Just when you thought that you’d heard it all, you read this story. A Japanese woman who is an avid player in one of these wonderful virtual life games was recently so livid at her unexpected online, virtual divorce to her online, virtual husband that she killed off his character – virtually murdering him! Basically it boils down to illegal access of a private account and destruction of personal property in the real world. However, virtual murder or not, this Japanese lady is facing serious real world jail time for her act of virtual insanity… source: Yahoo!

The whole country has been up in arms since last week’s budget and the announcement that the medical cards for the over-70s would be harshly means-tested. There were other controversial movements in the budget also but this seemingly is the one that has grabbed most of the headlines and caused the most controversy. The aim of the cut was to eliminate medical cards for “better off” pensioners. As Michael O’Leary said on Newstalk recently, the richer people in this country generally don’t use medical cards because they have enough money for private health care and don’t get in line at the local clinic. Never a truer word spoken.

As words cannot contain the overwhelming feeling of rage that I have at the moment I will be brief.

Earlier today I made a comment to Shane that if today’s budget was delivered and the metro in Dublin was not cut from it, there would be no future for this country. The budget was delivered and it was announced that the estimated Eur 4 billion project would proceed to investigation with a view to uninterrupted continuance.

I live in Waterford, a city that is looking to have its Institute of Technology re-designated to university status so that it can transform the entire South East region of the country and attract much-needed FDI to a completely underdeveloped part of Ireland. The upgrade cost is estimated at approximately Eur 20 million. This investment would see companies established in the South East of the country from the strength of a university facility, would increase corporate tax receipts for the government, would reduce the unemployment burden of the South East which has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, and would see another area in Ireland grow as it has potential for development unlike Dublin that is already over-developed. A measly 0.5% of this estimated metro budget is all that this would take and yet the battle for this university re-designation has warred on for many years now, ignored by the government.

Building a metro line at a cost of Eur 4 billion that will see no return on investment for the Irish people, which will not make Dublin more attractive to outside investment, and which will only marginally, if at all, improve very small aspects of Dublin’s traffic problems, really shows were priorities lie in this God forsaken country in which I live. It’s all Dublin, Dublin, Dublin and to hell with the rest of ye. Dublin does not need a metro line but somehow those at the cabinet table deem it necessary to measure their political phallus against fellow Europeans’. It’s all about making themselves look like they measure up and not one bit about making logical investments that may somehow yield a positive impact on society, never mind a return on investment for the tax payer.

In the same breath, the Minister today proudly claims that lots of money is being saved by not decentralising much of the country’s public service to areas outside of Dublin and thus not building new facilities for them. Well somebody, for Christ’s sake, please point out to the Minister the ridiculous wealth of ghost town business parks built all over the country by the IDA, with tax payers money, that have failed to attract occupants and are still lying empty. Could these not be used to house the decentralised public service? No, the simple and real answer is that the government needed a simple excuse to take decentralisation off the table, to keep everything in Dublin and that is what they have now successfully done.

I am sickened!

Yes, it would appear that the good folk at Oxford and Cambridge have decided to open up a wealth of their lectures to the general public. No indication of a fee that I can see nor if the material will be offered up for free, I hope it’s the latter. Combined audio and video media will no doubt attract many an enthused mind. source: The Register

Following a line of questioning in the Dail yesterday by Brian O’Shea (Labour TD) to Batt O’Keefe (Minister for Education) on the subject of the outstanding application for re-designation of WIT as the University for the South East, the Minister said that a decision is likely within a matter of weeks. Read the story in the Irish Examiner.