Dave's Rants

Eamonn Ryan’s Policy on Nuclear Power

Dave — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:59:56 +0000

I’m a big proponent of nuclear power and always point out to people that due to the interconnector between Ireland and Britain we already use nuclear power. So it was facinating to hear Eamonn Ryan talking about his denial of a uranium mining licence as this would be ‘hypocritical’.

Surely actually using nuclear energy is far more hypocritical than permitting the mining of uranium while campaigning against the use of the same ore?

BT Complaints

Dave — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:52:34 +0000

You get this screen when you make a query/complaint on the BT Ireland website. Looks like you’re all done right, nope, you’ve got to click that button at the bottom to actually submit the query. The submit on the previous screen dones nothing except bring you to this screen!

Advertising Standards in Ireland

Dave — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:13:23 +0000

After what I thought was a clever ‘Paisean Faisean’ advert was banned by the ASAI I started paying more attention to their complaints bulletin. I noticed a pattern where anything remotely sexualising women was getting banned and to be honest I just thought it hysterical.

So when Aero launched their ‘Bubbles’ ad campaign I decided to make a complaint. I took the text of the complaints made against adverts featuring females and changed the sex to male. e.g. ‘I found the Aero advertisment degrading to men as it dehumanises and makes the man shown in the advertisement a mere sex object used to promote a product.’ etc., etc.

So today I get notice back from the ASAI that they didn’t deem my complaint actionable, but yet they manged to ban a Lynx ad which was pretty much the same except it objectified a man not a woman.

So I don’t get it what’s the difference? Is it ok to sexualise men but not women. Personally I’ve no real issue with any advertising of this nature but I do have a problem with standards not being applied equally.

Taoiseach in Need

Dave — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:12:36 +0000

Digout Day

Trusting Irish Stockbrokers?

Dave — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:45:08 +0000

So I was driving home on Wednesday evening having seen the blood on the ISEQ after Bank of Ireland released their results and someone from Davy’s Stockbrokers was on the radio recommending that everyone pile into the banking shares because they are such a good buy. Now this may be true, I for the record am still shorting some of the banks but the next day I see this post on The Property Pin

7) BN 8:27 *AIB, IRISH LIFE SHARE PRICE TARGETS `UNDER REVIEW’ AT DAVY
8 ) BN 8:27 *BANK OF IRELAND SHARE PRICE TARGET CUT 21% TO EU13 AT DAVY

So yes that’s right, at 18:30 on Wednesday they were ramping the share and then at 8:20 the next morning they were revising downwards their price target. Now you could contend that it’s still a buy even with the lower target but some disclosure would be nice. If you’re going to say how great a stock is one evening knowing you’ll be downgrading it the next evening it’d be nice.

On a similar topic, Shane Ross follows on from his recent eviserations of Eddie Hobbs with this diatribe against Davy’s Robbie Kelleher.

No better place than the Iseq index of Irish shares, Robbie’s area of expertise. On December 31, 2006, it closed at 9,408. Robbie and his lads predicted that it would increase by 15 to 20 per cent in 2007.

A 20 per cent rise would send it to 11,300. Not too close to last week’s 7,000 level. A 36 per cent margin of error.

Broadband

Dave — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:44:27 +0000

This is from the Audi website, looks like the Government here are going to have to start reclassifying what broadband is because other countries are moving so far ahead that sub 4 Mbps isn’t satisfactory anymore.

Why Don’t Bloggers Get Credit

Dave — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:24:00 +0000

I loved this story Damien linked me to the other day. I was hoping it would get wider coverage so I was happy when I saw it in the Daily Mail today, which is great. Unfortunately as usual with any story taken from a blog they didn’t bother to credit the source. Pathetic…

Where to Watch the 2007 Rugby World Cup in Ireland

Dave — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:57:30 +0000

All Games:
All games will be on Setanta and ITV. ITV will broadcast some games on ITV 1 and others on ITV 4. ITV is available on many platforms in Ireland. If you have Sky Digital, here are the instructions for adding ITV 1 and ITV 4 to your channel list

Ireland Games, Knock Out Rounds:
All these games will be broadcast on Setanta, ITV and TV3

Success

Dave — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:51:28 +0000

The Independent printed my response to the David Quinn article I wrote about on Monday.

Atheism in the 2006 Census

Dave — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 20:22:50 +0000

It’s rare I bother writing to the editor but poor research always irks me. Had the author of the Independent piece that Sarah pointed out bothered to research the issue he’d have found the obvious reason why the number of atheists in Ireland appears to be so small. So in case the paper doesn’t print my terse reply here it is:

In Friday’s article David Quinn points out that the number of self-described atheists in this country according to the 2006 census is very small. Had Mr. Quinn researched the phrasing of the question on the census form he would have discovered that under the heading titled ‘Religion’, those not subscribing to the major faiths were offered the choice of ‘No Religion’ or ‘Other’. As an atheist I’d regard it as bizarre to fill in the ‘Other’ box as that would be identifying atheism as a religion which it isn’t. The logical choice for myself and the many atheists in this country is to correctly identify themselves as having no religion. It was the only accurate answer to the question. Perhaps we could be offered with a specific choice for atheism in the next Census, but to be honest I’d rather the CSO didn’t bother wasting resources on such a minor issue. The demographical implications of people subscribing to none of the major faiths and having no belief in a deity whatsoever are identical so it would serve no purpose.