Aidan O’Brien

GB News' accounts are out. Kept costs static but saw massive year-on-year growth in revenue. On its way to being a pretty decent media business as these things go. After some massive start-up costs, it's a wildly influential for Paul Marshall shifting UK political dial and only loses £25m a year.

Markets latest: Gas price soars 93% since start of conflict Drone strikes across the Middle East and Iran's effective closure of a key shipping route are spooking investors and traders. Follow the latest on the global markets.

This is a good moment for Europe & UK to remember that they can stick up wind and solar, insulates houses, far quicker than they can find new gas in e.g. North Sea

If you're chasing more gas, it's now a case of which unreliable regime you prefer to depend on

news.sky.com/story/market...

Youth Defence, young people and anti-abortion activism in Ireland, c.1992–97 This article explores the first five years of the Irish young people’s anti-abortion group Youth Defence. Using newspaper articles and archival sources, I illustrate how the group effectively mobil...

I have a new OA article out on the early history of Irish young people’s anti-abortion group Youth Defence. It’s part of a special issue by Agata Ignaciuk and Sylwia Kuzma-Markowska on anti-abortion activism in Europe.Thanks to reviewers and the RSE for funding.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

One of the great joys of taking the dog out for a walk is “The Chats”. The glorious bland mundanity. Tell us about your back, please. Let’s discuss the drying, the grand stretch, or your holiday (past or forthcoming). Dear Jesus God anything but the news….

As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.

“My job is not to be sensitive, my job is to apologise for the cruelties of previous FF governments’ and offer empty assurances and commitments vis a vie forthcoming FF administrations’ dedication to learn from my mistakes”

We already pay the highest prices for heating and electricity in Europe, so this war adds further pressure on Irish consumers.

Gas prices soar as Iranian attacks force shutdown of Qatari production Saudi Arabia also closes an oil refinery after strike

Indeed. What’s that about energy security again?

www.ft.com/content/dac7...

Government's planned LNG terminal slammed as 'fundamentally incompatible' with climate policy Last year, the government approved the Floating Storage and Regassification Unit.

Irish government policy is to make us more reliant on foreign energy like LNG, while paying out tens of billions of euros in fines for failure to meet climate targets.

Moving to renewables is the only way for Ireland to develop its own sustainable, sovereign energy source. #speirgorm

Third & critical thing: when this fight started, the UK had intermediary liability guardrails from EU law. No longer. Look carefully for proactive obligations to scan, intercept, or remove subjective content. Because bad countries (ahem 🇺🇸) take their cue from us. bsky.app/profile/did:...

I'm sorry - overnight curfew for teenagers? We are getting further and further from coherent regulation with each governments' attempt to iterate on their own 'hold my beer' moment in the name of "child safety".

Ah ok. It was how you used “your” in the first sentence that made me think that your criticism was directed at me personally. Apologises for the confusion. My fault.

For someone who is just a neutral observer who doesn’t like how DV is being portrayed you seem to be very well versed in on the SOP

Whut?

Um, why do you presume that’s what I believe thats the appropriate response? Or agree with anything in your post?

particularly concerned at the high levels of 'family voting' at polling stations. Not unique to Ireland, this issue denies many people their right to vote in secrecy, often when a family member or her citizen oversees and/or directs them how to vote. The levels of this seen in Ireland were 7.4% and a number of our observe

That’s not a misreading. They state “The levels of this (family voting) seen in Ireland were 7.4%”

7.4% of what? How they came to this figure? 🤷🏻‍♂️ They made the claim, it should be open to scrutiny & challenges.

(PS if moderate swearing is unacceptable to you, you’re on the wrong fucking website)

And given they claim it is occurring in nearly 8% of the time. That is fucking remarkable

And yet I kind find no evidence of training, program of training, or in the handbook for Irish poll workers or find any media reports about the issue in 2020. it In fact aside from democracy volunteers report in 2020 the issue has never arisen before or since in Ireland .

I am aware of that. I am also aware that their methodology isn’t transparent, and unverifiable.

I’ve worked on 3 separate elections in Ireland since their report into our 2020 election and there were no accusations of family voting in any of those elections. Which is…odd…

Tapping into his favorite "rigged election" frame, yesterday Trump repeated allegations of Iranian intereference in U.S. elections to justify US/Israeli strikes on Iran. The hypocrisy of those allegations is telling — and hints towards his own interference plans. I wrote this thread into a blog:

date: can you take off your work gloves

Jim Henson: they have names

I know maps are less popular than clickbait, but pls entertain me

🧵 We are watching two escalating conflicts at the same time:

• Pakistan–Afghanistan cross-border fighting
• Israel–Iran strikes, with spillover across the Gulf

These events may converge into a regional displacement crisis.

Strait of Hormuz has been an exposed jugular of the global economy for 50 years. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a technology that could remove that vulnerability completely?

Most appear to have adopted a “freemium” model. Another DaVinci Recommendation from me, otherwise maybe give Lightworks a try? lwks.com

Top warmup man Bobby Chariot

“I told my doctor I was having trouble relaxing, and he said I should try listening to the sound of whales. So I’ve bought the entire box set of Pobol y Cwm…”

Have you thought about maybe, I dunno, starting to look at someone’s profile before commenting on their posts?

Can a voter registration drive help Gerry Hutch become a TD?

Numbers crunched: gavreilly.substack.com/p/could-a-vo...

Denmark warns of interference from Russia, US in its election A Danish intelligence cites Denmark’s support for Ukraine and rising tensions over Greenland for its assessment.

Good to see Denmark has added the US to countries that commit election interference www.scmp.com/news/world/e...

👍. I was making a comment about BO’C’e politics not the show. Deleted