The difference between the text of the post and the headline of the article below it is staggering
Solicitor, consultant, artist, writes TheGist.ie newsletter. Visiting Lecturer. External Examiner in Data Protection law.
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The difference between the text of the post and the headline of the article below it is staggering
New toilet wars looming. Britain may yet launch “Union Jacks”, safe spaces for flag -panted subjects.
OK, they’re spiralling. They’re all going end up claiming to live in the Great British Bake Off tent, surrounded by Fleg bunting while Rule Britannia plays on loop.
I think about Nate Silver once every four years. He wakes up thinking about us every day. 💅💅💅
"Blueskyism" helped make The Onion one of the largest newspapers in the world in less than a year. If we had spent all of our time on Twitter, we'd be poorer, dumber and terminally ill with internet poisoning. He's just angry he's wasting away over there in a nazi agnostic lane that doesn't exist.
All respect to Cher, but the sequel, Shoop Shoop song was a bit of a disappointment.
I cannot believe how huge these giant movie crew were.
Central Bank of Ireland confirms it will no longer approve sale of Israeli ‘war bonds’
This happened, quite clearly, because of the concerted action of a huge range of people from all over the country. But it was Gary Gannon who took the risk of challenging the Central Bank's assertions that they had no legal basis not to approve these bonds. www.irishtimes.com/business/202...
I want a flag whose eyes follow me around the room. But jebus H Christmas.. there was a time when a political leader wrapping themselves in the flag was a *metaphor*, not a request for a new blanket.
I’m imagining the job of the young civil servant who has to constantly move the Union Jack around Kier Starmer’s office as he looks this way and that, to ensure it is always in front of him.
In the Irish Calendar, the three months of Autumn are Lunasa (August), Meán Fómhair, (September, with the direct translation being Middle Autumn), Deireadh Fómhair (October, with direct translation being End Autumn). So enjoy the beginning of Middle Fall!
AGOG
I second this motion.
Context!: m.independent.ie/irish-news/e...
I feel the proposal to micro chip children with special needs deserves more attention than it got when the Senator proposed it.
The saying goes that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. While many helped in this result, I want to single out @tupped.bsky.social for his work and (reluctantly) @garygannontd.bsky.social for taking on the risk. But it’s not over. Not until the EU says no to Israeli war bonds.
Perhaps “Problems that can’t be solved, for some reason” are the flags marking where the underground power lines run. Maybe Ireland’s society is arranged around land ownership.
Ministers need to quote this every time they are asked the question. What happened to the cracked record technique. No-one uses it anymore
The Irish Central Bank’s authorisation of the sale of Israeli State bonds, dubbed ‘war bonds’ by opponents, expires today https://www.thejournal.ie/central-bank-israeli-bonds-6804354-Sep2025/
Ah, the periodic opportunity to plug something I wrote almost exactly 2 years ago when this argument was made (itself a repetition of the same argument made over time) ☺️ ukhumanrightsblog.com/2023/08/29/t...
CMAT relasing Euro-Country "was the end of Bertie's chances. By making the financial crash a culturally live issue again, she channelled 1.21Gws of raw artistic power directly into Bertie's campaign and sent it like a DeLorean, back into all those futures lost. " www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
Again - the reason that the Good Friday Agreement locks in the ECHR is that the UK had repeatedly been held accountable by the European Court of Human Rights for human rights breaches during the Troubles - while national courts had failed to do so, even upholding miscarriages of justice
The US institutional impulse towards racism hardly needs me to give examples. Policing, urban planning, financials etc. Fill in the sorry story. There’s hardly a corner of the society where it isn’t the foundation everything else is built on, largely unacknowledged.
The U.K. class reproduction need distorts their society in ways big and small. Their school system has been subject to decades of tinkering, but is basically still intended to produce a small, rich elite education to control a much larger group.
Ireland is a post-colonial nation. In a way, it is one of the archetypes of a post-colonial nation (albeit with the unusual feature of being now in the EU). But I can’t distill our underlying framework as pithily, because I live inside the society.
Societies power structures sometimes seem clearer close up. But sometimes they have an underlying structure that is most apparent from the outside. For example, the U.K. is built around maintaining and enforcing class differences. Similarly, US institutions has an underlying racism that repeats.
I am the first to acknowledge that BlueSky has the juice, but I am also of the opinion that there will be a rug-pull eventually in any centralised social network. This site just keeps track of the degree of decentralisation between the Fediverse and BlueSky’s protocol. arewedecentralizedyet.online
“The bank last night declined to comment whether it has been requested to approve any new prospectuses.”
LIKE, the archetypal evil american corporation in the 70s was Bell as in Alexamder Graham Bell they had a govt authorized monopoly on ALL PHONES IN THE US THERE WAS "The Phone Company" AS IN THE ONE before cell phones, there was a huge *physicality* to the way we interacted with phones
look, post-70s Alien movies (as in, the rest of them) can't get the corporate horror right because they don't get it in that *70's* way where the corporation is vast and distant and overwhelming, something u can never quite get in contact with -- kinda like an abusive parental figure
“What is Sandra going to say when I tell her?”
👍🏼
In Schrems I, the Safe Harbour Commission decision was found to be void.
The power of art. He’s been ducking and weaving in interviews for over a decade. In one line, CMAT delivered the knock-out punch that journalists had failed to land, doing her country a great service.
I have suggested in the past that it would be a good idea to leave Substack if that's where you have your newsletter. But now? Now I'm just telling you to flee.
get in losers, we’re putting ethnic cleansing on the blockchain
Maybe if the candidates did this challenge it might make it all a bit more entertaining #Aras25
Praise hungrily and gratefully received!
This is TOP #Aras25 summary (so far) by the irrepressible @tupped.bsky.social
Lots of zingers in the latest & always excellent Gist: "Mary Hanafin had as much chance of winning the Presidential election as any given banana." #Áras25
The Gist: The Presidential Selection www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
More entertaining than the election campaign itself so far. “Two metres of extruded Fianna Fáil” will live with me for some time.
Article 8 covers things like preventing the government from controlling who you can have sex with, and what hobbies you have; from spying on your mail and phone conversations; and so on. The UK government wants rid of it. They will claim it is necessary to “protect women” from the likes of me.
Context: www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the... Not at all. Quite the reverse.
Went to see CMAT’s album launch this afternoon and she is an absolute force of nature. Amazing
Some of my ramblings here: thechangingtimes.darylfeehely.com
I mourn for my "fucks capacitor" pun that I had to leave on the cutting room floor.
No joke CMAT did the nation a great service putting out a pop song belting “I was 12 when the dads started killing themselves” wearing a BERTIE top just as the presidential circus was taking off
As if by magic: www.rte.ie/news/preside...
Thank the lady 😅
I could not find a way to jam in my "fucks capacitor" pun into this.
I mean more "semi fortnight"
And if any of you already do write one, let me know!
You guys should all do a newsletter too, and I'd subscribe. It's easy, you just write a thing when you think of it and hit send.
CMAT relasing Euro-Country "was the end of Bertie's chances. By making the financial crash a culturally live issue again, she channelled 1.21Gws of raw artistic power directly into Bertie's campaign and sent it like a DeLorean, back into all those futures lost. " www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
More cities should be trying 2 year pilots exploring different ways to use their public spaces.
The Gist: The Presidential Selection www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
Happy 'greatest correction ever' day to all who celebrate
"Kelleher is what you would receive if you ordered the delivery of approximately two meters of extruded Fianna Fáil."
Housing commencement figures down nearly 80% so far this year
The Gist: The Presidential Selection A run past some of the people trying to get on the ballot for next month's presidential election. Sample: "Billy Kelleher is what you would receive if you ordered the delivery of approximately two meters of extruded Fianna Fáil." www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
The Gist: The Presidential Selection A run past some of the people trying to get on the ballot for next month's presidential election. Sample: "Billy Kelleher is what you would receive if you ordered the delivery of approximately two meters of extruded Fianna Fáil." www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
New Gist: The Presidential Selection The time is ticking down to pick the candidates to replace Michael D. We take a tour around through the people looking to define the next seven/ fourteen years of Ireland. This is the Gist. www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
The science of blackberries seems mindboggling. The number of species is unknown and some produce seeds without being pollinated, with the result that there are "micro species" confined to specific districts. Interesting article on the situation in Norway: www.nordgen.org/projects/cro...
Your contributions to organic AND inorganic chemistry are equally impressive.
Just as I am no longer seeking to win a Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Though I did have a slightly higher chance of actually winning, if we had both got the nomination.
Raspberries are wonderful, but blackberries are the queens of fruit. Picking them from hedgerows and the backs of fields and dropping them into makeshift buckets is an all-time life experience, at any age.
How hard it is to get properly paid.
Punched in face by Berlin police at protest over journalists being killed in Gaza www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...
Consider it a companion piece to this one, called Untitled
My favourite line in this is when they say “this woman has had three and a half whiskeys- under the legal limit.”
"Dublin Bay Chimneys", a new #painting that sold earlier this month. For many, seeing the chimneys when arriving into Dublin port or Dublin airport, means simply one thing. Home, that word home, with all its flaws and its joys, it means you’re home. So I paint them. #SpeirGorm #Stunday #ArtYear
A new picture, to mark my birthday. No. 49 By me.
I can
This is the introduction to “Forbidden Laughter: Soviet Underground Jokes”, published in 1978. We’re just people here. But people making each other laugh is the thing that can keep them alive. Even in the face of “speeches and signs in which (as you well know!) there isn't a grain of truth”
We built a calculator that doesn't work, but don't worry, it's also a plagiarism machine that will tell you to kill yourself. It runs on the world's oceans and costs 10 trillion dollars.
I found it squirmingly hilarious, because it was also all the other things.
This is a fun game and we all deserve a bit of levity.
Meanwhile, we’ve been building this ‘system of control and surveillance’ for a decade. The Immigration Act 2014. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Online Safety Act 2023. Building it brick by brick, and ignoring those of us who warned about what was going on.
Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”
“The President is massively popular. What if our candidate was the opposite of that?”
The NATO Dame!
I think if Britain colonised your country of origin you should get free BBC iplayer.
Researchers offer north Dublin commuters use of an electric bicycle to switch away from driving to Balbriggan train station for six months irishcycle.com/2025/08/29/r...
This scheme sets out the definition of an eligible person here: www.gov.ie/en/departmen...
Time Machine stories have been a lifelong personal delight. But before travelling through time in an automated fashion, we have to do it the old fashioned, manual way So, year by year, we laboriously travel through future history, which for some reason seems to have way more Morlocks than is ideal
Lovely "That'll Do" energy.
they’ll just move him to a different parish and he’ll do it again
From Book Bans To Internet Bans: Wyoming Lets Parents Control The Whole State’s Access To The Internet - www.techdirt.com/2025/08/28/f... "This is a textbook example of a “heckler’s veto,” where a single person can unilaterally decide what content the public is allowed to access." madness
More details of the UK’s incredible attempt to compromise the private files and passwords of literally all iPhone users worldwide. www.ft.com/content/fe2c...
It's true! Julia Roberts will be narrating Leonard and Hungry Paul. She read the book when it came out and her agent got in touch to say she really liked it. But I never thought things would go this far. Delighted. www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...
This is correct only if the author intends to say that “the US military’s use of Shannon” abhors voters.
“We are convinced that your existing EU law powers provide ample opportunity to refuse to authorise the sale of Israel Bonds. Purchase of Israel Bonds raises significant investor protection concerns, including potential responsibility” Signatory list: academicsforpalestine.org/wp-content/u...
Like Macron before him, French centrist PM thought everyone would support him if he made them choose between him and an alternative. This has not occurred. It’s almost as if alienating potential members of a broader coalition against the Far right might be a poor long term plan.
Interesting thread on historical worries about the UK doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. I’d add 2 observations: 1) 19th C / Early 20th C concerns were frequently worries about extension of the franchise. 2) EU membership gave the U.K. a written Constitution it liked to pretend hadn’t happened.
“A picture! Of ME?! Let me make sure you get my good side.”
this could be the alt text for the photo below
Your mam shouts at hotels and your dad paints roundabouts
