Wednesday 22nd June 2011

Belfast Riots

Rival crowds of nationalists and loyalists threw petrol bombs, fireworks, bricks and other missiles at police lines and each other in the lower Newtownards Road area of east Belfast last night. Eamonn Mallie was on the line as was Sinn Fein Councillor, Niall O Donnghaile, in Belfast who witnessed the violence.

Scrappage

If you own a car that's gone past its useful life, how should you get rid of it? Should you do a deal with the scrap merchants who may have leafleted your home, offering you money to take away that old banger in your driveway? Or would that be a course of action that you may come to regret?

Last week on the programme we reported on how the rising world price for metals is causing scrapyards everywhere to become increasingly busy. Paddy O'Gorman was at one such scrapyard where he met people turning up with metal objects of all sorts, and in all kinds of quantities, who were finding that once almost-worthless scrap was now worth selling. And the most numerous listener queries we got arising from that report were about car scrappage. Whereas in the past, car owners would typically have found that they would have had to pay to get an old car removed, these days they are finding that they are the ones being offered money. But can these car-removal merchants be trusted?

Paddy O'Gorman has been looking at the car scrappage business.

Forum on Patronage

This afternoon the department of education’s forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector begins in Dublin and will run until Friday.

It’s no surprise that the forum’s running over a couple of days given the number of groups taking part! They include the national parents council, the Islamic Foundation of Ireland, Educate Together, the INTO and the Gaelscoileanna, among many others .

Recently education minister Ruairi Quinn has said that up to 50 per cent of catholic schools under the control of the catholic church could be transferred to other patrons.

Joining Pat were David Quinn of the Iona Institute and Paul Rowe, Chief Executive of Educate Together.

Galliano Trial

Well it was the verbal assault that put paid to his fashion career at the House of Dior. Now fashion designer John Galliano has his day in court to defend the drunken, anti Semitic diatribe he hailed on two fellow drinkers in La Perle Café in Paris back in February. John Lichfield of the London Independent was on the line.

Cow Fest in Wicklow

For the past few days a group of high maintenance ladies with great legs have been pampered, clipped, shaved, shampooed, powdered and wearing hair pieces. Valerie Cox has been helping out.

The Filter Bubble – What the Internet is Hiding From You

by Eli Pariser (Penguin Books)

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results to each user, and we entered a new era of personalization. Without any notice our online experience is changing as the websites we visit are increasingly tailored to each user. The race to collect as much personal data from each user is now on and Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are all competing to win.

Eli Pariser says that as a result of this customization, each of us increasingly are living in our own unique information universe known as ‘the filter bubble’. He explains in his first book – The Filter Bubble – how this new trend is nothing short of an invisible revolution in how we consume information; one that will shape how we learn, what we know and even how our democracy works.