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EVERY SATURDAY MORNING we take a look at all the best comments left on the site by our readers over the past seven days.
This week there was a lot of talk about Melania Trump, a dominatrix and our brief heatwave.
The 5 most popular comments this week
1. Derek Scanlon had this to say after the government launched its new housing plan:
Always about social housing, what about doing something to help the people who work full time, but can barely afford to eat due to the high rents!! This is good for people who are getting social welfare and entitled to social housing but not the average worker who gets r***d on the daily.
That comment got 1,474 green thumbs.
2. Donald Trump’s wife Melania was accused of plagiarising a speech given by Michelle Obama in 2008.
Joe Murphy was among those to react to the many similarities, getting 1,230 likes for this comment:
Her speech writer should get troll of the year.I’m glad she stopped before she got to the part about how hard it was growing up as a black woman in Chicago though.
3. Ireland enjoyed a brief heatwave during the week. Not everyone was able to handle the high temperatures, but Type17 had this to say:
Anyone who complains about the heat will be sent back to January.
That one got 1,150 green thumbs.
4. Finipops got 1,027 seals of approval for this comment about a farmer who refused to sell his land to IDA Ireland:
Well done on that farmer. It’s his land and he can sell it or not as he pleases.
5. A pun takes fifth place this week, with conny k getting 1,019 likes for this comment under an article about Dundalk securing a Champions League qualifying round clash with BATE Borisov.
Hopefully they can master bate over the two legs!!
The top 5 articles which received the most comments this week
1. Twitter bans right-wing writer after Ghostbusters actor targeted by trolls (490 comments)
2. French minister calls on all citizens to become reservists to help protect the country (369 comments)
3. Bishop compares abortion to involuntary Nazi euthanasia programme (303 comments)
4. Three police officers shot dead and three others injured by gunmen in Louisiana (251 comments)
5. Three people seriously injured as axe-wielding man attacks passengers on German train (250 comments)
Standout comments
We got a big reaction to our interview with a professional dominatrix who works in Dublin, and the follow-up Debate Room.
Kieran O’Sullivan had this to say:
Interesting topic, it’s a mistake viewing from a purely sexual perspective. Some people find a huge release giving up control. In many relationships the other partner might not understand this, be confused or even revolted by it. I think is is very different from having an affair as one person in the relationship has a need that the other persons cannot fur-fill. This is not the case with an affair.
While Brendan McGill added:
The way I see it if it involves going behind your partners back then it’s cheating in some form or another.. regardless of whether or not there’s sex involved.. same as if you get chatting to someone on the Web and start cybering or cam sex or something like that is cheating… if however the partner knows and is okay with it then no its not cheating.
During the week, figures from the Health Research Board showed that divorced people are much more likely to be admitted to hospital for psychiatric illness than their single, married or widowed counterparts.
It prompted Chief to share this experience:
Broke up with someone over a year ago and it was exactly like a death. Luckily enough and it’s rare but have a few very good mates that made the process very easy. Thanks lads.
With Ted Logan adding:
I know what you mean Chief. The two things someone needs when going trough separation are good friends and time.
Speaking of divorces, after it was announced the Dáil will likely debate shortening the wait time for a divorce from four to two years, joseph cooley wrote:
One of my family is going though a divorce right now with a difficult partner and it is ruining her life. It’s incredibly drawn out and is so easy for a difficult partner to throw a spanner in the works and keep on delaying it. If people want to divorce they should be allowed carry on with their lives and not have to have the stress hanging over them for several years!
There was widespread condemnation after a US-led coalition airstrike reportedly killed 56 civilians in Syria, with Tweed Cap commenting:
There can hardly be anything more miserable in this world than digging through rubble looking for the bodies of your dead kids that were probably happy playing minutes earlier. It must be just a fcuking horrible experience.
Phil O’ Meara had this to say under a piece about a new smartphone screen that will make smashed displays a rarer sight:
Far more important than the brand of glass used in the phone is the owners ability- when they have dropped their phone- to cushion the phones fall by moving their foot underneath, without drop kicking the phone against the wall.
While Michael OLainn added:
A fine art, once mastered.
By practicising with brand new IPhones, you have the incentive to improve.
Des Kelly, owner of the furniture chain of the same name, died on Thursday.
JustMade Ireland had this to say:
Thoughts with this man and his lovely family, just looking around our home so much we bought from them over the years incl 2nd hand when we could not afford, how different Dublin was those Days hard but more caring and people like him made it better.
See any good comments? Send them to orla@thejournal.ie.
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Having an issue whatsoever with FFG will be outlawed eventually. When they are finished with the high fives and congratulating one another on being incredible, what are they doing to help the 4000 homeless children in the country? Probably just ban non government media on reporting on it.
The opposition voices are serial objectors to housing developments; champagne socialists. If they are upset then this indicates the bill aims to make it much easier to bypass the cranks in order to get housing built. I support the guillotine consequently.
@Lewis Armstrong: As far as I can see, those opposition you refer to object to developments that would hand our housing over to vampire funds.
I presume therefore you are in favour of such government policy.
@Lewis Armstrong: what protections will be included to stop the government purposely delaying all debates and discussions to begin with so they can just guillotine anything they want.
“There is a housing emergency and crisis,” said Harris. ” – the cheek of a FFG to utter that sentence!
Is it the same bill that has had over 1,100 amendments made to it and half of those are by the Housing Minister himself.
Is it the same bill that says an Bord Pleanala have to pay fines if they don’t complete a planning application in a set number of weeks.
Harris says it had a 120 hours of debate and therefore meets the threshold and can be guillotined but it sounds like the 1,100 changes would have taken much of that time, maybe that was the plan all along when they obviously published shoddy policy.
@Lewis Armstrong: True. SFs double speak in particular crying out for more housing while blocking developments all over the place was part of what turned me off voting for them. They points score at every opportunity rather than focussing on the task at hand. It’s irritating.
@Lewis Armstrong: No serious objectors, we have laws in place for a reason to keep governments in check.
Neo liberal agendas favour the rich. Opposition is there to object to bad planning. I drive a lot and see plenty of new build, mostly apartments, lying empty for months.build to rent. Is that what we want in Ireland, faceless builders, reaping profits, money going out of the country to global entities.
Or homes, people can be proud of, not ending up ghost estates, where crime is rampant.
Thought we had moved on from those days.
As a person who was involved in building thousands of homes , with in a few weeks after Nonnan and fg created the legislation to allow individuals to buy all houses and pay no social tax ,everything changing, and yet more then half the people that just voted, think that’s OK,
have your say