Are you a "Fog Lights On Plonker" while driving?

They drive me mad!

Idiots who drive in daylight but more especially in the darkness with their “Fog Lights” on while fog is not present.

I considered “while there is no fog” for the above. But y'know.

I saw a clown on the M1 Near the Airport last night, in the middle of three lanes, both sets of “Fog Lights” on front and rere.

He was travelling at around 40K with the drivers window wound down : tossing the fag ash out.

At least the other clown who passed him on the inside was travelling!

I'd say about 120K in the 80K limit.

This carry-on is the type: that when the Gardai come to speak about such behaviour: they insist they will have plenty of patrols out over the Bank Holiday Weekend monitoring the situation.

I call it “Policing by Fear”. Threaten; then sit back, do nothing, and see what happens.

If it is then a good weekend with no bad fatalities, take the credit for the success of your policies.

Is The Irish Household Charges Act Unconstitutional?

Irish Government Minister, Phil Hogan, tells us that he has raised a significant amount of money on the household charge to date.

However I wonder if Minister Hogan is aware that the charges levied and the distribution of the money for use by local authorities could be unconstitutional.

I imagine that some part of the acts governing the charges have been introduced as a Money Bill in accordance with Article 22 of our Constitution. 

Article 22

1. 1° A Money Bill means a Bill which contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following matters, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration or regulation of taxation; the imposition for the payment of debt or other financial purposes of charges on public moneys or the variation or repeal of any such charges; supply; the appropriation, receipt, custody, issue or audit of accounts of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; matters subordinate and incidental to these matters or any of them.

Fair enough: the Article seems to cover the collection of taxes. Phil says that from now on the Revenue Commissioners will be responsible for the collection of the Household Charge.

But Phil! There is a big sticky constitutional matter to be resolved first: since Article 22.2 says:-

2° In this definition the expressions "taxation", "public money" and "loan" respectively do not include any taxation, money or loan raised by local authorities or bodies for local purposes.

So is it back to the drawing board, once again, for Minister Hogan?

Róisín Ingle's opening sentences drive me SPARE!

I have been reading the I.T. Magazine on Saturday: despite the fact that lately I learned it was designed for their female readers. Normally that kind of comment would make me think I should unsubscribe.

Almost all readings result in a rush of blood to me head as a result of Róisín's terrible opening sentences.

When I was in the print business I was told repeatedly, “open with a hook to hold the reader” and later in the article come back and explain the hook.

An example is the title on this piece. Simple short and I hope it was enough to make you read further.

Today I am in so much of a fury that I decided to Blog: so I must explain the reason for that.

“The Fair Play Café in Ringsend, Dublin is one of those places a bit off the beaten track but well worth a diversion if you find yourself in the area and in need of sustenance, physical or spiritual.”

I was a struggle but I got there.

What's wrong with this.

The Fair Play Café in Ringsend, Dublin, is one of those places that is a bit off the beaten track. It is well worth a diversion: if you find yourself in the area, and in need of sustenance, physical or spiritual.

It even has the : to indicate a conclusion comment to the foregoing statement and for good measure is even followed by a list, an explanation to support the statement.

My God! I read that and I sound like a Victorian Schoolmistress!

A Victorian Schoolmistress’ Rules of Punctuation

Sentences start with a Capital letter,
So as to make your writing better.
Use a full stop to mark the end.
It closes every sentence penned.
The comma is for short pauses and breaks,
And also for the lists the writer makes.
Dashes – like these – are for thoughts by the way.
They give extra information (so do brackets, we may say).
These two dots are colons: they pause to compare.
They also do this: list, explain and prepare.
The semicolon makes a break; followed by a pause.
It does the job of words that link; it’s also a short pause.
An apostrophe shows the owner of anyone’s things,
And it’s also used for shortenings. I'm so glad! He’s so mad! We’re having such a lark!
To show strong feelings use an exclamation mark!
A question mark follows What? When? Where, Why? And how?
Do you? Can I? Shall we? Give us your answer now!
“Quotation marks” enclose what is said
Which is why they are sometimes called “speech marks” instead.

Scarcer than Bigfoot?

Has anyone ever met or heard of a motorist brought to court in Ireland by the NRA for non payment of toll fees and penalties?

I keep trolling the “Net” and can't find any. I may be wrong BUT!

In the early days I tried to pay for two trips on a single day . The system would only accept one payment and refused the other as not due. I called and spoke to a lady who told me to forget about it.

Of course you know what happened? Yes I got a bill for the fee and the penalty. So I spoke to them over a while arguing against the penalty and offering to pay the fee.

No use and then I got suspicious when I was told the penalty could not be remover UNLESS I signed up for automatic payment.

Now I'm a very suspicious person and wondered about this and came to the conclusion after examining the “Net” again and their website that they wanted details under The Data Protection Act, from me as a person. That way I was agreeing to them getting and using my personal data for their own use.

SO then I looked at the road traffic act section mentioned on their documentation and found it a very flimsy permission for NRA to collect my Car Registration details from the Tax Authorities.

Lo and behold the act only permits data exchange in the case of “Criminality”.

I asked NRA about this and they told me I was regarded as a “Criminal” if I did not pay my toll road fee.

I asked for that in writing and years later am still waiting for that statement or any follow up on the massive penalties I must owe after a few years.

So I ask again has anyone heard of, or know anyone brought to court and convicted of not paying a toll fee and the penalties imagined by the NRA?

Hail Mary

I was at Mass Sunday. Yes! Some of us Dinosaurs still attend: despite all.

The priest was introducing the Advent season and he started to talk about Mary and said when the angel visited her and announced she was to be the mother of Christ she said Do it to me or words to that effect. It says it better in the Angelus Prayer: “Be it done unto me according to your Word.”

Once again in relation to the Catholic Church I found something sticking in my craw.

Here they tell us a woman, in their opinion, said or would say words like that.

Is it not more reasonable that she would say, we will do this, I will carry the baby and give him a life, and nourish him and nurture him.

It would be more reasonable if she had said Listen Birdman! Hop It. Find another stooge!

I would have said. If God is all powerful, why not beam the baby down here now and leave me out of it.

And then I realised what I was thinking; Christ is not the beginning: Mary is!