A giant statue of Kim Jong-il has been unveiled ahead of Thursday’s celebrations of the 70th anniversary of his birthday. This is the first bronze sculpture of the late North Korean leader. The 6-metre bronze statue depicts him riding a horse next to his late father, Kim Il-sung, also on horseback.
Look! See how happy the people are:
Oh.
CIVIL servants snooped on personal data and recklessly passed it on to unknown callers — but they kept their jobs after pleading ignorance.
The Irish Independent has learnt that almost 100 employees in the Department of Social Protection accessed and passed on highly sensitive information, or snooped on their friends, colleagues and well-known personalities.
But despite thousands of records being improperly accessed over the past seven years, not one member of staff has been sacked for their conduct. This is despite them breaching both the Data Protection Act and the department’s own internal rules.
Ho.
Hum.
Start here.
A homage to the Blackrock conflagration earlier and the The Black Keys El Camino promo currently adorning Broadsheet.
In addition, another Irish company, AdaptiveMobile Security Ltd., which is also based in Dublin, has supplied message- filtering technology to MTN Syria, the country’s second-largest mobile operator, according to four people familiar with that system. While AdaptiveMobile executives declined to comment for this story, in interviews last year concerning the sale of its product to a mobile operator in Iran, they said its technology is for blocking spam, viruses and inappropriate content, not political repression.
Syria Bars Text Messages With Irish-Made Gear (Bloomberg)
Malachy the Pekingese has just been awarded Best in Show at the 136th annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York. The four-year-old goofball positively glows with pride and will now wobble along with an extra spring in his step
Damn hipsters.
@broadsheet_ie Spotted in Smithfield, this morning. twitter.com/OniRiain/statu…
— Orlagh Ryan (@OniRiain) February 15, 2012
“Will swap for good bicycle.”
K writes:
Driver went to grab a coffee and came out and the engine was on fire.
Update (from the original submitter via their building’s facilities management):
The man hadn’t gone in for coffee as we were initially told, the car started smoking, he stopped it to check it out then rolled it on away from an ESB substation and the entrance to a building, so tell the cyclists and perfect people to feck off.
The choices for girls: Magdalene or Swastika.
YOU decide.
From New Spotlight magazine, May 1969.
Via Brand New Retro
A picture essay from Maudlin Vale estate, Trim, Co Meath, with resident Derak O’Boyle.
The houses were constructed by Baltra Developments Ltd, a firm owned by Kildare-based builder Gerry Skelly. According to The Meath Chronicle, permission had been granted for 110 houses but only around 45 were built by the time the recession hit leaving the remainder of the site abandoned with “exposed ESB cables,10-feet deep holes in the ground, 30-foot high topsoil mounds, protruding manholes, open drains, derelict prefabs, builders’ rubbish, rusted wire fences and even rats”.
Some of the houses, which were averaging prices of around €300,000 at the height of the boom, are now worth just over €100,000.
Meath County Council have sent letters to the developers but nothing has been done in the four years Derek has lived here,
