Neil Duffy

[Irish Times Opinion @IrishTimesOpEd]

Sinéad O'Sullivan: People in Ireland want to know where our money goes. The answer is depressing https://t.co/pcGkDQBc9x

[Sinéad O’Sullivan @SineadOS1]

Latest essay: I is for Immigration

"The entire political class has moved from performing compassion to performing outrage at the consequences, while having actively created the very conditions that produced the crisis."

[Sinéad O’Sullivan @SineadOS1]

In which we discuss how a government that is “spending” is not the same as a government that is “investing”!

[Sinéad O’Sullivan @SineadOS1]

My follow up essay: Ireland's Failure Premium. To answer the question a lot of people have asked me: So where the hell does all of our money go, if it's not into creating infrastructure and a high living standard?!

[The short answer is: someone's pockets. Just not yours...]

[Neil Duffy @loafiebread]

https://t.co/WIMG5h7iQI

[Business Post @businessposthq]

Australia to charge big tech firms if they don’t pay local news outlets for content https://t.co/rxxHkQDri0

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

Let me walk you through what happened one hour before Trump announced the five day moratorium on Iran strikes.

$1.5 billion in notional S&P E-mini futures contracts. Four to six times normal activity.

One hour before the announcement.

Simultaneously, $192 million in crude oil futures purchased at the same time.

They made between $300 and $400 million dollars off those trades.

Trump claimed he spoke to an Iranian official to negotiate the moratorium.

The Iranians said that person doesn't exist and the conversation never happened.

This is not the first time.

It has happened multiple times. He says something. The trade goes on. He says another thing. The market moves.

But whatever you call it — they are laughing at you and they are laughing at me while they do it.

Hunter Biden sold a painting and Washington lost its mind.

These people are making hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars trading on information that only exists inside the most powerful office in the world.

I think we are dramatically underreporting how much money is actually being made here.

This isn't politics anymore.

This is a financial operation running out of the White House.

[Steve Magness @stevemagness]

We lost a legend this week. Olympic Gold medalist Ron Delany passed away at 91.

The summer before the 1956 Olympics, Delany ran a 4:20 mile at a meet in Dublin. Then, he got spiked badly in Paris and could barely race the rest of the season.

The press said he was burnt out.

The Olympic Council only confirmed his selection at the last possible moment.

As he was struggling with his form, John Landy pulled him aside.

He told him he looked strained, that his shoulders were too tense and he needed to relax.

Landy was the Olympic favorite, the 2nd man under 4.

The man he'd have to beat in Melbourne gave him the technical cue that would help unlock the run of his life.

Arriving at the Melbourne Olympics as an afterthought, he meets the British trio of 1500m stars in the village.

They want to do a friendly breakdown of the field. Who's going to do well?

Delany: "I'm going to win."

They looked at him like he was out of his mind.

Why was he so sure?

In his last training session before Melbourne, coach Brutus Hamilton pulled a piece of twine out of his pocket. Strung it across the track and had Delany run through it, arms spread wide, like a finish line celebration.

Then he said: "Now, son, we have practised everything."

They'd rehearsed winning, including winning.

In an era where there were no sports psychologist, Delany had a pre-race protocol.

Two hours out, he'd deliberately turn on the nerves. He'd let the anxiety build, get the adrenaline flowing.

Then an hour before, he flipped the switch.

Become what he called "the cold, calculated, tactician."

It was a threat-to-challenge conversion decades before we had a name for it.

On December 1st, 1956, there were 120,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with a field that was one of the best in history.

At the bell, Delany was tenth. Six meters off the lead.

Then he started to move. He passed Landy with 180 to go. And closed his final 200 in 25.6, to break the Olympic record by four seconds.

"There is no pain...Into the home stretch and I feel the strength, as if running on air... legs flowing so easily, breathing so consistent and effortless, my mind so relaxed and concentrated."

After he crossed the line, Delany dropped to his knees in prayer.

Landy, the favorite who'd helped fix his form months earlier and just lost, "was the first over me — which is a great tribute to the closeness of sportsmanship. He thought I'd collapsed, sees my face, and sees I'm not even winded."

After the race, Delany sent a telegram to his first coach, Jack Sweeney, back in Dublin.

Three words: "We did it Jack."

He was 21, 10,000 miles from home, had just won the Olympic gold medal.

And his first instinct was to credit the man who taught him to race.

RIP Ronnie.

[Mayo FC @mayofc_official]

Mayo FC are seeking a Men’s First Team Manager for the upcoming National League campaign

Applicants must hold a UEFA A Licence and have relevant experience at LOI level or similar, with knowledge of the local game

Apply: [email protected]
Closing Date: Fri 20 March, 6pm

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian boy and stood around as he bled to death, video shows https://t.co/JoQtQbaDIL

[Bill Pourquoimec @BillPourquoimec]

Blur playing at an Irish wedding in 1990

[David McWilliams @davidmcw]

This is how it is done. The Italians are happy built a new metro right beside the Colosseum..yet here in Ireland people protest against infrastructure which might undermine the historic architecture of Ranelagh!!

[Neil Duffy @loafiebread]

@tancredipalmeri @grok what happened?

[Neil Duffy @loafiebread]

The Ivan Yates affair is a symptom of a wider problem in the Irish media

https://t.co/tEzXbv1bu2

[Michael Pidgeon @Pidge]

Car insurance premiums are up 9% - yet profits are down in the sector.

Costs are spiralling within insurance, there's a clear case for government to reform things, but there's just no energy or zeal for doing it.

@greenparty_ie statement: https://t.co/2UAxQw2UMR

[Neil Duffy @loafiebread]

https://t.co/XEYN16jLwV

[Neil Duffy @loafiebread]

https://t.co/BCIElh74Da

[Virgin Media News @VirginMediaNews]

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty has told the Dáil the Government should be “embarrassed” over the “housing czar” controversy, saying it was prepared to pay “a madcap salary” of nearly €500,000 to someone “to take up the main responsibilities of the Housing Minister.”
More on #VMNews

[Dublin Inquirer @DublinInquirer]

Yes, waste-collection companies can legally give the council data on who doesn’t pay them for bins. Concerns have been raised about data protection, but an expert says the council can collate this data if it shows that it is necessary and proportionate.
https://t.co/Dzh1BC9i0B