Category Archives: Misc

This afternoon.

Collins Place, Finglas East, Dublin 11.

Via RTÉ News:

A man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of 36-year-old Sandra Boyd, who was shot dead at her parent’s home in Dublin on Saturday night

Gardaí suspect that someone in the house had access to an illegal firearm and that Ms Boyd may have intervened before she was shot.

A number of people were in the house at the time of the shooting and gardaí had been looking to speak to one person in particular who knew Ms Boyd and who left the house after the shooting.

Gardaí are also investigating if shots fired at a nearby house in a separate shooting incident last Tuesday were intended for the house where the firearm was found.

Man held after woman shot dead in Dublin (RTE)

Sasko Lazarov/Rollingnews

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

This afternoon

Further to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s weekend move to ban 11 left wing opposition parties…

…Via The Spectator:

The news that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has banned eleven opposition parties – including the pro-Russian ‘Opposition – Platform For Life’ which holds 44 seats in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament and has spoken out against the Russian invasion – may be the embattled leader’s first major mistake in the month since Putin launched his brutal invasion.

…For Ukraine’s strongest card – the unique selling point that has drawn such sympathy and support from almost the entire democratic world – has been the fact that, in stark contrast to Putin’s repressive Russian state, it is – or was – a free country.

That means that it holds real elections, has a diverse media, and allows politicians critical of the government to get their views heard. All things that we take for granted but which have already disappeared or are fast vanishing in Putin’s prison state.

That difference drew a dramatic line between the society that the majority of Ukrainians wished to live in, and the big bad neighbour from hell next door. Tragically, Zelensky’s two moves fatally blur that line.

…The danger for Ukraine following these martial law moves is that, however well grounded the decisions are for reasons of its own security, they risk making the country resemble the Russian invader who cracks down on opposition and stifles critical voices. And the western nations that have so far been so solid in their support may start to ask themselves whether Ukraine is now treading a dangerous path.

…So is the suppression of opposition by Zelensky a sign of strength – a confident government acting ruthlessly to crackdown on the enemy within? Or is it a confession of weakness, an admission that beneath the veneer of unity and resistance there are many Ukrainians prepared to compromise or even collude and collaborate with the invader who is devastating their country? Either way, it is not a good look for a man who has been seen as the heroic symbol of freedom against tyranny.

Is Zelensky’s party crackdown his first mistake? (The Spectator)

Getty

This morning/afternoon.

Via RTÉ News:

The European Medicines Agency said the new drug – Wegovy – has been approved for patient use in all EU countries, for adults with obesity who have at least one weight-related health issue.

The drug is administered through a weekly injections. Clinical trials found that Wegovy was found to affect weight loss of 17% in patients who took it every week for a year.

However, the weight loss was only sustained if the drug is continued long-term.

Finally.

*wobble*

New obesity drug approved for use in Ireland (RTE)

 

Yesterday.

Via Mail on Sunday.

More than two years since Covid-19 emerged, many feel they want a simple answer: how many were killed by this virus?

Last week, The Mail on Sunday set about tackling the ongoing concerns that tests used to diagnose Covid were picking up people who were not actually infected.

The conclusion of some scientists was, yes, they did. And there were those who maintained that despite shortcomings, PCR swabs – used by millions – were accurate enough.

Yet one study suggested that as many as a third of all positive cases may not have been infectious at the time they took the test.

It not only means the true scale of the pandemic could have been distorted, but also that many people may have been forced to self-isolate unnecessarily.

Equally concerning is the idea that the UK’s stark and terrifying death figures – which were broadcast daily – were misleading and even overblown.

The chaotic way mortalities were recorded during the pandemic could mean thousands were WRONGLY blamed on the virus (Eve Simmons, Mail on Sunday)

This morning.

The 96FM Opinion Line with PJ Coogan

Fiona Corcoran writes:

Melanie Gillespie, daughter of the late Brendan Grace, is trying to track down a Cork couple who she met at the Galway Clinic in July 2019, shortly before the death of her beloved father.

She had taken a photograph of them (above), but never got to send it to them and she’s hoping to find them now and pass it on.

Anyone?

Abbacaxi – Endless

Lord of the trance.

Multi-instrumentalist Abbacaxi (top) adds dancefloor beats to a mellow melody on the title track from his new EP Endless.

The mind-expanding animation is by Des Garvey.

Abbacaxi writes:

“I experienced a lot of highs and lows in a short period of time but I realised I wasn’t the only one around me feeling depressed from time to time. For every really bad experience, there is an amazing one waiting around the corner. Life is so much easier when you remember that.”

Nick says: Good advice.

Abbacaxi

Diarmuid Rossa Phelan

This morning.

The High Court has refused bail to a 53-year-old barrister and law professor who is accused of murder.

Via RTE News:

Diarmuid Rossa Phelan from Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, in Dublin, is charged with murdering 36-year-old Keith Conlon, who was shot at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane in Tallaght, on 22 February.

Gardaí told the High Court last week that Mr Phelan was considered a flight risk as he had extensive contacts abroad and owned considerable assets.

His defence counsel, Michael O’Higgins, submitted to the court that his client is a person who has a greater understanding of having to meet a court order “rather than 99.9% of the population“.

But Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy ruled today that Mr Phelan posed a serious flight risk if admitted on bail.

Barrister accused of murder is refused bail (RTE)

Previously: Charged

From top: Labour’s Ivana Bacik and  Alan Kelly outside Leinster House last month; Anthony Sheridan

Writing in the Irish Times recently about the continuing decline of the Labour Party, historian Diarmaid Ferriter asks:

Is there really much difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats and would it not make sense for them to coalesce?

The same question has been asked many times by journalists and politicians since the people effectively rejected the party in the 2016 election.  The question is always advanced as a possible strategy for rescuing Labour from extinction.

That mainstream journalists and politicians would scramble around looking for strategies to save the party is not surprising but it is disappointing to witness a prominent historian engaging in the same hopeless delusion when he really should know the answer.

So, for Mr. Ferriter’s benefit and other’s hoping that, by some miracle, the Labour Party can be saved – here’s the unvarnished truth.

The Labour Party is heading for extinction because it is, first and foremost, a loyal member of the ruling political class.  A large and increasing number of voters have come to realise that the party does not represent their interests and vote accordingly.  Election results do not lie, the brutal political reality is out there for everybody to see.

Also, in recent years, particularly since the economic catastrophe of 2008, more and more voters have come to realise that the political establishment itself is rotten to the core.

The people have delivered the same message in every recent election – a demand for radical political change.  Labour, instead of answering that call, has doggedly remained loyal to the corrupt political regime that the electorate is rejecting in their droves.

And this is where the difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats crystalises, this is what Mr. Ferriter should know.

The Social Democrats are anti-establishment, they were created as a direct result of political corruption within the establishment.  The party’s raison d’être is to rid the state of the disease of political corruption that has infected the body politic for decades.

If the Social Democrats was to merge with Labour they would almost certainly suffer the same fate as the Progressive Democrats.  They too came into existence in protest against political corruption, principally under the corrupt politician Haughey.  But over the years and particularly under the leadership of Mary Harney, the party returned to its rotten Fianna Fáil roots.  That betrayal of hope and trust signed the party’s death warrant.

In the run-up to the 1992 election Labour Party leader, Dick Spring convinced many, including myself, that the party was determined to represent the people rather than powerful interests.

I was particularly impressed when Spring, most unusually, revealed the truth about a fellow ruling elite party when he accurately described Haughey and Fianna Fáil’s influence on politics as ‘a cancer in the body politic’.

Shortly afterwards, Spring cravingly led Labour into coalition with the ‘cancerous’ Fianna Fáil exposing the naked truth that his true loyalties lay with the power and privileges of the ruling political class and not with the people.

Mr. Ferriter, in common with all mainstream commentators is unaware of or refuses to acknowledge the truth behind the rapidly changing political landscape.  Instead of facing reality, he clutches at straws of hope for the doomed party.

Perhaps, he suggests, Labour may regain momentum if Sinn Féin suffers as a consequence of making hard decisions in government.

That a negative performance by one party might help save Labour is as ridiculous as the idea that a positive performance of another [Social Democrats] might do the same.

The choice facing Labour is simple – remain loyal to the current dying political regime or respond to the demands of the people for radical political change by becoming a genuinely radical left wing party.

No prizes for guessing which road Ivana Bacik will take.

Anthony Sheridan is a freelance journalist and blogs at Back Garden Philosophy

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