Gerald Ford dies

The 38th president of the US died yesterday . Among his achievements (more here)

• Not getting elected president by a dodgy vote count in a state where his brother was governer. Ford was the only president to never be elected either president or vice president.

• Not starting a war in Iraq. In fact Ford pulled the last troops out of Vietnam.

• Not getting shot. in '75 a gun was pointed at Ford but no shots fired. If only the current president could fail at following Ford on that too.
  

May he rest in peace.

Terminator runs for government in California.

No, not Arnie, the actual Terminator. From the BBC here is a report that robots may one day have rights. Within the next 20 to 50 years. It goes on to say the robots would have certain responsibilities such as voting, the obligation to pay taxes, and perhaps serving compulsory military service. So Bush could send them to Iraq maybe?
I can't see this happening, though some intelligence in the White House, artificial or otherwise might be appreciated.

Even dead he screws us

Charles Haugheys legal fees which are estimated at €20 million (from the Indo, free subscription required) look set to be paid by the taxpayer. He must be laughing his arse off in hell, the sickbed robbing cunt.
Let's see, he got about €45 million, at the higher rate of tax (currently 42%) is €18.9 million. Will CAB be going after his estate? Or do his family get to inherit?
Is this the law in Ireland? If you die before you get caught, your family get to keep anything you took? So rob a bank, run home, give your kids bags of cash and drop dead of a heart attack and they get to keep it?
I think CAB should go after it, €18.9 million in unpaid taxes. Just for a start. There is inheritance tax on the rest. Yes he's dead and his family have a tough time. It's still stolen money. It should go back to the tax payers he stole it from.

Admit he was a bastard Bertie

From the independent (here, free subscription) "The Moriarty Tribunal has concluded that the late Charles Haughey stole money from the special fund set up to secure medical treatment for his friend and colleague, Brian Lenihan."
Bertie, now you blew a wad of cash on a state funeral and hadn't a bad word to say about him. So what if he avoided taxes in the same way that I avoid dentists? So what if he blew more on a shirt than was spent on a hospital bed? So what if he lied through his teeth and told us to tighten our belts while he did all this? Yeah, he was a fine chap. One of the boys.
Well he stole money from his sick friends hospital fund. That Bertie, makes him a bastard. A dirty lying scumbag fucker. Next we'll hear how he stole candy from babies. So Bertie, will you comment on this? Will Fianna Fáil knock his name from their party rolls and take down his pictures. Will you spit when people mention his name? Or is this sick fucker still your hero? And will you allocate more tax payers money to raise a statue to him. A modern Robin Hood? Robs from the poor and the sick to give to the politician?

How to be beautiful

From the Sydney Morning Herals, I found this video from Dove



All you need is 6 metric tons of makeup and 3 hours with photoshop. Quite a cool video

Sleigh impounded

Reports are coming in that Santa Claus had his sleigh impounded for failing to show a valid tax disc as he passed through Ireland on his second round of list checking this year. While there, the revenue commisioners conducted a search and concluded that VAT had not been paid on the bag of luxury items he was carrying. Mr Claus admitted he intended leaving these items in the country but claims they are gift items and not for resale. The revenues official response on this was "Tough shit Paddy, it's over the allowance."
He is currently facing charges for non payment of tax, and faces having to pay the VAT on 1.2 million luxury items, as well as a €5 per item An Post / Revenue Commisioners handling fee.
More info on this here from the Irish Examiner.

Bye bye Bupa

From Bupa Irelands website,
BUPA Ireland forced to close it's business
"We have no choice but to leave the market with great regret" Martin O'Rourke.

It seems the government have protected their monopoly again. The VHI, a semi state body gets to have control of the market. Next Esat will pay compensation to Eircom and Ryanair will stump up for Aer Lingus. Meanwhile, we the consumer will pay more and more for a ex state owned, over priced service. When is the next election again?

Go home or go to jail

From todays independent,(here, free subscription required) Judge James O'Connor suspended a 7 month jail sentence, on condition the defendant leave the country within 48 hours not return for three years. The defendant, a one Robert Kwiatkowski who was found with a stolen €3000 laptop and passport was in the country less than two weeks.

Siobhan O'Donoghue, director of Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, said she was "very concerned that somebody in such a position of authority and esteem would make comments that are very inflammatory and have the potential to reinforce xenophobia and racism."

I can't see anything wrong with it. The judge didn't threaten deportation, he offered an alternative. How much would 7 months in jail cost the Irish taxpayer. The cheapest Ryanair flight out of the country (to anywhere, not just Poland) would cost a few euro only. Plus it stops him from robbing some one else here for three years and not just seven months, well out in four, and steals something else on the day of his release.
Let's take this further. How about we do this for more criminals? No jail time, instead you have to move to England for ten years. After all, we were lumped with the Black and Tans, let's return the favour. We had to hell or to Connaught, how about to jail or to London?
Even further again. You can go to prison for seven years for rape and be buggered repeatedly and come out and reoffend straight away, or else we can cut your balls off and you can walk away. Save us a fortune in running a prison, though maybe we shouldn't even offer the option. Let's choose the punishment on what's cheapest to the tax payer.
The gunmen in Dublin this week and the people who paid for it all. Should we offer them a very costly stay in prison, or a very cheap bullet?
I think the judge is on to a winner, don't waste all our taxes putting people in prison, to stop crime for a short time, kick them out of the country instead, Irish or immigrant, nationality doesn't matter. Then, for those we wouldn't even wish on the English we can take out the back and shoot.

No more L plates.

Yesterday I had my motorcycle test and a big hell yeah, I passed. So that's 2 out of 2 for my driving tests. Now to mock anyone who ever failed... If anyone is looking to pass a motorcycle driving test, I can recommend Bikecraft in Blarney for lessons.

Happy Christmas

Christmas has started, if not with a bang, at least a pop. The Late Late toy show last night the traditional opener to the Christmas season was ok. Just ok. Perhaps it got worse since Gay Byrne left or perhaps it's because I'm now 29. I still enjoyed it. It's definitely Christmas now. Plus I know what I want from Santa. A robot that can solve a rubiks cube.
Happy Christmas.

A Cork Handjob

This blog is the place to find it. Looking through my stats, I've been found by some surprising searches. The Eircom JCB song got a lot of hits. I'm a bit worried by the searches from all over the world for "Gerry Gainford". Who are these people and why are they searching for me? Please comment and let me know who you are.
Others though take the biscuit for their searches. Here are some of the ones that are most disturbing

cork handjob - There I am at number 10 on Google. Number 4 does look interesting too.

dogging ireland cork - Again a number 10 in Google.

knob rot - My highest ranking, BlueYonder gives me a number 5. This is powered by Google though.

By the way, the most popular is for Gerry Gainford. Numbers 1 through 10 on Googles list. The advantages of having a fairly uncommon name. If whoever was looking for a cork handjob wants to find me, might I suggest this way in future.

Linux is getting better

I installed Ubuntu on my laptop last night and it looks like Linux is getting better and better. What an easy install. It boots to a version of Ubuntu from the CD and then click on the install icon and it copies the install to your hard drive.
I haven't got my wireless card working yet, there are some issues with drivers, but otherwise it's very good. There is no real learning curve, it's very well laid out and easy to follow. Open Office, Firefox, and Evolution mail cover the main office needs. They are all very familiar to users of Windows and the whole layout means you can start to use Ubuntu out of the box.
OK, the driver install needs a bit more work. As manufacturers start to package their drivers though, this will improvet. When this happens, Microsoft will have a real competitor though. At last the TCO of Linux is dropping.
The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is what has been keeping Linux down. It is what Microsoft preaches to their customers. While Linux is free, it was never going to replace home users and office users for a few reasons. Mainly it is more expensive to use.
For the home users, software was there but it was difficult to install and difficult to use. How many of you know people who want to compile their email program before they use it?
In the office Users, again, the software took some skill to install. If it broke, well Limux engineers cost alot more than an MCSE to get out to fix it. Plus you had to retrain all your staff. Look around the office, people know how to use Windows before they start, they've used it in their last job, they've used it at home. In the end, over the life of your PC it would cost more to use Linux (needing an expert to install / upgrade / fix) than Microsoft where most of this was automatic and easily done by the end user. You still needed to call in an expert when you got the famous blue screen, but these are much cheaper than a Linux guru.
Will it replace Microsoft in the homes and offices? Not yet. But it is much much closer now. The ease of install and ease of use make it a definite alternative. If we just get the support of vendors and have drivers packaged for easy install, the double click and hit next type easy install, then Linux will come out ahead.
You can download Ubuntu from here.