Ben Walsh

Live from Dublin Castle:

"There's beef, there's chicken, and curry for the vegetarians"

#Spéirghorm

Our great nation's most recent inauguration might be the best yet. We have a president who speaks eloquently for all our citizens with a massive mandate to change this country for the better.

A small red dog and a large black cat snoozing on a couch

My dad would always quote J M Synge at this time of year, "It’s a great rest I’ll have now, and great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain"

Sir, – The Ministers for Health and for Public Expenditure are now looking to take a stand against the independence of the “voluntary” hospitals which are entirely funded by the State. This issue was raised with extreme urgency a few years ago when both Ministers voted in favour of the handover of the National Maternity Hospital – and the multi-billion euro investment associated with it – to one such body and its controlling religious order. – Yours, etc,

I'm in the paper today on the predicted voluntary hospital debacle

Opposing genocide is the moral duty of our time.

Yet Palestine Action activists have been held in prison for over a year without trial. Six are now on hunger strike.

Detaining peaceful protesters under counter-terror powers is indefensible. This is political imprisonment in all but name.

There is no winning. Read a book in public, you get accused of being performative. Don't read a book in public, Joyce Carol Oates says you are a human shell with no inner life. 😞

Oh no my 007 continuity gone

In a demoralizing world it does warm the heart to see an eighty seven year-old lady repeatedly burn the world’s richest man to a crisp in a manner that clearly gets right under his skin and provokes him to flailing, compensatory exertions that only affirm the point she was making.

President Catherine Connolly has called for action on war, genocide and climate change, saying the normalisation of war “has never been and will never be acceptable” to Ireland, a nation with a long tradition of neutrality and peacekeeping.

#VMNews

"Tutoring a baby to make him an 'English gentleman' - Is it worth the money?" - BBC headline

Strap in, I'm taking Betteridge's Law to strange, new places.

Objectors will be on the hook to pay six-figure legal costs under judicial reviews clampdown Objectors will have to foot six-figure legal bills for successful judicial review cases in a new move being brought to the Cabinet to speed up the supply of infrastructure and housing.

Whatever your view on judicial review and NIMBY-ism, this is an appalling attack on the rule-of-law —

If a person successfully (successfully!) proves wrongdoing by the state, the state will bankrupt them?

Cui bono? Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael conies and the worst days of An Bord Pleanála corruption.

the people pushing this to be a focus are the ones who actually care, and that includes the vile reactionary centrist brigade who has cooked their brains in the transphobic nazi swamp that is twitter

most people don't give that much of a shit one way or the other

This is demented. This is like making you pay for your free legal aid if you're acquitted. "We are going to continue to fuck up our infrastructure planning, but now we're going to make you pay for proving it." A profoundly unserious government that has no ideas and no concept of execution.

A man's neck with a slash wound

I have a rescue street cat who would prefer not to go into the carrier.

The Gist: AI, The Sound and Fury We can calculate the amount of money flowing into AI. But what will the full cost be to society when the bubble pops? This is the Gist.

“Every person using ChatGPT costs OpenAI more money then they pay them. Every free and paying user asking how to make a fluffy omelette or getting it to draft an email to their kid's teacher drains their resources.”

www.thegist.ie/the-gist-ai-...

There is no mystery here.

Social media gave a voice to people of colour to criticise white people's descriptions of them in literature, and the establishment tried to bully the critics into silence, and make them sorry for speaking up, so they can continue to write what they damn well like.

Wait is this not the Super Mario thread?

‘I was the only out queer guy in rock’: Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum The keyboard player on his heroin overdose, how Kurt Cobain wanted to be gay and why his memoir will ruin his Christian relatives’ Thanksgiving dinner

"With Trump in power, my truth needs to be shouted loud, to combat the racism, the anti-trans and homophobic mindsets.” He pauses. “I want to be provocative. I have relatives who are Christian people, and it’s absolutely my intention to ruin their Thanksgiving dinner with this book."

DUBLIN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Members of Irish soccer's governing body approved a resolution on Saturday instructing its board to submit a formal motion to UEFA requesting the immediate suspension of Israel from European competitions, a source at the meeting told Reuters. The resolution cited alleged violations by Israel's Football Association of two provisions of UEFA statutes, namely its failure to implement and enforce an effective anti-racism policy and organisation of clubs in occupied Palestinian territories without the consent of the Palestinian Football Association.

The Football Association of Ireland has approved a resolution to submit a formal motion to UEFA to suspend Israel.

www.reuters.com/sports/socce...

The ability to convince capital markets to hand you a trillion dollars on the strength of obvious bullshit paired with the inability to get a single human to sincerely and spontaneously say they love you is some real punishment of the gods shit.

love can be hard, and doesn't always last, but fake a.i. bots telling you they love you is ... not the best solution! just one man's opinion!

Might be just me, but following recent revelations that Brian O'Driscoll is happy to take Zionist money the sight of him gives me the same visceral ick as seeing Bono.

#IREvJAP

Football Association of Ireland EGM passes motion calling on UEFA to ban Israel from all club and international competitions.

Resolution brought by Bohemian Football Club - approved by 88%.

Motion cites operation by the Israeli FA of clubs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Micheál Martin and his party are focused with laser like precision on what matters to them: themselves.

Hello it's me the leader of the party full of landlords that has been in power your whole adult life and created the housing crisis we now refuse to resolve.

I'm here to tell you it's actually the foreigners' fault.

Dark evenings and recycled Connolly posters of a Friday in #mayo
#ballina #bridgil #ireland #palestine

I'm sorry they're doing victim impact statements in the death of Davy fucking Tweed??

One day Ok Go will release a creative and original song accompanied by a dreary, forgettable video

My townland is called "Slutsend"