51 thoughts on “Sunday’s Papers

  1. Shayna

    The second wave of the Pandemic/Sectarian Targeting of a new East Belfast GAA club/Beirut. It’s clear that unsafe storage of Ammonium Nitrate was responsible for the obliteration of Beirut – and the devastation of their supply chain – now it’s Tripoli, the next biggest port. During the 30 years war in Lebanon – I grew up around that time – early 70s in Ireland – The Europa Hotel in Belfast was renowned as the most blown-up hotel outside of Beirut. Different and devastating this time 1/12th of the population are f***ed. Their government – well, that’s the problem.
    Shayna rarely mentions the GAA, but exceptionally, she’ll mention the wholly sectarian attack on a new GAA club in East Belfast, The Club is called, “East Belfast” . The PSNI closed down roads in East and West of Belfast on Thursday. The cops arrested a 54 year old loyalist type with bomb making materials, who targeted the GAA on social media. The pandemic mask thing in shops scenario – Shayna’s is black – also I invariably wear a hat – also, I’m kinda tall, but very polite.

    1. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

      Bertie is amused by Shayna’s choice to refer to herself in the third person.

      1. Lush

        Lush has also noticed, and is glad someone else brought it up first.
        Lush thinks she sees correlation between the time of the post and the grammatical preferences.

        We’ve all been there.

  2. SOQ

    I hope broadsheet don’t mind but I am going to bump this again because it affects every single man, woman and child on the island of Ireland.

    https://twitter.com/Thorgwen/status/1291768619744088064/photo/1

    According to these figures, in the middle of what we were told was the biggest pandemic of our lifetimes, there has been a drop in overall fatalities- which makes no sense whatsoever.

    Unless someone can give me a rational explanation for this anomaly, what we are looking at is a fraudulent reclassification which has caused untold hardship and misery to many- the extent of which has yet to be revealed.

    1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

      Have you got the statistics for hospital bed occupancy, medical worker absentee due to illness, number of people with myocarditis, number of people requiring double lung transplants, etc., compared with previous years? The death toll is only part of the story.

      1. SOQ

        @ Formely, yes all those points are valid but I don’t see how they would have an impact on the overall fatality rate?

        1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

          When the hospitals are full and there aren’t any medical staff left, more people will die from more causes. That hasn’t happened because of lockdowns.

          1. Cian

            It is almost like some people here have forgotten the army in Italy being needed to remove all the corpses. And the icerinks being used as temporary morgue.

            But sure it’s just a bit of a flu.

          2. Janet, dreams of big guns

            now Cian it’s not that straightforward,
            demographics, social behavior and lower testing capacity are just some of the reasons why Italy and Spain had the highest number of deaths in the world initially, for examplethe first group of people to get hit by the virus in the country were the elderly.

            OECD data shows that Italy has the second oldest population in the world, after Japan.

          3. Cian

            So it’s “Just a flu” unless you are Italian, Spanish, British, or from New York? Then it is really serious?

          4. SOQ

            Agreed Janet- Dr Macus de Brun is of the opinion that the rate per million is very misleading because more than 90% of the fatalities are in the over 65 category.

            Sweden for example has 3 times the number of over 65’s than Ireland and as a percentage, have less deaths than Ireland within that group.

            And then there is the other issue of previous mild respiratory viral years. Viruses sweep every year and countries which had two mild seasons beforehand had a spike in 2020, while those who average or higher fatalities did not- this is borne out by the data- Italy is definitely in the first group.

            But none of that explains why we are supposed to have an ADDITIONAL 1700 then revised down to 1100, while ALSO having a lower over all fatality rate than the previous three years.

            People did not just stop dying from other things.

          5. Cian

            “Sweden for example has 3 times the number of over 65’s than Ireland and as a percentage, have less deaths than Ireland within that group. ”
            FAKE NEWS (aka lies)

            How is this relevant? Sweden has over 2 times the population of Ireland. They have more older people (20% are over 65; we have 14%).

            In terms of deaths:
            Sweden 8,750 deaths from 10.3 million = 550 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,770 deaths from 4.9 million = 360 per 100,000

            For the under 65s:
            Sweden 342 deaths from 8.2 million = 41 per 100,000
            Ireland 119 deaths from 4.2 million = 28 per 100,000

            For the over 65:
            Sweden 5,358 deaths from 2 million = 2,595 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,653 deaths from 0.7million = 2,374 per 100,000

    2. Lush

      I’m dubious about many things since this all started, SOQ; and while I can understand what you’re getting at, and why you are being so vehemently sceptical, I don’t get my facts off a Twitter account. Nor do I come onto Broadsheet to ask for confirmation or otherwise. I suspect you’ll have to dig deeper for the real facts; but I wouldn’t trust the internet.

      1. SOQ

        No question but those ARE official figures form welfare.ie- the only question is if the last two weeks in May will marginally rise- they ARE the real facts.

        I am just asking if there is something else I am missing is all because I find it hard to believe that we have gone through all of this for something with such questionable fatality rates.

      1. SOQ

        Thank you Cú- that is a refreshing perspective.

        The game changer I think will be a test for SARS-Cov-2 t cells. They already have one for SARS-Cov-1 and there appears to be a link between high levels of people testing positive for SARS-Cov-1 t cells and low infection rates of 2- which would make sense as one is a derivative of the other.

  3. Gabby

    Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that endeavours to strive for certain knowledge. It seeks to test how we know and how we can verify what we know. Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State for Defence in Washington DC in 2002, famously declared about political and military intelligence: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”
    His words/thoughts could be applied to the quest for true and certain knowledge about the corona-19 pandemic. I am particularly drawn to his concept of ‘unknown unknowns’. These are the facts and insights into knowledge that we know we don’t know. We need to tread warily knowing that there is uncertainty about certain certainties.
    Enjoy your breakfast and avoid crowds.

    1. Mary (Never) Wong

      I want to puke instead. Rumsfeld was the subject of widespread mockery for years for that speech which was used to justify mass murder and genocide

      1. Lush

        The Devil can cite scripture for his own ends, etc, etc. And I agree re Rumsfeld. But it doesn’t take away from the point being made; it’s an interesting point of debate
        Does anybody remember the concept of debate?

        1. Mary (Never) Wong

          Yes I see what you’re doing there.
          Gabby is citing as a reference that is a summary of some kind of an example of a starting point. I’d prefer to debate the known, the provable or logical and else the bar still can be the venue for the speculative.

  4. Janet, dreams of big guns

    Brexit Say the French ? Well stopping the migrants crossing the manche is no longer our problem..
    actually much as I love it there it’s a very infuriating personality traits of the French to always react initially to a complaint with ” it wasn’t me ” or ” it’s not my problem ” , especially in the workplace, I’d have to explain the nouvelle concept of that being irrelevant and actually being there to discuss a solution,
    I guess the solution here is ” it’s not our problem anymore “…

    1. Janet, dreams of big guns

      hang on …are the Irish government French in disguise with the collusion of terrible tailors

    2. Lush

      At the same time, who’s footing the bill of 8 million euros/year to check freight traffic? It’s not the UK, it’s the port of Calais.
      And while I agree with your point re our Gallic friends, I’m more than happy to get to use that word again:
      schadenfreude.

      1. Janet, dreams of big guns

        oh I wasn’t judging them, merely an observation :)
        it’s your word of the week !

  5. One user, one usename please

    Star – any excuse to say “Willie”. Good though.

    @Bojodger And why am I on the Naughty List again (third time in three days). Getting a bit much now.

    1. Cú Chulainn

      Definitely a touch of that going on. Though I won’t thank you for bringing that link into my previously innocent life. Any chance the Independent would have led with a major apology to John Hume..?

      1. Vanessanelle

        Yeah, sorry about that Cú
        That risk did pass my mind – even dithered about it for a bit
        But figured it would do more good than harm in the long run if t’would make lads a bit more wary.

        Anyway Re: the latter part of your post.
        No Irish media apologise unless there is a legal boot up their behinds
        So I doubt the Indo will change all that

        Although you’d think Shane Ross would man up
        And find his own balls

        Anyway, hang tight Cú
        All that pretending the CU movement doesn’t exist in any material way will be coming to an end soon

        V

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