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“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
“Hosepipe Ban” – Are they for real??

When I read this, I thought it was a Waterford Whispers News story. (Waterford Whispers News is an Irish satirical news website that usually hits the nail on the head with their brilliant headlines.) The announcement that made me think it is a joke was the announcement by Irish Water on Friday that from Monday 02 July a “hosepipe ban” would be in effect in the Greater Dublin area.

At first I thought it is Irish Water nonsense, but checking into it a bit more I realised that a piece of Irish Law really mentions that the “use of water drawn through a hosepipe” can be prohibited for the use of “watering a garden, watering recreational parks or sports grounds […], irrigating or spraying crops […], or washing a mechanically propelled vehicle or a trailer”.

Water conservation makes sense if there is a shortage and due to the idiotic way public water supplies in Ireland are ONLY served from surface water in lakes and reservoirs (instead of using water from underground sources) we are currently entering a period of water shortage. BUT a “hosepipe ban” just sounds like a ridiculous piece of law.

The ban will be in place for the whole month of July and if someone is found in breach of the ban, they could be fined EUR 125.

But here comes the interesting stuff:

While the wording above is taken from the “Water Services Act 2007”, Irish Water is NOT banning all wasteful water use. Instead they reduce the ban to “watering a garden, cleaning a private motor-vehicle using a domestic hosepipe. […], filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool (except when using hand held containers filled directly from a tap), […]” so that means if you use a domestic hosepipe you are not allowed to clean the car, but if it is a commercial hosepipe, you can go ahead without any issues. It also means that your swimming pool must not be filled via hosepipe, but if there is a tap above the swimming pool OR if you get LOTS of big containers and fill it by hand, you are all above the law.

Dublin, Environment, Irish, Odd, , ,

Less obesity but lots more strokes and dementia!? Thanks, Leo!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Less obesity but lots more strokes and dementia!? Thanks, Leo!

So, our wonderful politicians, led by former doctor and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar decided that they have to protect us from ourselves and force us to be healthier by introducing the Sugar Tax (correctly: Sugar Sweetened Drinks Tax). The Irish Heart Foundation and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland also supported the tax and claimed it will be a significant step in the fight against obesity.

The goal is to move people away from drinks that contain sugar and while there is the alternative of just drinking water, the probability is HUGE that people will move to diet drinks if they want to avoid paying the significant surcharge on drinks that contain sugar. Drinks containing between five and eight grams of sugar have experienced a price increase of 20 cent per litre and drinks with more than eight grams of sugar per 100 ml cost now even 30 cent more per litre.

All this to FORCE us to be healthier!

But did Leo Varadkar, the Irish Heart Foundation and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland really do their homework? Does avoiding sugar definitely make us healthier?

Interestingly there is a study that was published by the American Heart Foundation in April 2017, that indicates that our politicians and the two health-sector organisations mentioned above, probably did something really really bad to the people in Ireland!

The study looked at 2888 people for stroke and 1484 people for dementia and checked if sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened drink consumption had any impact on the risk of suffering a stroke or getting dementia.

And they found that artificially sweetened soft drink consumption was associated with a higher risk of stroke and dementia, while sugar-sweetened beverages were not associated with stroke or dementia!! :-O

So if thanks to Leo and his boys you moved from sugar sweetened drinks to artificially sweetened drinks to save some money, you might not die of obesity, but you are much more likely to die of or at least suffer of a stroke OR lose your mind!

In other words: Adults who had one or more diet drinks a day were 2.9 times more likely to develop dementia and 3 times more at risk of suffering a stroke compared to people who didn’t drink diet drinks. And drinking diet drinks is far worse than drinking drinks sweetened with sugar.

Great job, Leo!! Thanks! :-(

Odd, Politics, Taoiseach, Taxes, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Library fines will be abolished

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Library fines will be abolished

Libraries in Ireland are a great resource that could be used a lot more, but if they are used more or not will probably have no impact on society or the economy or the happiness of the nation whatsoever. Reading books is a good thing but there are many ways you can read books and you can get your books. In my opinion the E-Book and Audio book selection has to be expanded significantly and the libraries should allow the users to suggest specific e- and audiobooks for purchase, but apart from that there is not much that needs to change.

Michael Ring, Minister for Rural and Community Development , seems to think differently and I have to speculate that it comes from having nothing else to do in his department. Ring thinks that operating hours for libraries should be extended to 08:00-22:00 on 365 days a year (Who wants to be in a library at 21:00 on Christmas Eve!?!?) and he things that library fines have to go! At the moment the use of libraries is completely free and ONLY if you keep a physical book longer than the allowed loan period of three weeks (I think!) you have to pay a small, but increasing fine when you bring the book back. The purpose of the fine is to make sure that people bring the book back in time. But Ring thinks that it keeps people away from libraries.

In an ideal world nobody will steal and everybody will love thy neighbours. But unfortunately the world is not ideal. That’s why we have laws. And in the same way as there will always be people (including politicians) that will try to “minimise” their tax payments, there will always people that will forget to bring back some or all of their loaned books.

I think we should abolish library fines when we abolish fines for under declaring taxes.

Ring thinks people will bring books back even if there are no fines because the libraries are owned by the communities: Ring thinks people will still return books even if there is no fine.

He said: “I think people will respect the libraries because as I say it is not Government it is community, it is belonging to the people and we want to make these community hubs for the future.”

Is he deluded or absolutely right? What do you think?

Other, , ,

Don’t get sick in Ireland!! – Disastrous Irish Health System

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Don’t get sick in Ireland!! – Disastrous Irish Health System

What a shocker! RTE News told us Thursday that the number of people in Ireland who are on waiting lists to be treated or seen by a doctor has grown to a shocking number of over 707,000. This is an unbelievably huge number. 15% of the population of Ireland is waiting!! FIFTEEN percent!!

According to the Euro Health Consumer Index from 2017, the number of Irish patients waiting for surgery or an outpatient appointment is “abysmal”. They have concluded that Ireland has the WORST hospital waiting list in Europe.

It is not totally clear how RTE arrived at this number, but there is an Outpatient waiting list of 511,000 and an Inpatient waiting list of 78,000. There is planned procedure waiting list of 12,000 as well and adding all these up comes to around 600,000. so there are still 100,000 missing. But even if the waiting list was ONLY 600,000, that is still more than 12.5% of the population in Ireland.

If you are affected by this, check out the Cross Border Health Care Directive, this article in the Journal.ie outlines what it does.

Health System, Irish, , ,

Bloomsday!?!?! What is that?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bloomsday!?!?! What is that?

You either love it or you don’t care at all about Bloomsday, there seems to be nothing in between. It is a HUGE day for some and others don’t even know what it is about. If you belong to the latter group, let me help you a bit.

Bloomsday is a made up day and nothing of it is based on real events. James Joyce wrote the book Ulysses between 1914 and 1922 and the book describes one day, Thursday 16 June 1904 when Leopold Bloom, a fictional figure in the book, went about his business from 08:00 to the early hours of the next day. This invented day, lived by an invented person became Bloomsday.

You could compare it to McClane Day! Which doesn’t exist!!! But would be the day just before Christmas when we copy all the things that John McClane did in Die Hard. We go to Nakatomi Plaza for a Christmas Party, have a disagreement in the toilet and then spend the rest of the day to fight against Max Gruber and some terrorists/thieves with all sorts of weapons. So if McClane Day makes sense to you, then Bloomsday will also make sense.

The James Joyce fans dress up like characters from the book in clothes that were worn by people around 1904, then they have a breakfast like Leopold Bloom and visit the locations he went to during the day.

Does that help a bit? If not, get a better description here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday :-)

I think we should plan for McClane Day! We just have about 6 months to prepare for it! :-O

Dublin, Events, ,
 
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