Sometimes, silence really is the best policy, if not a perpetual vow, then at least avoiding the subject until the storm blows over. Unfortunately, it is a lesson Nicolas Sarkosy can’t seem to learn when it comes to the Lisbon treaty. Bad enough that his foreign minister made some impolite comments days before the vote. …
Monthly Archive: July 2008
Jul 16
Speaking Out
I’m not exactly Kevin Myers biggest fan. I will admit, for example, to a frisson of schadenfreude when Judge Peter Cory cited a Garda report outlining ‘how little [Myers and another writer] relied upon fact and how much they relied upon suspicion and hypothesis.’ ‘Statements and allegations were put forward as matters of fact when …
Jul 15
The Shannon Stopover
Omar Khayd was fifteen when he was arrested. He was sixteen when a video – recently released by his lawyers – was recorded after he was deprived of sleep, not in some dictatorial hellhole that no one ever heard of, but in the Land of the Free. Omar was captured in Afghanistan, accused of throwing …
Jul 14
Re-boot
What happened to Dublin airport? Flights were disrupted for days, but information about exactly what went wrong is puzzlingly vague. AP explained that ‘the radar system failed to display the call signs that normally identify each incoming aircraft’. Bloomberg simply mentioned a ‘loss of functionality’, explaining that there were two separate incidents, one on Wednesday …
Jul 11
Holy Law
A group of Dáil backbenchers have quietly declared war on God. The joint committee on the Constitution yesterday published a report on freedom of expression and blasphemy. Bunreacht na hÉireann allows the Oireachtas to punish the publishers of ‘blasphemous, seditious or indecent matters’. However, a Defamation bill making its way into law abolishes the offence …
Jul 10
Life Imitates Faduda
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote jokingly about the Polish Passenger Initiative – the PPI. The notional scheme involved workers laid off by the construction industry carving out new careers as passengers in cars driven by Ireland’s estimated 100,000 drivers who carry provisional licenses, once new regulations were introduced at the start of July. …
Jul 09
Full House
I’ve just spent the last half hour or so watching a Dáil debate, live on the internet. The lower House is debating a Labour party motion on housing policy and public-private partnerships. The motion notes the ‘collapse’ of five public private partnerships agreements in Dublin, and the fact that ‘a single developer, Michael McNamara & …
Jul 08
Ich bin ein Hamburger
Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has outlined a package of measures aimed at saving €440m in public spending this year. In an unexpected move, the Cabinet announced it would set an example for other state agencies by curbing its own excesses. Taoiseach Brian Cowen will lead the way, restricting himself to traditional ballads during late night …
Jul 07
Access All Areas
I use a sturdy pre-camera mobile phone, but it has limits. For example, if you send me a photo, I get a text message to the website where I can view it. Doing just that today, I ended up checking out the latest mobile broadband offer from O2. And something else too. I checked the …
Jul 04
To Every Cow Its Calf
Several news outlets are quite excited over the court order entertainment giant Viacom secured against Google. The eponymous search engine must hand over details of the videos watched by users of YouTube. Viacom claims Google has infringed it’s copyright, while Google says it is not responsible for YouTube content, and removes any material if there’s …