Messages

Do people still wear these if they are not on television? I haven't seen a single one all year.

And I've been to Sprucefield.

You must have gone there via Twinbrook 

I see from Gabrielle Marcotti on twitter that England played Sweden 10/11/01 and had no poppies or black armbands so what makes them more relevant now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJMlXOzJxc

It's called trying to legitimise their involvement in 2 wars to the British public - see club teams having to wear them, soldiers on the pitches, mention of and wearing in popular British soaps ( Corrie and Eastenders, also Collection boxes on the bar counters etc).

WWI and WWII?

Tony I think you know rightly I meant Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hence the rise of "Poppy promotion" in the last number of years.

I see from Gabrielle Marcotti on twitter that England played Sweden 10/11/01 and had no poppies or black armbands so what makes them more relevant now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJMlXOzJxc

It's called trying to legitimise their involvement in 2 wars to the British public - see club teams having to wear them, soldiers on the pitches, mention of and wearing in popular British soaps ( Corrie and Eastenders, also Collection boxes on the bar counters etc).

[Arlene Foster]

Brought up on Spotlight tonight. Raymond McCartney, Conal McDevitt and Arlene Foster all happy to say they have no objection to a member of the other community wearing/not wearing (delete as appropriate) a poppy.

Mike Nesbitt shown to be a bit of a bollox saying he does get het up when he sees people not wearing one.

Arlene was sporting two poppies all day yesterday to make up for someone from the 'other community' not wearing one 

Seen that alright, does that mean she's twice as good at remembering? 

Seanie do you not think Stokes should be getting at least a call up?

Not a word.

Well here we go again, another match and me saying it could be the result to turn the season around! 
Interesting week in Glasgow, Commons and Lennon hopefully putting the rift rumours to bed with the training pitch antics, another business taking Rangers to court over unpaid monies and surprise surprise more injury woes for the "Tic".
Hope that Commons joke at training is a sign that Lennon has now got the team back on side, with an International break coming up IMO Celtic should take the Bhoys off to La Manga or somewhere for a bit of team building.

Beating Rennes tonight is not an impossibility, but not a given either (they have come with their full strength side), a win by any score will be great and will hopefully kick start the season proper (sets himself up for a fall tomorrow  )

Prediction Celtic 2 - Rennes 1

Hail Hail

HET on the case.

[Trio charged after poppy burning]

Trio charged after poppy burning

Three teenagers have appeared in court after a photograph was posted on social networking site facebook showing a poppy being burnt.
The trio have been charged with incitement to hatred.

Two 17-year -olds and a 16-year-old, who is also charged with improper use of the public electronic communications network, appeared in court on Wednesday.

An investigation was launched after officers were made aware of the pictures.

Wonder would there have been the same response if it had been Easter lilies?
Or posters, flags, soccer and GAA tops on top of bonfires?

All over the U.K. they will be burning effigies up and down the country on saturday 

And how many of them will have to suffer a criminal record or the stigma of a court appearence!

Good to see the PSNI are out catching the "real" criminals though.

In fairnes to the Police a complaint was made by the British Legion and they are obliged to investigate.

Granted.
But arrested and criminal charges!!!!!

Slightly more serious incidents need investagating.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15565521

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15539656

http://www.u.tv/News/Two-elderly-NI-women-attacked-in-their-homes/5645c449-8fb8-4d88-a4a8-7e7af6775ec2

http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=134470

All incidents within the last week and a bit.

No would deny that such crimes as you cite are more serious than the Poppy Burning. Then again, they are being investigated, too.

Of course, if you were to argue that it is eg a waste of police resources to follow-up this incident, even when a complaint is made, then we would find ourselves back in the day when the Police themselves decided which crimes to investigate, and which to let quietly drop.

And no doubt you complained about that, too...

Which I didn't argue.
Lets hope that the other cases get the PROMPT response from the PSNI that the case involving the 3 teenagers recieved.
It's good to see that you admit that the RUC were a corrupt self servicing "police" force.

[and a stranger offers 400k to finish project]

Anyone see the Grand Designs revisited last night. Your man got their in the end - bit strange though - project unfinished, bank issued repossession notice and a stranger offers 400k to finish project!

It was some build in fairness, amazing house when finished if not completely over the top of what he needed. Turning it into a B&B, albeit a very expensive and luxurious one, made sense and will help pay the 1m bill he has hanging over him.

Found that quite strange myself, missed some of it, did he at any stage indicate who benefactor was, family/friend?

No, made it out to be a complete stranger, some woman, who heard of their plight and offered to help out. Maybe she seen the original programme and wanted to see it finished. Maybe "she" is a diesel launderer and had some cash spare.

I was puzzled.

generous soul alright.
I'll just have to make do with the lottery.

[Trio charged after poppy burning]

Trio charged after poppy burning

Three teenagers have appeared in court after a photograph was posted on social networking site facebook showing a poppy being burnt.
The trio have been charged with incitement to hatred.

Two 17-year -olds and a 16-year-old, who is also charged with improper use of the public electronic communications network, appeared in court on Wednesday.

An investigation was launched after officers were made aware of the pictures.

Wonder would there have been the same response if it had been Easter lilies?
Or posters, flags, soccer and GAA tops on top of bonfires?

All over the U.K. they will be burning effigies up and down the country on saturday 

And how many of them will have to suffer a criminal record or the stigma of a court appearence!

Good to see the PSNI are out catching the "real" criminals though.

In fairnes to the Police a complaint was made by the British Legion and they are obliged to investigate.

Granted.
But arrested and criminal charges!!!!!

Slightly more serious incidents need investagating.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15565521

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15539656

http://www.u.tv/News/Two-elderly-NI-women-attacked-in-their-homes/5645c449-8fb8-4d88-a4a8-7e7af6775ec2

http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=134470

All incidents within the last week and a bit.

[and a stranger offers 400k to finish project]

Anyone see the Grand Designs revisited last night. Your man got their in the end - bit strange though - project unfinished, bank issued repossession notice and a stranger offers 400k to finish project!

It was some build in fairness, amazing house when finished if not completely over the top of what he needed. Turning it into a B&B, albeit a very expensive and luxurious one, made sense and will help pay the 1m bill he has hanging over him.

Found that quite strange myself, missed some of it, did he at any stage indicate who benefactor was, family/friend?

[Trio charged after poppy burning]

Trio charged after poppy burning

Three teenagers have appeared in court after a photograph was posted on social networking site facebook showing a poppy being burnt.
The trio have been charged with incitement to hatred.

Two 17-year -olds and a 16-year-old, who is also charged with improper use of the public electronic communications network, appeared in court on Wednesday.

An investigation was launched after officers were made aware of the pictures.

Wonder would there have been the same response if it had been Easter lilies?
Or posters, flags, soccer and GAA tops on top of bonfires?

All over the U.K. they will be burning effigies up and down the country on saturday 

And how many of them will have to suffer a criminal record or the stigma of a court appearence!

Good to see the PSNI are out catching the "real" criminals though.

brighten up our day yet again Dec !

never did trust politicians, teachers and accountants.
yet the f**king country is run (ruined) by all of the above.

This will make you feel better so!!

As we pay €713m we don't owe, our EU 'leaders' live in jet-set style
by Colette Browne

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

The state yesterday dutifully handed over €713 million to unsecured Anglo Irish bondholders and will again stick its hands in our pockets and fork out a further €1.25 billion in January.

The Financial Times dubbed yesterday's payment "a windfall profit for high risk investors" and said the bonds had been trading as low as 52c in the euro earlier this year.

So, it's safe to assume that someone, somewhere is today toasting the government and its dogged determination to beggar the nation by paying debts it doesn't owe.

While crippling asuterity measures are inflicted on long-suffering citizens, who are instructed not to complain and to instead lie back and think of the bondholders, politicians at home and abroad have not shown the same eagerness to subject themselves to cuts.

It would be easier to take the patronising lectures from windbag politicians, including our friends in Europe, if they themselves didn't flash our cash with such wild abandon.

For reasons that have yet to be explained, the EU now boasts three separate Presidents, two of whom appear to hate each other's guts. Despite the fact that Herman Van Rompuy's position possess as much power as anemic gnat, Jose Manuel Barosso's nose is out of joint because he believes that he's Europe's true leader on the world stage. Small men, big egos – the usual sad story.

This would all be terribly amusing if they weren't out spending taxpayers' money with the same cheeky insouciance as Elton John's florist in their efforts to ignore each other.

Last year it was revealed that the pair had travelled to a summit in Russia in separate VIP jets because they couldn't bear to be in the same confined airspace as each other.

Van Rompuy, and his entorage of less than 15 minions, took a 35-seater jet while Barrosso was forced to scramble a separate 15-seater Learjet at a cost of nearly €100,000 which departed Brussels within four hours of the larger aircraft. Van Rompuy, little known outside his native Belgium before completing the EU's presidential triumvirate, courted controversy soon after his appointment. On that occasion it was revealed that he had he used official cars and chauffeurs as a taxi service to take his extended family - wife, four children, two of their spouses and two grandchildren – on a 325-mile round trip to a Paris airport, where they departed for a private Caribbean holiday.

The sleek presidential motorcade ferried the Van Rompuy clan from Brussels to Paris and was waiting to collect them when they returned, presumably looking tanned and feeling relaxed.

Although it sounds like they all had a charming family trip, the reason that European taxpayers paid to shuttle them from one country to another, at an estimated cost of over €5,000, remains unclear.

Pouring salt into the wound, Van Rompuy lives in an exclusive part of Brussels that is conveniently located less than 10 miles from the Gare du Midi, which boasts frequent high-speed trains to Paris.

Regrettably, the Van Rompuys aren't the only ones globe-trotting in style at taxpayers' expense and a group comprising 13 MEPs and 12 parliamentary staff will today jet off to French Guiana, on the eastern coast of South America, for a three-day €120,000 "study trip".

According to their itinerary, the MEPs have been booked to appear on a local TV show where they will presumably bore viewers and kill ratings discussing the "social inclusion of the Amerindian communities" and the likelihood of "extending EU funds to the outermost regions" – while also conveniently enjoying champagne receptions, haute cusine and five-star beach-front hotels for the remainder of their junket.

While only 13 lucky MEPs will be able to soak up the sun in French Guina today, earlier this year 75 politicians enjoyed a trip to Uruguay at a cost of €1.4m – over €15,000 a day.

Ostensibly travelling for an annual Eurolat event, to discuss trade links between the continents, each MEP enjoyed a travel allowance of over €3,000 for business class flights and top hotels.

In fact, between 2004 and 2010, MEPs spent nearly €6 million on foreign travel during "fact finding" missions, which are invariably held in exclusive resorts in exotic locations.

For example, one such fact-finding trip was a visit to the sun-drenched Maldives where MEPs stayed in a five-star luxury private island resort and researched how to get an all-over tan without spilling their cocktails...I mean, that island's renowned electoral practices.

When not jet-setting at our expense, MEPs must be congratulated for finding ever more egregious excuses to award themselves generous pay increases. While the Irish were being publicly flagellated, and denied a cut to the bailout's extortionate interest rate earlier this year, MEPs quietly decided to bolster their own personal staffing expenses by nearly €18,000 a year – roughly equivalent to the annual salary that most expect the rest of us to subsist on.

That increase back in March means that every single one of the EU's 736 MEPs can now lavish over €255,000 on staff costs every year – an annual bill of nearly €200 million.

The increase was awarded after a clear-as-mud internal audit, conducted by the same MEPs who were seeking the increase, found it was warranted because the Lisbon Treaty, which they agitated to have implemented, allegedly upped their workloads.

The fact that many MEPs still have close family members on their payroll is, I'm sure, entirely unrelated to the fact that most were so eager to have the staff allowance increased.

As well as the €255,000 that can be spent on staff, MEPs also enjoy an allowance of over €105,000 for "daily subsistence" and "general expenditure" expenses – which they can demand without having to provide any pesky receipts or proof of expenditure.

Hard to imagine then that MEPs were found to have committed "massive" fraud when the expenses and allowances claimed by them were audited between 2002 and 2006.

The findings of the Galvin Report were so explosive that MEPs, including presidential reject Gay Mitchell, voted not to publish it when it was completed in 2008.

In fact, the eventual publication of the report earlier this year was solely due to the tenacity of Irish barrister Ciarán Toland, who waged an expensive three-year battle with the European Parliament over its cover up.

Having sought the report back in 2008, Mr Toland was told "the use members make of the allowances available to them is a sensitive matter" and that "elements of the report could be used to derail the debate on the reform of the (allowances) system and compromise rapid reform".

To paraphrase, we can't give you this report because it reveals that many of us are greedy self-serving fraudsters and we'll be lynched if the details get out. Rather predictably, some of the reports more inflammatory findings included the revelation that that MEPs hired non-existent "ghost" workers, employed family members on inflated salaries and, generally, went through the EU's €120 million expenses pot like cocaine at a Dublin 4 house party.

These duplicitous politicians, who preach austerity but practice extravagance, are the same ones who argue that Irish citizens alone must bear the burden of repaying the gargantuan debts run up by private financial institutions. More galling still is the fact that our own ministers seem to think that this idiocy makes perfect sense - only eight months in government and they already have Stockholm Syndrome.

With the announcement of a referendum on the bailout in Greece, which threatens to imminently sink the eurozone, the EU's difficulty could be Ireland's opportunity and, if the government has any cop on, it will seek rewards other than public pats on the head for meekly agreeing to every ruinous demand that's made of it.

F.uck that makes my blood boil! 

Does our Government (recent past or present) have any balls to stand up for the rights of the Irish nation - No!
Are our Government (recent past or present) going to "give" away our only major natural resources (which if used properly could get us out of this shithole we're in) - Yes
Are we up shitcreek without a paddle - most definately YES.
With politicians like we have we don't need any enemies.

[Trio charged after poppy burning]

Trio charged after poppy burning

Three teenagers have appeared in court after a photograph was posted on social networking site facebook showing a poppy being burnt.
The trio have been charged with incitement to hatred.

Two 17-year -olds and a 16-year-old, who is also charged with improper use of the public electronic communications network, appeared in court on Wednesday.

An investigation was launched after officers were made aware of the pictures.

Wonder would there have been the same response if it had been Easter lilies?
Or posters, flags, soccer and GAA tops on top of bonfires?