The most boring election ever

I have avoided posting anything about the US election for all sorts of reasons. The two main candidates are both awful, the soundbytes are nauseating, the jingoism is unbearable. But mainly I haven't cared that much because this election has pretty much been a foregone conclusion for the last 18 months.

The Republicans spent all of 2011 and most of 2012 tearing strips off each other in the attempt to pick a candidate. They ended up with Romney who ended up taking most of the flak in the endless GOP debates. But given the opposition, especially Cain, Bachmann, Gingrich and Perry, that came as no surprise. On the other side you had a slew of big name Democrats clearly declaring they weren't even going to challenge Obama in the primaries.

So it should come as no surprise, as polling stations open in the US, that Obama is being given somewhere around an 80-85% chance of being re-elected. The crazies in the GOP be they Tea Partiers, Birthers, Religious Right, Creationists and what not have alienated many potential centre-right voters who will either stay at home or vote Obama.

The other key thing to note is the inherent bias in the electoral college system towards the Democrats. The winner takes all system provides a huge head start to Obama in guaranteeing him New York, California and Illinois of the big states (104 votes already) whereas apart from Texas (38 votes) all the guaranteed Red states are pretty small in electoral college votes. The New York Times has a great visualization of just how difficult it is for Romney to win even with 9 swing states in play.

So four more years of Obama. Well it's better than four years of Romney but then what wouldn't be better than a Romney presidency? I guess we can look forward to a few less wars, a few more rights for women and the gay community. But the US is still going to remain a very divided country both along the Red/Blue divide and the 1%/99% divide. Maybe in 2016 when we get a Hilary Clinton v Chris Christie or Marco Rubio contest we might actually have something to watch. Tonight I'll definitely be going to bed early.

Ich bin ein Hamburger

This past week I've been in Hamburg attending this year's edition of the Digital Humanities conference. In fact this is the first time I have actually spent any length of time in a German city, with all my previous visits to Germany ending up in a field drinking beer and listening to loud music. Well except for the three week stint in a summer camp in the middle of nowhere as a teenager but that's a story for another time.

While wandering around the Free and Hanseatic City, to give Hamburg it's full title, I couldn't help starting to compare what I saw with Dublin. Now as a short term visitor I can't comment on health care, taxation, employment opportunities or any of those sort of longer term issues. However, a couple of things really struck me, mainly on the transportation front.

Firstly, Hamburg is yet another continental city where public transport just works. There's no fuss, it just operates as expected. In fact, if I had been brave enough I could have travelled on the trains all week without buying a ticket as there are no barriers and I have never been stopped by an inspector. But people still buy tickets at the vending machines before boarding. Good luck getting that to work in Dublin. But it's not just the public transport. My hotel is opposite the Hertz Tower which is maybe 2km from the very centre of the city and on a major inbound artery past Dammtor. At no stage during my visit did I ever see a traffic jam, and there have been two very wet mornings which would have seen bumper to bumper back home, even during the school holidays.

Cycling is another thing that is massively different here. It is acceptable, almost encouraged, to cycle on the footpaths. Pedestrians and cyclists have realized that the motor vehicle is the common enemy, not each other. So pedestrians move over when they see an approaching bike or hear a bell from behind. Cyclists for their part don't pretend like they're in a Tour de France time trial and somehow manage to stop at red lights without turning in to pumpkins. It's all very civilized and people seem the better for it.

Hamburg is also spotless. I went for a stroll from my hotel down to the water front and then back up through St Pauli. Every street was litter free. The waterfront itself was actually terribly pleasant with decking right down at river level. Despite the expensive food stalls and tacky merchandise stands the stroll by the river is very enjoyable, right up until the heavens open and you end up having to dive into a bar for a beer to stay dry - such are the trials in life!

So would I live here? Maybe, but not until I had learned more than "ein bier bitte" and "wo ist der bahnhof" and based on my recent language acquisition trend that isn't likely to be any time soon. I'll be hanging out in dirty, dysfunctional Dublin for a little while yet. 

Yet another September 11th post

Yeah I know, there's nothing original in writing about September 11th. But as the defining event of the last decade, much the way the fall of the Berlin Wall defined the 90s, it would be a bit churlish to ignore the 10 year anniversary. There have been reams of articles written about the appropriateness of the Bush regime's response. The initial Afghan campaign was probably justified. The follow on shenanigans in Iraq definitely not.

To most people, the biggest impact of 9/11 has been the increase in the security farce surrounding air travel. In 2001 I happened to be in at a conference in Edinburgh where I watched events unfold. The chance in airport security from the flight over on the Saturday and the return home on the Wednesday evening were stark. This "increase" in security, not only in airports, but throughout our daily lives, has come at a cost.

Obviously in the immediate aftermath of such an event there is going to be an over-reaction. But the fact that the security industry has been able to keep the fear levels high and use it to remove hard earned civil liberties, especially in the US and UK, is depressing. Increased powers of stop and search, massive rollouts of CCTV and the use of financial and online profiling have all been introduced in order to "protect" us. Add to that the use of torture and rendition, especially the use of Shannon Airport, and you have to start asking yourself has it all been worthwhile.

The short answer from the hawks is to point out that, despite London, Madrid and Bali, by and large there hasn't been another 9/11 and so the measures are justified. The response from the doves is that between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people have been killed directly as a result of the 9/11 fallout in Iraq and Afghanistan and so the response has failed. Personally I'm more in the latter camp.

I have nothing new to say on this issue. The events of 9/11 were awful, a tragedy. But the response has been just as bad. We have moved from a peaceful, positive world in 2001 to a more violent, negative one in 2011. Does that mean the terrorists have won? Probably not. But they've advanced their agenda a whole lot with some unexpected allies in the governments of the West. You can't declare war on an abstract noun and expect to win.

Finally, in true lefty form, September 11th is the anniversary of a whole load of other world events which also deserve recognition. Here are some of them.

• 
  
• 1649 - Cromwell loots Drogheda and massacres the inhabitants
  
• 1919 - The US invades Honduras to prop up the original banana republic
  
• 1973 - Pinochet takes over in Chile following a CIA backed coup
  
• 1977 - Stephen Biko arrested and killed in South Africa
  

The UK riots

I was in the process of writing a blog post comparing three locations I had recently been in the UK, namely London, Nottingham and Bradford, when the rioting broke out. I'll come back to that topic eventually but feel that writing some thoughts about the current situation is more urgent.

The original peaceful protest on Saturday afternoon/evening in Tottenham was fully understandable. The community felt that one of their own had been unnecessarily killed and wanted to mark their feelings. How we got from there to sporadic burning, looting and general mayhem in multiple locations within the London and indeed around the UK is beyond understanding. Any answer to the question that can fit within the confines of a blog post is going to be glib and miss many of the potential points. However, that's what blogs do so I'll at least try to hit some points.

The original riot may have been in response to Mark Duggan's killing but to my mind the following two evenings have been mainly copy-cat vandalism and thuggery rather than a traditional riot with a political or social injustice dimension. Sure, those carrying out the acts are mainly male youths from disadvantaged areas but look at what the targets are: mobile phone, sports and technology shops. All items either of status or reasonably high resale value.

But why do people feel that they should carry out such acts? Marginalization from society? Poverty? Lack of civic responsibility? Lack of fear of being caught? Adrenaline rush and a herd mentality? Probably a mixture of all of the above. There are solutions to these but they take time to implement. Despite all my socialist tendencies, reality says that a society will never be fully equal but efforts have to be made to heal the rift between the top and bottom. Even using this language makes me feel ick. Those with nothing have to be brought into the fold and those with everything have to be made give a shit about others. It's not good enough to sit back and tut-tut.

The response by the police may not have been great, but given their numbers and the number of concurrent incidents it may have been deemed safer to let the looters run their course and contain the damage rather than clamp down. The right decision was made to leave the army off the streets. They are not specifically trained to deal with these situations and introducing firearms into the mix would only have ended badly. It was also right to not bail in with baton charges and tear gas. This would only piss off the communities and bystanders and turn them against the police rather than keep their anger and frustration pointed at the rioters.

The biggest fear is that these events are just the start of something more serious. If a body count starts mounting you can be sure the extreme fringes on all sides will get more vocal. The last group we need to be hearing from right now is the BNP or the radical muslim clerics stoking up further tension.

Norway

Five days have passed since the horrific attacks in Norway. In that time many column miles have been written describing and analyzing the events and to them I have nothing to add. That a single person can cause such carnage, especially to the young people at the summer camp, is a depressing thought. However, there are two responses to the tragedy that I want to comment on.

Despite being caught up in the moment, the statements of both the Mayor of Oslo and the Norwegian Prime Minister are full of hope. "We shall punish the terrorist, and this will be his punishment: more democracy, more tolerance, more generosity.” How strong a statement is that? "The answer to violence is even more democracy.” Awesome. Full marks for the Norwegian politicians for providing inspiring leadership just when it is required the most.

The other side is that awful gobshite of the US right, Glen Beck. His response to the killings was to compare the summer camp to Hitler Youth and then to blame multi-culturalism for the whole tragedy. A summer camp to encourage kids to get involved in the democratic process is "disturbing"? Nowhere near as disturbing as a man who uses a huge tragedy to score some rating points by being as offensive as possible. It was funny being a shock jock 20 years ago when Howard Stern started out. Now it is just pathetic.

Here comes the Queen

As a republican (small r) I have big problems with the concept of a hereditary head of state. Being lucky enough to be popped out of the right set of loins at the right time seems like a pretty bad way to determine who should be citizen number one. But at the same time, I agree with the concept of sovereignty of nation states, and what rules and regulations other countries use to appoint office holders is their own business. So in that spirit I have to welcome the arrival of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in much the same way I do any other head of state - with much indifference.

What I can't do though, is ignore the huge security operation that has been in place around the city over the last week or so. As an employee of TCD, where the Queen is due to visit later this afternoon, I have spent two days flashing my ID card to get in and out of campus and subjected to bag searches by the Gardaí. Normally I'd get a bit civil libertyish about such things but when you see the reports of the large number of IEDs that have been discovered and defused in the last few days I can appreciate the precautions being taken. The worst thing that could happen would be for a serious incident to occur during the visit.

The Republican (large R) movement are, of course, out in force organising protests and apparently even flag burnings. While I respect their right to protest, the tactics often employed by these groups, involving violence and intimidation are not acceptable. If you live in a civilized society then there is a certain set of standards by which you must abide. And really if you are going to try to burn a flag in front of the world's media, maybe practice at home first to figure out how to do it. Hint - use an accellerant of some sort.

The one thing that I do agree with them on is the timing of the Queen's arrival. The anniversary of the Monaghan/Dublin bombings might not have been the smartest choice especially considering the ongoing belief in some quarters that the British intelligence agencies and/or the RUC were involved in the bombings.

International edition

It's been a while since I seriously commented on anything international so here's a few things that have been crossing my mind in the last few days.

Sudan

Today Sudan is holding a referendum that will split the country into two parts if passed. The mainly Christian and smaller (in area and population) region wants to secede from the mainly Muslim and larger north. Of course the major issue with the split is that the southern region has almost all of Sudan's oil reserves and to a lesser extent control of the waters (limited that they are) of the White Nile. It is also not exactly clear where the border between the two Sudan's will be if the split happens. Migrant farming groups move around with their flocks within the border region and the placing of a fixed border with fencing could lead to significant issues.

Arizona

Over Stateside, the gun attack in Tuscon where 6 were left dead and a Congresswoman was left in a critical condition is an appalling story. Since I only really follow US news through the Daily Show these days I can't really comment on whether this is a Sarah Palin/Glen Beck induced event or just a random crazy killing. However, to my mind at least, it shows that the US is a dangerous place for those involved in the political process at the moment. Tensions are high and need to be dialed back about a dozen notches for everyone's sake.

Haiti

It has been just a year since the massive earthquake in Haiti that killed several hundred thousand people and left millions homeless. Unfortunately the news from that part of the world is that many are still in dire straits with poor shelter and lack of basic amenities. I guess like the 2004 Tsunami and the 2008 Myanmar Typhoon, once the immediate catastrophe has finished, the rest of the world moves on and leaves the inhabitants to pick up the pieces.

Ironic or Hypocritical

In the UN yesterday a vote was passed 93-55 (with 27 abstentions) to re-insert a reference to sexual orientation in a resolution about killing minority groups. The resolution mainly focuses on ethnicity and religion, but originally had sexual orientation as one of the grounds for identifying a minority group. This mention had previously been removed at the behest of various Arab and African nations. So far so good. All progressive actions apart from the 55 dissenters.

But then up speaks Zimbabwe with the most outrageous statement effectively equating homosexuality with bestiality and paedophilia. And without even a hint or irony the ambassador continued "n our view, what adult people do in their private capacity, by mutual consent, does not need agreement or rejection by governments" which seems like a pretty open minded statement. But then he closes out the sentence with an extra clause "where such practices are legally proscribed" which pretty much contradicts the entire first half of the sentence.

Surely legally proscribing something is exactly the sort of rejection of an action carried out by consenting adults in their private capacity that he doesn't see the need for. Now either this is stupidity which makes it ironic or hypocrisy which makes it disgusting. Either which way, Zimbabwe has gone even further down in my estimation - not that it was particularly high in the first place.

For those that haven't seen it here's another African country's take on homosexuality. Funny but depressing as hell.

(Hat tip to Bernard Cantillon for the link to the original article.)

Thoughts on Denmark

I spent the week before last in Copenhagen seeing the sights while my better half was attending a conference. Before going the only things I knew about Denmark were 1) King Canute came from there, 2) in the past they owned Greenland, 3) they make Carlsberg, 4) it is easy to play in Medieval Total War and 5) it is really hard to play in Hearts of Iron. Obviously I had a lot to learn.

Firstly it turns out that Denmark is still a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Margaret II on the throne for almost the last 40 years. They have a terrible tradition that male heirs are either called Frederik or Christian so you would have thought being the first queen in almost 600 years she would have taken the opportunity to change that. However, her first son was named Frederik and his son is called Christian so normal service will be resumed whenever she dies. The tour of the Amalienborg palace where her majesty lives is more a retrospective on her life and could be skipped. However the Rosenborg castle up the road where her ancestors lived is well worth a visit.

When walking around Copenhagen the two things I noticed most was the general cleanliness of the place and the complete lack of homeless people and beggars compared to Dublin. During the course of the week I saw precisely one person begging at about 1:30AM on Friday night. It appears as though there is a much higher level of social cohesion in Denmark and that those less well off are taken care of. Alternatively, it could just be that central Copenhagen is taken well managed to keep tourists happy and that in the suburbs and other cities things are far more like at home. That seems like a rather large conspiracy theory so I'm going to go with the previous theory that the welfare state in Denmark just works.

In terms of transport, Copenhagen is well served by commuter trains and a new metro system that opened in 2002 and was extended to the airport recently. Once you discover that the automatic ticket machines have an English language option, buying a 10 journey ticket is quite simple and set me back about €18 which covered the downtown area and out to the convention centre. Actually the whole zone system for public transport seems quite convoluted and you would want to have your wits about you to avoid purchasing the wrong ticket. It was also quite cheap to get over to Malmö for a day trip over the Oresund Bridge on the train. With a group ticket it ended up costing less than €20 a head return and Malmö was well worth a visit.

The other transport item of note is the huge number of cyclists in Copenhagen. The city is pretty much flat as a pancake and so lends itself nicely to cycling. Most major roads have separated cycle lanes in each direction and the users obey traffic lights and give proper hand signals at junctions, quite a shock to the system! This does mean that you need to be extra careful when crossing the road at junctions as a silent but deadly bike may be about to run you over when you start jay-walking.

My only complaint about Copenhagen was the cost of food and drink. Meals out were expensive even compared to Dublin prices and in most bars a 500ml beer cost over &euro6;. I guess the government has to raise taxes to pay for the high standard of living and alcohol is always a good place to start. Luckily the conference had arranged its own special beer that was distributed free each evening thanks to generous sponsors. After a few bottles of Awesome Sauce everything about Copenhagen became Awesome!

UK election

Gordon Brown went to the Áras Palace today, getting the general election in the UK on the road. The Queen gave him permission to dissolve parliament next Monday and the ensuing election will be held on 6th May. As someone who doesn't really follow British politics much I'm not sure what else to say. However, it is going to be pretty much the only story for the next month so I'd best get learning fast.

Labour, after 13 years in office have been looking tired since Tony Blair's retirement. The Conservatives under David Cameron are trying to position themselves as young and trendy, a difficult line to swallow. And the poor old Liberals are stuck as the bridesmaid yet again thanks to the awful first-past-the-post voting system. All roads seem to be pointing to a hung parliament at the moment but a few swings in key constituencies could get either of the large parties over the magic finishing line.

The most interesting thing that I've seen so far about the election is that there will be three debates between all three party leaders, one on ITV, one on Sky and one for the BBC. This is quite like the American system of each of the major networks hosting a debate. I hope that they are not as scripted and formulaic as the American ones though. The leaders should be able to address each other and ask specific questions in order to tease out the issues. Having a debate like the Santos-Vinick one in the West Wing would be awesome.

In the North it will be interesting to see if the more moderate SDLP and UUP are able to make up lost ground on their more radical opponents SF and the DUP. The internal nationalist and unionist fighting is actually far more entertaining than the fighting between those in green and those in orange. I guess that most southern parties will be sending canvassers and leaflet teams up to help the SDLP.

Iceland referendum

Yesterday's referendum result from Iceland shows what happens when the citizens of a country have had enough of being bullied by corporate and financial interests. About 93% of the ballots cast voted against the deal to repay UK and Dutch investors in Icesave, the Icelandic online bank. This follows the Icelandic President's refusal to sign into law a repayment deal that would leave the residents of Iceland responsible for paying back Icesave's debts.

About €4Bn was lost by investors from Holland and the UK when the bank went bust towards the end of 2008. The online bank was paying high interest rates on deposits which should have been a big warning sign to investors that the risk involved in depositing money there was high. This is the same situation that has existed with Irish banks for the last few years - they have had to pay high interest rates to attract deposits due to their shaky foundations.

When Icesave went to the wall, the Dutch and UK governments stepped in and repaid the depositors from their respective countries. They then demanded that Iceland repay them and in the worst case of international bullying, the UK invoked various anti-terrorism laws to freeze assets belonging to various Icelandic institutions and people.

To my mind, if you live by the sword then you die by it. Taking the reward of high interest rates should remove any responsibility for states to repay you if the bank folds. However, it appears that Iceland has agreed to pay back this money but just not under the terms of the deal struck by the government. It is now back to the drawing board to see how the €4Bn will be raised. For a country with a population of about 320k that works out at about €12,500 each, roughly in line with what NAMA is going to cost per-capita in Ireland. No sign of a politician calling for a referendum on that any time soon though.

For more column inches than you could possibly read on Iceland have a look at the Irish Economy blog.

At the end of the day ...

Ahh football, the game for gentlemen played by thugs. It appears that football fever has taken over the political system in Ireland in the aftermath of last night's match between France and Ireland and the "hand of frog" incident. Dermot Ahern has been on the airwaves demanding a rematch and has made if as far as CNN World Sport. Dara Calleary has also signed an open letter to Sepp Blatter demanding a winner takes all replay in a neutral venue.

Now I'm all for a bit of national pride, even when it comes to the game of two halves, but does it really need to get political? Surely our elected representatives might have something better to do with their time than get involved in this fiasco. Yes the ball was handled, yes we now aren't going to South Africa next summer but we're still 20B in the red this year and maybe keeping holiday makers at home next summer would actually be a good idea.

But the highlight of this whole situation is this tweet from Dara O'Briain showing how a story just loves to grow and grow

"Now I've been asked to go on Newsnight to discuss this Ireland France thing. Newsnight! Might get carried away and declare war or something."

The media are almost as bad as the politicians - they want a comedian to appear on a current affairs show to talk about sport. I'm sure he'll give 110%

PR-STV making gains

According to reports, the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific, which up until now has been an sovereign monarchy is considering changing to a parliamentary system. A Constitutional and Electoral Commission has been working on the 131-page report for almost a year and have recommended substantial changes to the way in which Tonga is governed.

From an Irish perspective, the most interesting proposal is using the Single Transferable Vote as the method for electing members to parliament. If this happens then Tonga will join us and Malta as the only countries to use this method for parliamentary elections. PR-STV is also employed in various places in the UK, Australia and New Zealand for local and city elections.

The worrying trend here is the population sizes (Ireland 4M, Malta 500k, Tonga 100k). At this rate of decline the next country to adopt the beloved PR-STV system will have ~30k citizens so Monaco or San Marino here we go!

Politics of Music

I watched the BBC's How A Choir Works programme last night which finished up with a piece on the power of massed groups singing. It focused on the use of Nkosi Sikeleli Africa by the ANC in its struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa with shots from various rallies in the 70s and 80s. It brought back to my mind standing outside the Mansion House in the mid 80s with my fist in the air, humming along since I didn't know the words. I don't remember what the exact event was - could have been Dunnes Stores workers or maybe a visit by Archbishop Tutu - but that feeling of unity and purpose brought about by thousands singing together has always stuck with me.

Of course music has been used for political purposes by all sides in disputes and debates. In Ireland we've had the Orange Order bands taking on Sean South from Garryowen. Songs like the Red Flag and The Internationale have been mainstays of the socialist movement for over a hundred years. The music of Orff and Wagner was used to great effect by the Nazi regime in building up national pride in Germany in the 1930s. The music of Mendelssohn had been very popular in Germany during the 20s and early 30s but was phased out of general circulation due to his Jewish ancestry.

Most people's exposue to political music is limited to national anthems being performed before or after sporting events. My personal favorites are the more martial tunes such as La Marseillaise,Fratelli d'Italia and our own Amhran na bhFiann. Compare these to the fairly lacklustre Advance Australia Fair or O Canada and it is easy to see why the former are always sung with more gusto at football matches.

Finally, to bring it back to where we started, the current anthem of South Africa is a tribute to a nation rebuilding itself. It uses lyrics from five different languages, tunes from both Nikosi Sikeleli and Die Stem and is unique in national anthems in that it doesn't finish in the same key as it started. Talk about making a bold statement for your country.

Nobel Peace Prize

Wow! That's all I can say. Barack Obama has been announced as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. For what exactly? Not being George Bush? Not starting random wars around the place? I guess being a shining light of hope and not being an ass is good enough for the Nobel committee these days.

But who else might have been in the running? Here are a few names I can think of or have seen bandied about

• Mohandas Gandhi - probably the most famous person to still not have won the prize but the rules pretty much ban this
  
• Morgan Tsvangirai - Zimbabwe's only hope against Mugabe's corrupt and evil regime
• Ingrid Betancourt - the French reporter who spent about 5 years in captivity in Colombia
• Médecins Sans Frontières - the group who have spent almost 40 years treating the sick and injured in war and famine ravaged parts of the world

The biggest joke about this whole announcement is that apparently nominations for the award had to be submitted by 1st February. This means Obama was 10 days in office when he was nominated. Now remind me again of where peace broke out and harmony flourished in late January.