78 thoughts on “Thursday’s Papers

  1. scottser

    You just have to admire the sheer blind faith of the daily express. They’re like the moonies or some weird cult. If Boris asked their readers to drink spiked Robinson’s lemon barley water, they probably would.

  2. John F

    “a third of children aged 8-12 had been upset or scared by something they had seen online”
    talk about vague! Are we talking about kids witnessing an Islamic state beheading or being upset by a video clip showing a goal against their favourite football team?
    “robust regulation of the online service providers must be brought forward without delay”
    ever hear this thing called a VPN? Many browsers now come with them built in with them for free. No matter what they come up with it will be easily bypassed.
    Parents or guardians simply need to wise up and talk to, educate, take responsibility for what their kids to off-line and online.

    The British are playing a dangerous game, personally I am all for BREXIT. Look at how much money the UK saved by avoiding having to pay into the EU Covid fund etc. it cost us 17 billion. However, as a time when their time to negotiate trade deals around the world. It sends a bad signal to future partners that the following year they might tear up the agreement.

    1. Janet, dreams of big guns

      god forbid people have any accountability for their children, that includes their public behavior !

  3. GiggidyGoo

    Last minutes of Nphet meetings published on 12th August. So, what’s the excuse this time? Holidays?
    There have been some quite stasi type impositions on us, and there hasn’t been any minutes of these meetings to explain how those decisions were made. Are they meeting at all?

      1. GiggidyGoo

        At least that.
        At this stage, maybe those meetings should be televised live – there are quite a lot of members of Nphet and i doubt if each and every one of them put forward individual views at each meeting – maybe it’s just a series of statements by a minority, and a show of hands to signify agreement.
        I doubt everyone there concurs with everything, especially the ‘solutions’ that get announced.

  4. Hammock

    Good to see President Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the historic rapprochement between the UAE and Israel.I’m rather surprised at how little coverage there is of this.If his predecessor had been similarly rewarded for pulling off such a diplomatic coup his loyal supporters in the media would be excited by now.

    1. dav

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54092960
      “A far-right Norwegian politician has put Mr Trump’s name forward for the 2021 prize, citing the president’s role in the recent peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

      Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News on Wednesday: “For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees.”

    2. Charlie

      Ha..It should be noted that is was a far right Norwegian politician who nominated the chancer. Also, for a nomination alone, the barrier to entry is very low: all nominations from heads of state or politicians serving at a national level are accepted. You shouldn’t get too excited. There’s more chance of him winning the Grand National.

      1. bisted

        …dunno Charlie…they gave it to Obama who went on to bomb 8 countries, kill thousands of innocent kids and reinstate open slave markets…

        1. Charlie

          Incorrect. His moronic predecessor presented him with all of that to clean up. Bush was the biggest idiot to ever grace shoe leather. How he’s not swinging from a noose beside Saddam for his invasion of Iraq and the subsequent mess the country still endures still baffles me.

          1. Pat Mustard

            Nobody said he started them, and US military boots in any foreign country is invasion.

            Lybia, Syria, Yemen (proxy), Ukraine (proxy), Somalia and Pakistan.

            He ramped up troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

            He was at war for 8 years.

            Worst war record ever for an American president.

          2. Charlie

            You’re a spoofer. “US boots in any foreign company is an invasion”?? Are you for real? Where are you copy n pasting this drivel from? The US have had boots on the ground in many countries around the globe for decades long before Obama and will have long after him. They have military bases in every geographical strategic country on the planet. Germany, Israel, Turkey etc etc etc ..and you consider that an invasion? What in the name of almighty are you reading? You also just said he “took them into”. He didn’t. Iraq was started by your hero Bush and Afghanistan was in progress long before Obama arrived on the scene. Obama arrived and had to begin the process of cleaning up his catastrophic mess. Obama had zero to do with the other 6 nations you cherry picked from some propaganda bull. Seriously dude, educate yourself and quit the spoofing. Btw, I’m no Obama fan but you’re making a fool of yourself.

            We’re on candid camera, right?

          3. Charlie

            So looking forward to your details about the 6 wars Obama “took them into”? Tap, Tap, Tap… We’re waiting

        2. Vanessanelle

          + V

          in fact I’d go so far and say he’s a right chance of winning

          but rather than provoke and divide
          they’ll probably go with another NGO

          In fairness, it was already long overdue for the Médecins Sans Frontières crowd

          1. Nigel

            His presidency is such a burning wreck I doubt it’ll go far outside the sorts of people who think hating Palestinians more than they hate Jews means they’re not anti-semitic.

          2. Pat Mustard

            He’ll easily get 4 more years. Considering his opponent, “the moral choice”, Joe Biden is a demented, racist, misogynist with a history of plagiarism, its not even a contest.

          3. Nigel

            That’s the view from planet Q.

            (He might win, thanks to Fox News, the Q cult, foreign interference, voter supression, and the MMS finding a Butter Emails story to pin on Biden, but that’s the sort of thing that makes 2020 so… interesting. But he won’t get a Nobel.)

    1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

      I am glad I am not the only person who was enraged by that statement. What a tosser. How sad must you be if you can’t just let it be an Irish win, when the Brits have won so much in cycling, recently? Are they at it again?

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        Belgian Bradley Wiggins? The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse, eh Bradders? Of course he’s going to claim other nationalities for Empire. It’s how he had such a well funded career.

      2. Hammock

        It’s two old mates slagging.
        Like mates did before the internet was invented and people lost their sense of humour.
        Get over yourselves.

  5. Hammock

    The appropriately-named Christian is quite right,of course.Apart from Lebanon Israel is the Middle-East’s only democracy and the UAE the most liberal of the Arab regimes so this is a remarkable peace initiative.And anything the weakens the murderous influence of the Palestinian state where LGBT people are routinely persecuted has to be a good thing.Likewise Iran.President Trump has pulled off a masterstroke.

    1. bisted

      …er…the UAE routinely and ritually execute perceived wrongdoers by beheading…grounds for execution include apostasy and homosexuality…

      1. Charlie

        “Routinely…” Incorrect. The last time someone was executed in the UAE was in 2017 and it was a man who raped and killed an 8 year old. Execution was too good for that animal. There have been just 7 executions in the last 20 years.

          1. Charlie

            And that makes them “besties” with the Sheiks. I’ve lived in the UAE and they’re not even on their radar. Have you any idea how the royal families work over there. Whatever you’re reading is sensationalistic tripe. Seriously, what planet are you on?

  6. dav

    https://www.thejournal.ie/how-many-people-have-died-from-covid-19-in-ireland-5198763-Sep2020/
    “A VIDEO THAT has been widely shared in the last 24 hours claims just 100 people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland.
    The video, which was recorded live outside Government Buildings in Dublin last night, has been viewed around 400,000 times, shared 13,000 times and commented on almost 4,000 times to date.
    Ben Gilroy, an anti-government campaigner who features in the video, shared it on his Facebook page
    ….Similar claims about Covid-19 death statistics have been made in several other countries including the US – something referenced in the video itself. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently said it has been inundated with queries about false rumours that the official tally of Covid-19 deaths in the US is only 6% of the reported figure of about 185,000. The claim, being promoted by supporters of QAnon conspiracies, again extrapolates the percentage of deaths where people had no underlying health conditions.
    One such post that was retweeted by US President Trump was removed by Twitter for breaching its guidelines.
    … Of the 1,777 deaths reported to date in Ireland, 1,519 are confirmed, 99 are probable and 159 are possible.
    When asked how Covid-19 deaths are recorded, a spokesperson for the HSE previously told TheJournal.ie: “In cases where an individual who has had a positive Covid-19 test before or after death, this will be notified to the national surveillance system and reported by HPSC as a death in a confirmed Covid-19 case.”

  7. GiggidyGoo

    A new graded Covid-19 alert system will allow the Government to introduce local lockdowns based on the level of coronavirus in a county or region.
    Under a soon-to-be published plan for living with the virus, five levels of restrictions will be introduced – with one being the least severe and five the most.
    Above reported by the Indo.

    Whatever about colour coded warnings about weather which will visit us regardless of such a coding system, what difference will a numbering system do, apart from giving the Government an easy out.
    “Why did you close Arklow?”
    “Five”

    1. Cian

      If done properly it will be done like the weather.

      With the weather there are predefined limits where a Yellow, Orange or Red warning is called. It is clear and there is no ambiguity. If the wind speed is 75km/h it is a Orange (Wind) warning. If there is 50mm rain in 6 hrs or less it is a Red (rain) warning. There are guidelines about how to handle the different warnings – e.g. schools are closed for red warnings.

      If they compile a list of defined limits (be it positive cases, hospital admissions, ICU beds) that corresponds to a particular level, and the response/limitations for that level, and the geographical extent (i.e. is it at county level or do we sub-divide some counties). Kildare had >65 cases per 100k – so went into lockdown. If any other area hits that level – it needs to go into lockdown. If you publish these limits and outcomes then there is no cheating unfair interpretation – if Kildare is locked down with >65 cases… then you have to close Dublin if it hits the same threshold.

        1. Cian

          Yup. Which is why I think it is better for them to lay out there approach now – what are the parameters; what are the time-frames; what are the limits; what are the areas. That way they can’t gerrymander the cases to suit their needs.

      1. f_lawless

        The original rationale for lockdowns was that if people’s movements were restricted BEFORE the virus arrived within the community then this could in theory buy some time, delay the inevitable for a while and “flatten the curve”. But the reality was that in most countries, significant community spread had already gone undetected before the decision was made to go into lockdown. At a later point, scientists realised that up to 80% of a population only have relatively mild symptoms or none at all. We now know that the virus had already arrived to places in Europe at least as far back as October 2019.

        Now we’re at this late stage in the evolution of the pandemic. The epidemiological curve in Ireland has followed the classic rise and fall of the so called “Gompertz Curve” – the same observed across Europe in the countries that locked down and those that didn’t.

        The virus is now “endemic”: – “In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is constantly maintained at a baseline level in a geographic area without external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic (steady state) in the United Kingdom, but malaria is not. Every year, there are a few cases of malaria reported in the UK, but these do not lead to sustained transmission in the population due to the lack of a suitable vector (mosquitoes of the genus”

        We have a government and health officials who will never bring themselves to admit that the whole lockdown strategy was a dreadful mistake of historic proportions. The have to persist with maintaining the illusion that they are dictating the course the virus takes; that local lockdowns will prevent a so called “2nd wave”. when really all the evidence is indicating that outbreaks of clusters won’t lead to any 2nd wave. The vectors for widespread transmission aren’t there.

          1. Junkface

            Seems like there are a lot of people on here willing to gamble with their own health as well as their parents and grandparents lives. Sound.

          2. GiggidyGoo

            Cian – cast your mind back to March when many were pointing out the stupidity of allowing planeloads of Italians land, and not controlling the horsey people. Didn’t seem to bother you too much about 1000’s of deaths then.

        1. Cian

          @f_lawless
          The original rationale for lockdowns was that if people’s movements were restricted BEFORE the virus arrived within the community then this could in theory buy some time, delay the inevitable for a while and “flatten the curve”.

          No it wasn’t. It was to slow down the transmission: reduce the number of people that each infected person would infect. Lower the R₀.

          1. SOQ

            The R is bullpooo- it does not take into account how many people are naturally immune or those who were previously infected- how could it?

          2. Cian

            The R₀ is how “many new people did I infect”.
            This is what contact tracing is all about. For each new case, they trace all their contacts and test them… and you count all the people you find that were infected – and that it R₀.

            If people are immune or those who were previously infected then they won’t be infected… so aren’t counted in the R₀.

            R₀ was estimated back in March; now is it actually calculated.

    1. Vanessanelle

      They already do charge negative interest on Credit Union deposits

      a handy earner lined up for them by the Bankers Lobby and the CBoI by way of the Dept of Finance
      Some might say

      Billions in Regulatory Reserve readies handcuffed- just to get interest revenue flooding in

      Regulatory Apartheid asaic

      but another bank dig-out most definitely

      1. GiggidyGoo

        And leeches like Hayes, now with McGuinness (FG) at the helm as Finance Commissioner in Europe, will have the advantage and advance notice probably.
        I hope someone reveals his partygoers in Clifden.

        1. Vanessanelle

          + the head Finance Minister in Europe btw

          At this point I’d be more interested in who Brian Hayes has been wined and dined by
          and vice versa
          what training/ seminars conferences etc he was at
          Here and overseas btw
          since he was allocated that gig

          There was definitely a long lead up to his departure from his MEP perch to his appointment here

      2. Cian

        @V
        What rate is used for the negative interest?
        Did they pay interest when the rates were positive?
        What rate was used for the positive interest?

        1. Vanessanelle

          pay attention to the 2020 AGMs C!an
          exactly what is being paid by Credit Union Members to Banks in Negative Interest on overly aggressive and unnecessary excessive reserves is going to be reported as a seperate line item in the Accounts for the year

          and go and ask your own Credit Union those questions

    2. Cian

      A bank is a business. They provide a service. You pay for that service.

      Traditionally interest rates were positive. So a bank would make, say, 5% interest on your deposit (they would only pay you 2% – keeping the other 3% as their fee). You got “free” banking because they were making money on that 3%.

      But now interest rates are negative, not only is the bank losing money on your deposit they are also not making that 3% mark-up. To keep in business they need (choose) to charge you for the service they provide.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Free banking was on current accounts. A current account shouldn’t be used by the bank for investment (the 3% you mention). That’s why there are two main types of account – current for the daily ins and outs of cash, and deposit for savings.

        No qualms with them being a business. However the cards are stacked in their favour. Their fees are too high, and if you overdraw without permission you are penalized – but if they do the reverse and don’t put money on your account when they should, you can’t penalize them.

        Add to that their use of software that’s years out of date, the lack of customer service in branch etc. it’s no wonder that people are turning to N26 and the like.

        I have no pity for Irish banks.

          1. Hammock

            Vauxhall Conference ?
            Surely, Turkmenistan Yokary Liga at best.
            Certainly the laughing stock of the European banking system.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Look up their website. All explained there. Protected to €100,000

        They’re sh..hot. The second you complete a transaction, you get a phone notification with the shop name, the time and the amount. I’d think they’re using something more modern that Windows XP.

      2. Cian

        I second this. But with a heads-up for Revolut .
        Same idea – different company (free banking, app, instant transactions, both real and virtual credit cards)..

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