Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

Early in the afternoon last Friday, Der Spiegel dropped a monster bombshell when it said that Greece was threatening to leave the Eurozone, and that an emergency meeting had been convened for that night among top leaders.

It was obviously partially true.

There was a meeting on Friday, and there is an acknowledgment that the current bailout path is unsustainable.

But the explosive report always seemed a little fishy, like something emanating from interested German sources.

Professor: Here’s The REAL Conspiracy Behind Reports Of Greece Leaving The Euro (Business Insider)

A Lithuanian man told Gardai he shoved an iron bar up another man’s rectum and then urinated on him to make little of him as is the tradition in his country because he owed him money for drugs, a trial in Galway heard yesterday.

Really? We usually find a terse email and a little light snubbing does the trick.

Court told of depraved torture attack over drugs debt (Galway City Tribune)

The identities of a string of celebrities who have taken out super-injunctions to protect their private lives have been exposed on Twitter.

In a direct breach of a slew of draconian court orders issued over the past few months, a blogger tweeted the names of celebrities to thousands of internet users.

The expose, by the blogger, who calls himself Super Injunction, became a ‘trending term’ on Twitter, which means it was one of the most talked-about subjects on the site.

However, the names of the stars and certain key facts that could reveal their identities have been replaced by the term ‘REDACTED’ – a legal term to describe the removal of sensitive material.

Exposed on Twitter: Top-secret super-injunction names revealed on internet (Mail Online)

Super Injunction on Twitter
Mail pic via Fieldproducer

Osama Bin Laden had some interesting items sewn into his clothes, according to CNN:

‘Osama bin Laden had 500 Euros (about $745) in cash and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing when he was killed, a source present at a classified briefing on the operation Tuesday told CNN Wednesday.’

The numbers, an official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, were for a Pizza Hut and a 24-hour taxicab service in Highbury, North London.

Truth or trollth?

BoingBoing

Typewriters will no longer be produced anywhere in the world. Mashable.com tells us:

The last company on earth to produce the typewriter — Godrej and Boyce — has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India, according to reports that, fittingly, are making the rounds via the Internet.

The company’s general manager, Milind Dukle, told India’s Business Standard newspaper: “We are not getting many orders now.”

The announcement ends a long run for the device, which was once a mainstay of office life. A prototype of the typewriter was introduced in 1714 by Henry Mill, but the first mass-produced typewriter came in 1868 when Christopher Latham Sholes, a printer-publisher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, patented the device.

The typewriter hit its peak of production in the 1950s when Smith-Corona sold 12 million of the machines in the last quarter of 1953. But, thanks to the encroachment of the personal computer, only about 400,000 typewriters had been sold annually by 2009.

As a farewell salute to the typewriter, here’s Jerry Lewis with an imaginary one.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJBfvWjlk0

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said there needs to be a public inquiry into the events that led to the EU/IMF bailout.

Her comments follow former Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan’s remarks in a BBC radio documentary, that the European Central Bank ‘forced’ Ireland to take the bailout.

Ms Burton says all those who sat around the Cabinet table of the last government need to come before a Dáil inquiry to answer questions about what happened.

Joan Burton Calls For Bailout Inquiry (RTE News)

“I have a very vivid memory of going to Brussels on the final Monday and being on my own at the airport and looking at the snow gradually thawing and thinking to myself: this is terrible. No Irish minister has ever had to do this before”.

The former Irish Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, in his first major interview since the Irish bailout last November recalls his feelings as he prepared to sign up to the 85 billion euro bailout – a deal which would end Ireland’s economic sovereignty.

Listen here.

(Photocall Ireland)

“The news this morning that a former AIB bank executive received €3m remuneration in 2010 will be greeted by anger, frustration and disbelief by the Irish public.  I share these feelings,” said Deputy Brian Lenihan.

Fianna Fail.ie (19 April, 2011)

AIB WAS directed by government officials, acting on behalf of then minister for finance Brian Lenihan, to pay Colm Doherty his contractual entitlements when it was told to dismiss him as managing director last September.

John Corrigan, chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), wrote to the board of the bank directing that it terminate Mr Doherty’s contract as a condition of the second bailout of the bank. In the letter, AIB was told to pay him what he was entitled to under his contract.

Mr Corrigan was writing on the direction of the minister.

(Irish Times, 21 April, 2011)

Which feelings would you like to share with Brian?

Doherty payout directed by government (Irish Times)

The Revenue Commissioners Annual Report