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TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has been accused by opposition TDs of a “gushing” response to the election of Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the US.
In an exchange in the Dáil this evening, Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger told the Taoiseach that he should have “sent Mr Trump a message that he hopes he will respect gay rights, minority rights and immigrant rights.”
“While I accept that the Taoiseach must go through the motions of formally greeting the election of world leaders, does he have to do so in such a gushing manner?,” Coppinger said.
On Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the Taoiseach sent a gushing tweet over the weekend in which he said Mr Pence certainly knows Ireland and the issues that matter to Irish people. Last year, Irish people turned out in droves for the same-sex marriage referendum. Vice President-elect Pence is bitterly opposed to same-sex marriage and has argued, for example, that resources should be provided for conversion therapy to assist those seeking to change their sexual behaviour. How is that in accordance with the views of Irish people?
Coppinger also joked that the Irish people will “sleep soundly in their beds” after the Taoiseach confirmed that Irish politicians have been invited to the White House next year and that the annual Shamrock ceremony will continue.
The Taoiseach’s tweet about the Vice President-elect followed a conversation between the pair in which the Taoiseach said they spoke about Pence’s Irish heritage.
Pence has been a consistent opponent of LGBT rights and as Coppinger mentioned he has previously advocated so-called “conversion therapy” for gay people.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan TD told the Taoiseach that he had been contacted by “various gay friends of mine” after Kenny’s conversation with Pence.
“There is a balancing act between being diplomatic and standing up for certain values, rather than just normalising positions that are beyond the pale,” Ryan said.
I would like the Taoiseach to consider the example of gay rights, which he will rightly say the previous government championed. We all introduced marriage equality. How can we protect the fundamental principles we now hold in a diplomatic way?
In response, the Taoiseach said that: “We stand up for our own rights by our own actions.”
Kenny made reference to Ireland’s vote on marriage equality but did not say whether it was mentioned in his conversations with Trump or Pence.
“We had a referendum on gay marriage and equality of rights. I was very happy to support it. It was a wonderful period of exultation and excitement among Irish people,” he said.
Kenny also added that people must accept the results of the US election:
The decision has been made. It has been made by the electorate of the United States. It went to the ballot box and elected Vice President-elect Pence and President-elect Trump. Politicians the world over have got to deal with the consequences of whatever administration emerges from that.
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Its all about getting people hooked into one of the most intrusive operating systems that ever came out of Microsoft and it certainly ties in with TTIP and the recently passed CISA Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and more so from Bill Gates.
Microsoft are really pushing this. Annoying pop ups throughout the day offering free ‘upgrade’.
Anyone I’ve spoken to about Windows 10 tell me ‘don’t get it – it’s crap’.
Makes me suspicious when something is promoted to such an extent.
Time will tell.
I have it and I find it completely fine. there are some privacy steps that are easily applied and after that I’m completely comfortable with it.
Not crap but far from perfect yet. Using it daily for work and is mainly fine. Some extremely basic issues such as sees an SD card, asks if you want to import photos, say yes and it asks from where as Photos can’t see it. You can still copy and paste them but it’s very strange. HyperV services need restarting every morning after a clean reboot. These are minor and I am sure will get resolved soon enough.
Microsoft needs to get people off old versions as otherwise advertising all manner of security enhancements and features is pointless when all versions are lumped under the same title of Windows and they get slagged every time someone finds some issue in XP etc
Tommy , you can turn off the reminder pop-ups by uninstalling update # KB3035583.
My son upgraded my Windows 7 to 10 on the laptop (admittedly about 3 years old) and managed to delete the roll back option too. It was so slow I gave up and wiped it and put Linux on. Much faster and seemingly more stable too.
Well i love Windows 10, I’ve used all versions, if you are unhappy with he data they take here are a few solutions. http://bgr.com/2015/08/14/windows-10-spying-prevention-privacy-tools/
What ever you can do about stopping Microsoft from spying on you, Google already knows unless you change your browser.
There some serious bugs still. One is the “Fatal_power_error” which crashes systems. Apparently a hibernation issue that kicks in.
Installed it but forced to go back to Win7 on a dual boot as default system.
Hopefully the expected November major update can help resolve some of these issues.
Wins 10 does still have some issues that need to be addressed, normal or new users will or may find it difficult to navigate around. As for the upgrades for users that have older PC’s/Laptops they may have issues finding drivers that support Wins 10, so sound cards, VGA drivers etc are but just 2.
For these users if they have wins 7 are are looking for the chance to try something new/stable and Free try Linux Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/start/rafaela/ this has a wins feel about it and the user does not have to be totally savvy to use it.
This distro (linux Mint) allows to create a dual boot when installing it so you can still have your wins 7 and you can choose which operating system (OS) you wish to boot into at startup.
It installs almost all the drivers required on both new and older machines, installing software is very easy and best of all 99% of the software is Free.
There always a Linux troll lurking around.
It is so slow with Chrome or Mozilla and I am certain that is deliberate to make you use the Windows search engine. I could not accept that on rain opal, but hey, who am I , you are very odd these days if you are a sheep !
it also can ruin your hard drive when downloaded. mine corrupted within hours after installing, almost €200 for a new one
Still awaiting it even though I requested it back in July!!
have your say