05.31.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:31 pm by
BoI share price
As I suspected; Bank of Ireland’s share price goes up 4% at the news that their CEO resigned. If the shareholders had liked the guy, he could have been entertaining teenage boys in the boardroom and he’d still have his job. But he visits one website and his declining star goes super nova.
AIB share price goes up 2% as the involvement of former CEO’s in a tax/share dealing scam operated by the bank itself is exposed. Obviously those who buy shares were really impressed by the bank’s ability to reward their executives in an unethical and illegal manner. People get the corporate governance they deserve.
Bertie says the people who were involved should be “got, dealt with, whatever”….how statesmanlike, profound and stern. What a leader.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:05 pm by
Soft Porn at the bank
So Mike Sodden turned out to be just another slimy sleazy male executive and was checking out an escort service in Las Vegas before he made a trip there (no doubt on an all expenses paid junket). However, he’d made the crucial error of pissing of the bank’s IT department by outsourcing their work to Hewlett Packard and forcing them to transfer out of their cosy, undemanding jobsforlife at the bank to the crueller, harsher world at HP. What a surprise then, that when the geeks complete their audit of who’s using what websites, that a call should be placed to the Sunday Business Post to tip them off that the CEO himself has just violated his own policy of visting non-work related web sites.
Ha Ha. One for the proles.
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05.27.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:15 am by
Expensive Drink
Our drink his incredibly expensive and a good proportion of it is excise duty. “The rates of taxation on beer, wines and spirits in Ireland rank among the highest in the whole of the European Union, according to a study published by the European Commission yesterday. Ireland has the highest rates of excise duty on wine and sparkling wine, the second highest duty on beer after Finland and the third highest duty on spirits after Finland and Sweden.”
I do recall a FF TD of my acquaintance saying that the best way to keep immigrants out of the country was to have very high indirect taxes since then they couldn’t afford to live here. He specifically quoted Finland has having the right idea and remarking on their low immigration rate.
In addition to this outrage tho’ it should be noted that if I order a glass of beer it would cost around €2.75 (approx) and this includes tax. But there is no tax on a glass of mineral water which costs the same amount. Which means the publican is making a far bigger profit on the water. Interestingly,(or hilariously) the VFI (Vintners Federation Ireland) says they can’t encourage their members to reduce the price of soft drinks because the competition authority would accuse them of price fixing!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:12 am by
Gore disovers a personality
and good for him. His speech yesterday was great. “In a fierce denunciation of Mr Bush himself, the losing Democratic candidate in the 2000 election said he had promised Americans a foreign policy with humility,” but “instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.
“He promised to restore honour and integrity to the White House. Instead, he has brought deep dishonour to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon.
“Honour? He decided not to honour the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honour the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.
“He did not honour the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honour our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.”
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05.26.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:22 pm by
Anti-Bush Fatigue
It’s so TIRING hating George Bush. He manages to do or say something really annoying and despicable so often that its wearisome. This appears to be how Fianna Fail stay in office. After a while, you just reach saturation point and the sense of powerlessness has a numbing effect. Thankfully PO’Neill hasn’t given up the ghost and tracks the outrages of the VRC in detail.
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05.25.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:56 pm by
Geneva Convention
From Sunday’s NYT “Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the American military responded on Dec. 24 with a confidential letter to a Red Cross official asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions.
The letter, drafted by military lawyers and signed by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, emphasized the “military necessity” of isolating some inmates at the prison for interrogation because of their “significant intelligence value,” and said prisoners held as security risks could legally be treated differently from prisoners of war or ordinary criminals.”
There’s so much talk about the GC I decided to read it…it’s pretty clear and even it’s early articles are prescient: “In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.”
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Posted in Uncategorized at 1:50 pm by
Comments
The nice people at Blogger sorted out my comments. Hurrah!
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05.24.04
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 9:30 am by
Filters
The drying cycle on my washer/dryer (NEVER buy one) failed. Clothes were coming out wetter than when they went in. Before sending for ‘a man’ to come and sort it out I flicked through the manual. There, tucked away on the back page, was a recommendation to clean the filter after every wash. I moved into my apartment last August and had never even looked at the filter. After a brief struggle with the cap (which would have deterred the less enthusiastic), I pulled out the filter. Amazing. Not only was there an inch thick of fibres and scum clinging to the cylindrical plastic device but also the mystery of the missing breast pad was solved. I always had six and one just disappeared. How the entire machine hadn’t blown up is beyond me. It’s 9.32 on a Monday morning and already I have a huge sense of achievement. Just think, I could be in an office.
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05.23.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:24 pm by
Apostrophe Watch
Some would say it was inevitable, but I was rather surprised and slightly disgusted to see the daughter of one of the victims of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings labelled “victims daughter” on tonight’s Sky News Ireland broadacast.
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05.21.04
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:00 pm by
Sir Tony
As I haven’t figured out yet how to indicate on my front page that there are comments being made to my posts, (if you click on the time you get a new page with the comments; bizarre), I direct you to an observation by PO’Neill that there is an fact a precedent for a government refusing permission to use a title.
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