have in this Minister for Defence ... Willie O'Dea ...
2010 is the Year of the Tiger ... the metal Tiger (1950 and 2010) to bre precise. The metal Tiger year is
the third earth branch year and is the seventh heavenly stems year. 2010 the Tiger or Keng Yin year is
the twenty-seven cycle in the sixty-year cycle of the Chinese astrology's heavenly stems and earth
branches cycle. The Keng Yin 2010 year symbolizes toughness, generosity and wealth earned with hard work.
2010 year is a dutiful, family oriented and dependable year. 2010 year of the metal Tiger, may show his
love in terms of how hard he can work for the loved ones. Now in 2010 year of the Tiger you may not
express your feelings in words but make up it by deeds.
... I hope that is a good sign ...
NO COMMENT
It 'beggars believe' ... but it's true ...
Wow, I'm really surprised but it seems that the Lisbon Treaty really works. Under the new "competencies"
legislation, the European Parliament, flat out, rejected an EU ministerial agreement with the USA on
handing over bank transaction information contained in the SWIFT financial messaging ... such an agreement,
supposedly, was aimed of tracking money transfers done by terrorists. The deal itself is, since the
beginning of February 2010 already provisionally, enacted ... but now rejected, by 378 to 196 votes
with 31 abstentions.
Ouch ... democracy hurts ...
Just to ease Fine Gaels burden, so it seems, Senator Deirdre de Burca resigns from the Green Party.
She claims, quite understandably, that the Green Party has lost its way and said:
"I have written to my party leader, John Gormley, explaining to him the reasons for my resignation" ...
"I believe that we have lost our way as a party and have gradually abandoned our values and our integrity
since becoming part of this Government" ...
"I do not take the decision to tender my resignation lightly but am very clear that I cannot continue
to be a part of what the Green Party is supporting in Government."
... and now we wait and see how much denial and black (green) mailing will go on, by the Greens, to save their faces.
First they were "attacked" and survived an Olympic court appeal, raised by Australia ... to now be take
on by Brasilia ... and this just days before the race. Aoife Hoey, Claire Bergin and Leona Byrne are
getting some bad beating and a lousy "cool runnings" rollercoaster of emotions at their "start line"
to the Winter Olympics 2010 ... poor them, poor Ireland ... no one seems to like "us" Irish anymore
(if it comes to "cheap" advantages) ... think about cheat Thierry Henry's handball and the FIFA
ruling ... anyway ... Brasilia is contesting the way the Irish team had qualified, but Olympic
Council of Ireland President Pat Hickey is confident that this second appeal will not impact on
the Irish participation ... so we hope for the best ... and let the girls win ... thank you very much ...
George Lee or not George Lee, that is (not) the question ... George Lees, premature, departure
from Fine Gael politics (Monday last, after just 9 month as TD) has stirred up some healthy
criticism towards the political system in general and the political elite in particular ...
listening to George Lees explanation (in Pat Kenny’s Frontline) showed a deeply frustrated man ...
not because of lack of career opportunities, as I understood, but because of lack of real political
engagement in the day to day work. 80% of the long hours, of a TDs work, is public relationship,
going to funerals, to openings, be seen, just to secure re-election ... and the rest is probably spent
in unproductive, wasteful sitting time in Dáil Éireann ... while crisis after crisis unfolds ...
"That Lee was frustrated with the political system and the inability to effect change rapidly is understandable but it was also grossly naïve on Lee’s part to feel it could happen after just 62 days sitting in the Dáil"
But that Fine Gaels "spin" tries to discredit George Lees integrity is understandable but sad, since there are some valuable lessons to be learned ...
Except, of course, by the notorious, ranting, idiot Senator Eoghan Harris who had a big verbal lashing, in yesterdays Eamon Keane's Newstalk radio show, against "that weakling and mamas boy", the women and Dublin south.
It seems, as theregister.co.uk puts it: "that Google wants to out-Facebook Facebook, out-Twitter Twitter
and out-Internet Explorer Internet Explorer" ... yes and it does it with a bit too much "verve" for my
liking ... I am a great Google fan, but this is just a bit over the top ... the problem I have with Buzz
is that Google didn’t just mention it to us (users) with an easy to understand option (like the Labs
testing ground for experimental features in Gmail) to try or reject such a data mining, Web 2, social
network service.
But hey, it's not too late ... if you don't like it shut it. Scroll down, at your Gmail window, at the bottom area there is a "switch" [ turn off buzz ] to do just that ... Cheers ...
Software patents miss their legitimate purpose. ... I know it's complicated ... but nonetheless ...
a basically good idea is getting worse by the day ... just check out how many litigation law suits
are filed, at the moment and how much money is been handed around ... a game that only the big one
can play ... and true innovation will finally suffer defeat ... check this website
http://webshop.ffii.org/
as a demonstrator for the legal ambush on e-commerce & freedom of business in Europe.
Apple and Microsoft sued for patent infringement by Emblaze; Nokia jacks up Apple patent complaint; Motorola seeks ban on US BlackBerries; Microsoft sues TiVo in AT&T solidarity play; Kodak strikes at Apple in iPhone, Mac patent dispute, Gates' patent legacy turns heat on IBM; Microsoft to herd third parties with licensing patent; Microsoft loses appeal on Word injunction; Mystery co. sues Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle; Apple to appeal after OPTi's $21.7m patent infringement win; Nokia sues Apple (again); Skype sees off one patent threat; Microsoft protests $290m Word judgment; Broadcom sues Emulex in patent spat; EchoStar ordered to pay TiVo (another) $200m; Twitter sued for patent infringement ... and these are just a view ...
The Eurolinux petition for software patent-free Europe, with more than 400 000 supporters, has expired. We need to sign a new one ... so please login to: [petition.stopsoftwarepatents.eu]
It seems that Gillette is getting rid of its "bad" raw models ... Thierry Henry the cheat and Tiger Woods
the womanizer ... and, for now, keeps Roger Federer only, for its precious advertising campaings ...
and just hopes Federer will never loose a match again and does not have his own "skeleton in the
cupboard" ... you know, for the sake of cleaner shavings that is.
I don't do the wet shaving my self, so I don't actually know how good Gilletts products really are ... if I conclud the quality, of their products, based on the quality of their advertising campaigns (employed advertiser agencies) I have my thoughts (just thought back a couple of years, where german TV ads and billboards were screaming: "Gillette für das Beste im Mann" (Gillette the best a man) ... confused ... well ... most german speakers were ...
One of Ireland's most ruthless paramilitary terrorist organization, the INLA (Irish National Liberation
Army), seems to have decommissioned its weapons last week ... finally ... this small group has been blamed
to have killed more than 120 people ... an official confirmation, by the General John de Chastelain, head
of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), can be expected by Monday. This
would conclude the decommissioning of Weapons, of all the major players of the troubled recent history of Northern
Ireland ... after last month loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association also decommissioned.
China is probably the biggest obstacle President Obama has in his promise to double US exports
to create 2 million trade-related jobs ...
"You can’t do it without cracking the Chinese market, and you can’t crack the Chinese market without doing something about China’s currency manipulation and trade barriers" says Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park. "You can talk, but without some tough action, you’re not going to get much done."
... well, I hear a bully nation talking ... who, I wonder, tried first to gain some easy advantages by means of "cheap" currency manipulation ... it’s the Unied States of America of course ... The US dollar has been devalued by around 13% against its Chinese currency since April of 2006 ... foreign companies, especially from the EU, are getting hurt because of the dollar’s weakness ... but the Obama administration is more than willing to tolerate a weaker dollar, to boost exports and reduce the wait of the national debt, as long as it doesn’t drive away the creditors. I don’t think that the US dollar will regain some of its value anytime soon after just losing 10.3 percent in the past six months.
How dare you (USA) to complain about the Chinese "regulatory" actions, this is just so cynical ... and makes me wonder how far your bullish exercise will go ... will it end in risking total world destruction ... in the national interest ... it wouldn’t surprise me a bit ...
A short version of Encyclopedia Britannica, one of the world’s most trusted references, wrongly described irelands 1922 conflict, over partition, as a war between Catholics in the south and Protestants in the north ... what is a grossly inaccurate and inexcusable account of the complex history of the country’s civil war. What strikes me as od is the fact that when I tried to reread the Irish-times online article (Encyclopedia corrects Irish history error) this morning I'll get an "404 - Not Found" error ... well ... [Check it out your self, maybe it'll come back]
Tonight, at around 18:00, an alien spacecraft crashed over ireland. A shower of debris burned up as
huge shooting stars over many parts of the country.
The phones in the office of Astronomy Ireland were going crazy. One man told his local radio station: "I saw the ball of fire just above the trees. I rang the emergency services. I thought it was a helicopter." Another said: "I thought it was a bright gas cylinder. It seemed to get brighter as it was approaching the ground."
... there you have it and if it is not entirely true it must have been something else.
"Well, it's Groundhog Day ... again ... and that must mean that we're up here at Gobbler's Knob waiting
for the forecast from the world's most famous groundhog weatherman, Punxsutawney Phil, Sir of Sirs,
who's just about to tell us how much more winter we can expect".
Ah, sure you know that ... dont't you ...
Emotion rises high over 30km/h speed restriction in inner city Dublin, introduced yesterday ..
the move has been opposed by the AA Ireland (Ireland's Leading Motoring Organisation), which says the
'ultra-low' speed limit will pointlessly frustrate ordinary traffic and infuriate careful motorists.
[Click here to get Dublins Speed-limit-map]
Tony Blair (blur) has been recalled to the Chilcot Iraq inquiry ... because of possible conflicting evidence ... what could possible be conflicting evidence here ... with statements like this:
"We didn’t end up with a humanitarian disaster" ... well, sitting in Downing Street, sipping Tea sure could give you this impression, that's right, but not in bombed and with depleted uranium shelled villages and cities of Iraq ... where lawlessness rules todays life.
"If I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better with Saddam and his two sons out of office and out of power, I believe indeed we are" ... how can he say that ... wait until the real clash, of a power vacuum, in Iraq happens ... see,that's so brilliant about believes ... you can believe whatever you like and it doesn't have to be true.
"Many of our problems have been caused by two dangerous and ruthless men – Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic." ... and I always thought they were Bush and Blair ...
Listening (reading) true his statements, portraying eloquently his innocence, we keep on forgetting Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, who's report to the UN Security Council, on 14 February 2003, contradicted the claims of the George W. Bush administration and Blair, about Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" program.
I guess Bush and Blair, as always, will get away with murder ... therefore, just for ones, I wished there is a devils hell ... it would be so sad if people, like him and Bush, would just get 'scot free' ...
And speaking of "getting away with murder" you have to remeber Dr David Kellys (the principal source (BBC) for its controversial report claiming Downing Street "sexed up" an Iraq weapons dossier) alleged suicide. Read my 24th of January 2010 entry about this ...
According to an article in wired.com Steven Jobs expressed his frustration and disappointment,
at one of his many public iPad announcements, about Googles interference in Apples business realm
of mobile phones (and even operating systems) ... he has been quoted to have said some heart warming
things like:
"We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake
they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them and I say one more thing ... this don’t be evil mantra ...
it’s bullshit."
Hey Steven, I guess you might feel now how Apple (you know the Beatles Music Recording Brand) must have felt when you waltzt into the music business (against your written agreement not to do so) ... you even stole their logo ... oh, sorry you tuck a bite out of it ...
Yesterday I watched a double bill of AVATAR ... back-to-back (6 hours) ... in the IMax cinema in London ...
what a spectacle ... what an amazing film ... this was not the first time, for me, to have seen this
amazing movie, but definitely the most impressive one ... have a go your self before the end of the showings
and tell me what you think ...
Oh, by the way, in a weeks time AVATAR is expected to pas the big $2 billion income mark. Americans alone are purchasing more than $2 million worth of tickets every day since its December 18th release, often more than $10 million a day. This is, by far, the highest-grossing movie release ever ... even Gabrielle has seen it twice ...
Yesterday, Steven Jobs launched his highly prised iPad (Apple) ... the newest "Apple must have" ...
a gadget that is as original as bricks and mortar ... Oh, I have no doubt that it will sell and that
it will make the Apple community go Ahh and Ohh (again) ... but for me, it’s just an oversized iPhone
(with missing phone capabilities nonetheless) ... If I think about how smudged and dirty an iPhone
looked, ones, after just 5 Min of use, I doubt very much that this is a good design at all ...
imagine how its shiny, high gloss 9.7-inches, screen, unprotected and exposed, will look after a
short while of daily use ...
To make it work for me, first, I would have to scrap the gloss and shine entirely and have a, revolutionary, matt instead (I hear the Apple people scream) and secondly I would adopt MSI's double, touch screen approach ("One Laptop a Child" project) ... that would give you all you need ... keyboard space, protection and a nice feel as a (book like) reader ... oh and, don’t forget, me as a potential buyer ...
Of 1,151 registered American voters being polled, 49% (37% disagreed) said they trust Fox News more
than any other network ... oh boy, that's truly a shocker ... but, sadly, not unexpected ... that is like
antimatter ... "Fair and Balanced" in relation to Fox News ... an alternate universe experience ...
or mental breakdown ... ok, there is some consolation as the author of the poll wrote. "Predictably
there is a large party split on this with 74% of Republicans but only 30% of Democrats saying they
trust the right leaning network." ... I wonder, is there any brain between the cheese burger and the
republican cap.
[Just read for your self, if you don't believe me ]
A rare and believed extinct, very destructive computer worm has been found in the web. Zimuse-A and
Zimuse-B, overwrites the Master Boot Record (MBR) of your hard drive with their own data, either
40 days or 20 days respectively after infection. This corrupts this records and makes data recovery
difficult if not impossible. The worm spreads via malicious content hidden on legitimate websites,
sometimes disguised as an IQ test. It can also spread via infected USB drives, a technique that has
become the malware's primary method of infection nowadays. More about this malware can be found in
a blog entry by anti-virus firm Eset
[click here to read more]
Details of Dr David Kellys alleged suicide to be sealed for 70 years. This weird decision has been ordered by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry which controversially concluded that the mysterious death was suicide. Dr David Kelly was the principal source (BBC) for its controversial report claiming Downing Street "sexed up" an Iraq weapons dossier. Hours before his death, he reportedly e-mailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, warning her of "many dark actors playing games" (according to the BBC). Lord Hutton also placed a 30-year ban on the release of records that were provided to the inquiry but not used in evidence ... believed to be witness statements. [click here to read more]
NASA still claims that 'The Noughties' (2000-2009) was the hottest decade ever on record ... indicating that
global warming is "continuing unabated". New surface temperature figures released by the US space
agency on Thursday show average global temperatures have increased by 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade,
throughout the past three decades.
[Click her to check it out for your self]]
Ireland is been held ransom (again) this time by a small group of skilled but unhappy air traffic controllers.
More than 120 flights were canceled today because of a four-hour strike by air traffic controllers
of Ireland's three main airports. Leaving over 15000 passengers stranded and missing connections.
And what is it all about ... Labour union IMPACT said the action at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports
follows the suspension of 15 controllers for refusing to engage in "disputed new work practices"
and higher pay demands. It expects further suspensions by the IAA. The IAA says that the Irish air traffic
controllers are among the best paid in the world (despite an actual work reduction of about 25%
since recession started) ... so, what's the "picture" here:
"A Controller typically earns a basic salary of over €112,000. When you include PRSI and the pension contribution of 30.5% of salary that the IAA pays, this gives a total package of almost €160,000. When you contrast that with other public sector staff (teachers, nurses, gardai), all of whom are paying a pension levy, these are very well paid staff, with a gold-plated defined-benefits pension scheme. Since 1998, people whose pay is linked to the consumer price index would have gone up by 38%. National Wage agreements have given people 55%. Air traffic controllers, however, have gone up by 92% in that same time. And they now want an additional 6%. Paying this 6% would cost the IAA an additional € 6 million each year. This cost would have to be passed to the airlines who fund the IAA - the Authority receives no State funding. Controllers work a 35 hour week, they are entitled to a break of 30 minutes for every two hours worked. They work five days and then get three days off. They work 182 days a year, they have 137 rest days, and 36 days holidays, in addition to 10 public holidays" Quoting: Liam Kavanagh, Director of HR.
"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
An ABC News article describes how references from The New Testament were inscribed on high-powered rifle sights (2COR4:6) provided to the U.S. military by Trijicon Inc. (which has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide high-powered rifle sights to the U.S. Marine Corps). The equipment is used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tricky thing is, that U.S. military rules specifically prohibits any religious expression in Iraq or Afghanistan specifically to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarkeing on a religious "Crusade" against islamic insurgents.
The 'company' has said that the inscriptions have always been there and that the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa. ... well ... do I miss something here ... like: "Thou shall not kill" ...
Today Germany's Federal Office for Information Security has warned people of using Internet Explorer
(all versions) until Microsoft issues a patch. It claims that there are flaws in Internet Explorer
that allow maleware to infect your computer using Internet Explorer. This warning comes, after last
weeks revelation that this browser allowed hackers in China to bypass Google's security. My advice
is to use FireFox or Opera browsers instead.
The big freeze will leave us a multimillion-euro bill for road repairs ... and Ireland will, probably, have another go, at the EUnion, for some extra cash to deal with that ... in the mean time Irish radio station Newstalk 106 runs a contest to find Ireland's "greatest" pothole and the winner, so far, is a seven foot wide two foot deep monster in Cootehill, County Cavan. But, still unbeaten, CORK city became the "pothole capital" of Ireland.
In case if you want to do something ... well here is a link to report potholes, nation wide:
[Clicking here to report potholes]
"Unionists should close devolution vacuum" ... even Shaun Woodward (Northern Ireland Secretary), appeals to unionists to agree to the devolution of policing and justice powers. He said: "It's a very important time for all unionists to realize that now is the time to complete devolution" and "There is an urgency which is why this needs to be addressed in these coming days and weeks."
... and I say: "don't wait before the fists, in the pockets of republican fundamentalists, are forming again" ... and "I am very disappointed with Peter Robinson" ...
Heavy rain, storm force winds and snow melt led to extensive flooding on roads throughout Munster. 40 soldiers spent the night filling over 5,000 sandbags, to protect parts of Skibbereen, after a combination of high tide and swollen waters in the river Ilen threatened to flood Townsend Street and Market Street again, which had been already flooded three times since November.
Shops in the centre of Blackpool on Cork's north side were hit by a flash flood at lunchtime when a fallen tree blocked a culvert on the Bride River, resulting in some premises being flooded to a depth of two feet.
Heavy snow is currently falling in the east, Dublin and Wicklow, Dundrum and Ballinteer, this evening and causes traffic problems again.
Cork Airport had to be closed this morning after heavy snowfall of 10cm yesterday and overnight.
But Met Éireann is finally predicting an end to the cold conditions, which has lasted, in some areas,
for well over three weeks.
"Almost 5,000 people have been discommoded as a result of the snowy conditions in Cork over the last day" spokesman of Cork Airport Kevin Cullinane said.
I heard the rumors (alone I did not believ it) so, I research and calculated and here is the result:
Swiss 'Bundesrat; earns the most ... well, well, well ...
The new pay rate for the Irish Taoiseach is €228,466 (was €257,024)
UK Prime Minister's salary is £127,334 and an additional salary, of £60,277, as MP (£187611) € 207,270
US Presidents salary is $400,000 => €271,000
The Chancellor of Germany receives €220,000 per anum and a €22,000 bonus => 242,000
French Presidents salary is €240,000
Swiss Bundesrats salary is 430,000 Swiss Franc => €284,296
... there you have it ...
Freezing conditions to disrupt weekend travel ...
Weather expected to get worse ...
Minister orders all State schools to close next week ...
Red Cross offers help during cold snap ...
And not enough salt or grit ... anywhere ...
... the State’s 4,000 primary and secondary schools have been ordered to be closed for three days, from next Monday on, because of the severe weather. Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe announced the measure this evening on advice of the Government's National Emergency Response Committee. Mr O’Keeffe said: "While it may be that some schools would have been in a position to open depending on the weather, I consider, on balance, that the responsible and prudent approach at this stage is to close schools in the interest of safety"
... and the now free work force (teachers) will go out, with pickaxe and shovel, and help to free pathways and roads from ice and danger ...
An Earthquake, of about 1.6 on the Richter scale, shook Donegal last evening at around 7.30pm, with the epicenter located at Bridgend in the south of the Inishowen peninsula, possibly originated in the (in-shore) Lennan fault line, one of a series of earthquake fault lines crossing the county, and might be related to norwegians largest earthquake, in the Arctic Circle, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale, earlier that day.
As one describes: "It was a big rattle and it lasted a couple of minutes. It started in one place and seemed to roll along Lough Swilly"
The State's tax take fell by some €7.7 billion in 2009 compared to 2008, worsening the exchequers
balance by almost 12€ billion, according to figures published by the Revenue Commissioners today.
Dire straits.
[you can enjoy reading the whole document, by clicking here]
Bertie Aherns application for 'Artist’s Tax Exemption', for his autobiography (Bertie Ahern: The
Autobiography), has been granted ... and “no one gives a shit”. This is just another brilliant PR
(public relations) “faux pas” of this public figure ... and it illustrates just how little responsibility
this man, the self proclaimed 'architect of the Celtic Tiger’, feels given the dire situation the state
is in today. Think, for a moment, about the fact that this guy receives a number of State pensions
(€120,000), a TDs salary (€100,000), the use of a States car and considerable amounts of money from
speaking engagements as an ex states leader. This man can be considered well off, more so, he sought
the tax exemption on a book, ghost-written by Richard Aldous, for which he already received €400,000
in advance. This is what I call abusing the system ... legally maybe sond, but morally rotten. It fits
perfectly to his action to push through a TDs pay rise while the states finances were already in trouble.
But it is a total lie, that this 'Tax Exemption' was granted sole on the base that this book is a book
of utter fiction.
[read more, clicking here]
From today on, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational and can be enacted upon it ... so, from
now on, watch your mouth and watch what you're saying ... the law and the means are here now to make your
live a misery, if you don't ... while a modern state should follow a secular, non religious, route, we
now have a law that makes "cursing or reviling God" and "assuming to oneself the rights or
qualities of God" a crime ... Jesus, himself, wouldn't have a chance in Ireland today and would be
"crucified" all over again ... welcome to the modern, medieval society of ireland ... despite all the
reassurances of our Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, that “it will be up to the discretion of the
Director of Public Prosecutions to take any action” ... ?!? ... it does not help ... neither does
it help, that the Muslim community, here in ireland, voiced their appreciation and said that:
"this is a step in the right direction" ... wow ... and what that direction could be can be seen
in many Muslim nations around the world ... no, to me, such a statement just confirms that this
is exactly the wrong direction ...
Oh, Lord ...
01. january 2010 - Happy New Year 2010 ...