Go Ask Me Bollix » asshole

Great Deals from Falcon Travel and Silverarm Solutions? Who Knows!

spongepantssquarebob — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:30:11 +0000

Normally I get a bit irate at spamming bastards from hell, but this one made me laugh. In my INBOX from Silverarm Solutions on behalf of Falcon Travel:

So not only are you niaive enough to think that spamming me will work, you are actually stupid enough to think I’ll click through to read more spam!?

Now I send email campaigns out and when I do I send them from my own domain. I don’t hide behind a .info domain in case someone blacklists me. However I am a tad more responsible than these stupid fuckers, so perhaps I shouldn’t comment.

By the way, check out what Silverarm Solutions are charging Falcon Travel for this “service”!!!

To Falcon Travel: If you would like to put a comment on this post and let us know what great deals you actually have we will give you the advertising for free. Just please don’t give my email address away to snake oil merchants!

Microsoft wins 2009 “Most God-awful Cringeworthy Vomit-inspiring Video” Award

cuntsvilleoflaherty — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:23:25 +0000

Words just can’t do justice to the nauseating, cloying, fake cameraderie in this series of “Windows 7 Party Tips” videos.

Yes, Microsoft are quite seriously expecting you to throw “Windows 7 Launch Parties” with your real friends in your real home, and have even released a set of videos to show you how. Now I must bend and puke under my desk before going drinking heavily to get the taste out of my mouth.

Pope says condom use in Africa will increase prevalance of AIDs

Disgruntled — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:18:45 +0000

The eedgit hadn’t even arrived in Cameroon when he came up with this beauty:

You can’t resolve (AIDS) with the distribution of condoms… On the contrary, it increases the problem.

Of course the potty old fart is completely missing the point. From the WHO page on Cameroon:

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 50/52

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 41/42

I met a guy last year who spent an enlightening 6 months in Cameroon. Over a few beers the topic of women, sexuality and AIDS came up. His point:

If you expect to die in your 40’s – why would you use a condom?! Hunger is the problem for these people, not AIDS.

There you go Benny, problem solved (as long as life expectancy remains at those pitiful levels.)

IRMA slanders Blacknight (or do they?)

Disgruntled — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:53:59 +0000

Soooooooo stupid (and verging on slanderous) they are that they have taken to writing to Irish ISP’s (not just those that provide Internet access, but also hosting companies like Blacknight).

The generally understated and considered Michele Nealon of Blacknight.ie must have been a bit pissed off with this – as he has posted it for you all to have a look at. Let’s have a look at it shall we (legal interpretation is free of charge):

Re: Illegal filesharing on the Blacknight network

Is this slanderous? Me thinks yes, but let’s read on…

Pursuant to the Copyright and Related Rights Acts…

A paragraph telling you what the Act is. I am a bit confused because you can get a copy of the act on Irish Statute in it’s entirety without some wannabee ambulance chaser paraphrasing it. Basically they are saying “…if you have been notified that you are facilitating copyright infringement and do nothing about it, you can be prosecuted under the act…”. My question: is this a notice that Michele is facilitating copyright infringement? Is there smoke without fire?!

Irish and European Law…

More of the bleedin’ obvious: Irish and EU law allows the courts to injunct people found guilty of breaking the law. NO SHIT HELEN! (Of course the message in the letter is specific to copyright infringement, but that is the gist of it.)

The Supreme Court…

When implementing an EU Directive, member states should interpret their national laws in such a way as to achieve the goal of the directive. (Will Helen Sheehy, of Sheehy Donnelly Solicitors, ever get to a point? No wonder Michele was so pissed!)

In this context…

“We think we can get the courts to inject ISP’s to remove and/or restrict access to copyrighted material.” You can think what you want, but the courts will decide pal!

In attempting to protect its rights…

“We tried to go to court and get an order directing ISPs to give us the names and addresses of people illegally sharing copyrighted material, but it was fuck all use and a complete waste of court time and resources.” Perhaps you should consider what is a waste of time and money – i.e. this piece of correspondence.

You will be aware…

“Eircom agreed to take it up the ass from us.”

The settlement agreement provides…

(You all know about this, but I wonder what the relevance of a third party agreement is to Blacknight… perhaps I should finish reading…)

It is the position of our clients that by this agreement eircom (sic) have agreed…

Surely you should ask Eircom that…? (P.S. Helen – Eircom is a proper noun – Capitalise It!)

Please confirm that Blacknight will also work with the record industry … (and) operate a similar graduated response and that it will disconnect the subscriber in default of compliance.

Comply with a private out-of-court agreement between two companies that have nothing to do with Blacknight? Why?

We should add by way of elaboration that it is not intended that there be any disclosure to our clients of the identity of the persons(s) denoted by the IP addresses at the time in question

Of course not – that would be illegal under privacy laws and it is illegal to encourage someone to break the law. Apart from that a person is not denoted by an IP address any more than they are denoted by their telephone number or by the name tag on their underpants.

In the event of a positive response to this letter…

Good luck with that!

In the event of a negative response to this letter, section 40(4) of the Act will be invoked against Blacknight and proceedings instituted.

We are writing to other ISPs in similar terms.

While we……..

Yours (blah, blah, blah…)

Let’s see – section 40(4) of the Act:

…where a person who provides facilities referred to in that subsection is notified by the owner of the copyright in the work concerned that those facilities are being used to infringe the copyright in that work and that person fails to remove that infringing material as soon as practicable thereafter that person shall also be liable for the infringement.

Am I missing something here? At no stage in this letter did Helen Sheehy say that Blacknights facilities were being used to infringe copyright… or did she? In fairness the heading of the letter (“Re: Illegal filesharing on the Blacknight network”) could be construed as such, in which case the letter is clearly slanderous. If this letter is not a notice under section 40(4) of the Act, then what proceedings can be instituted.

I would imaging the courts might take the view that sending out a form letter to every ISP in Ireland and claiming it conforms to section 40(4) of the Act is a waste of time and a simple ambulance chasers trawl. In any event, the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, is part of criminal law and as such, the normal rules of evidence, reasonable doubt and presumption of innocence apply…

…or were you missing that day Helen?

Land of a Hundred Thousand Welcomes…

Disgruntled — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:56:27 +0000

… as long as you’re not black, yellow, from Bradford or anything remotely non-white…

Nothing we didn’t already know about our racist immigration controls, but the word deserves to be spread:

TOURISM OFFICIALS expressed concern to the Department of Arts and Tourism earlier this year about the behaviour of immigration officers at ports of entry after an Indian man who won a trip to Ireland in a State-sponsored competition reported suffering harassment and racial discrimination at Dublin airport.

He won the trip at an event organised by Tourism Ireland in Mumbai to promote Ireland as an attractive holiday destination.

Newly released documents show the prizewinner wrote to Tourism Ireland on March 2nd to complain of his treatment at Dublin airport. He outlined how, despite his having the required tourist visa and carrying a letter from Tourism Ireland, immigration officers insisted they did not believe the letter was authentic.

“[An officer] then asked us who had booked our hotel. We told him it was done by Thomas Cook in Bombay. He said that can’t be possible as why would Ireland Tourism [sic] book through Thomas Cook as they were a British company. We didn’t know what to say.”

He alleged many other Indian passengers were treated unfairly. “It was only the Indians who were being photographed at the immigration counter. It was clear-cut racial discrimination. Whole thing was very embarrassing.”

According to correspondence released to The Irish Times under Freedom of Information rules, Tourism Ireland responded to convey its “deep regret” to the prizewinner over his experience. “We are all very upset and embarrassed about the incident and will be taking it up at the highest levels with the Government department concerned . . .” the agency said.

The following day, an official from Tourism Ireland sent an e-mail to a counterpart in the Department of Arts and Tourism. “Another shock story about immigration,” he wrote. “We really need to do something about it. The friendliest destination in the world???”

This was followed by a letter from Tourism Ireland chief executive Paul O’Toole to secretary general of the department Con Haugh. He pointed out that, in line with Government policy, the organisation was seeking to develop new markets in the Asia-Pacific region and warned of the need to be competitive.

“A number of our partners and contacts have reported unfortunate instances when they or their clients have sought entry to Ireland, notwithstanding their belief that they had secured the necessary documentation,” he wrote.

Tourism Ireland regards India as one of the most promising developing markets and opened an office in Mumbai three years ago.

Two months after the incident, in response to a parliamentary question by Fine Gael’s Olivia Mitchell, then newly appointed Minister for Arts and Tourism Martin Cullen said he was “not aware of immigration policy being a significant concern to the tourism industry”.

Immigrant groups and representatives of the English-language education sector have regularly complained of the harsh treatment experienced by lawful foreign visitors at ports of entry.

Earlier this month, a Nigerian Catholic priest who travelled to Ireland on a tourist visa was arrested at Dublin airport before being strip-searched and placed in a prison cell on suspicion of trying to enter the country illegally.

God Hates Ireland

spongepantssquarebob — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:13:08 +0000

Brought to you by Fred Phelps enlightened and liberal pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church we now have GodHatesIreland.com. (Sorry about the lack of a link there, but I’m not helping this asshole with his search engine rankings!) On second thoughts, fuck him, maybe Fred reads his web server logs and will see the referral from GoAskMeBollix: www.GodHatesIreland.com.

In case you missed some of his previous enlightening webshites (sic), check out:

Trust Australian Charles Firth to give these guys the respect they deserve.

Pity that some quick thinking spark has registered www.GodHatesAustralia.com thus saving our intrepid reporter from the wrath of the Phelps family.

Don’t worry Fred, plenty of other countries left to hate. I’ve taken the liberty of checking a few domains for you and available for hating are pretty much every country in the world bar: America, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Spain and (must be all those fucking penguins) Antarctica – (but you probably already knew that!)