My 1st car a 1972 Landrover SWB,I drove it a few time to a mechanic who specialised in LR repair 15 miles from me betimes with literally ZERO foot brake,and breaking with just handbrake and gear shifting, down the Limerick /Shannon dual carriageway a good few times, and no one was the wiser minus any sort of seat belts in it too because of its age it wasn't required.
My mates 1st cars weren't any better,if not worse. One lad had a Morris Minor that his brakes were a baulk of wood with a chain contraption to the hand brake that you pulled when you wanted to stop in lieu of the brake pedal connected to the rear wheels:eek:
He drove like that for months before he got someone to fix his brakes on his 30 quid a week wages as a farmhand.:eek:
Welded together chassis, holes repaired with Isopon in the chassis, floor plates repaired with nicked road traffic signs, and wire coat hangers used as the welding flux. Stuff that would give an NCT inspector a coronary on the spot.
If you were stopped for some reason,all AGS wanted to see was tax and insurance,and you weren't falling out of the car langers,you were grand. Didn't matter about the 15 others in the back of the van you were giving a lift home to either.:)
How no one was killed in some of these Mad Max death traps,I'll never know.
Seen a few of those types of guns you mentioned.DBBLS held together with baling twine and electricians tape and in one case an ancient hammer SXS kept with both barrels on full cock held back with rubber bands while out on a days woodcock shooting.:eek::eek:
Yeah,we could get away with things unthinkable today,but remember the time too.We weren't being micromanaged for our own good from Brussels in all aspects of our lives.
Shooting was in enforced indefinite hibernation with the troubles, and the thoughts of owning anything bigger than a .22/250 or a handgun of any type would get you a look that you must have been on the quare stuff, and you were a serious gun owner if you had THREE guns at the address. But so long as they were licensed,who cared how many rounds they held or how long the barrels were?
Nor were we as litigation happy back then as we are now either.
I'll just put it down to our Irish luck that there weren't any people killed by POS firearms either exploding or firing of their own will due to being in dire mechanical condition, same as our 80s Mad Max-style engineered and repaired cars.

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

My 1st car a 1972 Landrover SWB,I drove it a few time to a mechanic who specialised in LR repair 15 miles from me betimes with literally ZERO foot brake,and breaking with just handbrake and gear shifting, down the Limerick /Shannon dual carriageway a good few times, and no one was the wiser minus any sort of seat belts in it too because of its age it wasn't required.

I have a 1973 one, I'd say the biggest challenge was noticing the difference between normal and no braking - those drums work slowly!


My own experience is that the big improvement in car roadworthiness has played a dominant role in our massively improved road safety stats. Looking back at it now, it's hard to credit what used to be considered normal.

The mother got the jab at 10 this morning, she seems ok, no side effects, in and out in 15mins.

I see where you’re coming from, but I couldn’t support not letting a vaccinated 85 year old see their grandkids just because everyone hasn’t got it yet.

otmmyboy2 wrote: »

Me too

Simple, don't create the unequal society.
Keep those who chose to be vaccinated and those who do not on the same footing.

The vaccinations are not mandatory, and this differing treatment of people based on a supposedly "optional" choice is just a backdoor into making it mandatory.

A la the public services card debacle that they had to row back on.

I am not anti-vaccines in general, but this one I am suspect of, because of:
The blanket immunity to liability for the companies,
The relative lack of testing,
The speed with which it was developed,
The MRNA vaccines being the first of their kind,
The government's stated media campaign to get people to accept the "optional" vaccine(as a general rule I will distrust anyone trying to get me to do anything).

I'm sure there are others but that is off the top of my head.

But I think the above is a reasonable set of reasons to opt out of a vaccine.
And I do not think that my choosing not to accept the vaccine should make me less than someone who does get it.

Also what about the various people who cannot get the vaccine out of obligation or medical reasons?
IE - religious reasons, women who may be or become pregnant in the near future(no studies done on this AFAIK), not being health enough to get the vaccine(cancer patients, those with weakened immune systems, those on immunosuppressants, etc).
I've yet to hear a plan to accommodate them in the gov's plans, just a bland percentage of those to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
Also with no mention of those who have acquired natural immunity through having had the virus.

Cass wrote: »

Perhaps i'm remembering incorrectly (ala the source of this statement) but were we not told that even after vaccination we need to keep wearing masks, staying away from family/friends, and essentially adhering to lockdown protocols?

By the way i understand the need for these measures until enough people are vaccinated and a level, if not complete, herd immunity is reached, but that detail was not mentioned or even implied which is probably the cause of some of the opposition.

My understanding is that the vaccine protects you from the virus. In other words, you can catch it but it won't do you much (if any) harm but it doesn't stop you from passing it on to someone else who may not be vaccinated.

Plus none of the three or four vaccines offer 100% protection, there's probably a good 5% to 10% for whom the vaccine won't work so yeah, we are stuck with social distancing for quite a while yet.

civdef wrote: »

I love this stuff - what's your proposal here - magically vaccinate everyone at once? Or vaccinate no-one?

Possibly do like the UK?Get as many 1st doses of whatever into the most people possible,so they have a 60% + immunity with the 1st shot?

civdef wrote: »

I see where you’re coming from, but I couldn’t support not letting a vaccinated 85 year old see their grandkids just because everyone hasn’t got it yet.

Have you asked the 85-year-olds that question?
my mum is now 83 and possibly on the chaotic list of when she will get the dose.3 of her friends were given last-minute or no show doses in the last two weeks.
So I have skin in the game on this. But as she has said herself Once you are passed the 80 mark, every day is not a given anymore,and Covid is robbing her age group of what time is left, and when you reach a certain age, you get to accept that "appointment in Samarra" which we all have to make is coming closer every day.
So she has decided NOT to be a prisoner in her own house and goes and meets likewise minded old folks who want to meet up and are of the same mindset and contrary to what their children and govt say.
Time is short for those folk so maybe ASK them and allow what they want to do perhaps? If some want to live like hermits surrounded by a platoon of children guarding and waiting on them...Fair enugh...others might say so what I'm a goner soon enough let me hug my grankids. I think our oldies at least deserve THAT much.

Cass wrote: »

Perhaps i'm remembering incorrectly (ala the source of this statement) but were we not told that even after vaccination we need to keep wearing masks, staying away from family/friends, and essentially adhering to lockdown protocols?

By the way i understand the need for these measures until enough people are vaccinated and a level, if not complete, herd immunity is reached, but that detail was not mentioned or even implied which is probably the cause of some of the opposition.

More recent research is showing it should be OK - the CDC statement referenced here earlier is based on that work.

I think this has been a cause of confusion along the way generally over the last year for people - official medical organizations (and pharma companies) have to have repeatable, verifiable studies backing up anything they say. Even if something makes sense and is probably true - they can't say it without evidence. This was particularly visible with whether vaccinations would reduce transmission of COVID. Experience from other vaccines indicated it probably would, but the initial studies didn't focus on that (some of the fastest development in human history), so until later studies gave the evidence, it couldn't be banked on.

Edit to add - this is for people who have had the full 2 dose regieme or a reasonable amount of time passed since shot 1. You can't walk straight from first vaccination clinic into a nightclub as the vaccine won't have taken effect yet.

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Possibly do like the UK?Get as many 1st doses of whatever into the most people possible,so they have a 60% + immunity with the 1st shot?

The UK took a big gamble on that one - working off preliminary results in advance of full evidence - fair play to them it seems to be working.

They took big gambles on things like herd immunity from infection earlier that resulted in a lot of deaths. Stakes are high.

tudderone wrote: »

Our lot are relying on the eu for the vaccine and can only use what they give. They should have gone solo and bought it where ever they could obtain it. Their first duty is to the citizens of Ireland, not a pretend parliament in Brussels.

The problem with that plan is that a small country like us has frig all purchasing power and demand greatly exceeds supply. It mightn't seem like it now, but we're doing better through EU (with all the messing) than we would have on our own. You only have to look back to the first few months of the pandemic when we were trying to buy scarce supplies of PPE on our own. People generally have no idea how much of a Wild West that was - and how difficult it was to procure any sort of decent PPE. And at elast lots of companies can make PPE and scaling up production wasn't particularly challenging over a few months.

There was a lot of fuss made about Denmark- the extra doses they bought with great fanfare are coming much later in the year.
Russia has made great noise about what actually does look to be a pretty good vaccine, but when you look at production capacity it is no game changer.
When the first of the chinese vaccines was tested in Brazil it showed very poor effectiveness.

This is not a buyer's market. And we're very small buyers outside the EU.

civdef wrote: »

One thing that has been missed a lot is that point in fairness, just because someone is old doesn't mean their opinion shouldn't be asked.

On the flip side, the virus is measurably and demonstrably very dangerous for people in their 80s. There have been several residential care centres around here where the grim reaper took about 1/3 of residents. Some of these were people who were taken well ahead of their time. The fear in these places was very real and palpable.

I'm hardly surprised that it ran rampant in the Old folk's homes... We knew they were basically in many cases badly run,for-profit warehouses that wouldn't spend a penny if they could avoid it least of all on PPC.It was a scandal before Covid on how they were run.

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Take a Zinc pill once a week and keep the immune system active. We are grubby animals that do need others dirt and diseases to keep our immune systems in peak condition. Isolating ourselves too much will also play havoc with our immune systems as well.

I always thought so, as a kid i was semi-feral, in fields, up trees, playing by a river, walking in cow plop, up to all sorts and i was never sick much.

Cass wrote: »

Can someone explain this Davy scandal to me. I've read a few articles and other than fines imposed and the actions of 16 employees i'm either missing the punchline or the articles are not well written. They don't seem to spell out the scandal.

As the most respected financial org in Ireland, and the government go to for money. I contract you to sell my bonds/shares/etc, as I want to liquidate my assets NOW (reasons unknown). I sign contract with you and beg you to get me the best price as soon as possible. When I leave the office, you ring 15 of your buddies and say we can make a fortune here. You ring me back and says it is gonna be hard, with covid and the like, but you can get me 100billion tomorrow. I am under pressure, knowing it should be 120billion, but decide to go for it, as I am paying you 10% commission to get the best price for me. We do a deal, you get 10billion commission, I get 90billion and you and your 15 buddies get assets worth 120billion, which you sell tomorrow for ????

Davy makes 10billion commission, of which you get your cut
You and your 15 buddies, for no financial input, make at least 20billion
I lose at least 18billion
You are paid by Davy, plus get commission plus you are paid by me to get me the best deal.

Central Bank says this is legit

Cass wrote: »

Wow.

They fined them €4.1 million so obviously not "that legit".

Loose change to that lot.

tonysopprano wrote: »

€4.1 MILLION on a transaction of BILLIONS, is pittance, and only fined because it was made public, and sure the plebs will think it matters because they know millions but haven't a clue how much a billion is.

A million seconds is 12 days.
A billion seconds is 31 years.

That’s a great one for putting what a billion is in perspective

Get caught swiping some groceries out of Dunnes and you'd be made a show of in court, thieve millions or billions and bubkis. Same happened with the property crash and bail-out in 2008.

ANOTHER reason to never vote Green!!!When you have utter crazy cat ladies like this making statements form and in places of power...

It also makes a mockery of the "only ThE POLicE sHouLd have GunZ" attitude,as her murderer was one of the armed diplomatic protection squad.
How do you screen out the evil in a person mind, when the evil-doer is in a position of power and authority who passed all security and checks with flying colours?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9350711/Green-peer-calls-MEN-face-6pm-CURFEW-wake-Sarah-Everard-murder.html

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

What did that Fuk get who ruined us with Anglo?? 4 years and he's out on probation 2 years later. Ruin a countries economy and peoples livlihood thru fraud.A slap on the wrist and go enjoy your trousered millions. Sell some weed or smuggled garlic,You get4 years... ONLY in Ireland...

But in the deal he got to keep his €4 million pension pot

I'd put him in the category of Bernie Madoff's antics in the US.While the World was going to Hell both of these clowns actions didnt help,and Ireland wasn't in a bad position in national debt.It was private banking debt taked onto the national debt that pushed us over.Despite the doomsayers and predictions of bank runs and whatnot.The banks should have been allowed to go bust,but with Irish high society being what it is...That was never going to happen.:rolleyes: