Everything and Less

Rooney-- blag

2010-10-18T17:15:00.000+01:00

The indication that Wayne Rooney will refuse to sign a new contract with Manchester United is the last thing Sir Alex Ferguson needed as he enters the final phase of almost a quarter of a century in charge at Old Trafford.

Rooney, who is still only 24, was bought from Everton to become a keystone in Ferguson's last great side – the one that would not only continue his run of domestic success but give him a third European Cup victory, to be won in the style that eluded his otherwise successful teams in 1999 and 2008.

...The manager has surely found himself relying on his old guard – Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville – for far longer than he ever envisaged when they first formed the locally produced core of his first-team squad a decade and a half ago. Given the constant need to introduce fresh blood of matching quality, to lose so gifted a young player as Rooney at this stage seems almost like carelessness.

...But that belief is based on past form, and in particular on one incident from almost 20 years ago, when the manager staged a late-night invasion of a private house in which his two young wingers, Giggs and Lee Sharpe, were partying.

watch oscars online

2010-03-08T01:54:00.003Z

http://www.veetle.com/frameworked/index.php/channel/view#4b80bed02621a

Back to blogging - The Baggot Inn can kiss my converse wearing feet.

2010-02-21T14:10:00.000Z

I haven't blogged in a while. But I am back now. Coming up in the next week are articles on Taxi drivers, Augmented reality, A beginners guide to reading about Ancient Rome and some new articles on dating.. But first today.. I was stopped from entering the Baggot Inn last night because I was wearing converse runners.. The least aggressive of all the runners.. chances of getting your head kicked in by someone wearing Converse - nil..

Anyway it ruined the night.. we were going to a party there.. my mates had to go on in.. I ended up going home sober and bored at 11 pm on a Saturday.. So I have started to review the bar.. submitting reviews all over the place.

The generic review I am submitting is long.. and I will show it to you in a minute.. but what I ask you to do is create your own reviews about the Baggot Inn's policy on runners and post them online.

Posted so far to ( the account it is posted under is GerryC or something similar.):
Yelp
Ciao
Ratemyarea
Visit Dublin ( although they appear to have taken it down)
Truvo

I will keep adding to this as I keep adding the reviews

The review:

The Baggot Inn looks impressive, with its modern feel and location, and for most bars in a city that should be enough. But in a city like Dublin, where pubs are the lifeblood of a young population's social scene, the Baggot Inn sits abreast the city like a bad tempered snob - ignorant, uncool and overpriced.

Its relatively few charms are spat back into the face of Dubliner and tourist alike. The pints are excessively priced, the staff are rude, and it appears to be the only pub in the Dublin city center that does not allow guys or girls to wear runners.

It is a place stuck in the early 1990's.. not the year 2010. Back then, with Dublin creaking its way out of a recession, the door staff at bars and clubs used the "runner" as a tell tale aspect of an individuals appearance. They would see runners, and as they are often cerebrally challenged individuals, would use them as an item to profile their customers with.

During that period a person wearing runners could easily be judged as a scumbag or as potential trouble. But then came the late 90's and common sense prevailed. The way to determine the intentions of a person entering your bar was to talk to them. "a golden age of Bouncers and Bars" Common sense prevailed. Gone were the silly blanket rules. Rules that witless Bouncers were unable to side-step in order to grant leniency to potential runner wearing customers. Customers that had proved in conversation that they were not insane, drunk or trouble.

That was until the Baggot Inn, with Dublin stuck in recession again, decided to step back 20 years and to ban runners or at least those that attend wearing runners ( there is nothing on the website to inform the potential customers of this policy)..

The bouncer says " the manager is nuts against the runner - he says no runners in the bar".. in a city as young and professional as Dublin, with it fashionably people, the idea that bars are banning the runner is laughable and not a little bit scary.

My advice is to stay away from the place, at least on Saturday nights when they are enforcing this rule. Of course abstinence from this place is not much of a sacrifice.

;The bar is just far enough down Baggot street to make the walk from Gafton street not worth the effort.

;It is simply not even in the top ten bars on Baggot street (Try Rileys or O'Donoghues).

its current policy of door management is to ensure that the customers that are let in are often D4 heads ( Dublin slang for snobs), loud annoying often kinda dopey people - the kinda of people you would see in Cafe En Seine when the RDS plays host to the horse jumping in the summer.. people best avoided if you wish to retain some faith in Irish people.

Overall, in a city as mixed and vibrant as Dublin, with bars like the Foggy Dew, Nearys, Clarendon, Bruxelles, Mcdaids, Davy Byrnes, Stags Head, The Hairy Lemon, Peters pub the Baggot Inn is something akin to an embarrassing relative. One that talks in a posh accent and attempts to use big words but is in fact just a stupid moron with a dictionary and high hopes.

Go to better bars in the city, Bars to which you will not be subject to the slightest risk of a disapproving look by a bouncer or barman. Go to bars around Grafton street - why bother going out of your way to a pretty, smelly, overpriced dungeon like the Baggot Inn?

Why attempt to attend its lacklustre charms knowing that the walk from Grafton street could result in denied entrance because of your footwear..wear what you want and stay away from this uppity establishment. It is 2010 for God's sake..

Cloud computing with Google Chrome OS

2009-11-21T14:25:00.000Z

Google first created the Chrome browser and is now releasing the Chrome OS to the open source community. Meant to have a beta launch in 2010, the release of the current work in progress version to open source has meant that you can now download and install a very basic version. ( Click here for a post from tech crunch that I used to find out how to install a virtual software to run a version of the Chrome OS)

Screen shot of the applications tab ( lets call it the desktop !!) of Chrome OS

Google are doing this because they believe that users primarily use their browser to access the Web to access web applications so why shouldn't your OS not also just be a portal to the Web.. where all your applications, data and settings are based.

If you think about it Google are right in this most basic of premise. The first icon one clicks when the OS has loaded is generally the internet browser in order to access online profiles.

The applications people then use are web based applications ( applications where the data is stored online and not on your hardisk) which is the motivation for Cloud computing. In fact in its essence most people are already cloud computing - using web mail, social network sites, saving photos on Flickr, movies on Youtube etc etc .

However, where the Cloud computing falls down is that people still generally revert to their desktop when they want to write a word document or create a spreadsheet, they click from the browser and open up a suite of applications based on your desktop ( residing on your computer harddisk).

The aim of the Google Chrome OS is to keep the user within the Chrome Browser - in essence the OS, and do all your work and store it within your profile on Google servers.

It does not sound like a major shift. But it means that your profile is your relationship with your data.. the computer you use is not important anymore. You can use any computer in the world with Google Chrome OS running on it and you can access your data and work with it, until it feels like you are on your own computer. ( to understand this.. think about how when you log on to Facebook.. there are all your settings, data etc etc.. the computer does not matter.. your facebook profile is the important part.well imagine that your OS was the same except you have access to everything from word documents, photos, movies, your browser to all your data files) This is important. This changes the way that home users will interact with their data. the computer you use simply becomes a portal to your profile.

Chrome OS is being built , as the Chrome browser was, with a triumvirate of objectives. Speed, Security and simplicity.

Speed... the open souce not quite beta versions of Chrome OS will, if you are running it on your local machine, take only about 10 seconds from turning on the computer to using applications. 7 seconds to go from turning on the computer to the login screen and a further 3 seconds to access the Chrome Browser.. which is the desktop of the Chrome OS. T
his has been accomplished using lots of hardware configuration etc. But for the basic user it can be understood by the fact that the wee jobs a normal computer must do when starting up have been stripped down to nothing.. As Matt Papakipos, Engineering Director of the project states " we removed the service that looks for a floppy disk.. I mean does anyone actually have a floppy disk player anymore"

Security.. There are many facets to this. Updates will be handled by Google for all your add ins and OS patches etc. The fact that you are on Google servers makes your data securer..OK well from the rest of the world if not from Privileged users within Google. The basic reason why it is more secure is that on your PC, applications run locally on the drive and user data is generally stored locally as well. Such interaction between OS and applications mean that the OS is changed by every install.. such minor changes can then be exploited. Then you find yourself in the extended perpetual cycle of always having to update your application to keep them secure, and then having to keep updating your OS to keep it secure from holes created by applications and by, well, bugs inherent in the OS.

Google Chrome OS will not allow applications to install locally or make changes to the operating system. The holes are closed and centrally managed. But one particularly clever part of the process is that when you log onto Chrome OS.. it checks the OS coding to make sure it has not changed.. which it should not have.. and if changes are noted.. for instance if malware had amended settings for insidious reasons.. Chrome OS will instantly re-image the disk from a pure copy from Google. Because all your data is on your off site profile the re-image will not delete your data. For me this simple idea is the brilliance of the idea.. It is like having a strong secure system administrator sorting out all your basic security concerns for you, for free.

Simplicity. This is the idea that you are online in 10 seconds and everything you want is there, everything you use is already online so you don't need to install software like adobe etc.

I have installed it, running on a Sun Virtual box, running an image of the Chrome OS from a torrent file I downloaded. It is basic at this moment, and it will change ( see a video from Google below) but I can already see how great, fast and usefull it would be. I believe it will make Netbooks, ones with long lasting batteries, the major tool for most users.

Asking Google search questions indicates a somewhat personal relationship with the Web.

2009-11-18T19:18:00.001Z

Our site of the Month is Questions Suggestions. While the site is a simple a collection of screen prints, it represents something interesting about the way in which people now interact with the Web - especially through search engines.

The site asks partial questions in search engines and then screen prints the prompts offered up. These prompts represent previous, popular, questions posed by previous users. The previous questions give an interesting insight into the mindset of the Web user.

When search engines first started to guide us around the web, search words were the force de jour. However as our familiarity with Google search has been extended, we now search by asking questions..as if we feel in some way that Google is a wise old man, who shall answer our most personal of questions. Were once we rather belligerently, succiently shouted "football" or "president" at the Web through the loudspeaker that is the search engine, we now ask, rather more politely, " what score did Man utd win by" or "what is Obama doing right now"*

A great example of this is the question "when will ". The questions reeks of desperation, of forward looking, of asking the Web to tell the future. Some of the most popular questions starting "When will " are; when will I die or when will the world end

Who else would you ask those particular questions of? If you are asking a doctor or a geologist you are probably in some sort of trouble.

What does the person typing such a question expect the Web to offer them. Are they just simply curious or are they desperate to know.. Is the motivation philosophical? Are people happy with the response...

Anyway this site is worth a look..if only to see if the other users are similarly befuddled as you about topics as strange as "is it wrong to sleep with your cousin" or "is it wrong to sleep with your stepdad after your mom dies" ( which is oddly specific and relatively scary ) to the perfectly acceptable queries such as "why is Michael Jackson White" or "why is my gas bill so high". On the other end of the scale there are some deeply philosophical questions out there. The always popular "Is God real", the wonderful "can Druids use fist weapons" and the faintly amusing "can jesus microwave a burrito".

The site has cleverly inserted hyperlinks into each possible question on each screen print so once you find the question you can click and learn the answer..

*what is obama reading, what is obama doing wrong etc

and the oscar for best holiday video goes to..

2009-11-12T00:04:00.000Z

from http://lornasdistractions.blogspot.com/.. very fucken amusing.. if only all holiday vids could be like this..is it just me or does Lorna not deserve some kind of TV show.. ok maybe on a small digital channel to start off with.. possibly late at night.. but eventually..wouldn't her sense of humour not be put to good use as say a warm up act for the late late show or maybe question time..basically this video is better than 100% of TV3's home grown fare and 70% of RTE's..

I like the bit with the cat roar.. (that sentence makes me sound autistic..I like the bit with the cat roar..I like the bit with the cat roar..I like the bit with the cat roar..I like the bit with the cat roar..HELP ME!!) ok time for bed.. enjoy..

Cheap thrills and Surprising Eruptions from lorna o'brien on Vimeo.

messing about building websites

2009-11-11T23:06:00.001Z

Just a short post. As a favour to a friend I was building a static website for her new fashion business - the site will be done by a professional once she makes some money.. anyway.. lately i have been very lazy with my web design ( ha !).. ok website building...I keep just using templates etc and throwing them into blogger and have let all my real websites ( viewofnews.com, everythingandless.com) go redundant.

Anyway today I returned to Rapidweaver.. I love this app.. but hate it as well.. I have never really been able to customise it the way i want..

Anyway, in brief, I created the site, exported it and then opened the exported site in Dreaweaver.. then I could edit it away..yipeee.

Anyway.. then I wanted a site to host it.. for free.. somewhere I could ftp to.

I found http://www.001webs.com/index.jsp - took me about a minute to sign up..

then I ftp'd to it .. slapped up the site and while it ain't a pretty URL it will do for now.

The person I made it for is having problems seeing it on IE 8.. so i needed to view it on a number of browsers as I use a MAC and firefox / safari..then I found adobe browserlab . this site, free to join via the adobe main site.. is awesome.. and free and awesome.. my site is looking fine on most things.. i don't care about ie6...

and there you are.. a couple of hours messing about and I found a few useful sites..

oh the link to the site is : http://geraco.001webs.com/Doodle%20Bug%20Fashion/index.html

yeah yeah I know.. but it is sorta pretty.. I used accordian for RW for the home page..and the pink.. well that is just fantastic...

Halloween in Dublin 2009 - less death more fireworks.

2009-11-01T19:32:00.001Z

Halloween in Dublin, has, over the past few years, descended to the nadir of riots, attacks on emergency services, cars being set on fire, and a surging growth in the Pedophile Priest costume. Halloween gives skangers a motivation to attempt to revolt against a political regime that won't provide free tracksuits, sovereign rings and all day all weather PJ's ( the skangers are revolting.. they sure are - look at the face on that one..etc)

Anyway this year the bloodshed was reduced, the number of calls answered by the emergency services fell from over 800 in 2008 to about 300 this year. The rain apparently dampened spirits and bonfires and for that we should be grateful.

I had thought that I would check the newspapers and steal lots of photos showing the devastation and destruction inflicted on the city last night. But alas.. where armed Garda units and 24 hour air patrols failed, the rain succeeded and there are no burnt out cars to show you.

So, my friend Jane Dickson*, an aspiring photographer and amusing curmudgeon (only joking Jane.. :) ), took some wonderful shots of the fireworks that were launched sky bound (and not after cars or at cats) in her part of the city. So I have decided to show them here and give you a look at some of the more aesthetically pleasing aspects of the Halloween night in the city.

* if you want to use these photos contact me on the comments section and I will pass your request on to Jane.

Lornas Distractions - funny and sweet.. more please

2009-10-30T02:35:00.001Z

I have a friend on Facebook.. but a friend in a facebook sense and not in a real life sense as I think I have only met her once.. anyway from her sporadic posts on Facebook she does come across as very amusing - witty, droll - better to just call her amusing. Anyway she has a new blog called http://lornasdistractions.blogspot.com . and it is a great blog.. although sadly it is not updated as regularly as it probably should be.

Blogs pop up like weeds, most die away, some bloom, some should be watered so that they bloom.. this is a blog that I think should be watered on a daily basis. The writer is a wry wordsmith, funny, engaging and instantly offers the reader a comfortable and entertaining read.

The site looks brilliant and if it is her own design I am envious as hell. But there are some strange links. Click on her musings and you get her Stumbleon page..unsure why.. another main link is to the Guardian pictures page.. which is also a bit strange.. but aside from this, and a sort of confusion about what the site is for, there are some wonderful articles.

One, which I laughed the whole way through, is her description of how to cook - Raspberry, dark chocolate, almond cup cakes, topped with a strawberry. The directions are fucken hilarious - an example:

Use remaining juice from Raspberry tin and slowly hand whisk in Royal icing sugar. Then use an electric whisk for 8 minutes on high.......Start to lose mind after 2 mins and try and prop whisk on toaster......Clean up pink raspberry flavoured icing from ceiling, floors and clothes and convince self that it will be worth it.

I pissed myself reading that. Actually I think this is the point of the blog... the angle she should use is this strange personalised narrative type of recipes.. it is not something I have seen before.. but it is so engaging.

Anyway.. I write about this blog because I am hoping that you will visit it, comment on it . praise it and hopefully motivate her to continue, to pack the site with her recipes with her charming narrative.

great stuff and our new Blog of the Month *

* I liked this site so much that i didn't use the nofollow tag on the links.. I am partially hooking my PR to hers..so the nerds out there know we like her blog..:)

When the Web becomes something more akin to real life.

2009-10-30T02:10:00.001Z

Web 2.0 is the version of the web which is mainly in use now a days. Gone, for the most part, are the static html sites of the early days. Now the sites are dynamic, productive, interactive; whistling along powered by Java, .net, .asp, .php and a myriad and probably endless escalation of scripting and programming, of applications sitting on applications, of new platforms, and newer browsers.

The Web itself is an interaction between the hardware and software of the internet. The Web is an application sitting on and thus a user, as it were, of the internet. The internet is 40 years old this week, the Web is about 20, Web 2.0 is about 3 years old and I am 33 yrs old. I wasn't there at the start, I certainly won't be there at the end, and to be honest I really can't say I am at the middle.

The internet will be developed, when it changes the Web will change in response. Maybe some new unforeseen application will come along and take over from the Web. What the affect the environment, and let us be in no doubt about it, the internet and the web are new affecting environments - as much as schools, countries, parks, libraries, sitting rooms, family etc will have on the personalities of the people that use the Web is something of a current debate. In the coming years the environmental factors that collude to create ones personality will include the Web environment - the interaction with the web will be as important in the creation of our personalities as our primary and secondary groups. The web is our virtual group and the more we interact with it, the more evolved that interaction becomes, the more significant a role it will play in the creation of such human traits as sociability, dating, love lives, fears, philosophies and even, I suspect, morals.

Anyway, this article is about that growth in our interaction with the Web. When I first logged on back in the late 90's I would read news sites, look at photos, read bits and bobs and maybe learn something new. Now my time on line is constant interaction, conversations, relationships, education, commenting, etc. As such I am a good example of how this constant interaction seeps from the computer into real life.

I have meet people online at dating sites which have led to real physical relationships, I have joined meet up groups that have led to nights out and real social interaction, I have met people in real life and when they moved away or home to a foreign place, the realtionships have bloomed or died on the Web vine using MSN, Facebook, Twitter etc etc. This virtual world is having a real affect on my real life. I will give you some examples.

During the summer I met some American students who were interning over in Dublin for two months. I dated one of for a short time. Those relationships have continued since they returned home to Kansas.. Last night I organised to meet one of them in New York in April for a wedding I am attending.. To seal the deal as it where, we both watched Manhattan online and talked by chat the whole way through the movie. It was I suspect my first virtual date.

Again during the summer I was contacted by a friend from Australia via Facebook that asked me if I would like to meet a friend that was coming over to Dublin for a week. We hooked up and we got on brilliant. We had a few good nights out, and we now still chat via email and facebook.

The other night, bored, as I am on holidays, I was motivated to go into town and meet some people from a meetup group on the web. I met up with a bunch of people I had never talked to before, had a really good laugh and have been able to wrangle a few more sessions out of the people there. On Saturday I am going to a Halloween party with over a hundred of them. In reality it is a stop gap for me as my drinking buddy Kieran is on Holiday in Egypt..but it serves its purpose.

So what do those above examples prove? Well it goes some way to prove that we cannot accurately separate our online lives with our real lives. Our real life is our online life. Both work together.. they have become embroiled in a symbiotic relationship. And I guess that is the point. The Web is 2.0, and so are our lives. I am now Gerry 2.0.

Guest Blogger - The journalist Kayla Ruth Regan - Short Story - The Body of Christ

2009-10-29T06:34:00.000Z

The Body of Christ
I just received my first holy communion and I’m kneeling in prayer at my pew. I’m trying not to look at the life size statue of a bloody Jesus dying on the cross that hangs above the altar. My entire family is watching me reflect on His suffering, so proud that I just received the most holy sacrament.
“She tried her hardest to get out of it this morning,” my mom whispered to my aunt. “She said she felt like throwing up, but I’m sure she was just nervous.”
Still kneeling, I really, really feel like I’m going to throw up. I look at Jesus for mercy. But, within seconds, the pew and my brand new white dress are covered in my vomit; a thick, yellow mixture of half digested cheerios and pieces of the body of Christ I just swallowed. Everyone sees my body reject the Eucharist and there are no congratulations for me. They know that receiving communion isn’t something you get better at. You either receive Him or you don’t. Or worse, like me, you receive Him and then desecrate His body by throwing it up. I couldn’t let it happen again. I was too afraid of the consequences.

"Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed."

I went to church four times a week: three times for school and once on Sunday or Saturday with my family. Unless you’re sick, it’s a mortal sin to abstain from communion, so I still received the Eucharist in my hand. I just didn’t eat it. Instead, after the priest put the body of Christ in my palm, I slid the wafer into my pocket while performing the sign of the cross on my way back to the pew. This went on for four months. I figured it was better to hold onto the bread of life until God sent me a sign than to risk disgracing it again. So, I’d go about my day with Jesus in my pocket until I could get home and put Him in my special body of Christ basket. It was an Easter basket I lined with plastic, decorative grass. Before going to sleep, I always checked on the basket to make sure the wafers were stacked nicely and then said goodnight to Jesus.

"This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper."

My basket held over 50 hosts by the time Sister Mary Peter caught me sliding the Eucharist into my jumper’s pocket. She was old and looked like a witch, but she was very concerned with my salvation. Sister told me to report to her office after Mass, something I did a lot, but never for this serious of a reason. Her office was right next to the Adoration Chapel, the holiest place in the church. It was the only place you could go to be alone with the Eucharist at any hour of the day, and Sister Mary Peter went nearly every day.
In her office, I sat down in the hard, wooden chair while she stood over me.
“Have you no fear of God?” she asked.
I was scared of the life size statue of a bloody Jesus dying on the cross that hung above the altar, but I wasn’t afraid of Jesus when he was in my pocket or basket.
“I don’t think I understand,” I told her.
“You don’t understand how serious a sin you’ve committed? You’ve not only lied to the entire congregation and to God, but in your vanity, you perverted the sanctity of the Eucharist by putting it in your filthy, lint filled, pocket.”
My eyes welled up with tears. She continued.
“God can punish you on earth,” the Sister said. “God can take away your happiness, or God can let the devil take hold of you. You could spend the afterlife, not with your family and friends and in God’s good kingdom, but in eternal damnation with Satan.”
I was crying.
“But it’s okay,” she reassured me, putting her wrinkled, veiny hand on mine. “We’ll go to confession. I’ll be here for you to make sure you stay in God’s light.”

"Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD."

Sister Mary Peter convinced me to fear God. I began taking communion again, and learned to ignore the gag reflex it triggered. I also prayed to Him every night, the same prayer for five years.
One Our Father, two Hail Marys, maybe a Glory Be if I felt sorry for something, then my petitions. Petitions included, but were not limited to preventing the following from happening:
1. Someone breaking into my house and killing my family.
2. Me being possessed by the devil.
3. A tornado destroying my house and killing my family.
But it seemed God’s wrath was inescapable. Every day, Sister Mary Peter caught me engaging in some sin that would surely send me to hell. I would spend eternity with Satan for putting leaves in Mindy Sullivan’s hair, dressing up as the devil for Halloween, having a Ouija board. I wasn’t sorry for my sins, but I still apologized in confession and to Sister Mary Peter for them. I did, after all, absolutely fear God.

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

For two years, Sister Mary Peter talked about death like it was coming for her any day. When it finally did, I was in seventh grade. Apparently she died while writing checks in the adoration chapel.
Only a dozen or so people attended the funeral. Father Gilsenon talked about eternal salvation and the kingdom of heaven and how she’d surely be there. I’d been to a good share of funerals and always made a point to look into the casket. The persons’ bodies never really looked like they had in life. You could tell they weren’t there. But when I looked at Sister Mary Peter, she seemed just as rigid as she had in life. Her dyed black hair was the same, her tinted glasses were in place, and she still had a thick coat of makeup covering her face. She was definitely there, and as far as I could tell, she’d be in that box forever, unable to do anything about it.

"This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
No one was watching me while I walked up the aisle at her funeral to receive communion, but I was smiling the whole time. The priest put the transubstantiated wafer in my palm and I thought about all of the sins I’ll commit and will never have to apologize for again. I bit down on the body of Christ in my mouth, breaking it into pieces over and over again and piercing my own tongue in the process. I looked into the eyes of the life size statue of a bloody Jesus dying on the cross as I swallowed His body, desecrated with my own blood.
No one could tell me I was going to hell.
I was free.

Middle of the lint pondering belly button moments

2009-10-29T06:00:00.000Z

There is a quote by Woody Allen that if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. We all have best laid plans and I suspect that the majority of them scoot past us whilst we are trying desperately to ride the bucking bull that is life. It is easy, in the middle of the lint pondering belly button moments prior to sleep, to step above the parapet and stare with some confidence down the road of our lives, to attempt to plan the detours, the stops and then in some way try and anticipate the turns that could result in a crash, whether it be headlong total destruction or a skid that ultimately leads to a change in your route.

But in the trenches of life, with the bullets flying, with only the insane, or possibly the successful, who have the nerve to pop their head above the same parapet, so secure in the middling hours before sleep, which are now stained with blood, sweat and regrets, and view the road and plan in real time their route.

I suspect that the fragility of our own existence is self evident. The nervous understanding that you are simply clinging to your job, finances, apartment, car, credit card bill, mortgage, sanity and that if you don’t keep those nails firmly embedded in the road you are going to slip, and hurtle to a lonely death.

A death in a motel, with a bottle of cheap gin clutched in your graying hairy hand whilst your last seconds are illuminated by the dead neon light of a late night porn line advertisement. You slip away to a six foot hole surrounded by the detritus of your life, the crocodile tears of those that never really knew you and the ritual mumblings of a sexual frustrated priest.

A charming image I am sure you will agree. But as much as I attempt to plan, I find myself with my nails dug deep to the spot. Attempting to break free, to release those fingers and to step off the road, to traverse, not just the road less traveled, but barren desert goat trails. I can’t do it. I have as part of my plan the similar and cliched objectives of love and money. Both are, we presume the X and Y in the quantitative equation of happiness. But they are if we really think about it just variables that could be interchanged , even temporarily with beer and burgers, wine and cheese, comedy and laughter, hugs and kisses, punches and kicks, music and girls, drugs and tacos.

So while we may have an equation, a map to happiness, the active agents could be anything and it feels to me that life is about mixing about with the active agents until eventually you have, like Willy Wonka, the everlasting gobstopper of happiness. But how to make the cake when the ingredients could be anything.

After a few days, trying some new stuff, attempting to identify something new and interesting, the same agreed definitions still exist. Beauty before brains, six packs before comedic narratives, etc etc. It is not horrific or even uncomfortable to be able to identify that cliches are in fact cliches because we lack imagination, but there is a slight hint of depression in the air when you realise it is all just so bloody predictable.

The Virgin Mary returns and this time it's personal

2009-10-28T16:31:00.000Z

On the 11th of October in Knock 5,000 people gathered in the hope of seeing an apparition of Our Lady, following the prediction by Dubliner Joe Coleman.

Coleman claims to be a...

visionary of our Blessed Mother and a spiritual healer under the energy of the Holy Spirit

because he had some near death experience back in the 80's. I won't stand on the fence here.. he is a moron. But what annoys me is that Ireland still has a generation of people who are happy to believe a moron.. if the said moron is spouting religious pants.

5000 people..think about that .. 5000 people went to Knock on 11th of October with the expectation that the ghost of woman that died in Galilee over 2000 years ago is about to arrive to talk to them. Nothing happened, of course nothing happened.. Despite nothing happening there is a video that claims there is a cross in the sky.. The uploader; Daddyfrank; states :

the sun turned dark blue, and moved across the sky shaking, before that the clouds formed a cross in the sky and after this happened the man who predicted it told us the blessed mothers message.

When questioned by commentators about the video he states the following

was it not the apostle Thomas how (sic) would only believe jesus had risen from the dead only if he could see jesus. there has and there will always be people like you who are there with 'reasonable explanations' the back bone of religion is to believe the unbelievable and from your comment above you seem one of those people who just can't BELIEVE

Was it not commonsense that said "seriously that is not an argument. To say "believe the unbelievable" is to base your philosophy on a fucken misnomer. Using it as a stratagem for religion scares me.. you can say absolutely anything and if someone does not believe it.. they lack faith.. no room for logic.. ( stone him stone him.. he won't believe the unbelivable..) This kind of call to arms of faith is the motivation for parents to pray for their children to be cured rather than use doctors ( Kent Schaible's ). I have decided that from now on when anyone uses such a baseless trite and manipulative reason for anything I am going to punch them in the nose. And when they say " that sort of behaviour is unbelievable " I shall reply " Believe it fuck nuts".

Anyway back to the maddness:

On Saturday at 3pm the Virgin* Mary will, according to Coleman, be appearing for one sold out show in Knock. But I will bet all that I own that it is not going to happen. But thousands will travel, will see nothing occur and will on the way home spin their faith in such a manner that makes them arrive home still believers.

Coleman claims that Mary, in her latest apparition, told him she is very angry: “She will rock the foundations of the church if the people do not listen, from Rome back down to where we are, down to Knock.

The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, has issued a statement that makes clear the church’s view of Coleman’s predictions: “It is not healthy, does not give glory to God and certainly is not good witness to the faith to be looking for extraordinary phenomena.

Coleman is not impressed by Neary. he stated that

“I don’t think Archbishop Neary has ever seen the Blessed Mother, because he’s hiding behind his closed doors in his big house where he lives."

Which apparently means that the Big Mary V is unable to bypass closed doors..So if she does come back angry and is packing some heat.. run to the nearest building and close the doors.. the deity will wander around outside for ten minutes before leaving.

I wait for Saturday at 5 past three when nothing at all has happened and we can move on from this, frankly, 1950's type of Irish news story.

*it is noted by some historians that Mary was raped by Roman's quelling a Jewish uprising against Roman rule in 4 B.C. - so probably not so much a virgin as a victim of an unsolved crime..

Life in statistics - 33 years and counting

2009-10-24T12:11:00.001+01:00

Days alive 12045
Weeks alive : 1716
Hours alive 289080
Minutes alive 17344800
Seconds alive 1040688000

Number of breaths taken : 208137600
Number of cigarettes smoked : 102220
Amount of goals scored competitively zero
Number of weekends I have drank: 936
Number of films watched: 2250
Amount of money spent on alcohol: 60840 euro
Time spent in bathroom: 3011 hours
Percentage of life in relationships: 36%
Number of serious girlfriends whose name I can remember 5
Number of girlfriends who remember my name: 4
Number that still talk to me: 2
Percentage of life in gainful employment : 8 yrs 8 months

Amount of time I have watched the west wing the whole way through: 6
Percentage of life spent watching west wing: .03%

Number of colleges attended : 6
Number of colleges in which I finished course: 2
Number of people I still know from school: zero
Percentage of life spent outside ireland 14.81%

Amount of people who have died since I was born: 1.8 billion ( very much estimated.. but I had nuffin to do with any of them)

Number of TV's bought by me: 1
number of MP3 players bought by me: 17
number of mobile phones I have had: 22

Longest period of time spent reading one book: 2 years and counting ( The count of Monte Cristo)

number of weddings attended: 16
number of times engaged: 1

Favourite lyric: "She said, you ain't ugly..you can kiss me if you like"

The real fear of the BNP being given a legitimate platform

2009-10-22T20:20:00.002+01:00

Tonight the Head of the BNP, Nick Griffin, will appear on Question Time (BBC 1 10.35pm). The BBC have invited him in order to comply with its rules on political impartiality. Because of the BNP’s electoral success in the EU elections, the BBC argued, in which it got two MEPs elected for the first time in its history, the BNP was eligible to make an appearance on the BBC’s flagship political programme.

And I agree with that. ( yes I real do think the BBC have a point here.) A democracy has to give those with minority view points the ability to express those view points. Of course such a right has its good and bad sides..but it was this right that allowed such opinions as anti slavery, abortion rights, same sex marriage, divorce, etc to be voiced by a minority of the individuals that spoke against a well set majority public mind set.

Nick Griffin's opinions are the bad side. But as his party is still not ( amazingly) classed as an illegal party the BBC have done as their charter instructs them to do. It is for the courts to decide the legitmatcy of the BNP.

But a democracy will not be bought to its knees because of what Griffin says tonight in front of the millions that tune in. However the following points are what we should all fear ( even here in the Republic).

What if he appears without the devils horn? What if he argues well, stays away from extreme views and brings an almost middle of the road aspect to his racisim?

What if he finds major flaws in the armour of those opposing him. Jack Straw is on the panel, and he, three years ago, opened the debate about whether Muslim women should be allowed wear the niqab when they attend his MP surgery ( here and here ). If Griffin can introduce some similarities in his opinions with those that disagree with him, how will those watching feel?

What if he is beaten to a pulp by the debate.. what if this brings some toward him out of sympathy?

What if his appearance starts to sway those that only needed the BNP to have a legitimate platform for them to feel more comfortable with their Jingoism?

What if in a time of recession he twists nationalism and economics into his racism and blurs the edges leaving those most affected moving toward his view point?

The best we can hope for is that cool calm debate chips away at his opinions. This should be easily done as the foundations of his opinions are weak and built on sand. He needs to be brought out of his shell, his well chosen words need to be pushed until he reverts to his more, and less calculated, internal opinions.. The ones that he shares within the unreported confines of his party. He needs to be pushed to reveal his real self.. the job of those on the panel is to push him until he does. If he reveals himself, horns and all, the legitimate platform will have audited his opinions and have revealed their bigoted nature. This should see him being pushed further right in the political spectrum and hopefully, espeically if he crosses the line of incitement, he and his party will be outlawed and resigned to the trash of history - along with Mosley and the national front.

Update: 00:16.. after the debate:

Well the debate is over and it looks like to me that the BNP is left with mud on their face.. below is a comment thread myself and a friend Naomi had during the show:

Naomi Byrne i feel a bit afraid of him. what do you think?

Gerry Coburn
he is laughing nervously.. he is out of step..he looks foolish..I think it is going quite well.. impressed by Jack Straw.

Gerry Coburn
saying that Duke was the leader of a non violent KKK was hilarious.

Naomi Byrne
he keeps backtracking, trying to portray the nice bnp.

Gerry Coburn
oh shit .. he scored some points there...he is lying

Naomi Byrne
yeah..'ive changed my mind'

Gerry Coburn
he talks with forked tongue

Naomi Byrne
the girls are doing great.

Gerry Coburn
Warsi is excellent

Jane Brown...at last I know her.

2009-10-22T16:42:00.005+01:00

Until about 20 minutes ago I knew nothing about Jane Brown.. I didn't know she existed..I do however feel like I have always known the above photo of Samuel Beckett..it is nice to put a face behind the face as it were.. Jane Brown is the photographer and she has been around for ever and has photographed everyone..

The Guardian has a front page link to a gallery of her portraits of the stars since the 40's. Looking over her work for the past 60 years I just love the way she captures her subjects, so much so I think I am going to buy her most recent book Exposures..you can get it for 2o gbp..and for another tenner you can get another collection of her unknown work- called Unknown Brown. Buy it here

And no I don't get any money if you buy by clicking on the buy it here link.. I just like her photos and thought I would share that with you. Below is a very brief bio... find out more at her Guardian page

Lazy Bio:
Jane Bown (born 1925) is a British photographer who works primarily in black-and-white, using available light, with a forty year old camera (40-year-old Olympus OM1 cameras, with a 50mm F2.5 lens,).

She has photographed hundreds of subjects, including Orson Welles, Samuel Beckett, Sir John Betjeman, Woody Allen, Cilla Black, Quentin Crisp, P. J. Harvey, John Lennon, etc.

She never stage-manages her subjects, brings neither props nor lights nor assistants to an assignment, often dragging her camera around in a shopping bag.

Jane Bown's first published photograph, a portrait of Bertrand Russell, appeared in The Observer in January 1949.

Her published books include The Gentle Eye (1980) which was accompanied by a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and on tour, 1980-81, Women of Consequence (1986), Men of Consequence (1987) and Faces (2000).

references for this post:
Germaine Greer
National Portrait gallery

Anger at how Gately's death is portrayed by Moir.

2009-10-18T17:54:00.004+01:00

Jan Moir is our knob of the week

I wasn't going to write about Stephen Gately, rather I would let people with more knowledge of him blog about his untimely and tragic death..

He died young (33 for fuck sake) and that is a tragedy. But I didn't know him, nor did I like his music.

However, the article written by Jan Moir in the Daily Mail on Friday angers me ( I am not including a link.. I don't want you to visit their right wing lowest common denominator vile bulshit rag). Moir attempts to state that the accident was more than it seemed and then attempts to ignore all medical and police information and deduce that it may have been related to his sexuality.

To deduce that his sexuality was relevant to his death without any evidence..(could there ever be any evidence that ones sexuality can lead to accidental death? well maybe if your sexuality was based on having sex with venomous snakes or angry bears..).. is a ludicrous statement.

It was a trite article, written in an attempt to assign the fault for the tragic death of a young guy. If a heterosexual dies in the kind of circumstances that require a professional determination will the dead man's sexuality ever really be a factor in the determination. Imagine if he was hetro - would it ever have been surmised as a possible contributory factor in their death?.. never.. because sexuality is not relevant.. will never be relevant in an accidental death.

Gately appears to have been a really nice bloke.. a Celebrity that didn't appear to spend that much of his life acting like a celebrity..by all accounts he was apparently an easy guy to talk to, was not up his own arse and didn't seem to try and appease a popstar ego. He was a guy who had made good from a very underprivileged area in Dublin, had made some money, found love and was enjoying life.. That anyone would wish to take the tragic circumstances and twist them around in an attempt to meet the prudish readership of a rag like the Mail makes Jan Moir everything and less's asshole of the week.

Love me mad

2009-10-01T20:11:00.001+01:00

Mark Twain noted in Tom Sawyer that a great law of human action is “…in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.” It was true then and true now. Married men often talk of how much more attractive they are to the opposite sex the second they wear the wedding band. A company just has to put limited edition onto their product to see an increased in sales, increase the price tag. Yep we fall for that too.

For me it is women in a relationship, or at least one woman in one relationship. I have had a crush on a girl for about a year. She is in a relationship and whilst I do genuinely like her, I do wonder if the fact that I can’t have her increases my interest, or at least increases the length of time that I have been interested in her.

I tend to fall in love within minutes and then fall out of love with a similar degree of speediness (generally caused by sobering up). I can be hooked on someone and then find myself forgetting her name in the weeks after the relationship has ended.. But for this girl I find myself still thinking about her perpetually. I suspect if we actually got together I would see the reality does not quite live up to the fantasy. Real women are known to fart, burp and give out. In the sublime soft felt carpeted fields of my fantasy the girl I like wears soft summer dresses, bare footed she leaps about in vast corn fields chasing butterflies and wearing flowers in her hair. While such a fantasy resembles a shampoo advertisement there is a smidge of reality in what I fantasize about. Hippie chick, free and happy with an interest in butterflies.. The butterflies are probably not a deal breaker.

So knowing that I am simply giving into my (and humanities) basic instinct makes me feel better, if slightly lonelier. But that itself is of some comfort. The drama of unrequited, actually silent, love (attraction) lends a somewhat depth to ones life. Of course an analysis of it simply sees me as a single guy fancying a girl that loves another…which is not quite dramatic but rather sad in reality. But do we care about reality when dealing with affairs of the heart.

Relationships start with a twist, but become shaken until eventually they are slow plodding events that need constant attention to survive. At the start you do what you enjoy but after time you do what is needed. This is the progression from the fantasy to reality. And there is nothing wrong with it. To keep the speed of a new relationship ongoing for years would be tiresome. After all we get tired of anything if we do it for long enough. The slower pace of a comfortable relationship is satisfying. But it can be boring. I think I prefer the initial burst of enthusiasm followed by a dramatic break up followed by a burst of enthusiasm with someone else eventually hoping one of the relationships leads to something special. It is a pointless cycle that is actually nicely capsulated by the a definition of madness. “Doing the same thing over and over for ever and ever expecting a different result”.

Sodden luck changes

2009-09-21T17:47:00.002+01:00

I think my luck is going to change. That is as optimistic a statement as I have ever used to open one of these badly written streams of bulsh*t that I am so prone to spit onto the screen when a period of boredom over takes me. Boredom sprints past my comatose form, a form sprawled in the gutter of mid 30’s existence, like an old man using a zimmer frame. Alas, as I lie there, I am generally not looking at the stars, rather I am staring, nose deep, at the floating detritus of a city that is falling apart at the seams. Is it just me? but is there a correlation between the time of recession and an increase in litter? Must be just me.

My luck changed on Friday. My usual luck level is if I didn’t have bad luck I wouldn’t have the motivation to get out of the bed in the morning, motivated as I am by the fear that if I stayed in the bed I would eventually accidentally set it on fire. While bad luck tempers one’s self belief and certainly excites, if not batters, one's daily existence, it is at least proof that you are alive. Indifference is a hellish thing, and life becomes unbearable when it is actually indifferent to your flimsy existence.

Therefore bad luck, at least, gives you the impression that you are significant enough for some bored minor deity to take the time out to f*ck with you and place an unending spread of banana skins from which you will slip, in an ungainly manner, onto the small drips of dog sh*t that appear to infest the path between birth and death.

last Friday, my luck continued its determined path to send my days spinning into oblivion, I woke up to the realisation that I had lost my motorbike keys. I had, on the previous Tuesday left the motorbike securely locked outside the tourist office; off Grafton Street. Why it took me three days to realise that my keys were missing is another long and ultimately boring story. But let me say that my reaction to losing my keys was first a frenetic search throughout the apartment. The search did not result in locating the keys although I did find a plant I had been missing for about 6 months, and had up to that moment presumed it had grown legs in a speedy moment of evolutionary progression as it's genetic survivalist instincts went into overdirve and it wandered off in order to seek a more hospitable environment like say the Gobi Desert. Once the search was complete the apartment resembled a small tottering china shop post a visit by a large flatulent bull who had just arrived from night out on E and was sporting a large rocket propelled pair of roller skates. I trudged off to town, grumbling.

I checked the bike to make sure it was still there and not up on bricks or something. It sat there gleaming in the early morning sun. It whispered to me “ why didn’t you get spare keys cut you dick”. I grimaced, arrived in work and spent two hours trying to find ways to get the bike fixed.

The cost, it appeared, averaged out at about 280 euro. I rang AA and asked if they could help me. They said they could. I met the AA man. We discussed our options. The only real option being to take off the helmet lock which uses the same key as the ignition and get a locksmith to create a new key. The AA guy did not have a suggestion about what I could do to get the U-lock off the back wheel.

He went off to get tools from the van, and I checked the u-lock, the lock part still obscured by my helmet. And there, resting under the visor, were my keys. Still stuck in the lock! The keys sat there innocently, confused by my shouts of glee and my rather public display of affection for them. AA man arrived back, tools in hand and spotting the keys in my hand, immediately understood my stupidity, he grinned and remarked in that sarcastic Dublin tone “ the class of criminal in Ireland is not what it used to be”.

But he was right - Three days and three nights with keys attached to the bike and it was not stolen. Was I lucky..32 years of experience would say that no.. I was not lucky.. this non taken opportunity occured because of something else.. something cultural.. and so It occurred to me as I clambered aboard that this recession was going to be different. In the 80's everyone was skint, criminals had a lot of competition and only the best could aspire to make a profitable living from it. The dark dank days of the depressing 80' had seen an almost entrepreneurial spirit erupt in the criminal underworld. A bike with keys attached to it would have been nicked, taken a part and sold in minutes. But after the fairly easy days of the tiger years criminals had grown fat off the land, had disappeared down the rabbit hole of drug dealing and had forgotten their roots.. street crime and petty theft. shame Dublin, for shame.

Session fixation attack and Oauth

2009-09-04T01:08:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post. I have been doing some research into the evolution of web based threats to web applications, web application servers and to the IDS, firewalls etal. Starting at zero day attacks and leading to the weaknesses of signatory based virus systems and IDS / routers etc.

I found myself rumbling around getting as much information on session fixation or session hijack attacks as I could. which all just goes to the point of this post.

A new protocol called OAuth has been created to assist with the 2 leg and 3 leg authentication processes between consumers, user and service provider. The idea is simple enough - to let the user access a resource via a third party without having to give his/her username or password. The problem is the OAuth uses session ids as part of the authentication process and so is open to Session fixation attacks. Anyway the protocol is an interesting concept.. as a skeleton protocol onto which API developers etc can add more elements.

Eran Hammer Lahav has a really interesting website called Hueniverse on which you can learn all about this OAuth protocol (3 part beginners guide) or how is was affected by a sessionfixation attack

Finally the security experts at Acros Aecurity wrote a white paper on session fixation attacks way back in late 2002.. but it is still one of the best white papers on the subject. You can find it here.

One year single....lessons learnt or how I decided to become celibate (Part Two)

2009-09-02T01:36:00.003+01:00

Online dating sites come in a variety of flavours. Some are hardcore sites where pictures of smiling faces are routinely followed by erect penises or large boobs (adultfinder). Others are more related to the bands of sad and often morose morons that come together on dating site forums in order to explain away their perpetual singledom through mediocre platitudes on the evils of the opposites sex. James, a particularly annoying permanent arsehole on a site called anotherfriend.com will complain, whilst tactfully placing his detachable balls into a pink slipper beside his bed, that the night before, a girl, whom seemed to be having a good time, went home without kissing him.. and she still has not replied to any of his eight text messages… why he will wonder “are women so cruel?”. This tale of woe will be greeted by the other moronic singles with dismay and so will follow an outburst of back slapping that makes the independent reader wish his screen was vomit proof.. “Oh James she was not worth it”… “oh James she obviously didn’t see the real you”.. “oh James .. we love you”.. “don’t worry about her she will regret it”. Not bloody likely would be my addition to such a thread. Such a thorny step into the real world will see the herd slowly turn and attack you. “Leave here” they will type for stating the truth. “this thread is a place where people go for comfort, where everyone is a decent lovable person” they will ejaculate. You have to ask.. if you are all so fucken lovable why don’t you date each other.. this leads to silence. Arsehole social inept singletons like company.. but they still believe they can score better than themselves.

The rules to online dating are simple. As a male don’t sit around waiting.. start winking ( yes I said winking) and start emailing like an insane person. Write a template which you can personalise for each girl you are emailing. Attempt to be funny.. If you can’t be funny be sweet.. Stay away from people who profess religion, don’t drink or talk about taking it slow.. It will be one long boring prick tease and you will end up eating the inside of a gas oven. Do not on an account contact a girl who only shows a close up of her face.. she will be the kind of girl that climbs mountains using steel girders as rope..Be careful of the statement a few extra pounds. Do not contact girls that say anything about hill walking or hiking.. they will have you up a mountain every weekend and soon you will forget what colour jersey Arsenal wear..Do not meet girls that make a point of telling you that they love spending time with their families.. most people like spending time with their families.. it not something you state in polite conversation.. if they state it, it means that they have a mentally ill brother that may or may not at some point attempt to murder you with a cheese grater..

Do talk to girls that are funny, email conversations will flow better and the first date will be a lot better.. Even if you have a six pack don’t email a girl that looks for one.. she may have a fine figure but she is a shithead.. think the equivalent for a man stating that he only wants to talk to girls with massive tits. Do not be honest. Do not state that you have recently been made redundant or that you live with your parents. Do not lie about your age.. the first date will drive you insane worrying about her reaction when she sees your badger head. Do expect to meet weirdos.. but when you do enjoy it.. mentally unstable people can be a great laugh.

In the period I used the site I met up with something approaching 25 girls. 3 of those dates saw the women I met run for the hills, I probably ended about 7 of them within the first hour or so, and the rest, well the rest generally ended up in a few more dates, and more often than not they ended up with us sleeping together that first night. This all sounds brilliant except that none of them ever came close to ending in a relationship. Often the sex was atrocious, and I blame both parties here, befuddled, unadventurous and drunken still wearing socks affairs. One particular girl felt it necessary to stick her finger in my ear whilst we slept together, another cried during the date when she asked me about my dad and I replied that he was dead. In the bedroom the amusement reached new levels.. a man will never understand the juxtaposition of a woman wearing hotpants, who has a room filled with cuddly cats.

The dates themselves will often be great. Dinner and drinks.. constant conversations that sometimes felt like interviews more so than any conversation two adults would actually have in real life. If you hit it off, a lot of drinking will be involved, followed by a sly and mischievous barrage of heavy hints about where the night will end up. Those that did protest too much often were the ones that bundled you into a taxi, shouted an address at the taxi driver before leaping on you in the backseat.. sticking fingers in ears much to the chortling amusement of the sober taxi driver.

Through the dating I met mainly Irish girls, but the ones that stood out for me, and most of them were met in the good old fashioned drunk in the bar encounters, were American and English. Both of these nationalities display a rounded more mature attitude to sex.. namely it is fun and there is no, no matter how deeply hidden, guilt about it.. Irish girls, in my experience, appear to think they are giving you some precious gift.. which generally results in them lying back and expecting you to do all the work. English and American girls offer a more equal experience. The point is too have a good time, not to beat back some catholic guilt picked up genetically from your dates Grandmother.

Next time: The advantages of celibacy.

One year single....lessons learnt or how I decided to become celibate

2009-08-27T10:28:00.004+01:00

One year single…what have I learned

With the first anniversary of my singledom creeping up I thought that it was about time that I sat down to evaluate the events of the past year. Within seconds a stark reality, an impending doom, felt normally in the milliseconds after the football has just made contact with your groin, made me realise that the past year had been a painful although somewhat, at least to the observer, amusing tragic unfolding of experiences.

A year ago after a stuttered start to my break up the curtains eventually fell in September. Six years was the innings; the score was one engagement, five apartments, two countries and about as much grinning as you can pack into any extended time frame. But we were all out and it was declared a draw.

Now some people may respond to the end of such a relationship with a period of mourning. Take time to quietly assess the future in a calm and dignified manner. I on the other hand took straight to the beer, tearing my shirt off as I clambered over bouncers and other men in an attempt to attract WOMEN. However, in my six years off the circuit I had forgotten one very salient bit of information…I had gotten older and they had gotten younger.

Women themselves, as a species, hadn’t changed much in the passing years. They still wore lipstick, short dresses and a look of contempt when I approached them. My ability to chat them up had not been helped by the passing years. I had picked up girls en masse when previously single by sitting on the stage in Whelans whilst striking a sort of cool…but interested look that was capped by the haunting thousand yard stare of a man attempting to give the impression that he was gravely interpreting the songs whilst in fact he was looking at boobs. This little one man show worked …a lot.. I had actually met my ex that way..

My chat up line of the time had been the old “…how much does a Polar bear weigh” and it had often been greeted with insults, laughter or on, one fine occasion, a flicked cigarette to the forehead. But it had always gotten a response. Attempts now, in the late 00’s, found me staring stubbornly into the face of youth, a face that stared back with glassy indifferent eyes that screamed “OLD GUY”.

I decided three things were needed. Lose some weight, drink more and throw online dating into the mix. Inevitably, in response to my new agenda, I started to lose weight, hair and any future prospects. Now, I personally think that I am as handsome as the day is long.. But such views are not generally held by the rest of the civilised world.

The great truth meter of our age is the digital camera. I could say that it just does not capture the real me… the person I see in my minds’ eye.. but what it does capture, and I can’t really argue with this, is an accurate image of the person in front of the lens. That accurate image is bold, forthright and inappropriately unattractive. My non photogenics ( ugliness) was a concern as the online dating site needs you to post a picture because apparently you have 8 billion per cent more chance of getting your end a way if you show a photo. Four frustrating hours in photoshop and my photo was uploaded. An hour later an amusing profile was edited and posted to the world. I sat back to wait for the lovely ladies to come to me. I waited about ten minutes and after getting no response I decided to become more proactive..I started the online search…

Next time: Irish women are absolutely rubbish in bed. Online dating means weirdos, American’s.

My life sucks - A comic in progression

2009-08-22T21:27:00.007+01:00

Scroll down to the bottom to see the first episode - then scroll up to read them in order. This one post will be updated.. so bookmark it..

Episode 12: A bad day until...

Episode 11: Waiting for the Phone to ring!!

Episode 10: Bouncers

Episode 9 :all i see is you!

As always, click on the image to see a larger version

Episode 8:Falling out of Love

As always, click on the image to see a larger version

Episode 7:Falling in Love

As always, click on the image to see a larger version

Episode 6:Lift in Work

As always, click on the image to see a larger version

Episode 5 :Even Worse date

As always click on the image to zoom in

Episode 4: Bad Date

As always click on the image to zoom in

Episode 3: Work

Episode 2: Depression

As always click on the image to zoom in

Episode 1:Introduction to My Life Sucks.. Jericho's redemption

As always click on the image to zoom in

Was your Iphone lost or stolen. Long contract with O2. No Insurance. Yep you are screwed.

2009-08-08T13:18:00.006+01:00

Last night I had my new five month old Iphone stolen. I didn't have insurance. Mainly because my tariff with o2 was 65 euro a month and the extra 9 euro a month insurance seemed excessive. Not now it doesn't, as I now face 13 months of 65 euro a month tariff, plus the possibility that a new 3g iphone on O2 will cost 420 euro through the speakeasy package or I could attempt to get a 3gs for 16gb 519 euro

Both are expensive options.

Alternatively I could give up on the Iphone idea, buy a decent phone for 150 euro and transfer my SIM over to it. But the Iphone was brilliant, and the thought of going back to the old type of static handset upsets me greatly.. So what to do.. I will be getting insurance next time.. if you have't taken it out.. do so now.. in fact it will take 60 days after you take out the insurance before you can make a claim (unless you sign up to the insurance when signing the contact for the phone)... so if you are sitting there now, with an Iphone and no insurance...go to your o2 online account, click on the insurance,, activate it, and then look after your phone for the following 60 days.. after that who cares.. your insurance will cover loss of phone and replacement phone up to twice a year..

OK so now for a tiny bit of revenge. From my phone records on line you can see the calls the Romanian guy, whom I actually gave spare change to, made in the hour after he stole my phone.

You can see that he even checked my voicemail.. ah sweet

Below are the numbers he dialed in Germany and Romania. They are in text format. I hope if someone sees these numbers on their bill post the theft of their phone, and that they search for the numbers in google.. they will find them here.. won't do much good.. but at least you will know you are not alone.

0040 766523563
0040 761256479
0040 726528569
0040 769635869
0049 1634907753
0040 752365986
0040 765638547

If anyone has any ideas about how I can add these numbers to spammers or to lists that will cause them some annoyance please advise. I have been sending free international texts from email2u.ru

Ideas welcomed.

Author misses opportunity to make a decent headline out of the fact that an Apple Store is to open on Grafton street.

2009-07-30T23:08:00.008+01:00

I suspect that I could have used the headline "Apple to take slice of Grafton Street pie", but that would have been trite..but lack of headline writing skills aside, the fact remains Apple are looking at opening an Apple store in Dublin. This is very exciting news for me. I would prefer to shop in the heavenly white light of an official Apple superstore than the Three or Spectre store. As much as using a Mac is an experience ( fuck you if you don't think it is) shopping for a Mac should have all the hallmarks of the Apple experience.

Oh how I wish to talk to staff at the Genius Bar, take advantage of the free Personal Shopping appointments. I want to natter with the Concierge in the orange shirt as he/she is my guide around the store, and then when I have a problem I will get support from a specialist or from the Geniuses at the bar...The store even offers free workshops...Basically it is a whore house of thrills for Mac lovers...orgies will be plentiful " yeah I need a room and I will take the Mac Book Pro 15", an Ipod Nano and throw in a Mac Mini....Dirty.."

Anway the shop will be run by Apple's UK licensee and is likely to be about 6,000 square feet over two levels. Apple, apparently, have looked at the former Habitat shop at Suffolk Street and the former Dunnes Stores at Grafton Street in recent months.

Photos from the closing credits of The Hangover ( Spoiler warning)

2009-07-27T16:15:00.002+01:00

The Hangover movie's end credits show a slideshow of Photos from the lost night. Warning if you haven't seen the movie don't look at this..

Gin hangover

2009-07-20T00:17:00.002+01:00

I was at a party on Saturday night that was equivalent to a Benetton advertisement. My reason for being there, I had in the previous few weeks fallen in with a click of American students taking a summer in Dublin as interns. I was the token Irish guy, I was also the oldest person there. I am 32, I was seeing, until about 5 am that morning, a 22 yr old American Intern.

I drank a lot. Drunk on a steady mix of Gin, a cheap brand of German Pils from Aldi and whatever else I stumbled upon whilst rolling my cigarettes on the glass dining table. It was during these moments, the red swan rolling paper clutched between index finders and supported by thumbs, that I ventured to discuss whatever was on my mind with whomever was sitting at the table.

Faces passed in a parade of passport photos. The introductions trickled along like a queue at customs. Where are you from? Why are you here? What do you do? Swiss, Italian, Colombian, English, German, Dutch, American and French. There was me, Irish, but for the most part of the night I didn’t talk to myself.

Don’t go pick fruit in Monaghan was my advice to a Swiss 18 yr old with a beautiful face and a lip ring. Ah Madrid, I was there recently..the food was shit was my commentary on Spain given for the benefit of the Colombian moving to Madrid. What the fuck do you mean you are Italian I exclaimed to an Italian ( I made him show me some ID) who spoke with a distinct Mayo accent. The evening rolled on. I was making friends, I got drunker and lost them as quickly as I made them.

The evening didn’t seem to include the American Intern that I had actually gone to the party to see. She seemed dramatically less enamored with me since I had last seen her, pulling on her jeans on the previous Friday evening. But I didn’t care. I have in my repertoire only a certain amount of charm, humour and idiosyncratic but well pointed observations (well sprinkled with historical facts and plagerised from better writers) and I suspect that without any new material my charming Irish facasde has been breached, and the drawn grey reality of an Irish man 10 years her senior had been exposed.

Drunk and making conversation, a spirited way to spend an evening. I was stumbling by half two, drunkenly leering into a camera phone at half three, swapping numbers with a Korean chick at half four, arguing with American Intern at half five, in a Taxi by Half six, asleep by seven.

Sunday morning, and a Gin hangover choked me, stuffing my head back into the pillow, the light from a bright afternoon scalded my eyes. The repeat of the menu music on a Jerry Maguire DVD played over and over, driving me to the edge, my limbs unable to seek out the remote, nor summon the energy to put my foot through the TV.

Eircom is hacked, fair reward for selling out internet freedom

2009-07-15T00:39:00.005+01:00

So Eircom has been hacked twice. Is this the revenge of an outraged Internet community after Eircom sold out so easily to the legal pressure of Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma)?

On July the 7th an Eircom DNS server was corrupted and the settings amended. DNS servers take urls and change them into IP addresses and back again. If a user types in www.rte.com..the DNS server links that with ip address 89.207.58.70, which the server then understands as address to which to send the user. The hack on the 7th of July apparently changed how the server saw the IP address of RTE, Facebook or Bebo. Users were redirected to incorrect websites, often displaying images of advertising or scantily clad women. Nice hack.

Example of DNS hack on Paypal

And so yesterday and we see a DDOS - distributed denial of service attack..basically finding a port that takes requests from other servers / computers and lacks the ability to stop the requests and so sending millions of requests that overload the system.. Many of the service's 500,000 subscribers who tried to browse the web were unable to access popular sites and email accounts. Others experienced long delays and faults....Another nice hack..

So who is doing it..kiddie scripters, seasoned hackers, Piratebay advocates? Forces for freedom on the internet? Me.. You.. whomever it is, one suspects that the motive is, hopefully, more to do with making a stern and dynamic point to Eircom.

And what is the point...well Eircom let themselves be bullied into stopping their users visiting piratebay and other torrent sites. The bully came in the form of Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma).. a pathetic and weak lapdog in the pay of the IFPI (the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry).

Irma bought Eircom to court. Eircom folded. Users of the internet from all over the world looked on in disbelief.. Our internet freedoms were suddenly under attack by commercial entities. ( legal entities, country laws etc etc are fine if you ask me.. but access to the sites such as child porn, drugs sites etc should be dealt with in a legal manner,... close down the site, arrest those who use those types of sites, but don't block user access.. have faith that human morals are as present and involved in the decisions made by a user on the internet as in real life..)

While many may have little favour with torrent sites, the internet is a free platform that works as a free social community that runs as a reflection of real society. As with real society, good and bad, legal and illegal are present. Life is about choice, Freedom is about choice.. You can not make someone be good.. they have to choose to be..otherwise they are just following orders.

The social and commercial aspects of the web rely on the freedom that is a paramount virtue of the internet ethos. A commercial third party telling ISP's, the toll booths of the internet, that people cannot go to a specific location in order that the commercial party can protect their interests is one huge step on a very slippy slope.

The fact that Eircom folded over, to paraphrase, like a cheap hooker, and eagerly handed away one of the core pillars of the internet experience has annoyed a lot of people.. me included.

I suspect that Eircom is reaping what it sowed and I have no sympathy or their users, who should have canceled their subscription the second Eircom took their place with North Korea and China on the top ten list of assholes against internet freedom... Pleasant and fitting company for a pussy like Eircom.

Virgin Mary takes break from long holiday to appear in a fucken tree.

2009-07-11T17:01:00.008+01:00

Sub Headline
Virgin Tree Stump has come to SAVE THE WORLD FROM the recession, swine flu, reality tv, smelly feet, etc etc..

Sub - Sub Headline
Ireland to ban playboy, contraception, having sex whilst standing up and rock music as it turns back time to become an oppressive catholic state because people like god..

Sub - sub - sub Headline
Virgin found in Limerick..Local priest says " FUCK OFF. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKEN SHITTING ME!"

In the top ten list of amusing instances of , what shrinks call, “Group polarisation”, the act of people with similar opinions meeting up and collectively finding an extreme viewpoint that’s didn’t in any way represent the individual opinions prior to the discussion, Religion is up there with the mass hysteria of Beatlemania, although, granted, Beatlemania had a lot more respect for children.

Rathkeale in Limerick is playing host to a tree that looks like the Virgin Mary. Thousands of people are travelling, and by travelling I mean they are actually going to the effort of putting on shoes, walking to their car, turning the engine on and driving to Rathkeale to pay homage to a tree stump..

The stump in question was discovered by some workmen who were doing a spot of gardening. Apparently the Virgin Mary had taken time out, from her maternal quest to find Jesus a nice women, in order to have her image entombed in a tree. Mary is Jewish, and Jewish moms, deities or not, want grandchildren, and to be honest Mary has been waiting over 2000 years for the pitter patter of the tiny floating feet of God’s grandchildren.. ( lol GOD godfather ..etc).. so randomly placing her image on slices of toast, in cheezpuffs and on tree stumps, as part of her graphic design and marketing Adult education course, is a nice distraction from her maternal heartbreak. ( “AAAh Jeebus.. when you gonna find a nice Girl oh youa breaka my heart.. you shoulda married that nice Mary Magdalene”)

Presumably she created this spiritual graffiti at some point in the last 20 years..which meant that she had to wait that whole period before her little self portrait was revealed to a recession riddled Ireland. She really must have the patience of a Saint.. literally.

As a marketing ploy one suspects that Mary will be getting an A for her project as she is right back up on the red tops message of the week. Thus,embarrassingly, this story is being reported all around the world.. and it already looks like that out of date footage one sees on Reeling in the Years.. you know the one where you have a middle aged lady in a head scarf giving out about the government making contraception legal..

we can look at it now and think ..ah sure weren’t we all a bit weird in this country in the 80’s.. well the weirdness is back.. and Ireland once again is appearing on the world stage wearing a collective head scarf and a stupid almost manic grin whilst telling the world that

“ yeah sure we might be trying to portray the country as a hot bed of technological evolution.. but sure at the same time.. we are pretty sure that the Virgin Mary lives in a tree stump in Limerick.. blessed be the Holy mother..and ban all things gay..”

. I cringe..the entire country should be walking around with one bright collective blush.. a blush so bright that astronomers from other planets are trying to figure out what the fuck is happening to the small blue planet that everyone stays away from on account of their amusing, although dangerous belief in imaginary agents of good and evil…

The reaction of the general religious populace in Limerick and surrounding counties is hysteria, and reminds me somewhat of the collective expulsion of urine carried out by Teenage girls at Beatles concerts in the 60’s. Believe it or believe it not but probably the worst job in history was the poor bastard that had to approach, with bucket and mop in hand, the urine soaked cinema seats of a post Beatles concert venue.

Back then before the WII children really need to work to amuse themselves. It is widely reported in the press of the time that Teenage girls spent a greater period of the concert stuffing their hands, up to their elbows, into their mouths, bizarrely punching themselves in their sides and peeing everywhere. Such was their reaction and such is the reaction of the religious fans of Mary in Rathkeale.. While collective urination may not be as apparent, there is certainly a collective explusion of bullshit.

Despite the fact that no one in public office actually cares if the tree is removed or not, I mean it is in the garden of a church, it is not as if a motorway is waiting to go through, a petition has been created that has, apparently, thousands of signatures.

The local gobshite Noel White, chairman of Rathkeale Community Council, is rather militantly stating

“I won't be removing it. Nobody here wants it removed. Anyone who wants this taken away won't be able to get anyone local to cut it down,"

He then pulled out a sword and screamed

“And if anyone fucken tries to remove this potential tourist goldmine.. um I mean… significant religious relic, we are going to cut off his fucken ears and offer them as a sacrifice to the Magnificent Virgin Mary

( A virgin in Limerick.. really!!). Ok I may have subtly embellished the last bit..

Anyway so a petition has been raised although no one is actually quite sure who to give it to. Maybe they will send it me after I publish this article.

The actual sensible ones in this whole national vomit fest are the local priests. “

There’s nothing there, it’s just a tree. You can’t worship a tree. A tree is a tree. A person with imagination is a person with imagination.”

said local parish priest Father Willie Russell. Nice one Willie.. although this sane view of it was somewhat tempered by Noel White, speedily becoming the joker that you will see in 2020 when they release reeling in the years for 2009, who stated that

“If it is left there I would imagine we would have to get expert advice on how to preserve it,”. “People are taking bits off the tree or stroking the tree and taking the skin off. If they keep doing that there’ll be nothing there soon.”

Jesus fucken christ..sometimes I hate the people in this country..

Do you need Unix Anti Virus scanning on your corporate network?

2009-07-09T22:33:00.005+01:00

The purpose of this control is to review the current Unix based virus climate, identify (if any) changes in the Unix Virus landscape since 2004 and to identify the level of risk the current climate presents to the security of Unix and other minority OS platforms.

Current Unix ( and other Minority OS platforms) Virus levels:
The Win32 environment saw a slow but sure decline to 96.36% share of malicious programs in 2007. Minority OS Platforms share increased from 3.18% to 3.42% in the first six months of 2007, and exceeded 4% in the second half of the year. Growth for the full year amounted to 3.64%

In the first 6 months of the year Script languages; Java Script, PHP, Ruby, and the MS Office platform, were the leaders in terms of growth (exceeding 150% increase in script language based attacks). In the last six months the leader (+1550% increase in MAC OSx attacks) was the MacOS X operating system, which was attacked 35 times in 2007, and 33 of those attacks took place in the second half of the year.

Such a marked increase in the attacks on the Mac OS X show a shift in the peripheral focus toward the more popular minority platforms. Career Criminal hackers see the Unix environment as a vulnerable target. JavaScript, in particular, became the most innovative environment for developing and implementing malicious programs. This is a vulnerability as programs written in JavaScript include exploits for browser vulnerabilities, email worms, a variety of spambots and phishing grabber.

While it is common practice to group java based attacks onto the Windows OS, the growth in Java based applications running as web hosted applications on Unix servers must be similarly considered as a threat to Unix platform security.

2007 - Table that groups all 43 of the operating systems and platforms that were attacked in 2007 according to a common factor, such as by the operating system which is ultimately attacked

*Nix includes: FreeBSD, Linux, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Unix.
Other includes:BeOS, Boot, Boot-DOS, MS-DOS, Multi, SAP, SQL, SunOS.

Increased Risk
There is no doubt that viruses and malware do exist for the Unix systems, similarly, the creation and release of malware and viruses for Unix flavoured systems is increasing.

The actual / potential affect on Unix is severely contentious. The HP -UX forum, since 2001, has seen a lot of debate on the reality of Unix based viruses. One contributor believes that scanning would have little affect;

"Anti virus software is of little utility on HP-UX.."

. Another contributor believes that viruses do not exist on Unix because of technical limitations present on Unix platforms;

"On HP-UX, what we have are vulnerabilities.. For ex., buffer-flow in apache's httpd daemon. But that is limited to only httpd. It can't contaminate 'inetd' daemon. In that aspect, there are no viruses for Unix systems"

.

Another contributor sees the advantages of scanning

"The policy here ( in the users company, namely the US coast guard) is to scan all machines for viruses, independent of OS. .....I agree that is (sic) a worthwhile effort. For HP-ux we use McAfee virus scanner for Unix, scanning the system weekly. I occasionally do find a windows virus. Since we're all interconnected these days the viruses need to be eliminated wherever they are found. "

These comments neatly evidence the division within Unix Administrator circles on the need to run anti virus scans on Unix platforms. What cannot be argued is that versions of Unix based virus and malware are being created and while they may behave differently from regular Windows based viruses, they are still a threat and can spread.

Increased level of risk dues to poor security management
Limiting user access, reducing use of root account ( to ensure that viruses are trapped within the Unix user access controls), reduction in enabled services, effective patching and security monitoring all assist in the prevention of a successful Unix virus or malware attack. Effective security management assists in the mitigation of the virus risk. But the risk must be noted and be monitored through the risk process, whilst also being reviewed and gauged each year.

In situations where audit reviews of a corporation's Unix estate confirms that there are areas of concern with regard to privileged access, patching and security configuration that have subsequently been accepted by the corporation's Risk Process the overall risk will be raised. It should always be noted that while a risk assessment process does effectively identify issues and their associated risks, the risk process, for all its reviews and monitoring, does not mitigate the risk.

Despite the low number of active Unix (minority) viruses resulting in a low risk, the fact that the Unix infrastructure has potential significant legitimate ( based on risk sign off) or inappropriate security vulnerabilities raises the combined risk level to Medium.

To Rate the risk: ( This will depend on the risk grading that your company uses)
The business interruption of a Unix virus out break would possibly be up to 24 hours, with minor financial loss but with the chance of the event occurring at least once every 5 years. The fact that there is currently no Anti Virus scanning carried out on Unix could result in an effective targeted attack on the DMZ Unix based servers, or the entire Unix estate. As the Unix systems host web hosting applications that are often internet facing and can often reside in the DMZ, although remain connected to the internal network an effective malware or virus attack could be very costly, both financially and reputationally, to any corporation.

Other elements of the risk of not running any Virus scans on Unix infrastructure:
Unix servers can be used as a file server, storing data that is not subject to virus checking. In such an instance there is a requirement that traffic and data are scanned to ensure that Unix servers are not being used as a storage area or back door for the implementation of Windows viruses into the network. If we consider that Unix severs may be used to host exchange, and email scanning software ( such as Clam AV or F-Prot) is often deployed on Unix machines, it is not too much of a leap to see that such virus scanning should be run on the data held on Unix servers. One such opinion on this is found as part of the Virus FAQ on the http://stason.org/ website.

"There *are* special cases in which scanning Unix systems for non-Unix viruses does make sense. For example, a Unix system acting as a file server (e.g., PC-NFS) for PC systems is quite capable of containing PC file infecting viruses that are a danger to PC clients. Note that, in this example, the Unix system would be scanned for PC viruses, not Unix viruses

Conclusion:
The best practice of the non-utilisation of Anti Virus software scanning for Unix servers has moved on from 2004. The slight increases in the virus and malware agents for Unix should at least inspire a debate on the requirements of Anti Virus scanning on Unix. Whatever risk exists, it is s excaerbated by the the potential for weak security management. If Anti virus for Unix is not to be even debated, you better be sure that your security management processes are very good.. Weak version control, poor application of logical security controls and a risk process that attempts to mitigates issues without solving them will ultimately lead to a real and present threat to the Unix Infrastructure.

Irish self Storage may be the only option left to Dublin home owners as the recession hits

2009-05-26T00:36:00.007+01:00

With the constant reflux in the Irish property market, prices dropping, increase in rentals and a decrease in sales, house owners face the horrific prospect of losing their home as the banks scrounge back some of the bad debts from the private individual. With the government requesting, as significant shareholders, that banks give house owners a years grace before they move toward repossessions there is time before the market turns in on itself. But with job losses rising, unemployment reaching twenty year highs and the chance that family's start finding themselves moving from larger owned accommodation to smaller rental accommodation; self storage in Dublin may become an extra expense that many householders may see as a necessary expense as they need to store the detritus from the tiger years, during the leaner, rat years ahead of us.

People from all over Ireland looking for self storage in locations across the midlands such as Naas and Tullamore or even in the capital city; Dublin, need to find better offers, better deals and sizable increases in the size of the self storage. With Dublin self storage at a premium and with self storage locations outside of Dublin lean and often too expensive there are few affordable options.

There are a few options, detailed below:

Irish storage: based in the midlands
Dub Storage: dublin
Remedy Storage: In Naas and Tullamore, giving people from across the midlands in Ireland access to affordable storage, Remedy storage is a decent and affordable self storage solution for both private and business users in Dublin, Santry and Dublin city center (centre) and the midlands in Ireland

Rude mail shocks Tall Irish Male

2009-04-30T23:20:00.002+01:00

My mate got a package in the post this morning..it wasn't fan mail..

50 dead men walking, more like 2 bored men leaving.

2009-04-27T21:22:00.004+01:00

Last week I went to the cinema to see Kari Skogland's 50 Dead men walking. It was rubbish, so bad that I had to leave. Which is something I am loath to do when watching a movie, and I have only done twice before ( National treasure and Twilight) but Dead men walking irritated me to the core. The excessive melodrama created by the inexplicable interpersonal relationships between the characters, relationships that seem unnatural and sparse. The organic nature of the relationships appear to have happened outside the range of the script so you are not privy to their motivations. So you find yourself constantly wondering why one character is reacting / proacting with another character. Ben Kingsley's ( sorry Sir Ben) wig ruins every scene he is in.. You won't be able to take your eyes of it.. it's grey solidity gives an impression of Lego pensioner. Now Jim Sturgess delivers a fine performance; taking what he can from a confused script, worryingly terrible editing and one bizarre montage that makes you feel like you are sitting watching the Holiday video of an Uncle who has just discovered film-maker on his son's MAC.

There is a very uncomfortable and very poorly explained couple of relationships between Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess) the west Belfast teenager who volunteers for the IRA and his MI5 handler and his IRA mentor. Through unsubtle dialogue the writer is screaming at the audience to ensure that they don't miss that Martin has daddy issues. This is my first introduction to what I have decided to call Daddymance...Slim scenes give little meat to these relationships and you just don't buy why Martin appears to have such strong relationships with these men. And with so much of the movie appearing to rest on this sub plot.. it just becomes a cul de sac..

The love interests are painfully dull. Lara is a whiny scummer and Grace the seductress is about as appealing as punch in the groin.

Overall the film is slow, the kind of movies during which you become aware how uncomfortable cinema seats are.. you never really care about the characters and though it is a true story it is filmed in a somewhat unbelievable manner.. If the IRA were this stupid, and boy do they come across as stupid and bad.. think Die hard baddie's mixed with Dumber and dumber..then the English would have destroyed them as an organisation in months.

I don't usually review movies here, but with so much hyperbole being spouted in reviews about this trite movie on the web.. I just wanted one review to attempt to point out it is shit.. The only good point is that it is so bad that it makes a real movie fan understand how much they know about movies by easily being able to identify the terrible mistakes in the story telling, editing, acting and writing.

Cowen is going to get punched in the face and my ideas for recession recovery.

2009-04-26T19:06:00.004+01:00

Far be it from me* to get political when sober but Cowen appears to be in the shit this week. A quick review of the news stories out there appear to give evidence that the journalists sense blood. As a result the stories are focusing more on his personality and his ability to lead..

Cowen lacks wisdom to lead nation ( Brilliant Article and very much worth a read) to recovery from the Indo basically lists the collective bitch slaps that Cowen received this week. They came from

the IMF ( they reported that Ireland is more in the shitter with it's banks),
an economist in the States published an article in the New York Times titled "Erin Go Broke" which did wonders for the Ireland's reputation,
the raising of a billion in a bond issue was overshadowed by the relative difficulty they had selling the bonds, which does not bode well for the next issue
more shit about TD wages and extras ( just stop)
John Mcguiness, after being sacked by Cowen has reared his head and is probably going for Cowen's job.

The Irish times reports that Heir Apparent McGuiness thinks that Cowen needs to leave 'his comfort zone' . I agree with that sentiment. The " lets tax the population back to the stone ages" fiscal policy of Cowen lacks innovation. McGuiness states that the country needs a “new dynamic leadership” .. I suspect he feels that is a viable description of himself, and to be honest it may be.. he is not wrong, a change in leadership is needed, if only that it might motivate someone to do something radical to save the country..

We should be looking at the Computer Games industry, an industry that is bigger than the music, the movie or the book industry worldwide. You want to raise exports, and increase funds coming into the country, invest in an industry that will export to literally every country in the world and is pretty recession proof.

Stop wasting money looking at IT manufacturing.. we will never compete, nor should we attempt to compete with the lower wages and costs of Eastern European countries.

Start back with huge investments in IT centers, IT courses.. create FAS courses - 8 months intensive courses that take graduates who can't find jobs in the finance area and retrain them for the Computer gaming industry..there is money in them there virtual hills. ( actually where the fuck are the training courses, the increase in education allowances and tax breaks...the more I think about it Cowen has really put us on the path to financial ruin.. we are not moving fast enough to retain our image as a dynamic IT literate nations... god I could just box his fucken ears..)

Offer huge tax breaks and cheap offices for start up companies within the gaming industry.. take fledging companies from all around the world and make them an offer they can't refuse.. Game developers are notoriously liberal and working in an industry that they love. Offering them Governmental assistance, even be it in Ireland you will find these small companies happy to relocate.

None of this will happen..and while my ideas are motivated only by several beers and a lapse in conversation, at least I am trying.. as weakly constructed my ideas are, they are more on the radical side than anything the government has tried since this began... but then stopping people from losing their jobs is a more radical idea than utilised by the Government up to this point.

* I like the phrase... I used to think it was Far be it for me..and I think that it could be acceptable..it comes from the bible From the Bible, Samuel 20:20 (King James Version):

And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.

Need a new website host..check these guys out!!

2009-04-26T18:48:00.004+01:00

cheap web hosting information can be found at the web hosting geeks website. They offer top ten list of the best web hosting packages. All their packages are under Ten dollars.. which makes the site a useful repository.

They guys at the site also proffer awards to the best website hosting companies under a variety of categories. You can teview these companies and review customer feedback from the hosting sites.

The criteria of the web hosting companies under reivew and who are promoted by this site then the following must be met

Cheap professional web hosting services
under $10 a month;
all webhosting plans include at least one free domain name registration
and 30 day money back guarantee.

There are also interesting articles on finding the best hosting service offering inteligent information. See below:

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...Don't stop at price, and if you plan on using your website in a professional capacity, it is important to move beyond free web hosting.

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There are a large number of these types of articles. Visit this site to find out more and to get help identifing web hosts that cost under 10 dollars per month

Nerds get a date that won't leave them alone and unhappy, well not unhappy anway..

2009-04-26T18:37:00.002+01:00

Microsoft has confirmed that completed Windows 7 code will be released to some nerds early this coming week, with the code made available to the the whole nerd universe in a week's time. Nerds and geeks are said to be delighted. With outbursts of high pitched screams, and uncomfortable acts of physical touching between groups.

Brandon LeBlance, a guy with his own blog page on Microsoft's website so he presumably earns some decent money and can be trusted said

I’m pleased to share that the RC is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th.

He wanted to thank Beta testers:

On behalf of everyone here, I would to thank all of our beta testers for helping us get to this point. You guys have been busy. At the peak of the feedback cycle, we were receiving a “Send Feedback” report every 15 seconds for an entire week

It's the end of the world as we know it, again!

2009-04-26T14:09:00.006+01:00

Recession,bankrupt economies,feckless governments,job losses, tax increases and now... now we have the threat of a worldwide pandemic..of the Flu..

Click image to enlarge

And trust me you never want to hear or read those two words ( pandemic and Flu) in the same news article because that means in the near future you will be reading about huge human loss like in 1918 (50 million died when 40% of world population got sick), 1957 (Asian Flu kills 2 million) and in 1968 ( yep during the summer of love, while the youth of the civilized world were getting high..the flu popped up and quickly killed 1 million people before disappearing again..The Beatles didn't sing about that..it was all stop the war in Vietnam.. you would think the demise of 1,000,000 people would have found it's way into popular reference..)

News reports flick across the channels like one of those post apocalyptic montages in movies that show the accumulation of news reports prior to a nuclear war / pandemic / comet impact etc. I get the sense that I am living an episode of Reeling in the years that is being shown in the far off and safe future of 2018.

So in order to help you track the phases of the Pandemic. I have created a checklist below.
The checklist is as follows:

Sweaty people start collapsing in unlikely places in one country
high mortality rate of sweaty people starts to interest Local jounalists.
National media picks up on story as more people die
International news shows start reporting about new deadly virus
cases appear in other countries
The word pandemic appears in print all over the world along with information on the fact that the Virus crossed over from animal to human.
it is identifed as new previously unseen strain
Ground Zero country begs for help from WHO
Ground Zero country cancels all non essential public events.
Schools are closed, public areas are closed
Men with shifty eyes appear on TV telling the people that everything is fine and that the new laws called " burn areas of the country with the virus" sounds worse that it is.
Stock prices in Funeral homes reach new high levels
People stop going to work
Millions die.
Economists get beaten to death for suggesting that the huge loss of life will create new jobs and help end the global recession.

The comments section does not appear to work anymore.. so if you have any insults, suggestions or naked pictures email me at gerry dot coburn at gmail dot com

Pot noodle adverts are funny.. but only because they ripped off Flight of the Conchords

2009-04-26T11:12:00.003+01:00

Pot noodle adverts are funny.. but only because they ripped off Flight of the Conchords. I hate to think that some fat brained, pin stripe wearing, brace expanding advertising nut fucker is getting any kudos for "coming up" ( plagerising) this idea.

Below is the Pot noodle advert for the Pot noodle Donor kebab..below that is a similar, in style, and aired years before this, FOTC music video from the hit US Show.

Plagerisim!?!

The masters

Piratebay is made the scape goat by an industry that has an unworkable business model

2009-04-19T13:43:00.006+01:00

Internet Heroes: Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi.
The quartet in charge of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of helping to illegally distribute copyrighted material and sentenced to a year in prison ( what d fuck?) and fines totalling £2.4m. ( overkill)

John Kennedy, the chairman of the IFPI said "This is good news for everyone - in Sweden and internationally - who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law,"

We say.. fuck you.. get a better business model, make it easier to download current TV shows and Movies and maybe you can take back some of the market from illegal sites.. although the problem does remain.. what , technically and therefore legally, did Pirate bay do wrong.

If I run the following in Google I get access to torrents:

Google to http://www.google.com
Enter “filetype:torrent ” [Replace with torrents name]
Hit Search Button

[tags]torrent, bittorrent, download[/tags]

or use this site created to harness the search power of google to look for torrents

So the question is .. what the fuck is the difference between google and Piratebay... just because they cataloged the torrents.. mess about with google search results and you can practically do the same thing, add the search to Igoogle and you have a google based torrent search and retrieve facility..

Some interesting statistics from the Central Statistics Office in Ireland

2009-04-18T15:46:00.004+01:00

Consumer Prices
Prices fall by 2.6% in the year to March

Consumer Prices in March, as measured by the CPI, showed no change in the month. This compares to an increase of 0.9%recorded in March of last year. As a result, prices on average, as measured by the CPI, were 2.6% lower in March compared with March 2008.

This breaks down to:

Water, Electricity,Gas & Other Fuels (-15.1%), Clothing & Footwear (-8.6%) and Transport(-6.7%). There were increases in Miscellaneous Goods &Services (+9.1%),Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco (+5.9%), Education (+5.5%) and Health(+4.7%)

The changes were due to further decrease in average mortgage interest repayments and a fall in the cost of home heating oil. Food & Non Alcoholic Beverages fell due to lower prices for a wide range of food items. Clothing & Footwear prices increased due to a further recovery in prices following the traditional January Sales. Miscellaneous Goods & Services increased due to higher charges for medical, house and motor insurance.

Over 50,000 prices are collected for a representative basket consisting of 616 headings which cover over 1,000 different items in a fixed panel of retail and service outlets throughout the country on the second Tuesday of each month. The date to which the March index relates is Tuesday, 10th March, 2009.

TRAVEL Abroad.

Travel abroad down 13% in February 2009:

The number of trips abroad made by Irish residents fell by 13.4% to 474,000 in February 2009 compared to the 547,600 recorded in February 2008.

In February 2009, overseas trips to Ireland were down 5.5% to 445,200 from the same month in 2008. Visits by residents of Great Britain fell by 15,000 (5.8%) to 244,800, and like recent months, contributed mostly to the overall decline in visits to Ireland. Elsewhere, trips by residents of Other Europe increased by 1% to 149,100 while those from North America fell by almost a fifth to 37,500.

In 2009 so far, trips abroad by Irish residents are down by almost 11% to 976,100,a complete reversal of the growth rate achieved in 2008. Overseas trips to Ireland are down 4.3% to 869,400 compared to an increase of almost 1% in 2008.

The survey is conducted at Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Kerry airports and Rosslare, Ringaskiddy, Dún Laoghaire and Dublin ports. Information is collected via interview.

The sample size in the February 2009 Country of Residence Survey was just under 20,800 passengers.

UNEMPLOYMENT:
Standardised unemployment rate rises to 11.0% in March.

The seasonally adjusted Live Register total increased from 352,800 in February to 372,800 in March, an increase of 20,000.

In the year to March 2009, there was an unadjusted increase of 173,279 (+87.5%). This compares with an unadjusted increase of 164,952 (+87.1%) in the year to February 2009.

o increase of 13,900 males and an increase of 6,000 females
o the estimated number of casual and part-time workers on the Live Register was 31,384 males and 28,449 females.

Important:
The Live Register is not designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time workers (those who work up to three days a week), seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance. Unemployment is measured by the Quarterly National Household Survey and the latest seasonally adjusted figure, for September to November 2008, is 170,700 persons unemployed.

Total persons on the Live Register
Total 371,271 (March 2008 = 197,992)

Persons under 25 years of age on the Live Register
Total 79,677 (March 2008 = 40,823)

This works out at about 7300 extra people joining the live register each week in March. (5200 males and 2100 Females)

If this continues by this time next year the total figure will be 458,871.

Champions league - The semi Finals.. All you need to know.

2009-04-18T14:48:00.004+01:00

Fixture List

Tuesday 14 April 2009           

                    Kick-Off            Venue
Chelsea FC - Liverpool FC       20.45CET         Stamford Bridge, London
FC Bayern München - FC Barcelona   20.45CET         Fußball Arena München, Munich

Wednesday 15 April 2009

Arsenal FC - Villarreal CF         20.45CET         Arsenal Stadium, London
FC Porto - Manchester United  20.45CET         Estádio do Dragão, Porto

UEFA Champions League: Did you know?
• This season, Manchester United have extended their consecutive participation in the UEFA Champions League to 13, a record in the competition. The campaign marks a 12th successive appearance for PSV Eindhoven and RealMadrid, one ahead of Arsenal.
• Of all 32 clubs in the 2008/09 group stage, only Juventus did not participate in UEFA club competition during the 2007/08 season.


MATCHWEEK STATS PACK
MATCHWEEK 10

• S.S. Lazio goalkeeper Marco Ballotta became the oldest player to compete in the UEFA Champions League in 2007/08 when he featured against Olympiacos CFP on Matchday 1 at the age of 43 years and 168 days. The record was previously held by Alessandro Costacurta, the AC Milan defender who played against AEK Athens FC in the 2006/07 season at the age of 40 years and 211 days. Ballotta was aged 43 years 252 days when he featured against Real Madrid on Matchday 6.

• Laurent Blanc is the oldest player to score in the competition, aged 36 years and 339 days, having found the net for Manchester United in their 3-2 defeat of Olympiacos CFP on 23 October 2002.

• Celestine Babayaro is the youngest player to have appeared in the UEFA Champions League. He was 16 years and 87 days when he started for RSC Anderlecht against FC Steaua Bucureşti on 23 November 1994. He was then sent off in the 37th minute.


• UEFA Champions League: All-time records
Biggest wins
8-0: Liverpool FC v Beşiktaş JK (06.11.2007)
7-0: Arsenal FC v SK Slavia Praha (23.10.2007)
7-0: Juventus v Olympiacos CFP (10.12.2003)
7-1: FC Bayern München v Sporting Clube de Portual (10.03.2009)
7-1: Manchester United FC v AS Roma (10.04.2007)
6-0: Olympique de Marseille v PFC CSKA Moskva (17.03.1993)
6-0: Leeds United AFC v Beşiktaş JK (26.09.2000)
6-0: Real Madrid CF v KRC Genk (25.09.2002)

Most goals in a game
8-3: AS Monaco FC v RC Deportivo La Coruña (05.11.2003)
7-2: Paris Saint-Germain FC v Rosenborg BK (24.10.2000)
7-2: Olympique Lyonnais v Werder Bremen (08.03.2005)
6-3: Villarreal CF v Aalborg BK (21.10.2008)

Only Manchester United FC have scored more than five goals in an away game, winning 6-2 at Brøndby IF in 1998/99.

Leading scorer in a season
12: Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United FC, 2002/03)

Cristiano Ronaldo finished as the leading scorer in 2007/08 with eight goals for Manchester United FC.

Four goals in a match
Marco van Basten (AC Milan 4-0 IFK Göteborg, 25.11.1992)
Simone Inzaghi (S.S. Lazio 5-1 Olympique de Marseille, 14.03.2000)
*Dado Pršo (AS Monaco FC 8-3 RC Deportivo La Coruña, 05.11.2003)
Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United FC 4-1 AC Sparta Praha, 03.11.2004)
Andriy Shevchenko (Fenerbahçe SK 0-4 AC Milan, 23.11.2005)

*Dado Pršo's four-goal haul was the fastest, his first goal coming in the 26th minute and his fourth 23 minutes later.

Fastest goal in a match
10.03 secs: Roy Makaay (FC Bayern München 2-1 Real Madrid CF, 07.03.2006)
20.07 secs: Gilberto (PSV Eindoven 0-4 Arsenal FC, 25.09.2002)
20.12 secs: Alessandro Del Piero (Manchester United FC 3-2 Juventus, 01.10.1997)
21.20 secs: Clarence Seedorf (FC Schalke 04 2-2 AC Milan, 28.09.2005)
25.40 secs: Marek Kincl (Club Brugge KV 3-2 SK Rapid Wien, 02.11.2005)


Fastest hat-tricks
9 mins: Mike Newell (Blackburn Rovers FC 4-1 Rosenborg BK, 06.12.1995) 19 mins: Marco Simone (Rosenborg BK
1-4 AC Milan, 25.09.1996)
19 mins: Dado Pršo (AS Monaco FC 8-3 RC Deportivo La Coruña, 05.11.2003)
21 mins: Sigurd Rushfeldt (Rosenborg BK 3-0 Galatasaray SK, 21.10.1998)
21 mins: Simone Inzaghi (S.S. Lazio 5-1 Olympique de Marseille, 14.03.2000)

Youngest players to score
17 years, 195 days: Peter Oforiquaye (Rosenborg BK 5-1 Olympiacos CFP, 01.10.1997)
17 years, 217 days: Bojan Krkić (FC Schalke 04 0-1 FC Barcelona, 01.04.2008)
17 years, 218 days: Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal FC 5-1 Rosenborg BK, 07.12.2004)
17 years, 241 days: Martin Klein (Panathinaikos FC 2-1 AC Sparta Praha, 27.02.2002)
17 years, 300 days: Aaron Ramsey (Fenerbahçe SK 2-5 Arsenal FC, 21.10.2008)

Appearances: UEFA Champions League
Note: This list considers group stage to final only;
123 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
120 Roberto Carlos (Real Madrid CF, Fenerbahçe SK)
111 Ryan Giggs (Manchester United FC)
109 Paolo Maldini (AC Milan)
106 Paul Scholes (Manchester United FC)
103 David Beckham (Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
103 Oliver Kahn (FC Bayern München)
103 Luís Figo (FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, FC Internazionale Milano)
103 Gary Neville (Manchester United FC)
103 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona)
101 Clarence Seedorf (AFC Ajax, Real Madrid CF, AC Milan)
96 Claude Makelele (FC Nantes Atlantique, Real Madrid CF, Chelsea FC)
94 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
94 Guti (Real Madrid CF)

Goals: UEFA Champions League
64 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
56 Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
50 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona)
47 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
42 Filippo Inzaghi (Juventus, AC Milan)
41 Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus)
Appearances: UEFA club competition
174 Paolo Maldini (AC Milan)
142 Oliver Kahn (Karlsruher SC, FC Bayern München)
142 Luís Figo (Sporting, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid CF, FC Internazionale Milano)
137 Clarence Seedorf (AFC Ajax, UC Sampdoria, Real Madrid CF, FC Internazionale Milano, AC Milan)
132 Roberto Carlos (FC Internazionale Milano, Real Madrid CF, Fenerbahçe SK)
131 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
130 Frank de Boer (AFC Ajax, FC Barcelona, Galatasaray AS)
130 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Juventus, Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona)
127 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (FC Bayern München, FC Internazionale Milano, Servette FC)
127 Ryan Giggs (Manchester United FC)
125 Emerson (Bayer 04 Leverkusen AS Roma, Juventus, Real Madrid CF, AC Milan)
123 Edwin van der Sar (AFC Ajax, Juventus, Fulham FC Manchester United FC)
122 Zinédine Zidane (AS Cannes, FC Girondins de Bordeaux, Juventus, Real Madrid CF)

Goals: UEFA club competition
66 Raúl González (Real Madrid CF)
65 Filippo Inzaghi (Parma FC, Juventus, AC Milan)
62 Gerd Müller (FC Bayern München)
61 Andriy Shevchenko (FC Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea FC)
60 Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV Eindhoven, Manchester United FC, Real Madrid CF)
59 Thierry Henry (AS Monaco FC, Juventus, Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona)
56 Eusébio (SL Benfica)
56 Henrik Larsson (Feyenoord, Celtic FC, FC Barcelona, Manchester United FC, Helsingborgs IF)
51 Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus)
50 Alfredo Di Stéfano (Real Madrid CF)

Goal(s) scored
9 21.10.2008 Villarreal CF - Aalborg BK 6 - 3

Shots on goal
24 11.03.2009 AS Roma - Arsenal FC 1 - 0(6-7p)

Shots wide
19 30.09.2008 FC BATE Borisov - Juventus 2 - 2
19 04.11.2008 AS Roma - Chelsea FC 3 - 1

Corners
22 11.03.2009 AS Roma - Arsenal FC 1 - 0(6-7p)

Offside
14 21.10.2008 Fenerbahçe SK - Arsenal FC 2 - 5

Fouls committed
49 09.12.2008 Panathinaikos FC - Anorthosis Famagusta FC 1 - 0

Yellow card(s)
9 22.10.2008 FC Girondins de Bordeaux - CFR 1907 Cluj 1 - 0
9 10.12.2008 FC Steaua Bucureşti - ACF Fiorentina 0 - 1

Goals scored
Player Club Total
Lionel Messi FC Barcelona 8
Steven Gerrard Liverpool FC 7
Miroslav Klose FC Bayern München 7

Assist(s)
Player Club Total
Franck Ribéry FC Bayern München 6
Xavi Hernández FC Barcelona 5
Frank Lampard Chelsea FC 5

Shots on goal
Player Club Total
Lisandro FC Porto 21
Cristiano Ronaldo Manchester United FC 20
Alessandro Del Piero Juventus 16

Fouls committed
Player Club Total
Javier Mascherano Liverpool FC 25
Vangelis Mantzios Panathinaikos FC 24
Alessandro Del Piero Juventus 24

This asset management idea by Bren.

2009-04-11T19:25:00.003+01:00

This asset management idea. I see no way that a correct value can be
put on the assets to allow the government do what they've suggested.
They either pay too much and waste tax money or too little and send
the banks on the rocks needing additional funds. I was thinking about
it this morning and was hoping you could tell me where the flaw is in
my thinking regarding an alternative. What if the asset management
thing is set up to value assets, but instead of then buying them they
just put them together in a company that each bank gets an ownership
of, but would be run by the asset management company (for a standard %
admin fee). The banks therefore have an ownership of this combined
company that is relative to the proportion of the assets that they put
in (as per the government value, not the value they themselves have
put on them). The banks would have a share ownership of this company
that would remain on their balance sheet, but would be nicely packaged
and visible leaving them free(r) to act based on the rest of their
balance sheet. The shares in the combined bank could even be traded.
The government would basically be running the bad bank, but wouldn't
be liable for its losses.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this approach would ensure that assets
are written down according to an independent valuation and would mean
that if the asset prices fall further than the valuation given then
the government isn't the one that foots the bill. It makes any
improvement in the asset price accrue to the banks themselves, but in
this context there isn't really anything wrong with that as the risk
would still lie with them. The only additional liability that exists
is if the government didn't run the 'bad bank' correctly, but I think
this risk exists either way and in my scenario the effect of
mismanagement would be borne largely by the banks. The banks that were
most prudent will have the lowest percentage of their assets in this
new organisation so their balance sheet should independently stay
strong, but now investors will have more confidence that the valuation
placed on it by the bank themselves (and now the NTMA) is sound.

Irish Government screw's nation and doesn't even buy it dinner!

2009-04-10T03:07:00.004+01:00

Several years ago, a bunch of friends and I, complete with backpacks of beer, set out for the Wicklow Mountains for a wee wander. We walked, following trails set by thousands of footfalls that came before us. When tired of taking the path most chosen we wandered across virgin land, in search of sights of interest.

We would watch huddles of hikers ahead of us approach a fork in one of the twisting barely visible paths and confidentially step right or left and trudge off into the distance. When we approached such a fork, arguments, especially as the light began to fade, would erupt and a battle of wills would ensue. The nadir was reached when a friend, educated by the discovery channel, attempted to calm a situation by promising that we needed to go west, and that moss only grew on the east side of stones. His premise sounded scientific until a quick inspection of the mossy stones in our vicinity made it clear that moss grows where it likes and does not retain the council of either the sun or a compass.   

We laboured on in the fading light, aimlessly, simply tracking one foot after another with no defined direction in mind except the one in front of us. We had gone too far to go back. We scanned the horizon for familiar, even mythical landmarks, that would give us some sense of direction. When more comfortable hikers wandered past, we didn’t stop them and ask for directions instead we stuck to the stereotype of those tired comics that open their acts with “take my mother…please .

 After some time, one friend, whilst perched high on a stone wall, the rocks unsteady under his feet, spotted a large boulder in the distance. “Ahoy!” he exclaimed with a smile, “that is where we need to go. From that boulder it is but a short walk to the main-road.” And so we scaled the wall, bent ourselves under a wire fence and made our way, as the crow flies, directly to the boulder. Once there we all touched the boulder, as if it was some sort of ethereal body with the power of rejuvenation. We turned to notice that the last mile we had walked had been through a well marked, now that we had time to take it in, firing range for the Irish Army.

This story came to my mind on Tuesday when the Irish Government stood to attention on an unsteady footing and pointed at the end of the recession and said straight on to salvation.

They have decided that the way to stimulate the economy is to tax the hell out of the working populace. This, they believe, will allow them to get clear of the recession. They seem to not understand that such kiddy economics will only lead us into the firing line, and while getting hit by an even worse economic bombshell may not be guaranteed, they are putting the Irish public into harms way.

They have chosen to ignore the thousands of other potential problems hidden in the grass of the recession and instead have concentrated solely on accommodating the pedantic fiscal requirements of the EU.

They have decided to ignore the warning signs and are running headlong at the objective. Through this action they have ignored any opportunities increase consumer confidence through a relaxation of taxes, nor have they considered giving rein to the democratic purchasing power of the population. A purchasing power that would help to decide who stays the course and who doesn’t. Instead they are attempting to drag the country out of recession by reducing government debt through screwing the population.

They have not approached the choice with confidence, they are not using science to navigate the way and they are not even stopping to ask those with more experience, the Americans or the British, for advice.

They rush blindly on, as the crow flies, dragging a weary population through an untested and an unexplored economic landscape.  

No country has ever successfully taxed its population out of recession.

On Tuesday they took about 2 billion euro away from the populace…this in a country with a population of 4 million, of which about 2 million are working.
  In the 80’s a similar concept was followed, it failed and led to a smaller and smaller workforce being required to fund the state. Then as the work force became smaller and smaller, they faced the huge burden of 60 – 70% tax rates.

I fear that we have taken a similar step, but this time, in a different economic climate. So while America increases government borrowings, reduces or focuses taxes and attempts to let people start spending again, we are going to opposite way. And this way will see the choking to death of small service businesses, tourism, large purchases ( such as cars) and the reduction in the amount of money that people will be able to save.

Such a reduction of the savings will hit the banks hard, as they will need to go to the interbank market to borrow cash as a higher rate, as moodys continues to reduce our standing internationally.

This is not a case of fucked if they do, fucked if they don’t. This is a case of being fucked because they lack imagination, 101 economics and the ability to lead during the worst crisis in Irish economic history.

Tax hikes in Ireland
Tax
Budget 2009
Wicklow mountains
Arsehole govenments

defintion of Caligynephobia

2009-03-18T20:20:00.002Z

If you are here searching for a definition of Caligynephobia..I bet I know where you just came from...M a T..etc...you know what I mean..

Anyway here are some definitions:
Caligynephobia - Fear of beautiful women. which is directly opposed to Cacophobia: Fear of ugliness.

The urban dictionary defines it as:

Fear of beautiful women.

Tim Olsen has a severe case of Caligynephobia and nearly poops his pants at the sight of a stunning girl.

some great Hubble images

2008-12-31T13:28:00.004Z

Ok seeing as we are kind of on a cool image day..these photos have been taken from the wonderful Hubble telescope website. These are only a tiny tiny small collection of a bunch of cool images from that site. I think they rock...

Stefan Heilemann: brilliantly creepy photos

2008-12-31T13:12:00.004Z

Stefan Heilemann is a German artist and photographer who creates some amazing images; tinted with a strange macabre that is both black in humour and ultimately just plain creepy. I think the below photos / images are brilliant. See more at his website here
(of course all the photos are copyrighted to Stefan.)

Israel's bombing and killing of Civilians will only strengthen Hamas's grip

2008-12-30T07:29:00.004Z

Israel's over zealous retaliation against the Hamas governed Gaza strip is hard to take. While I have sympathy for Israel's plight to find a lasting security; it will do nothing in the long term to help their state security by blowing the hell out of civilian's in Gaza.

Destroying the public service sector that is required, by whomever is in power, to provide essential services to the communities is not the answer. Instead it will fuel more dismay, and take everything from a people that have very little.

History would suggest that the best breeding grounds for militant fundamentalism (of all types) are areas where the people have nothing left to lose. By removing the infrastructure to support the poverty stricken individuals in Gaza you only push them into a more cohesive community structure in which the strongest will step up and lead..the strongest group, despite the airstrikes within Gaza, is still Hamas..they have access to money and food via their tunnels into Egypt and through the support of the more radical elements of the Arab world.

Thus by giving the people of Gaza nothing and taking away everything you only increase the strength of Hamas's hand.

In response to the plight and possible war crimes being committed by the Israeli government aid agencies are pleading for a cessation of the attacks. But these pleas fall on deaf ears.

True to form the weak diplomatic wrangling of the UN still fails to deliver anything in the way of a resolution. The UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon, has also called publicly for a cessation of violence, but one can only hope that behind the scenes more arm pulling is taking place.

Although, while Israeli politicians posture themselves as the agents of security whilst they ready themselves for an Election in Feb 2009, I doubt any of them are listening, and with the impotent American presidency still in place for another 3 weeks, one can only hope that something extraordinary occurs to stop the onslaught.

windows beta 7000 a huge hit via illegal downloads

2008-12-30T07:23:00.003Z

Windows Beta 7000 released by Microsoft to a select list of people for public beta testing has arrived on the bit torrent sites and is now available for illegal download. The much anticipated new version of the Windows operating system is a big hit with downloaders and even just a cursory look on the most popular torrent sites shows tens of thousands of downloads.

Microsoft has now pulled the version that was accessible to MSDN users for beta testing and I would suggest that at the moment the single hottest and most watched illegal download will be versions of 7000..so be careful out there if you are going to download it and make sure you can check the account used to upload the copy..otherwise Microsoft will be tracking you..

Sharon Whelan may have been murdered prior to the fire being started

2008-12-30T07:12:00.003Z

The tragic case of a mother and her young family being killed in a house fire in Kilkenny on Christmas eve may prove to have been an act of murder. While Garda are still unwilling to confirm that the mother, Sharon Whelan (30), was in fact dead before the fire started, rumours are spreading across the media that there was evidence of some pre-mortum injuries to the neck of Sharon.

Sharon Whelan died alongside her two daughters Zsara (7) and Nadia (2) in the downstairs bedroom of their two story rented home in County Kilkenny. The fire began at some point on Christmas eve - Christmas morning. Locals rushed to the scene at around 8:30 am, but the blaze was too strong and nothing could be done. Firemen recovered the bodies from the burning home minutes before the roof collapsed.

A tragic and horrific accident which will be made a hell of a lot worse for the families concerned if it turns out that the incident was in fact premedidated and caused deliberately by someone.

Steven Gerrard arrested over argument over music

2008-12-30T07:00:00.004Z

Steven Gerrard was arrested and held overnight in a Liverpool police station over an alleged assault in which a 34 year old man lost a tooth and suffered bruising on the face. Gerrard had been out with some mates, dining in a private area in a Liverpool bar called "The Lounge Inn". Apparently Gerrard, who witnesses say was sober and in good form, didn't like the music being played and asked for a swipe card, required to change the music, from the alleged victim, Mr McGee. Mr McGee had access to a card because he was a friend of the restaurant’s owner. What happened to cause the fray is still unknown and Mr McGee's family are keep stum.

Of course all that Liverpool fans really care about is how this will effect the season, they are currently top of the Premiership and look, for the first time since the Premiership's inception in 1992, like they could win the league this year. Liverpool have yet to officially comment but they do not expect the incident to result in a league or FA cup suspension for the Liverpool Captain.

Keane scores a brighter future at Liverpool

2008-12-22T09:35:00.002Z

Stone me, Rafa! Keane delivers
While Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez was on Merseyside recovering from an operation on his troublesome kidney stones, his under pressure striker, Robbie Keane, was in north London keeping his side’s title challenge in good health.

Robin van Persie had fired Arsenal ahead at the Emirates Stadium with a fine strike on 24 minutes, but the Republic of Ireland hitman equalised ahead of the interval.

..

."To come to a place like Arsenal and get a point you would have been happy before, but we always go out to win the game so we are a little bit disappointed."

Belfast Telegraph

Robbie Keane Was 'Superb' For Liverpool - Lee
Rafa Benitez's right-hand man, Sammy Lee, was thrilled with Keane's showing, which was especially impressive given he was again played out of position as a lone striker in Fernando Torres' absence.

...Nevertheless, there are doubts as to how central a figure the former Inter Milan striker will be once Torres returns to action. Benitez seems to prefer Steven Gerrard playing behind the front-man, for the most part, rather than using a traditional strike-pairing. But Lee hinted that Keane should be given plenty of opportunities as the season progresses:

"We know the programme we have ahead of us and some players will play some games, and some will play in other games."

Goal.com

Keane To Remain At Liverpool
Media reports had stated that manager Rafa Benitez would look to off-load the forward in order to fund further signings, but Parry has countered the claims by insisting that Keane has a role to play at Anfield.

Lee:

"Maybe it has taken him a little bit longer than both he and we would have anticipated for him to settle in, but I can still see that corner being turned with ease."

...You can never say never in football, because you never know what the next month or year will hold,"

he continued.
Goal.com

Keane an enigma in coach's intentions
A spectacular goal from a natural goalscorer gave Liverpool an important point in London yesterday, but Robbie Keane's future with the club remains opaque as the January transfer window draws near and Rafael Benítez grows restless.

Keane scored his goal, his third in 15 appearances in the Premier League since his £20.3m transfer from Tottenham, with a tremendous flourish, racing between Johan Djourou and William Gallas to meet Daniel Agger's long volleyed clearance before burying a ferocious 18-yard half-volley in Manuel Almunia's net.

...Arsenal were tiring as a result of the dismissal of Emmanuel Adebayor with just over an hour gone, and Liverpool were dominating possession and chances.
Guardian

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X- Factor final tonight - who will win and why?

2008-12-13T11:15:00.002Z

From Spar to star
The 16-year-old from Dungiven, Co Derry, has been singing, dancing and twinkling his way into the hearts of the Irish and British public over the past two months on the TV show.

...Dannii Minogue told him he was "adorable", Cheryl Cole said, "you're really cute," Simon Cowell said, "the chicks are gonna love you and mums are gonna love you" and Louis Walsh told him he had "star quality".

...While Eoghan had up until last week been one of the most stable and happy-go-lucky contestants on the show, his outburst over Diana shows the emotional toll such an intense competition can have on a teenager.

...Tonight, Eoghan will be teaming up with Boyzone; Alexandra will be tutored by Westlife (she will perform their hit Flying Without Wings) and boyband TLS will probably be mentored by Rihanna (whose song Umbrella they are tipped to sing).
Irish Indo
Buckley to beat 'X Factor' at Christmas?
Contestants Eoghan Quigg, Alexandra Burke or JLS will release a cover of Leonard Cohen song 'Hallelujah', but Buckley fans are drumming up support for his 1994 interpretation.

A Facebook group has been launched urging fans to help the Buckley track, which is currently at number 43 in the charts, reach number one by purchasing it online.

The group's description reads: "This is not a group intended to make cruel or derogatry remarks about any participants in this year's X Factor.
Digital Spy
X Factor to announce its winner

Contestants on ITV1's talent show The X Factor will discover who earns a £1m record deal as the current series reaches its star-studded final. Alexandra Burke, Eoghan Quigg and boyband JLS are hoping they will follow in the footsteps of the likes of Leona Lewis and Leon Jackson.

...Alexandra is the Ladbrokes' favourite to win the show at odds of 8/13 late on Friday, despite a late surge in popularity for JLS.

The group have attracted more money in the final week of X Factor than any other act in the show's history.... Although those combinations have not been officially confirmed in advance of the show, several newspapers during the week have tipped Beyonce Knowles, Westlife and Boyzone as the star acts.
BBC

X Factor final: Mystery surrounds final star duet line-ups

TONIGHT'S X Factor final has turned into pass the parcel - with top chart acts apparently refusing to sing with the remaining hopefuls.

...It was rumoured the Take That boys - Gary Barlow, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Howard Donald - didn't want to do the show because Boyzone were also lined up to perform.

...Her mum Melissa Bell, who has kidney failure and is on the kidney transplant list, aims to be in the audience tonight to cheer her daughter on. Melissa, 44, won a Grammy as the lead singer of Soul II Soul. Speaking yesterday, Alexandra said: "I am hopeful my mum can be there.

...Alexandra has bravely offered to donate a kidney to her mum but Melissa has refused because it could prevent her daughter from having children.
Glasgow Daily Record

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Cowen positive of Lisbon Yes vote as the EU open discussion on MEPs

2008-12-13T11:03:00.004Z

Cowen confident of 'Yes' vote for Lisbon re-run
EU Heads of State agreed that each country will retain a European Commissioner and agreement was reached on giving Ireland guarantees that the treaty won't affect abortion, neutrality and taxation policy.

The legal wording on each may not be drafted until June, at which point Mr Cowen will be free to call the referendum.

"That being the case, I am confident, given the importance of this as a national issue, the many people in Ireland and the many parties in Ireland that support our participation in Europe, that we will be successful in that event. But, as I say, I am taking this step by step and I think it is important that we do so and not project ourselves beyond where we are at," he said.

Mr Cowen said it was not correct to say the Government didn't get what it wanted on this topic, even though there doesn't seem to be any difference between what is agreed on workers' rights and what was already there.

But last night, he dampened down this endorsement of the outcome after hearing reports the Government may be rowing back on employment rights issues.
Irish Indo

Government to begin selling new Lisbon package to public

The country is expected to go to the polls in another referendum before the end of next October.

Six months after Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty the plan to rescue it has been signed off.

They will be drafted over the coming months under the Czech EU Presidency and will cover abortion, tax and Ireland's neutrality.

Brian Cowen says the change in position on the Commission is significant and he believes another referendum can be won.
Belfast Telegraph

Commissioner card could hand Cowen a victory

EU LEADERS at an EU summit today are expected to endorse conclusions setting out a "road map" to commit the Government to try to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by next October.

But EU leaders have been bought off with a compromise on the number of MEPs they can have. The 12 EU states that stand to lose MEPs because Lisbon will not be in force before the European elections in June can have them appointed when the treaty is ratified.

The detailed technical work required to finalise the legal guarantees will take place in the next six months and will probably be agreed by EU leaders at June's European Council. The Government is expected to ask its EU partners to sign up to an international treaty where they all agree to the insertion of a new Irish protocol into the EU treaties when Croatia joins the union in 2010/2011. A similar model was followed by Denmark in 1993 following its vote against the Maastricht Treaty in a referendum.
Irish Times

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Roy Keane Leaves Sunderland - Statement from the Club

2008-12-04T14:04:00.001Z

Sunderland confirm Roy Keane departure

After 2 ¼ years at the helm, Roy Keane has parted company with Sunderland AFC after both parties reached an amicable agreement.

Keane, who decided the time had come to stand down took over Sunderland in August 2006 when the team were languishing at the bottom of the Championship. He steered the Black Cats to promotion to the Premier League at the first attempt and maintained Premier League status in 2008.

Sunderland Chairman Niall Quinn said: “First of all on behalf of everyone here I would like pay thanks to Roy Keane for all his hard work in progressing this Club, lifting its status and growing its worldwide profile.

“Roy deserves huge respect for his contribution and the manner in which he guided the Club from the depths of The Championship back to the Premier League. His winning mentality and singled mindedness were just what this Club needed when Drumaville took over shortly before his arrival.

“Roy’s decision to stand aside and allow someone else to take charge of the next chapter sums up his desire to always do what is best for the Club. Even in his departure he has been more concerned for the welfare of the players and his staff than himself.

“The Board has reluctantly accepted his decision and wish him and his family well for the future.“

Roy Keane added “I would like to thank my staff, players, Niall Quinn and in particular the fans for their support during my time at Sunderland and I would like to wish the Club every success in the future.”

The Board will now commence the task of identifying and recruiting a successor and Ricky Sbragia has agreed to take over team management assisted by Neil Bailey and Dwight Yorke as an interim measure.

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Still no need for anti virus software for MAC's

2008-12-03T03:56:00.002Z

Apple removes suggestion that anti virus software is needed
Apple late on Tuesday removed an old item from its support site that urged Mac customers to use multiple antivirus utilities and now says the Mac is safe "out of the box."

...Apple's previous security message in its KnowledgeBase, which serves as a tutorial for Mac users, was:

"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."

Security experts, while pleased that Apple would urge Mac users to install antivirus software, had warned that running multiple antivirus products could cause problems and recommended against it.

...One Apple expert speculated that Apple was merely removing a poorly worded support note and said it probably wasn't ever Apple's intention to tell Mac users they need antivirus.
CNET

Plea to get bloggers to stop reporting that MAC's are now require anti virus software

Will bloggers and journalists please stop writing that Apple has suddenly advised its users to use antivirus software.

..

.I've been reading pretty much everywhere else that Apple has changed its security policy and now is advising users to get antivirus software. This change, the mass of misguided bloggers and journalists assume, means that Macs are more susceptible to malware as marketshare increases.

...There haven't been any major new malware attacks to suggest increasing Mac marketshare has generated more malware. Just two weeks ago, I blogged that in fact Apple's increasing marketshare hadn't led to more attacks—that Microsoft's marketshare mythology is wrong.

...The new tech support note, which even shows the reference from the old article, only lists new anti-virus software versions.
Apple Watch

Just 12 hours ago the following was been reported across the web

All of the articles claim that Apple are warning users to use anti virus software.. on such over the top and incorrect reporting are rumours built. The Intego, a anti virus software for the MAC, are happy, on their MAC security Blog, to

" applaud the fact that Apple has chosen to recognize that Macs face security risks and that they require protection."

well they would be, seeing as they have a product that will sell well if used by MAC users.

I will leave the final word on the rumour to Apple:

"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate,"

Apple spokesperson Bill Evans said.

"The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box," he said.

"However, since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."

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Labour want to deliver Ireland through change;

2008-12-01T15:56:00.004Z

EAMON GILMORE will be deployed as Labour's key vote-winning asset in the run up to the local and European elections in a little over six months' time after a major conference speech that positioned him as an Obama-style agent of change.

Overtones of the appeal of the US President-elect were everywhere in Mr Gilmore's televised address to a special delegate conference in Kilkenny, which came complete with a demand for an American-type 'New Deal' to reboot the Irish economy.

...Delivering his speech to a rapturous audience in Kilkenny, Mr Gilmore borrowed another strategy from the Obama approach by largely ignoring the temptation to lambaste political opponents, preferring instead to sell his own message -- especially to the thousands tuning in on television.

While there were eye-catching gimmicks -- a promise to nationalise Eircom, "if necessary" in order to better deliver broadband services -- Mr Gilmore's overall purpose was to foster new confidence in the old Labour brand and to market himself as the coming man.
Independent

Excerpts from his speech:
There is a way to save jobs and to get business moving again; a way to get people back to work; a way to reboot and stimulate the economy.

...That is why Labour, alone among all the political parties, wants a stimulus plan for the Irish economy.

...But where, you ask, will the money for our stimulus plan come from?

...A full seven years ago, Labour argued that part of this money would be better put to work investing in our own infrastructure, rather than playing the market abroad.

...Any sensible Government would reconvene the social partners, and seek agreement on a new social and economic plan, to see Ireland through the full recession.

...We can only imagine just how bad our economy would be today if we were not part of the euro.

...If Irish people know what their sacrifices are for; if they can be confident that there is a better place at the end of the recession; then no politician need call on them to be patriotic.

Political Landscape:
he focus of recent polls has been on Fine Gael’s soaring support, but Labour has also done well, increasing six points to 15 per cent in last month’s Sunday Business Post/ Red C poll.

...Fine Gael is embracing an austere fiscal approach while Kenny’s call last week for a suspension of the national pay agreement was rebuffed this weekend by Gilmore on thebasis that ‘‘you can’tmake a deal one month and then suspend it the next month’’.

...Few doubt that the spectre of industrial battles will loom next year, once the full impact of the budget’s cuts and slowing economy are felt on the ground and the special group headed by economist Colm McCarthy takes the knife to public sector inefficiencies.

...Some senior figures - such as former party leader Ruairi Quinn - believe Labour is tarnished in the public eye by disruptive industrial disputes, yet fails to make any electoral gains from the unions’ party affiliation.

...‘‘But we don’t get it by standing up on a soapbox - reform of the public service starts at the top, and the first thing we have to do is change the government - because there is not one state board that this government has not appointed.”
Sunday Business Post

No repossessions
House repossessions should be off-limits for at least two years as people battle the effects of the credit crunch, the Labour Party leader said.

Confidence and trust will provide the most powerful economic stimulus of all, Eamon Gilmore told his party's conference in Kilkenny.

He accused Fianna Fail of bringing the worst form of "vulture" capitalists into Ireland so they can extract more banking profit and eliminate more jobs.
PA

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Irish banks; the saga continues.

2008-12-01T15:35:00.002Z

Irish banks will move in the coming weeks to facilitate investments of up to 10 billion euros ($12.94 billion) in fresh capital from government, private equity and other sources, the Irish Examiner reported on Monday.

The acknowledgements by Finance Minister Brian Cowen that the State may invest in the nation’s banking system, and admission by the banks that they do in fact need fresh capital, paves the way for a series of announcements in the coming weeks which will evolve into concrete deals releasing fresh capital into Irish banks early in the new year.

The Finance Department in a statement late on Friday said: “The minister indicated that in certain circumstances it would be appropriate for the State, through the National Pensions Reserve Fund or otherwise, to consider supplementing private investment with state participation, where in doing so the aim of securing the financial system can be better met.”

...Lenihan said after his talks with six institutions covered by Ireland's 440 billion euros state guarantee scheme that some banks had little need for capital, while "for others the need may be greater."
Reuters
And one glaring problem is apparent at this stage: the €2 billion or so which they believe they can lay their hands on hardly knocks a hole in the €10 billion-plus figure the market believes the Irish banks will need by way of fresh capital before we see the other side of the current crisis.

...Whether they arrived at this juncture by accident or design is not terribly relevant, but what is important is that from here on out they do not lose sight of the need for the banking industry to remain Irish-owned and Irish-run.

...There are several reasons for this - the main one being that Irish subsidiaries of international banks have to compete for a share of their parent's risk capital and will lose out to subsidiaries in home markets and bigger markets.
Irish Times

Bank of Ireland (BKIR.I: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Monday it was in advanced talks with the European Investment Bank over securing funds aimed at helping businesses deal with tougher credit conditions.
Reuters

Bank of Ireland has launched a €250m Business Support Fund to help small and medium businesses which are looking for capital in the current economic downturn.

...Commenting on the launch of the fund, Damian Young, Head of Small Business, Bank of Ireland Business Banking said: 'We acknowledge that the challenging market conditions are having a negative impact on many SMEs across the country.

...The assistant director of the Small Firms Association, Avine McNally, has said Bank of Ireland's fund is 'a step in the right direction', but added that 'stronger communications between government, the commercial banks, and small businesses is necessary'.
RTE

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FAS;special contracts, Cowen defends Harney while Kenny looks for the boards resignation.

2008-11-28T01:48:00.007Z

WHILE THE public debate about expenditure by Fás has focused around a hairdressing bill and expensive flights to Florida, it is expenditure of a much higher order that is at the centre of the ongoing inquiry by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

...A special internal audit inquiry into expenditures in the division in the period found multiple instances of people and companies getting substantial contracts without having to tender, questionable levels of expenditure on certain tasks, and troubling relationships between Craig and people benefiting from Fás contracts.

...The committee also heard that the head of information technology in Fás wrote a letter about a disastrous website set up by Craig using an outside company, which cost the authority €1 million.

...The head of the audit committee on the Fás board, Niall Saul, said responsibility for oversight lay at executive, not board level.
Irish Times

TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen last night expressed full confidence in Mary Harney as Minister for Health and Children.

Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe also strongly defended the Minister for Health yesterday, saying there was no question of her resigning over the revelation that Fás picked up the cost of hair treatments on a visit to the United States in 2004.

...The Fás board will report to Ms Coughlan after its meeting today and she will bring the report to Cabinet on Tuesday, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan told the Dáil yesterday.

...A Dáil debate on the Fás controversy was ruled out yesterday by Mr Lenihan, who said it would be highly undesirable to have a parallel debate when the board members of Fás were making themselves accountable to the Public Accounts Committee.

..."The board expressed its grave concern about these matters, but stated that in deference to the fact that the Committee of Public Accounts will subject the matters to legitimate parliamentary scrutiny this morning, it would not make a detailed statement at this point and will reconvene on Friday, once the committee hearing is complete, and will issue a full statement thereafter."
Irish Times

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny maintained last night that the position of the Fás board had become untenable but the Taoiseach continued to insist that current inquiries would have to be completed before any decision on its future was made.

...Mr Kenny said new documents discovered by Fine Gael staff members following a five-hour trawl of documents in Fás offices yesterday highlight even wider abuse of public funds than has been reported.

...Prof Niamh Brennan of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD said that expenses of the chief executive and board members of Fás were a matter for the board while staff expenses were a matter for the chief executive.
Irish Times

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Second vote on the Lisbon treaty is the way to go, but Cowen's unpopularity may hamstring the Yes vote,

2008-11-28T01:35:00.005Z

HOLDING A second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty with additional material in the form of declarations, formal EU decisions on certain issues, or protocols that would be attached to the document is the key option outlined in the report of an Oireachtas Subcommittee on Lisbon, published yesterday.

...This section of the report draws from a paper commissioned by the subcommittee from the Dublin European Institute at University College Dublin entitled Ireland's Future in Europe: Scenarios and Implications by Gavin Barrett, Brigid Laffan, Rodney Thom, Daniel C Thomas and Ben Tonra.

...On the domestic front, the report urges greater Oireachtas scrutiny of EU legislation, the establishment of a five-member EU panel in the Seanad and a new requirement for a two-thirds Dáil majority before Irish troops could be sent on missions overseas.
Irish Times

The findings were endorsed by all the main parties in the Dáil, but Sinn Féin and the independent Senator Ronan Mullen dissented from the main report.

The majority report says it is for the Government to devise a way of dealing with the consequences of the No vote.

However, it says ratification by the Oireachtas is not desirable and a solution involving Ireland leaving the EU is 'unthinkable.'

Senator Mullins said the Committee's majority report had failed to address the concerns surrounding important social and ethical issues and for that reason he could not support it.
RTE

The sub-committee was set up after Irish voters said 'No' in a June referendum on the treaty of reforms aimed at streamlining the bloc's decision-making but which must be ratified by all 27 member states before it can take effect.

...'If a decision was made to hold another referendum, it would be expected that the government would respond to concerns expressed during the referendum campaign,' it said of Irish voter worries over the treaty's impact on issues as wide-ranging as defence and abortion policy.
Straits Times

BRIAN COWEN calls it the worst economic crisis in a century. It is certainly the worst of times to be in government. The economy will shrink this year and probably next, for the first time in 25 years. The Celtic Tiger decade of high growth and huge budget surpluses has ended in a spectacular bust. Tax revenues have collapsed: the budget deficit may hit 7% of GDP in 2009

Such a rapid reversal has taken a toll on the prime minister’s reputation, not least because (like Britain’s Gordon Brown) he was formerly finance minister.

...The French EU presidency wants an agreement that Lisbon should come into force by 2010, meaning that Ireland must hold a second referendum, probably next autumn.

...Yet even if he dismisses such canards, it is hard to see Mr Cowen, who failed to sell Lisbon to voters when he and his government were popular, succeeding next autumn.... Indeed, some argue that the Irish will say yes only if they believe that a second no would lead to their country’s ejection from the EU—and that is itself a canard.
The Economist

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Number of dead increase as Indian Military continue to clear hotel;s in Mumbai searching for last of the terrorists

2008-11-27T22:47:00.004Z

Gunmen targeted at least seven sites in Mumbai late on Wednesday, opening fire indiscriminately on crowds at a major railway station, the two hotels, the Jewish centre and a cafe frequented by foreigners.

...• Two Pakistani merchant vessels are reportedly apprehended off the west coast of India, following reports that the gunmen arrived in Mumbai by boat
• The UK Foreign Office said a British national, Andreas Liveras had died; a German, a Japanese man and an Italian are also among the dead
• The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been blamed for past bombings in India, denied any role in the attacks.

...India has complained in the past that attacks on its soil have been carried out by groups based in Pakistan, although relations between the two countries have improved in recent years and Pakistani leaders were swift to condemn the latest attacks.
BBC

Officials said they had almost cleared a luxury hotel where gunmen have been holed up for more than 24 hours, with major operations still underway in another hotel where many guests, including foreigners, were hunkered down or being held hostage....

...In an audacious operation apparently tailored to gain maximum international attention, the militants used small groups to attack a total of about a dozen targets in India's financial hub , including the main railway station, a hospital and a restaurant popular with tourists.... The agency said the Pakistani detainee told Indian investigators that a group of 12 militants had been dropped off by a merchant vessel 10 nautical miles outside Indian waters, and had reached Mumbai in a small speedboat.
AFP

Guests and workers rescued from the hotels said that bodies were littering the corridors, suggesting that the final death toll from the al-Qaeda-style terror attacks could continue to climb.

As the country's Prime Minister blamed forces "outside the country" for last night's co-ordinated attacks, the Indian Navy boarded and searched a cargo ship recently arrived off Bombay from Pakistan.

...The gunmen slipped into the city on two small boats last night, mooring near the Gateway of India monument before fanning out across the southern part of India's financial capital.
Times

Breakdown of events on the day:
At 9.45pm on Wednesday, Parizaad Khan, 26, had just picked up her first drink, a fruit juice, at a wedding reception being held in the Crystal Room on the third floor of the century-old Taj Mahal Palace hotel.

...Only then did it begin to dawn on the hundreds of guests at the 565-room hotel that several slightly built young men, wearing casual clothes - denim jackets, tracksuit tops, T-shirts and jeans - were storming the lobby. It is thought at least one was carrying a large haversacks, stuffed with ammunition and grenades, A couple of minutes' drive away, similar scenes were unfolding at the Oberoi hotel, another favourite haunt of wealthy locals and ex-pats.

...About five minutes' drive north from the Taj, at about 10.30pm, four men armed with automatic weapons walked into a restaurant at CST, India's main railway station.

...Shortly after 3am, part of the group was told - or decided themselves, Ms Khan is not sure - to make a break for it through a maze of service corridors.

...Later, it was claimed that the group had demanded in return for the hostages the release of members of the Indian Mujahideen, a group that has launched a string of devastating bomb attacks across India in recent months.

...Around this time it is thought that Indian security forces began to creep through both the Taj and the Oberoi, searching for terrorists room-to-room.
Times

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These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

IAIM offer billions to the Irish banks.

2008-11-27T22:33:00.002Z

Last night, in a dramatic move, the 12-member Irish Association of Investment Managers (IAIM) who oversee €260 billion in investments worldwide contacted the Government and the four main banks with details of investors willing to pour billions into Irish banks.

IAIM chief executive Frank O’Dwyer said that a number of investment institutions “familiar with the Irish market believe that the process of re-capitalising the Irish banks offers an investment opportunity and returns which are attractive to them and their clients”.

Mr O’Dwyer refused to name the institutions involved, or the exact level of funding on offer, but stressed that the IAIM would not have brought the details to the Government or the four banks unless they were totally satisfied with the credentials and long term investment goals of the institutions involved.
Irish Examiner

Irish financial shares were ahead between 6 and 16 per cent this afternoon( Thursday) on news that the investment subsidiaries of three banks coupled with other Irish and international institutions are formulating a plan that would see them recapitalise the listed domestic banks with the State as a co-investor.

At 12.58pm AIB shares were over 12.5 per cent higher at €2.70 in Dublin, Irish Life & Permanent was up over 16 per cent at €1.58, Anglo Irish Bank ahead over 6 per cent at 93 cents while Bank of Ireland has gained over 11.5 per cent to €1.54.

Irish times

The group proposing to co-invest with the state in an Irish bank recapitalisation has learned lessons from the UK where shareholders got involved too late in fundraising, the Irish Association of Investment Managers said.... He said the group, which comprises at least ten potential long-term investors, includes some foreign institutions and plans to approach more foreign firms on Thursday and Friday.

...The plan, which was put to the Minister for Finance on Wednesday, comes after speculation of potential private equity investment in the banks, a prospect that has drawn criticism from groups such as the Irish Bank Officials Association.
Guardian

IAIM chief executive Frank O'Dwyer said in a statement that a number of investment institutions “familiar with the Irish market believe that the process of re-capitalising the Irish banks offers an investment opportunity and returns which are attractive to them and their clients”.

...The LEX column in the Financial Times says today: The aggregate loan-to-deposit ratio (see below *) of all six institutions guaranteed by Dublin is more than 157 per cent, remarkably close to the 160 to 170 per cent ratio at the peak of HBOS's folly.
Fin facts

*

aggregate loan-to-deposit ratio

:The amount of a bank's loans divided by the amount of its deposits at any given time. The higher the ratio, the more the bank is relying on borrowed funds, which are generally more costly than most types of deposits(IW)

About this post:
These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

Carlyle group: who are they and do we want them to take over Bank Of ireland

2008-11-24T19:08:00.003Z

The arrival of international private equity firms in Dublin, including the likes of cash-rich US investment companies JC Flowers and the Carlyle Group in the Irish-organised Mallabraca consortium, means the Government may not need to dig deep into its pockets to inject fresh capital into the banks, which can absorb higher loan losses through the recession.
Times

But who is the Carlyle group.. you probably recognise the name..it was part of the focus of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11:

FAHRENHEIT 9/11: The Bin Laden and Bush families were both connected to the Carlyle Group, as were many of the Bush family’s friends and associates.

Carlyle Group was holding its annual investor conference on the morning of September 11th in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. At that meeting were all of the Carlyle regulars, James Baker, likely John Major, definitely George H. W. Bush, though he left the morning of September 11th. Shafiq bin Ladin, who is Osama bin Laden’s half-brother, and was in town to look after his family’s investments in the Carlyle Group. All of them, together in one room, watching as the uh the planes hit the towers.”

“With all the weapons companies it owned, The Carlyle Group was in essence, the 11th largest defense contractor in the United States.”

“It owned United Defense, makers of the Bradley armored fighting vehicle. September 11th guaranteed that United Defense was going to have a very good year. Just 6 weeks after 9-11 Carlyle filed to take United Defense public and in December made a one day profit of $237 million dollars.”

“With so much attention focused on the bin Laden family being important Carlyle investors, the bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw.”

They are benefiting from the confusion that arises when George H. W. Bush visits Saudi Arabia, on behalf of Carlyle, and meets with the royal family and meets with the bin Laden family. Is he representing the United States of America, or is he representing an investment firm in the United States of America or is he representing both?”

Michaelmoore.com

So the Carlyle group makes huge profits from wars, had dealings with the family of the worlds most infamous terrorist and has effectively been in bed with the Bush administration for the past 8 years. It has also made huge amounts of money since 9/11 - mainly from the Iraq war. This is the company that wants to take over one of Ireland oldest institutions...

We are fucked.

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Equity firms about to make move into Irish Market as BOI and EBS get credit rating downgrade

2008-11-24T18:58:00.003Z

...The arrival of international private equity firms in Dublin, including the likes of cash-rich US investment companies JC Flowers and the Carlyle Group in the Irish-organised Mallabraca consortium, means the Government may not need to dig deep into its pockets to inject fresh capital into the banks, which can absorb higher loan losses through the recession.

Irish times

Shares in Bank of Ireland up 15.2 percent on continued Irish media reports of private equity interest, while Irish Life & Permanent rises over 9 percent amid continued speculation over consolidation in the banking sector.

...Bank of Ireland said on Friday it had received unsolicited approaches from a number of unnamed parties seeking to invest in the group, while Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on Sunday the government would welcome capital injections from private investors on appropriate terms.
Reuters (hot stocks)

DUTCH bank Rabobank is examining an ambitious proposal to buy EBS, Irish Life & Permanent and part of Irish Nationwide Buildings Society, according to sources.

...Irish Nationwide may also be bought out -- subject to some form of specific government guarantee over its commercial property exposure, according to UK banking sources.

...One top bank executive, who declined to be named, suggested that Anglo might be broken up, with its solid banking operations consumed by another financial institutions and its property book devoured by private equity as a recovery play.
Independent
Credit rating agency Fitch has downgraded some of its ratings for EBS Building Society due to its view that the Irish economy's performance is worse than expected.

Credit rating agencies rate the ability of banks and other companies to meet their financial obligations and their reports are watched by those who lend money in capital markets.

Fitch said it believed the two riskiest elements in EBS's loan book were its large exposure to high loan to value mortgages and some of its commercial lending.

...It noted that EBS benefited from the two-year Government guarantee scheme, and rated debt due in this period as AAA, but said turmoil in financial markets was reducing its flexibility.

...Though its report does not change the credit rating of any of the banks individually, Moody's warns that it is likely to lower its ratings for some banks over the coming year, due to the 'rapid deterioration' in the economic outlook.

RTE

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Ireland safely get seeded for Rugby World cup

2008-11-23T01:30:00.002Z

Before a better than expected attendance of 68,352 at Croke Park we just got the physical. For sure it was tense for a while as well, such were the problems Ireland experienced in making a clean line break, but once Ronan O'Gara made the game safe with his third penalty, on 75 minutes, to make it 12-3, the Pumas were done for.

...So Declan Kidney can relax a bit, safe in the knowledge that Ireland will be among the second tier of seeds for the 2011 World Cup.

This match deviated from the norm between these teams only in that from the start the Pumas did not get to put as much ball as usual into the air. That was partly because Geordan Murphy was flawless with any bombs dropped on him and partly because the away team tried to play their way into the game by hammering as much ball around the side as they did by putting a boot on it.

In the first quarter alone Mario Ledesma saw four balls disappear either directly into Irish hands or on a crooked throw.... Surely there is no side in world rugby with a better tackle completion rate than the Pumas, and it kept them in the game.

Indeed, they got off the mark first, on 36 minutes, when Fernandez planted a good kick after O'Gara lost the plot and dumped Roderigo Roncero from behind at a ruck. Ireland's fly-half responded three minutes later after a tough call on Mario Ledesma and they went in 3-3 at the break.

Slowly, Ireland got territorial control and a penalty from O'Gara put them 6-3 up before they had to survive a referral to the video ref after Martin Durand blocked Tomas O'Leary off a five-metre scrum.... O'Gara added another six points through a drop goal and penalty before punting nicely for Tommy Bowe to finish with three minutes left.
Guardian

Declan Kidney's side guaranteed inclusion among the second seeds for next month's 2011 World Cup draw by edging a fractious encounter at Croke Park.

Tempers frequently boiled over and skipper O'Driscoll revealed his side wanted to silence suggestions they had surrendered too easily to the All Blacks last weekend.

..."It's in our nature to be hard, rugged people and it hurt us a little bit that certain factions of the media said we were pushed around by the All Blacks.

...Kidney was quick to point out that Ireland played as well as they were let by an opposition expert at strangling the life out of a game.

"I think it was the kind of game that Argentina let you play, we know it wasn't an exciting game and that there are more strings to our bow.
Irish Times

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Mark Spellman's murderer sentenced to life imprisonment.

2008-11-22T17:24:00.004Z

A 22-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for life by the Central Criminal Court for the murder of a Google employee.

Dublin man Dane Pearse has been convicted of murdering Google employee Mark Spellman after an altercation in the street in Irishtown last year.

...He was found guilty of murder by a jury of six men and six women following an eight-day trial.

...He heard that Pearse, of Londonbridge Drive, Irishtown, Dublin, had six previous offences for public order, criminal damage and drugs offences.

...Emma Spellman said that the day that her brother died, "a little piece of all of us died too".
Irish Times

...Dane Pearse did not react in the dock as the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict after just under three hours of deliberations at 3.20pm.

The Spellman family comforted each other, the dead man's brother with his arm around his mother who kept her head lowered.

Pearse's lawyers read out a letter of apology to the Spellman family, in it he said if he could change places with mark Spellman he gladly would and he said he was truly sorry for what happened.
Belfast Telegraph

IT was the most important speech of Emma Spellman's life. Walking purposefully towards the witness box with a poise beyond her years, the young woman delivered a heartbreakingly eloquent victim impact statement, painting a warm and vivid picture of her slain brother Mark.

...Behind them, Mark's heartbroken girlfriend Jenny Swan sat stunned, pain etched all over her face, before the torrent of tears broke through.

...As she spoke, her words unleashed a further wave of the pain, anger and complete devastation experienced by Mark's family and friends in the 15 months since his murder.

..."My brother Mark was always smiling, he was the smartest, most loving, caring, happy, and amazing person," explained Emma Spellman, reading confidently from the notes in front of her.

...She spoke lovingly of a brother who sent silly text messages, a man with a "girly" laugh, and a habit of giving "annoying bear hugs", with a fondness for ketchup on almost everything.

...The empty table at Christmas dinner, his gaping absence from her 21st birthday party this year, the devastating death that forced her brother Barry to say goodbye to his life in Chicago.

...In a statement delivered by defence counsel Diarmuid McGuinness, he told the Spellman family: "I would just like you to know there's not a day goes by that I don't think about the night of August 4 and what happened that awful night."

...Pearse, himself a father of a son (two), continued: "I am a parent myself and the thought of losing my child is horrible, so for you to have lost your son the way you did must be a nightmare come true."

...As two uniformed prison officers moved towards Dane Pearse with handcuffs, his mother Karen rose from her seat.
Herald.ie

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Gallas causing trouble in the Arsenal Camp

2008-11-22T14:10:00.002Z

When a certain point is crossed a manager has to act and, in the case of Arsenal’s manager, that point arrived this week when William Gallas broke ranks yet again to have a go at fellow team-mates.

...Upset at the prospect of dropping valuable points when Gael Clichy conceded a late penalty at Birmingham, Gallas completely lost it, wildly kicking out at the advertising hoardings before stomping up the other end of the pitch to turn the other way for the penalty kick.

Telegraph

The 31-year-old centre-back has revealed rifts in the Gunners dressing room, a blazing row during the interval of the 4-4 draw with rivals Tottenham and a problem with an unnamed team-mate unsettling Arsene Wenger's squad.

...Gallas has been quoted in the Evening Standard as being open to an eventual return to France for the final stages of his career, which adds fuel to questions of his long-term commitment to Arsenal.
Press Association

Some defensive lapses, a now infamous sulking performance against Birmingham City last season and a recent photograph of the 31-year-old with a cigarette pursed between his lips have all served to raise question marks about the former Marseille man's suitability as club captain.

...Gallas told AP: "When, as captain, some players come up to you and talk to you about a player - complaining about him - and then during the match you speak to this player and the player in question insults us. There comes a time where we can no longer comprehend how this can happen.

Goal.com

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp believes William Gallas should have kept dressing room problems in-house.

The Arsenal skipper revealed there was a bust-up at half-time in the Gunners' 4-4 draw with Spurs, as well as other problems in the squad.

But Redknapp believes such issues should have remained in-house and Gallas should have spoken to Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger about his concerns.

...If anyone can sort it out, Arsene Wenger can but I'm sure he wants to concentrate on the football."
Sky Sports

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Bank of Ireland - options for the future

2008-11-22T13:53:00.004Z

Three major foreign shareholders in Bank of Ireland have sought legal advise in recent days about taking an injunction if existing shareholders are locked out of a potential multi-billion deal to invest in the 225-year-old lender.

...Frank O'Dwyer, chief executive of the Irish Association of Investment Managers, said last night that the reputation of Ireland as a place to invest will be seriously damaged if existing shareholders are excluded from any injection of new capital into the banks.

Refusing to rule out possible legal action, Mr O'Dwyer warned that Irish pension and investment funds will have to do whatever is necessary if their clients' interests are damaged by the Government-sponsored scheme.
Independent

“The nightmare scenario is that - as with the Eircom fiasco - this Government hands one or more of our major banks over to some US private venture capitalist, whose only interest will be in making a quick buck,” said Mr Kenny.

...Mr Kenny said it would be much better for the state to provide, and to attract from other sources, long term patient capital for the banks that allowed them to keep credit flowing in the economy, with very strong conditions on credit availability for small businesses in particular.
Irish Times

And Irish Life and Permanent says it is in discussions with the EBS building society about how the two institutions might work together in the current market environment.

The Finance Minister Brian Lenihan will meet with banking executives again next week to discuss a possible rescue package which may include the consolidation of a number of institutions.
Belfast Telegraph

The Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) on Friday called on the Government to clarify its plans for the banks, which will have an impact on the future of its 20,000 members. "The ongoing media speculation about the meetings between Government and senior executives of Irish financial institutions is very disconcerting for their staff and their families as well as customers and indeed shareholders," said IBOA general secretary, Larry Broderick.
Press associaton

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five (5) Guantánamo detainees to be released due to lack of evidence

2008-11-21T16:52:00.002Z

The New York Times reports that in rendering his decision, Judge Richard Leon said Thursday the government's evidence, which he called "a classified document from an unnamed source," was insufficient to show the five detainees' link to Al Qaeda.

New York Times

..."For a judge like Leon to order their release from detention is significant because the government has long maintained the evidence it had was more than sufficient to justify the detentions," said Scott L.

...SCOTUSblog, a legal news and commentary blog, notes that Leon expressed disagreement with the Supreme Court's ruling while announcing his decision, and warned that the ruling should not open the door to broader release of detainees.

The judge appeared to be mildly critical of the Supreme Court's ruling on detainees' habeas rights, saying that "the practical effect of imposing the habeas process on the world of intelligence-gathering" is "to create a virtually limitless complex of novel and difficult questions; as a result, the precedential value [of his decision] should be and is limited to these cases."...

CSmonitor

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Pirates of the Somalian Coast stopped using sound

2008-11-21T16:45:00.003Z

With their Nov. 15 capture of the Sirius Star, one of the world's largest oil tankers carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi oil, the biggest vessel ever hijacked at sea, Somali pirates leaped into the global spotlight, setting alarm bells ringing on the seriousness of the threat they pose.
Xinhuanet

The piracy problems of shipping firms running through the Gulf of Aden and down Africa's east coast have been thrown into the spotlight this week by the seizure of the Saudi Arabian super-tanker Sirius Star.... About the size of a domestic satellite dish, LRADs blast the target with a precise beam of sound -- warning messages, noises, sirens -- which can be turned up to excruciatingly painful levels should an attacker get too close. British private firm Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) hires out three-man teams of ex-military personnel bearing LRADs on ships and has been inundated with work as the piracy problem off Somalia worsens.

...Three skiffs hurtled towards the vessel, but were spotted by the team at five miles away, triggering a full response with evasive manoeuvres, water cannon, an alert to coalition forces -- and the LRAD.
AFP

Below are details of some of them: COMBINED TASK FORCE 150 - (8 ships) * Includes U.S. ships and others from the coalition set up during the war in Afghanistan.

...* Operation Allied Provider began operations in late October, replacing earlier naval escort missions by some NATO members to ensure food aid reaches Somalia.

...* India deployed INS Tabar in October to escort Indian ships after complaints by shipping firms of delays and financial losses as a result of piracy.

...Ten EU nations have said they will contribute to "Operation Atlanta" and it is expected to involve four to six ships at any time as well as aircraft.

...* Malaysia has been set to pull its remaining warship out of the area for cost reasons, but South Korea is expected to add warships to the international contingent.
Reuters

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Clinton to become Secretary of State

2008-11-21T16:38:00.003Z

Obama's aides have said complex vetting procedures had been resolved after Clinton's husband and former president, Bill, handed over information about all the donors to his foundation, which operates in more than 40 countries.

...But a senior Obama adviser said the president-elect has been enthusiastic about naming Clinton as his top diplomat, believing she would bring instant stature and credibility to US foreign relations.

...Democrats also say that several people remain in the running for treasury secretary, including Timothy Geithner, the president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Lawrence Summers, the former treasury
Guardian

...There will be no formal announcement before the holiday break which starts next Thursday November 27, the Obama aide said on condition of anonymity, adding the full Obama's national security line-up was still being firmed up.

...Latest speculation about the president-elect's emerging cabinet on Friday surrounded former four-star general and the NATO head James Jones, after ABC News said he was a top candidate to become national security advisor.

Jones is respected on Capitol Hill and across the political aisle, and may be particularly sought by Obama for his expertise on the Afghan war, which the president-elect has vowed to make a priority during his administration.
AFP

She has been wrestling with whether to abandon her independence to become the nation's top diplomat or remain in the Senate where a lack of seniority limits her influence, the New York Times reported yesterday.

...Clinton, who would become the third woman to hold the secretary of state post, frequently sparred with Obama on the campaign trail about foreign policy. She ran a television advertisement dubbed ``3 a.m.,'' in which she questioned whether Obama, formerly a first-term senator from Illinois, was experienced enough to handle a national crisis.

...The process had been complicated by concerns that Bill Clinton's private business interests with foreign governments and companies could create conflicts for his wife if she were nominated.

Bill Clinton sent Obama's transition team a list of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation, according to a Democrat familiar with the process.
Bloomberg

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after 13 years british man convicted of killing girlfriend in australia

2008-11-21T15:40:00.005Z

A British-born man has been found guilty in an Australian court of throwing his lover to her death at a notorious suicide spot in Sydney. The New South Wales Supreme Court heard that former chauffeur Gordon Wood, 45, threw Caroline Byrne, 24, off The Gap in 1995 because she was to leave him.

...The prosecutor also said Wood was afraid that his lover, who was a model, could divulge potentially damaging information about the private and professional life of his former employer, stockbroker Rene Rivkin.

...The comfort that has come from this verdict is difficult to describe, it's a wonderful feeling Tony Byrne The three-month trial had involved scores of witnesses including TV starlets, a stuntman, an ex-cabinet minister and a former tattoo artist.

...Ms Byrne had overdosed on sleeping tablets in 1993 and days before her death, she saw a doctor who referred her to a psychiatrist when the model revealed she was "very, very depressed".... Wood lived in a Swiss ski village for several years after his girlfriend's death, but was arrested in 2006 in London after prosecutors decided there was enough evidence to charge him with murder. Speaking after the verdict, Ms Byrne's 72-year-old father said: "The comfort that has come from this verdict is difficult to describe; it's a wonderful feeling.
BBC
In the split second yesterday morning when his life changed forever, Wood's mask vanished as the gut-wrenching reality of growing old in jail seemed to dawn on him.

...After 13 years of denials, lies and private assurances to family and friends that he would never - could never - be convicted of murdering his girlfriend, model Caroline Byrne, by throwing her off a Sydney cliff, Wood was dumbstruck.

...Shortly afterwards, they saw the scene they thought might never come: Wood, head bowed, was escorted from the court as a convicted murderer.

...The police involved in the long-running case, who had endured much criticism for their alleged mishandling of the early investigations into Byrne's death, could barely contain their joy at the guilty finding.

...The Byrne family and the police were joined at a nearby pub by well-wishers including Byrne's former boss, deportment queen June Dally-Watkins.

Mr Terracini, who visited his client in the court's cells following the verdict, said Wood was "disappointed, obviously", with the outcome but that he was "dealing with it very well because he knows he is innocent".
The Australian
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Support and criticism for Trapatoni

2008-11-21T15:33:00.003Z

Former Republic of Ireland international Mark Lawrenson has hit out at Giovanni Trapattoni’s detractors, insisting that Ireland is lucky to have the decorated Italian in charge.

Trapattoni has come under increasing pressure following the defeat to Poland in midweek, with the continuing omission of Andy Reid seen as a major bone of contention.

But Lawrenson, who won 38 caps in a 12-year international career, has offered his support to the veteran Italian.

Eleven a side

It may not be a crisis defeat of Bulgarian proportions but this reverse will give Giovanni Trapattoni plenty of food for thought as winter beckons.

Perhaps, it might even convince him that some of his innovations just have not worked. Once more, his midfield was exposed and his faith in certain players proved to be questionable. Little details? Bigger than that, unfortunately. This was the worst defensive display since that infamous evening in Nicosia.

But he was far from despondent afterwards, stating that he had witnessed some causes for optimism.

"We did give our opponents too much space," he said, "Normally after we lose I am not happy, I am sad, but not this evening.

"For me, it's a positive because I got to look and check some new situations, like (Caleb) Folan. I got to confirm my opinion of some players, like Whelan and Gibson."

On and off the park, this was a night that belonged to Poland. In the preliminaries, Shay Given had joked that half of Ireland's population hailed from the homeland of their opponents, but that ratio looked accurate in the context of the Croke Park attendance last night. The most vocal parts of the stadium were decked out in red and white.
Irish Independent

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Aer Lingus Strike action stopped

2008-11-21T15:29:00.003Z

THE THREAT of industrial action at Aer Lingus from next week has been withdrawn following an agreement on cost savings between the airline and trade union Siptu.

Siptu said last night that a framework agreement reached in talks at the Labour Relations Commission represented an alternative to proposals put forward by management to outsource jobs at the airline.

...Aer Lingus in its statement last night said it welcomed the withdrawal of the notice of intended industrial action by Siptu and the removal of uncertainty for its customers intending to travel next week.

...Ms Hannick said Siptu officials would consult with union members within the next seven to eight days and in the meantime, there would be no industrial action, she said.

Irishtimes

Union bosses believe the agreement, which follows a week of talks, may be "difficult to sell" to members but the threat of strike action has been suspended while they consider their options.

...The minimum payment for voluntary severance would be reduced from €40,000 to €30,000, and the cap for payment would increase from 145 weeks to three years.

...New recruits would join with the downgraded terms while workers who decided to leave the airline could apply for voluntary redundancy or early retirement schemes before December 15.

...The airline has welcomed the withdrawal of the threat of industrial action and said it had "agreed a framework" with Siptu, "which may deliver the required cost savings".
Herald.ie

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Natural Gas price not set to raise in Ireland in January

2008-11-21T15:21:00.003Z

CONSUMERS will not face higher gas bills in January and Bord Gais may even cut charges next year, the Irish Independent can reveal.

...It is even possible, assuming wholesale gas prices continue to fall on international markets, that the company will be able to offer customers a decrease in prices next year, the source added.

...As gas prices spiralled in line with oil prices earlier this year, Bord Gais told the CER it needed an increase of about 38pc to cope with the increased cost of wholesale gas.

...The good news for consumers is they have continued to fall in line with crude oil prices -- since the start of this month gas has fallen back by about 8pc.

...Since then importers have brought additional supplies of LNG into Britain, while the pipeline issue has also been resolved, meaning Bord Gais has secured the supplies it needs for the key winter period.

Irish independent

Oil is now trading at levels not seen since May 2005 and it costs almost $100 a barrel less than July's peak of $147.27.

And because of the global recession the International Energy Agency says world oil demand will rise at its slowest pace for 23 years this year.

...Last month Bord Gáis had sought the energy regulator's permission to increase its prices by 4.2%, which would have added about €3 a month to the average household bill.

RTE

Ireland has the highest electricity prices in Europe for businesses and domestic consumers, due to a dependence on electricity generated from fossil fuels and high taxes, according to a new report.

Electricity costs the Irish domestic consumer 20% above the EU average, according tothe report by State agency Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), and some industrial customers are paying up to 52% above the EU average.

...SEI says dependence on generation from fossil fuels is an important factor with some 88% of Irish electricity generated from fossil fuels and 60% from oil and gas alone.
Finfacts

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Madonna and Ritchie divorce

2008-11-21T15:08:00.003Z

The ruling in London drew a line under the couple’s eight-year marriage, with the decree absolute expected to be granted in six weeks time.

...Rocco, eight, and their three-year-old adopted son David, will divide their time between Madonna's New York home and the film director's base in London.

Although court documents reveal the singer cited 'unreasonable behaviour' on her husband's part in the divorce petition, the couple have apparently impressed lawyers by reaching a remarkably smooth settlement over their assets.

Last night Guy was spotted taking his sons out to dinner in Liverpool where he's currently lensing his latest film Sherlock Holmes, while, Madonna was back on stage in Philadelphia with her Sweet & Sticky world tour.
Hello Mag

For such a high profile split, Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce proceedings were distinctly undramatic.

The venue was Court 10 at the High Court's Family Division, a fairly bland looking building in Holborn, central London.

No Madonna or Guy, or their legal representatives. It was then left for the court clerk to read out a list of seventeen couples seeking divorces.

It all took 54 seconds. And with that, everyone hurriedly filed out the room to spread the news.
SKY News

MADONNA'S husband, Guy Ritchie, is expected to walk away with just $5 million of her $700 million fortune in a quickie divorce to be processed overnight.

But the film director is understood to have retained equal access to their children.
heraldsun

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2.2 software update for the iPhone

2008-11-21T15:02:00.005Z

Apple unveiled early Friday a 2.2 software update for the iPhone, bringing new features such as Google Street View and over-the-air podcast downloads.

...A major update was made in the Maps applications, which was enhanced with Google Street View and with public transport and walking directions, together with timetables, fares and estimated travel time.
Washington post

Now iPhone users can also turn off the auto-correction on the virtual keyboard, which I must say is a nice alternative to allowing the iPhone to guess what you're trying to type.

Other improvements include a bug fix for scheduled e-mail fetching, improved stability and performance for the Safari Web browser, improved phone quality to reduce dropped calls (hooray!), and improved sound quality in visual voice mail messages.
CNET

Apple’s handy checklist:

Enhancements to Maps
Google Street View
public transit and walking directions
display address of dropped pins
share location via email
Enhancements to Mail
resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of e-mail
improved formatting of wide HTML email
improved stability and performance of Safari
Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network)
Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you to the first Home screen
Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard Settings

CNN

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Jury retire to consider verdict in Mark Spellman murder case

2008-11-21T14:56:00.004Z

The jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering Mark Spellman has has retired to consider its verdict.

...Mr Spellman had been out for the night with work colleagues and was returning home when he became involved in an altercation with Mr Pearse on Londonbridge Road.

RTE

In his closing speech to the jury, Diarmaid McGuinness, defending, told the jury Mr Pearse accepted "he and his knife caused the death of Mr Spellman".

...The jury earlier heard Mr Spellman and two male friends were walking home from a work night out when the deceased became involved in a con-frontation with the accused, who was heading home from the pub with his girlfriend.

...The jury heard three verdicts were open to it -- guilty of murder; not guilty of murder; or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

Irish independent

But the issue for the jury to decide is how the death came about and what was the level of culpability.

Referring to the large ornamental dagger used to kill Mr Spellman, he said it was “a shocking-looking knife”.

Pearse had bought it as a souvenir, the court was told, and nobody can infer that he bought the knife with the intention of killing someone. But the jury would have to decide about his decision to take the knife from the bedroom.
Herald.ie

About this post:
These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

Clinton pays down debts, but wavers on take sec of state

2008-11-21T13:54:00.001Z

Hillary Clinton continued paying down her presidential campaign debts to most vendors last month.

...In October, she gathered in $688,000 and paid down her debt by $448,000, leaving $7.47 million in unpaid bills to a variety of consultants, lawyers and others.

BARACK Obama has picked former Senate leader Tom Daschle to lead his drive to tackle the US healthcare crisis, while stocking his White House staff with loyal campaign aides.

...The US president-elect's offer to make Senator Clinton his top diplomat has become clouded in mystery and mixed signals that threaten to overshadow his transition to the White House.

About this post:
These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

Michael Jackson - in court and now a muslim

2008-11-21T13:45:00.003Z

Michael Jackson has reportedly become a Muslim and changed his name to Mikaeel.

Jackson, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness, attended the ceremony just days before he's due to head to London's High Court, where he is being sued by an Arab sheik Prince Abdulla Al-Khalif of Bahrain.

A lawyer for Mr. Jackson, right, said the singer would travel to London to testify Monday in a suit against him by a Bahrainian prince, The Associated Press reported, over the issue of a $7 million dollar gift

About this post:
These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

Irish banks could face mergers

2008-11-21T13:43:00.000Z

Talks between Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and bank chiefs have led to the possibility of a radical overhaul of the Irish bank system.

...Mr Sheehy said the Government and banks are talking to one another and he would not be making any comments on the nature of those talks.

...Yesterday's talks involved a series of meetings at Farmleigh between Mr Lenihan and senior executives from the financial institutions covered under the State guarantee scheme.

...After the meetings some participants believed only Bank of Ireland and AIB would remain after the shake-up, but there has been no comment on the content of meetings.

Rugby; O'Gara wants team to "buy into the Irish jersey"

2008-11-21T13:39:00.003Z

IRELAND out-half Ronan O'Gara has urged his team-mates to "buy into the Irish jersey" when they face Argentina at Croke Park tomorrow (2.45).

Declan Kidney's men must avoid defeat to go into the World Cup draw on December 1 as one of the top eight ranked teams and, with stakes so high, O'Gara wants Ireland to draw inspiration from Munster's stunning performance against New Zealand last Tuesday.

...A spot has been left open on the bench for Quinlan, pending the result of his appeal against a three-week ban for stamping against New Zealand, which will be heard today.

About this post:
These are summaries from many news outlets, taken and summarised using the Summarise tool on MAC OSX and then edited so that they fit together into one cohesive article, that shows the major points from a number of articles. this allows a reader to get a fully rounded view of the story without having to read many articles.. lets us do the reading..

Karen Muldoon started the recession

2008-10-28T17:23:00.000Z

Karen Muldoon was responsible for starting the recession in 2008.

Blame her

Dead set; review of Dead Set episode one

2008-10-28T13:50:00.002Z

Dead set; review of Dead Set episode one

Surprisingly there are very few reviews today of Charlie Brookers' Zombie fest " Dead Set" ;episode one that aired last night. Below are a list of the ones that I could find.

Links to reviews of Dead Set first episode - Charlie Brooker's Zombie fest on E4

http://www.denofgeek.com/television/129817/dead_set_episodes_1_and_2_review.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2008/oct/28/television

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article5024811.ece

Dead set on it

2008-10-28T12:52:00.002Z

Dead set on it

Firstly an admission, I didn't see the entire first episode. I turned on the TV at 11:30 and stumbled upon a repeat showing on E4+1. I had Sky plus'd it but I only have that in my sitting room and I was comfortable in bed and so I watched the second half with the intention of watching the first half tonight when I get home.

From what I saw I loved it. It made me jump..sitting there in the dark with only the glow of the TV screen lightening up my face, my eyes half covered by the involuntary shield of my left paw..wonderful stuff. A lot of Charlie Brooker was evident in the show..His amusing take on how producers, directors and runner are treated in the TV business ( see Screen-wipe ). It is interesting that it appears that he has made a runner the potential hero of the piece, in Screen-Wipe he tends to beat them up and make them do any number of humiliating tasks.

True to form the Zombies are the running kind, although they are also the unable to open the door kind …which is actually the kind of Zombie I like. Let the character run, scream at them to run faster and then get some relief when they slam a door in the blood drenched face of the Zombie; stalling the pursuit while the character looks around the room checking for more Zombies, access points and weapons. Generally the camera will give you an indication of the next point of pursuit.. a window perhaps..Zombies may not do doors but they can crash a window no probs. The pursuing Zombie generally gives up banging the door after a while, and in the relevant calm you sit on the edge of your seat awaiting the sudden crash – bang that will make you jump. Often this is just a cat jumping from a shelf..but as is so en vogue at the moment..the relief caused by the realisation that is was a cat is quickly followed by the terrifying reality that there is an actual zombie lying down under the sheaf of paper scattered on the floor..

Last night the runner ( our hero!) sees her boyfriend eat her friend (wha!). She escapes into a room, locks the door and we settle into a short period of her exhausted heavy breathing filling up the sound track, attempts to make contact with the outside world, and a nicely timed " please help" whilst she is on her knees in front of a TV desperately searching the channels for information. For me it looked as if she was praying to the TV…Save me TV, SAVE ME… I am sure Brooker is making a point here about our reliance for information, entertainment and validation through the stupid box. Of course the TV does not save her, in fact the absence of any information scares her more and she lies on the ground submerged in an overwhelming sense of her impending doom. Without the whoosh of Sky news telling us that everything is OK or at least telling us that everything is fooked but they have some nice comforting graphics to explain the extent of your fookedness..life begins to appear futile..

There are four nights of this show, and I hope that it plays as well as the first episode ( or at least the second half of the first episode)..Nice one Brooker..

Tags: Charlie Brooker, Dead Set, E4

Put telemarketers on hold..sweet revenge

2008-10-22T15:30:00.002+01:00

Put telemarketers on hold..sweet revenge

A system that blocks phone calls that you don't want, that allows through calls you do want, and puts everyone else on hold until you decide if you want to talk to them. Simple, brilliant and it is going to sell millions.

Steve Smith and John Price once invaded your home as telemarketers but as so often happens when one is part of evil, one either becomes all evil or strives to destroy the evil. Steve Smith and John Price decided to make some money out of stopping the evil scourge of life that is the unprompted, un-required and unrequested telemarketers cold calls that so annoy the general population.

The system works by having a star list of phone numbers - people you want to talk to; a zap list of phone numbers - telemarketers, known voice phishing numbers etc – that you do not want to talk to and everybody else. If a call is received from a number that is not on the Zap or Star list, the machine asks for the persons name, puts the call on hold and then rings you with the information. You then decide to take the call or not..; you never have to talk to the person so no guilt about hanging up if , for example the person ringing starts the conversation with" I am ringing from the help cute children and puppies charity and we need your money

Key logging what you type on your keyboards without any spyware..Yep we are fucked!!

2008-10-22T15:19:00.002+01:00

Key logging what you type on your keyboards without any spyware..Yep we are fucked!!

The <A HREF=" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7681534.stm">BBC</A> had an article yesterday about how some doctoral students Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini from the Security and Cryptography Laboratory at the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created four hacks that allow them to capture key strokes by capturing the unique electromagnetic signals emitted from keys being tapped on keyboards.

The students used radio antenna to capture the signals, and they found that all 11 tested keyboards, both external and ones embedded in Laptops, were vulnerable to at least one of the four hacks. But this is not the worst part, they think that they were only limited in their hacking abilities due to the cheap nature of the tools they were using... if someone had some decent tools the results would be much more impressive.

What this means to the mass population is that without a hacker getting access to your PC they can get access to what ever you type, and from that they can take what salient information they need.

So for example you type.

www.aib.ie into your browser. The hackers, grinning at you from up to 20 meters away, now know that the next collection of letters and numbers will, more than likely, be made up of your registration number and at least three numbers of your pin code.

They can get passwords, private communications etc etc...Of course they won't have screen shots, and if you use bookmarks rather than typing URLs...they won't know what site you are on...but still...for companies.. If they can target staff within secured buildings from external monitoring it does make a lot of things less secure...