Joe’s Blog

A Better Deal for Young Drivers - Young Fine Gael Campaign

Is it Time to Boycott People In Need and finish it off?
- a discussion

The telethon emphasizes the desperate helplessness of the most severely disabled. In doing so, it reinforces the public’s tendency to equate handicap with total hopelessness.

and check out the official RTE People In Need Telethon page.

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In other news - the University of Limerick Students’ Union organised “Walkout Wednesday” because

The University committed to clearing Wednesday afternoons of all classes 5 years ago – and nothing has happened.

I took some photos of the Mock-Dail in which Young Fine Gael, Ogra Fianna Fail and Labour Youth took part. The Young Greens were substituted with a bag of spuds (organic I think)

2007-10-24 Mock Dail Album

Slideshow

The Lebanese Cedar in front of Plassey House has been dead for the past few years. The tree has now to be removed for safety reasons.

Biofuels ‘Emit More Greenhouse Gases than Fossil Fuels’

Did your county make the new All-Ireland Monopoly board?

20 things we’ve learned from the Rugby World Cup

Potsdamer Platz is up for sale! (nod to Eddie Hobbs et. al).

Via Danny - Why Democracy Film

A corporate conspiracy to silence alternative medicine?

How the Green Party and Eamon Ryan are doing more damage to broadband than FF ever did

Forget the The Alka-Seltzer Suit, look at the 2nd video!

Via Off The Meattrack

Eddie Izzard’s Encore on Computers:

The “Save Our Slots” rally was on in Limerick yesterday - to sum up; Willie O’Dea (FF) didn’t have the balls to show up, John Cregan (FF) was booed off the stage and Timmy Dooley (FF) was hiding in the crowd. Kieran O’Donnell (FG), Jan O’Sullivan (LAB), councillors, trade union reps and personalities such as Peter Clohessy and Celia Holmen Lee

others have written well about it:
Limerick Blogger: Shannon-Heathrow: Cregan booed off podium at rally
[Video] Save Our Slots Rally

Braz in IrishElection: FF scapegoat takes hit on podium, others hide, and some avoid

Dan Sullivan: Too scared to take the stand

RTE: http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1020/shannon.html
Ireland.com: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/1020/breaking18.htm

John Cregan (FF) being booed off stage:

Shannon Heathrow Rally is on Sat 20th (tomorrow) at 1pm on O’Connell St*
O’Dea cartoon #1
O’Dea cartoon #2
O’Dea cartoon #3
Government cartoon #1
Government cartoon #2

In other news:

An Irish Transport Map (especially the first comment)

Minister raids broadband fund for €10m to bail out energy conservation schemes overspend - Coveney
OR Broadband money re-routed to SEI scheme by Ryan

Seven year old PULSE flaw makes mockery of the law - Flanagan

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*organised by the four Mid West local authorities (North Tipperary Co Council, Limerick City Council, Limerick County Council and Clare County Council)

The fun-run is on the horizon again so I donned the shoes and ran 3 miles last Sunday. It was a nice day for it but I wasn’t feeling too fit. Hopefully this weekend I’ll go better and further…

The blurb about the fun-run:

It’s that time of year again the annual Christmas “fun run” and we need your help again this year. The idea as usual of the Christmas fun run, is to provide a fitness goal that would be helpful for people jogging each day and it would also add a few pounds for local charities for Christmas. The charities people selected last year were “Brothers of Charity – Bawnmore” and “Limerick Marine Search & Rescue”. Last year we collected over €3500 and 50 people participated. Again we would like to thank AIB Bank for there generous sponsorship, and O’Mahony’s Bookshop (Hilary) for providing refreshments at the finish.

This year again we are looking for people to provide us with names of charities that are local and deserving. The idea is that all monies go directly to the charities. If you can think of any charities can you contact one of us, (Sean, Frank ).

Charities supported in previous year were: Friends of the Elderly, Lisnagry, CARI, Brother Russell House, Adapt House, Suicide Awareness, Rape Crisis and Alzheimers Society.

Date: Friday December 7th, 2007

Location: Plassey River Bank

Clever dog - Bertie Ahern has €300,000 worth of payments that he can’t explain. So he gives lots of confusing explanations. Try as you might to piece everything together, the story changes on an weeky and monthy basis summed up by judge Mahon:

polar opposite accounts

The sums still don’t add up and even the special formula to explain the $45,000 payment (meant to be GB£) turned out to be non-existant by Mr. Ahern’s own admission.

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What does this mean though? Was he just a poor man in need of a dig out? Remember that this was a senior figure in the party almost never out of power.

On the night before he was forced out of office in 1994, he changed the tax designation for the Golden Island site owned by Owen O’Callaghan. Eamon Dunphy is giving evidence that Owen O’Callaghan told him that Bertie Ahern

had been bought

he had taken money

he had been taken care of

If there was an innocent explanation for all of this, it didn’t come out at the tribunal and I doubt it will be in his memoirs.

Should he resign? I believe too many people judge the personality that is Bertie Ahern instead of the damage caused to the people living in estates that are incomplete or unsuitable. It isn’t easily apparent to those in the estates whose fault it is that there are no schools nearby, that there are no buses or that the land is prone to flooding. How often do you think a developer uses his reputation and connections to get planning approval or rezoning? Could you compete if you had funding?

The damage that is more tangible will be the value of property. With inflation around 4.5%, a drop of 3% is more than that. And with interest rates increasing (the ECB is only on a short break imho), there will be people finding it difficult to meet repayments, remortgaging, negative equity etc.

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Not only that, but our economy is now at risk as a result of relying on construction and speculation since 2002. If you had €300,000 to invest, would you put it in a house to rent or in a business idea? Every time you hear someone say that the fundamentals of the economy are stable, think of this

Construction makes up 23pc of Ireland’s GNP and employs 416,000 people

And people have learned to invest in property instead of anything else - how many people are buying shopping centres in Berlin or villas in Spain?

The government itself is massivly exposed to the slowdown in the property sector - up to 45% of a newly built house goes towards taxes and local authority levies such as stamp duty and VAT on materials etc. Add to that the taxes paid by those employed in construction and the services they consume. It isn’t as if there are many other industries for these people to go into. The alternative to residential construction is commercial or public infrastructure projects. But taxes received have dropped substantially in the last few months, we can expect a deficit of €1 billion and with inflation running at 4.5%, there isn’t much room to splash out on capital projects.

If that has depressed you, then A Random Walk picked up some quotes* for every situation

If house Prices are rising.

If house Prices are static.

If house Prices are falling.

What do you say to anyone who says that you’ve been wrong, very wrong to date?

When was the last time you recommended that anyone should hold off on buying?

and for a real quote that A Random Walk spotted:

I think we’ll see a bit of stagnation, maybe a five to ten per cent fall but no real collapse

after Northern Ireland prices rose 51% in a single year.

I like his interpretation of the lexicon too:

• Soft Landing - Anything ranging from house prices rising at the rate of inflation to a 20% drop
• Stagnation - Massive 60% swings in the velocity of house prices, property investors losing their shirts.
• Hard Landing - Eruption of nearby volcano, nuclear war.

This is a video of CD launch featuring a live performance by members of Cruinniú, accompanied by Dr Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin of the Irish World Academy on piano.

Crúinniú is a newly-released CD, recorded by the group of the same name, consisting of staff members from across the University of Limerick.

Cruinniú came about as an Irish World Academy of Music and Dance outreach initiative, which brought over 25 members of the campus community together to engage in weekly classes/sessions of Irish traditional music, facilitated by students and staff of the Irish World Academy.

The CD costs €10 and all proceeds from its sale will be donated to St Vincent’s School, Lisnagry.

For further information, phone: +353 61 202917

and some more:

A sombre and almost bewildered looking Garda Superintendant John Kerin faced the media today and in a red faced statement told how armed Gardai from The states Emergency Response Unit along with local armed and uniformed Gardai were just yards from the scene of the fatal shooting of 25 year old Gareth Grant last night. - Bravado Bravado Bravado

current Garda numbers for Limerick are at the same level as 12 years ago - O’Donnell

I don’t think calling in the army would help much.