26 thoughts on “Friday’s Papers

  1. Gabby

    Irate passengers are pulling the leg of an Extinction Rebellion demonstrator – and the DUP is pulling Boris by the leg too.

  2. Steph Pinker

    The inclusion of some [of the unusual suspects] European papers is as subtle as a sledgehammer on a nut – nice touch though, Admin; more to folly?

  3. Kingfisher

    Yeah, nice to get more than the usual bunch of English papers. More cosmopolitan, even if these were chosen because they were the few talking about Britain.

    1. SoLo

      could be a consideration for future posts. Maybe a European option once the chord is cut with Britain?

  4. f_lawless

    Informative short video on the Hong Kong protests by US journalist Dan Cohen I thought was worth sharing –
    “It’s not a ‘pro-democracy’ movement. It’s a US government-trained and funded violent separatist movement run by operatives who exploit the plight of Hong Kong’s youth to enrich oligarchs and destabilise China…The Hong Kong protest leaders are part of an international group of billionaire-funded regime change operatives led by the US government as part of a ‘Cold War’ agenda”
    https://twitter.com/IntheNow_tweet/status/1184952226990698496

    1. spudnick

      You really are the most useful of useful idiots f_lawless. You see yourself as cleverer than the sheeple when all you’re doing is serving as a conduit for anti-Western propaganda. The West is doing a fine job of destabilising itself without any outside help. I have family in HK that realise that this is it for the territory – give in to China and that is the end of democracy, and in comes the censorship and authoritarianism of the CCP and there is no going back. That is why you see thousands of people on the street, week in and week out. This is the end of the line. How desperate are you to fuel your inflated opinion of yourself that you would happily do a totalitarian regime’s work for them.

  5. Rob_G

    I’m not sure I understand the rationale of disrupting the Tube – a plane, or blocking the entrance to a coal-fired power plant or something, sure. But disrupting one of the more environmentally-friendly forms of transport seems a bit counter-productive; if it happens often enough, its reliability will become suspect and more people will start taking their cars instead.

    1. Nigel

      It’s a serious mis-step by the people responsible, whatever the heck they were thinking. It’s undone a lot of goodwill, to say nothing of the violence.

    2. Listrade

      That’s because it isn’t a democratic protest, it’s It a US government-trained and funded violent separatist movement run by operatives who exploit the plight of the youth to undermine the legitimate concerns and protests against climate change and continue the enrichment of the oil industry and try and destabilise China and Russia and Saudi…The Extinction protest leaders are part of an international group of billionaire-funded regime change operatives led by the US government as part of a ‘Cold War’ agenda”*

      *might not be, but I’m pretty certain there’s an obligatory requirement to make everything a deep state conspiracy, plus I also lose track of who the bad guys are. It used to be the oil industry. Man we hated them. We even used to say they killed Tesla (the man not the car) because he invented perpetual motion and they suppressed him and killed him to maintain their profits. We even used to say that the Oil industry were in cahoots with the Military and Area 51 suppression free energy. That was when we had proper conspiracy theories where corporate giants and capitalists were the bad guys and stuff about aliens. Now we like capitalists and they’re the good guys being trampled on by the Guardian and a 16 year old girl, who are the real bad guys and billionaires and corporate giants. It’s too confusing.

      Hey remember when Greta caused a massive explosion in the Gulf and killed 11 people? Remember when it was all kicking off with the explosion, the spill and the deaths and Greta went off on holiday on her luxury yacht? Remember when she got fined $4.5bn? Or pleaded guilty to manslaughter of 11 people? Good job the Oil industry are the good guys now though. They never lie. Like their pals in the industry, they just want to protect jobs. I mean, sure you could point to their history of fighting all health and safety and environmental legislation. You could point to how coal workers are still riddled with occupational diseases and high fatality rates, poor pay, poor working conditions. But we have to protect the billionaires right to exploit natural resources, the environment and their workers all because we now f*cking hate the Guardian.

      1. Nigel

        Look, all you need to know is that the entire environmentalist movement is an elite plot to impose carbon taxes on the poor because otherwise otherwise they’d have no excuses for imposing taxes on the poor, as history has shown.

        1. V

          Well, since you mentioned it,
          Elite
          Look no further than careerist Jobs for the Boys mouthpiece John Fitzgerald
          Who left no-one in doubt around, or watching, the post Budget 2020 round table discussions about Carbon Taxes

          His opener every time was that the Minister should have imposed far higher rates of Carbon Taxes

          Now, in truth, I can’t remember what hat he was wearing or introduced under at the time
          But shur
          What does any of that matter to a blueshirt loyalist like himself

        2. f_lawless

          Nigel I think Bodger has a point. That’s a classic example of online trolling. Attempting to ridicule a person with facile misrepresentations of previous viewpoints expressed. It’s not a healthy form of discourse

          1. V

            with respect f-law
            and to you too Nidgie

            And of course Bodger

            That great son of Fine Gael, John Fitzgerald, is hard to avoid on any topic or panel
            He never shuts up – actually I wouldn’t be surprised if he has his own car space out there in Montrose

            But he was emphatic with his opinion; that the Carbon Taxes introduced by Paschal last week were nowhere near high enough or aggressive enough

            Now
            And I know – amongst all his other State Boards,The Minister will appoint gigs
            That he chairs the Climate whatever committee/ advisory council what-not

            But there is no effin way there wasn’t a motive behind his caustic soda voice
            And what ever it is, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I do know a lot about Independent professional opinion
            I can tell it was about raising revenue from the everyday person
            by hook or by crook
            Without any effort or alternative from Government

            There’s a very solid Lets keep those State Boards Pensions etc going and all that tune about it

            Carbon taxes in Ireland, have all the looks of what Stamp Duty on residential properties were back in the CT days

            Billions pouring in and they didn’t even have to put their hand out for it

          2. Nigel

            It does look facile but I don’t think it’s a misrepresentation.

            And, V, no centre right government ever needed more than an excuse to introduce regressive taxes, but if we’re going to keep electing centre right governments, that’s who we have to argue with and persuade, not some fantasy government that will do all the right things for all the right reasons

          3. V

            I see and totally accept the propensity of Centre Right Governments in Ireland

            Although it’s worth adding that we have listened to the voices of change, and gave them chances to represent us, only for them to fail, and force us to go back to our natural instinct and return our votes to the steady old comfy slippers again and again.

            But that is not an excuse to allow them the blind eye, ara’ shur they’ve always been like that.

            We must insist that Independent appointments and opinions actually means free from conflict Independent appointments and opinions

            We are continually forced to have the likes of John Fitzgerald post opinion on all sorts of important matters upon us as citizens when such blatant risk of influence exists

            And in this case, the conflict exists across a number of Independence Test thresholds
            Even on this issue of Carbon taxes, Climate Change, the world is ___ked, I am not being informed accurately, completely, or independently, by anyone charged with that responsibility.

            And given what you’ve just said – that I can’t deny myself, that we will continue to elect centre Right Governments, then oversight protections for the Citizen must be seen to be actually working, adhered to and proved to be in existence.

            It’s not a Fantasy Government that we should be worried about
            Its these Fantasy Independent Advisers and Originators and Experts who are paid to provide Independent oversight, keep the Citizen fully informed, as well as be part of the checks and balances of a Democracy that sees eff all change in its Governing.

            We as a Country don’t take these appointments seriously enough to question them. And we are letting these the Minister will appoint gigs away with murder.

            It is not enough anymore to snigger at their remuneration and replication and appearances across a whole Public Service of Committees, Advisory Councils, Boards, and Review Groups
            And here again on the National Broadcaster, themselves part of an industry that are no better in serving their mandate.

        3. f_lawless

          Nigel if you really believe I’d be so foolish to believe the ridiculous idea that “the entire environmentalist movement is an elite plot” then that really is condescending. To make an analogy, it’s like saying the entire Christian movement is a plot to direct wealth and power to the Vatican.

          “because otherwise otherwise they’d have no excuses for imposing taxes on the poor, as history has shown.”

          that doesn’t even make sense- you’re trying to imply that because the ruling class may have different means to impose taxes which extract wealth upwards from lower classes, it negates the notion that carbon taxes could be used as a means to do such a thing?

          Nah, just be adult enough to admit it. I called you out on some low-grade trolling

          1. Nigel

            It negates the notion that they need to manufacture a teenage activist and/or a new movement taking to the streets around the world to do so.

      2. spudnick

        “*might not be, but I’m pretty certain there’s an obligatory requirement to make everything a deep state conspiracy, plus I also lose track of who the bad guys are.”

        Reminds me of Hannah Arendt’s depressing quote: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

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