Monthly Archives: September 2012

Fears have deepened in Dublin that up to 100 jobs could be lost at the Irish Daily Star, with unions predicting the media owner Richard Desmond would stand by his threat to “close down” the joint venture over the Duchess of Cambridge pictures scandal.
The head of the National Union of Journalists in Ireland who spoke with Irish Daily Star staff on Sunday told the Guardian there was “fear, panic and anger” in its Dublin newsroom.

Fears At Daily Star Over Richard Desmond Closure Threat (Henry McDonald and Nicholas Watt, Guardian)

The union’s Irish secretary Séamus Dooley branded the decision “a callous and crude attempt by Northern and Shell to protect their UK commercial interests with no regard for the livelihood of 80 Irish workers”.
Michelle Stanistreet added: “There is no justification for putting the livelihood of workers at the Irish Daily Star in jeopardy because of disagreement over an editorial decision of this nature.
“Editorial management of the newspaper rests with the editorial team in Dublin and it is difficult to see why the UK shareholder has chosen this issue as the grounds for withdrawing from a long-standing contract. The Irish Daily Star is a successful newspaper and any threat to the survival of the title is a threat to editorial diversity.”

Closing Irish Daily Star is ‘over the top’ (NUJ.ie) 

Previously: The Closer?

 


K’Nex builder Austin sez of this insanely over-engineered, utterly wonderful ball-run:

This is Clockwork, my fifth major K’nex ball machine, and my largest and most complex K’nex structure to date. It took 8 months to build, has over 40,000 pieces, over 450 feet of track, 21 different paths, 8 motors, 5 lifts, and a one-of-a-kind computer-controlled crane, as well as two computer-controlled illuminated K’nex balls.

geekosystem

It’s so on…

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton last night admonished Minister for State at the Department of Finance Brian Hayes for suggesting that she examine the need to target “well-off” pensioners.

There were strong hints last night that Ms Burton will resist any moves to target pensioners. “Ms Burton will make her views known to her colleagues in Cabinet in the lead-in to the budget. She greatly values the services her department provides to pensioners,” said a spokeswoman.

Mr Hayes, in an interview with The Irish Times on Saturday, had said the political system needed to overcome its reluctance to impose any cutbacks on older people. He pointed out that many were comparatively well off and did not have mortgages.

Damn replacement hipsters.

Ministers clash over cutbacks for pensioners in budget (Harry McGee, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

Following the death of his daughter Kate Fitzgerald last year, her father Tom was told she had died from a broken neck after hanging herself at her home. Empty alcohol bottles at the scene suggested she had been drinking heavily. She was also “off her medication”.

Months later he was sent the autopsy report.

From today’s Sunday Independent:

Kate did not die of a broken neck.
She died slowly of ligature strangulation.
Kate had not stopped taking her medication. The medication levels were clinically spot on.
Kate had not been drinking heavily.
She died with the equivalent of one drink in her system.

Kate’s hyoid bone — a small bone in the neck — was broken. This unattached bone in the neck can only be broken by horizontal pressure. It is extremely rare in suicidal hanging and even more so with a young person.
We’ve spoken to a number of legal people on this matter and since the autopsy report, we’ve done a lot of research, and this injury is always a strong indicator of murder.
We went back to the Kevin Street gardai. They reluctantly agreed to have another look. Two more weeks and I was told that they had looked and said there was no reason to investigate further.
I went to the Garda Ombudsman and after some persuasion he agreed that the investigation must be reopened. It took almost three months from the arrival of the autopsy, but, based on a demand from the Garda Ombudsman, a team of detectives reopened the investigation on May 4. It was now almost nine months since Kate’s body was found…

‘We Can’t Accept Suicide As The Only Explanation Of Kate’s Death'(Tom Fitzgerald, The Sunday Independent)

Kate Fitzgerald on Broadsheet