Things that make you go What the F**k?

[Milltown Row2]

Getting out of the fecking car park at the Balmoral Show!! Whole fcuk

[Tony Baloney]

Getting out of the fecking car park at the Balmoral Show!! Whole fcuk

Going tomorrow. What time did you leave at? Planning to be there by 10 and left by 2. I remember last year the crowds started to get heavy around lunchtime.

[Franko]

Two takes on the same interview...

BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32733033

Carney: UK productivity not harmed by foreign workers


Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3079786/Gloomy-Bank-England-downgrades-growth-forecast-Carney-signals-rates-rise-year.html

Foreign workers drag down UK wages, says bank chief: Carney's explosive intervention as number of EU migrants working here hits 2million


The graphic on the Mail article showing the 'surge' in Romanian and Bulgarian workers entering the UK is particularly laughable.

[armaghniac]

Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3079786/Gloomy-Bank-England-downgrades-growth-forecast-Carney-signals-rates-rise-year.html

Foreign workers drag down UK wages, says bank chief: Carney's explosive intervention as number of EU migrants working here hits 2million

Why doesn't Carney feck off back to Canada, so?

[Hereiam]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23061277


This sounds like something from Salt Lake City. Capacity for 3000 worshipers? That would be a good venue for a Nathan Carter concert!

I would be more concerned that they were able to buy a piece of land inside the Ballymena town boundaries for £4m when it was recently valued before that at £75m, even taking into account the melt down that is a serious bargain. Wonder who signed if off and who the planners are and what church they attend etc

Also a bit of digging into the 'Pastor' would make for an interesting story.

The Green Pastures church was founded in 2007 by Pastor Jeff Wright, a member of the Ballymena bus-building family.

Is it true that at Wright bus they start the day with a communal prayer?

Well i see it been givem the go ahead by the new super council.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-32739047

[offtheground]

Is it true that at Wright bus they start the day with a communal prayer?
[/quote]


No

[armaghniac]

http://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/prince-charles-has-never-been-in-the-ira-confirms-washington-post-677872.html

That's Washington Post not Waterford Whispers!

[highorlow]

How long before she gets a name?


http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0521/702714-sheep-dublin/

[AZOffaly]

How long before she gets a name?


http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0521/702714-sheep-dublin/

I heard she was just there for the filming of the Dublin version of Silence of the Lambs. Shut up Ewes.

*gets coat. Retreats.*

[highorlow]

I heard she was just there for the filming of the Dublin version of Silence of the Lambs. Shut up Ewes.

That's a sheep trick

[muppet]

How long before she gets a name?


http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0521/702714-sheep-dublin/

I heard she was just there for the filming of the Dublin version of Silence of the Lambs. Shut up Ewes.

*gets coat. Retreats.*

Is that the sequel to Rambo?

*runs like f.....*

[armaghniac]

Guy phones bomb threat to airport so girlfriend won't miss flight
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-made-airport-bomb-threat-5757906

[muppet]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32910020

The US military accidentally sent live anthrax samples to as many as nine labs across the country and to a US military base in South Korea, the Pentagon says.

Twenty-two military personnel at the Osan Air Base in South Korea are receiving preventive treatment after being possibly exposed to the sample.

In the US, four civilians are receiving treatment - although they face a "minimal risk".

A Defence Department lab in Utah "inadvertently" shipped the samples.

The personnel at the South Korean base might have come into contact with the anthrax sample during a "training event", the US military said, but so far none had shown "any signs" of exposure.

However, they were given "appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and in some instances, vaccinations".

"The sample was destroyed in accordance with appropriate protocols," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren.
Experts in biosafety say they are astonished by the lapse and called for greater precautions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has begun an investigation into the incident.

"Out of an abundance of caution, [the Defence Department] has stopped the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation," said Col Warren.

Samples involved in the investigation will be securely transferred to CDC or affiliated laboratories "for further testing", CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harden said.

Ms Harden said that the CDC has also sent officials to the labs "to conduct on-site investigations".

The latest incident comes nearly a year after the CDC, one of the government's foremost civilian laboratories, also mishandled anthrax, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The Pentagon said that it accidentally sent shipments of live anthrax bacteria from the Dugway Proving ground facility.

It said that researchers at a laboratory set up to deal with extremely dangerous pathogens dispatched what they thought were "killed samples" of anthrax to another CDC facility.

But it did not have sufficient safeguards and was not equipped to work with live anthrax, AP reported, and several CDC employees were "potentially exposed" to live anthrax. However, none became ill.

The Defence Department spokesman said that the samples in the latest incident were supposed to be dead or deactivated.

The government has confirmed one shipment actually had live spores, and the eight others might also have done so.

The live spores were shipped from Utah to labs in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia, as well as the air base in South Korea.

[Hardy]

Yet again, you can't avoid considering that these bozoes have nuclear weapons!

[Pub Bore]

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/may/29/irelands-media-silenced-over-mps-speech-about-denis-obrien

Ireland's media silenced over MP's speech about Denis O'Brien

Injunction prevents newspapers and radio stations from reporting claims made in Ireland's parliament about media owner's banking affairs

I cannot recall having previously started a blogpost by reporting a speech to the Irish parliament. But please stick with me on this.

Catherine Murphy, an Independent TD (MP), yesterday spoke about the relationship between Ireland's leading media owner, Denis O'Brien, and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), the former Anglo Irish Bank.

Here is a key passage from her speech (edited only to make it explicable to people outside Ireland who have not followed the details of a long-run saga):

"We are now aware... that the former CEO of IBRC made verbal agreements with Denis O'Brien to allow him to extend the terms of his already expired loans...

I understand that Mr O'Brien was enjoying a rate of approximately 1.25% when IBRC could, and arguably should, have been charging 7.5%.

Given that we are talking about outstanding sums of upwards of €500 million, the interest rate applied is not an insignificant issue for the public interest.

We also know that Denis O'Brien felt confident enough in his dealings with IBRC that he could write to Kieran Wallace, the special liquidator, and demand that the same favourable terms extended to him by way of a verbal agreement be continued.

We now have Kieran Wallace, who has been appointed by the government to conduct the IBRC review, actually joining with IBRC and Denis O'Brien in the high court to seek to injunct the information I have outlined from coming into the public domain. Surely that alone represents a conflict".

Given that IBRC is state-owned, Murphy was suggesting that the Irish people have been subsidising O'Brien's interest payments on massive loans for no clear reason.

Although I have no idea whether or not her claims are correct, they are protected by parliamentary privilege (as in Britain).

Her speech can be seen here on YouTube and can be accessed here on the Oireachtas website. http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/Debates%20Authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/takes/dail2015052800027?opendocument&highlight=denis%20o%27brien

But her remarks were not reported in Ireland because lawyers acting for O'Brien argued that the details were covered by a high court injunction obtained by O'Brien against the country's main broadcaster, RTÉ, last week.

That injunction prevented RTÉ from broadcasting a report relating to O'Brien's private banking affairs with IBRC. It was imposed despite RTÉ contending that press freedom, public interest and legitimate journalistic inquiry should be paramount.

But the extension of the terms of that injunction to cover a parliamentary speech has shocked the Irish media community, not to mention the public.

It had extraordinary effects. For example, RTÉ reporter Philip Boucher Hayes tweeted yesterday afternoon that the Drivetime show was about to play Murphy's speech, but the piece was not broadcast and his tweet was later deleted.

RTÉ news bulletins mentioned that Murphy had spoken but didn't quote what she had said or play clips. Online reports quoting Murphy were removed, stating only that Murphy had spoken about O'Brien. Similarly, the Irish Times's report was silent on what Murphy said but it did provide a link to her speech on the Oireachtas site.

The report on the matter by Ireland's best-selling daily newspaper, the Irish Independent, said: "Mr O'Brien successfully stopped RTÉ from broadcasting the details which Ms Murphy raised in the Dáil".

The Indo, as it is known in Ireland, is owned by Independent News & Media (INM), which is controlled by O'Brien. That company is far and away the largest newspaper owner in Ireland. It also publishes the Irish Daily Star, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, Dublin's Evening Herald plus 14 regional titles and, north of the border, the Belfast Telegraph.

O'Brien is big in radio too through his Communicorp group which owns two major national stations, Newstalk and Today FM, plus three regional stations.

He is a billionaire regarded as Ireland's richest man with widespread interests, including mobile phones, oil and aircraft leasing. For tax reasons, he lives in Malta.

In the late evening, the nightly discussion programme on TV3, Tonight with Vincent Browne, was presented (because Browne is on holiday) by Ger Colleran, editor of INM's Irish Daily Star.

He read a statement from TV3's management stating that there must be no discussion about Murphy's comments following letters from O'Brien's lawyers.

So there it is. The owner of the bulk of Ireland's media outlets is using an injunction to prevent reports on his affairs appearing in the rest of the media he doesn't control.

Clearly, there are questions to ask about the press freedom implications due to Ireland's lack of media plurality and diversity.