The presidential election has certainly sparked to life again in the last few days. Firstly Davis and Gallagher rustled up the requisite number of councils. Then Norris started playing the Lanigan's Ball game - in then out then in again. Next Fianna Fáil get back in the game with rumours of Lamhrás Ó Murchú planning a run. The just this afternoon news is leaked that Martin McGuinness will be the Sinn Féin candidate. Phew! Lets look at each of these bits one at a time.
Early on in the week both Mary Davis and Sean Gallagher managed to secure nominations from at least four county or city councils, making them the third and fourth official candidates on the ballot paper after Gay Mitchell and Michael D Higgins. Not content with four nominations, Davis continued to have motions of support passed ending up with around 10. To my mind this was a bit of a risky move. While supporters will argue that it shows she has the backing of people from around the country, I think that it will be more played as a blocking move, using up nominations so that other candidates can't enter the race. This is certainly the line that Gallagher took, requesting that motions to support him be removed from the agenda at other council meetings once he had his four secured.
The David Norris re-appeared. We all know how his previous exit from the race went (here and here) so I am hugely surprised that he is trying to come back. True, he finished his speech with the phrase "fail better" but I wasn't really expecting him to prove it so quickly. The issues surrounding his withdrawal haven't changed or gone away. I am also pretty sure that a good number of his previous Oireachtas supporters have left him, not to mention his campaign staff. He also returned all his campaign finances and so is starting from scratch. I don't expect to see his name on the ballot paper come polling day.
Micheal Martin really can't win on this one. Having decided to not put forward an official Fianna Fáil candidate, he should have issued an edict that TDs and Senators were to not get involved in the nomination game. However, he left the door open and talk started about FF members nominating someone who wouldn't be an FF candidate. Then to top it all off, Lamhrás Ó Murchú, the FF Senator who lost the whip over the civil partnership bill last year, has indicated a desire and willingness to stand. Of all the people FF could put up, Ó Cuív and Crowley being the obvious choices, Ó Murchú is pretty much near the bottom of the list. FF should be just concentrating on the Dublin West by election and scoring points against the government in the run up to the budget.
Our latest entry to the field is the Deputy First Minister from the North, Martin McGuinness. He is the best choice they have since Pearse Doherty doesn't meet the age requirement. Of course, SF only have 17 Oireachtas members so there are three others signing his papers. I'm guessing they'll be from the ranks of the ULA. Of course the announcement had to be delayed until today so McGuinness can apply for the 6 week sabbatical from being DFM, much as Peter Robinson did during the UK General Election. It will be very interesting to see how both the media and the other parties treat the entry of SF into the race. Given the absolute destruction that was rained down on Norris I'm looking forward to seeing a similar level of investigation into McGuinness. I don't expect him to win, but they will poll a respectable 12%-15% which may put them third on the first count. I think they would count that as a victory, especially given the lack of an official FF candidate.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
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.
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
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Kite flying at Iarnrod Eireann
The last week has seen a flurry of short newspaper articles about rail services in Ireland. On Monday, Tuesday and Friday we were treated to regurgitated press releases about investments in intercity lines to reduce travel times and a spur to Dublin Airport from the northern commuter line. Then to top it all off on Saturday we were treated to an editorial summing up the week's propaganda.
Now as regular readers will know, I'm all in favour of rail as a mode of transport. In an ideal world I would have most commuting, much freight and a substantial amount of inter-urban travel done by train. However, these announcements are not realistic proposals to improve the rail service in Ireland. They are kite flying exercises by Iarnród Éireann in the hopes that some scraps of funding will be sent their way if sufficient projects are proposed.
With regard to the Inter City improvements, the logic here seems to be that
The second proposal, linking Dublin Airport to Connolly via the existing rail line from Clongriffin is daft. It has already been rejected several times by commentators, planners and even Iarnród Éireann themselves as unworkable. If just the spur was built, the journey would take approximately 40 minutes, already longer than bus journeys via the Port Tunnel and would run at most once every 15-20 minutes due to existing congestion on the mainline. The way round this bottleneck is to quad-track the line from Clongriffin to Clontarf but that would involve substantial engineering works, not to mention CPOing swathes of back gardens through Clontarf, Killester and Raheny.
As always with Dublin transport it boils down to two issues - Interconnector and Metro North. At this stage I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record but, despite the recession, they are no brainers. Just do it! When the economy picks up again in the future, McCarthy will be the very one giving out about Dublin traffic and how it is killing the economy.
Now as regular readers will know, I'm all in favour of rail as a mode of transport. In an ideal world I would have most commuting, much freight and a substantial amount of inter-urban travel done by train. However, these announcements are not realistic proposals to improve the rail service in Ireland. They are kite flying exercises by Iarnród Éireann in the hopes that some scraps of funding will be sent their way if sufficient projects are proposed.
With regard to the Inter City improvements, the logic here seems to be that
- Trains used to be faster than cars
- We spent loads of money on motorways
- Road trips between cities are now faster than the train
- We should spend loads of money on trains to match (or beat) road travel times
The second proposal, linking Dublin Airport to Connolly via the existing rail line from Clongriffin is daft. It has already been rejected several times by commentators, planners and even Iarnród Éireann themselves as unworkable. If just the spur was built, the journey would take approximately 40 minutes, already longer than bus journeys via the Port Tunnel and would run at most once every 15-20 minutes due to existing congestion on the mainline. The way round this bottleneck is to quad-track the line from Clongriffin to Clontarf but that would involve substantial engineering works, not to mention CPOing swathes of back gardens through Clontarf, Killester and Raheny.
As always with Dublin transport it boils down to two issues - Interconnector and Metro North. At this stage I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record but, despite the recession, they are no brainers. Just do it! When the economy picks up again in the future, McCarthy will be the very one giving out about Dublin traffic and how it is killing the economy.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Summer Reading
Before we get stuck into the Presidential Election I thought I might round out the summer silly season by revealing what has been keeping me entertained over the summer.
The First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie
Normally I try to go for slightly more high-brow stuff in reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I know, oxymoron if ever there was. But in this case it was exactly what I was looking for. Cheesy, sprawling epic with so much fighting you start to get bored. But with all the humour and self-referential moments I couldn't put the books down.Triumph of the City - Edward Glaeser
An interesting read on why and how cities are economically and environmentally superior to other forms of living. This is a the books I picked up after seeing the author interviewed on The Daily Show (Jon Stewart, not RTE). While I tend to agree with his overall premise, he does seem a bit too lax on planning and zoning, with a strong belief in the market's ability to solve everything. I wonder if it could be put on a reading list for city and county councillors?The Information - James Gleick
As a teenager, James Gleick's Chaos was the book that probably pushed me to study maths in college. Based on how that career ended up, that may not be a glowing reference but it was certainly a seminal book. So I was quite excited to see that after a long break, Gleick was back writing again. And what a book. Covering the history of computing, communication and coding with lots of entertaining anecdotes. All the usual heroes of the story are covered as are many names that I didn't recognize but whose contributions to technology are huge.A Kingdom Besieged - Raymond E Feist
So I claimed my fantasy was usually a bit more high brow. Well this isn't it. Feist is my guilty please. He hasn't written a really good book in years (Shadow of a Dark Queen?) but I can't help but get sucked in every time a new book is published. And he's done it again with the start of another series in the Riftwar cycle. I couldn't actually tell you what happened in this book except the Kingdom gets invaded by Kesh. The rest is the same as in every other series but I'll keep reading them nonetheless.Dave Gorman vs The Rest of the World
A highly entertaining read as Dave Gorman challenges the world to games of anything from ping pong, to laser-based boardgames of the 80s. Read this straight through in one day.At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson
A room by room history of everything that happens in the home. As with all Bryson books, full of quirky little bits of information. But a hefty tome - you wouldn't want to be reading it while standing on the bus or train. Definitely one for the comfort of the couch.A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
Amazing. Well worth the wait. Not going to say anything else for fear of spoilers!Transition - Iain Banks
This on the other hand was pretty poor. Daft premise, irritating characters and disjointed story. Probably should have given up about half way through but fell for sunk cost fallacy.The Ripple Effect - Alex Prud'homme
Another Daily Show suggestion. With all the recent talk about Dublin's water issues, both mains and sewage, along with the Shannon scheme, this was an interesting perspective on how the water issue plays out in the US. While it was a bit of a slog to read at times, there was a lot of information and useful lessons that could be learned. Another one for the politicians' reading list.Surface Detail - Iain M. Banks
Still reading this, but it really shows that The Culture novels are where Banks really shines. Having the point-of-view characters die in both of the first two chapters is an interesting way to start a book. Can't help but love it.Monday, August 15, 2011
Let them eat ... bread
This evening on the way home from work I had to stop off into the supermarket to pick up a few items. Normally I just lob the groceries in the basket, paying no attention to the prices, and then hand over my hard earned cash. This evening though, for some reasons I noticed something a bit odd while picking up some bread.
Normally we get through about 3/4 of a sliced pan before it goes stale and starts turning a bit blue. So being my environmentally conscious self I had a look to see if they had any small pans on the shelf. Usually by 6pm the few that were delivered that morning are well gone but today I was in luck. There on the top shelf was a small Brennan's (non batch) waiting to find a new home. Yoink says I, until I noticed the price sticker underneath - €1.39. Casting a downwards glance I see plenty of full sized loaves prices at €1.60.
Now with my ostentatious cash splashing and jet-set lifestyle I shouldn't really be quibbling over 21c but it does strike me as odd that pro-rata the full sized loaf should cost 67% more or the half sized 43% less. I can accept that there are economies of scale in the larger loaf. I imagine that about 90% of bread is sold in the larger form factor. But is the cost differential really that much? While it uses about 15% more packaging per kg, it takes up the same amount of shelf space.
So who is pocketing the margin? Is it the bakeries or the retailers? Or is it just a case of this is what the market is willing to bear? To make this post even slightly political, one wonders was this price differential always the case, even in the era of the Grocieries Order. If not, then Micheál Martin has to bear some responsibility for this fiasco. I'll just add it to his long list of failures.
So in the end I put the small pan back on the shelf and took the large one. It's better value for money even if I know I'll end up putting the last few slices into the brown bin at the weekend.
Normally we get through about 3/4 of a sliced pan before it goes stale and starts turning a bit blue. So being my environmentally conscious self I had a look to see if they had any small pans on the shelf. Usually by 6pm the few that were delivered that morning are well gone but today I was in luck. There on the top shelf was a small Brennan's (non batch) waiting to find a new home. Yoink says I, until I noticed the price sticker underneath - €1.39. Casting a downwards glance I see plenty of full sized loaves prices at €1.60.
Now with my ostentatious cash splashing and jet-set lifestyle I shouldn't really be quibbling over 21c but it does strike me as odd that pro-rata the full sized loaf should cost 67% more or the half sized 43% less. I can accept that there are economies of scale in the larger loaf. I imagine that about 90% of bread is sold in the larger form factor. But is the cost differential really that much? While it uses about 15% more packaging per kg, it takes up the same amount of shelf space.
So who is pocketing the margin? Is it the bakeries or the retailers? Or is it just a case of this is what the market is willing to bear? To make this post even slightly political, one wonders was this price differential always the case, even in the era of the Grocieries Order. If not, then Micheál Martin has to bear some responsibility for this fiasco. I'll just add it to his long list of failures.
So in the end I put the small pan back on the shelf and took the large one. It's better value for money even if I know I'll end up putting the last few slices into the brown bin at the weekend.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The continuing Norris saga
So as expected, TDs who had previously committed to supporting David Norris have now started to withdraw support. Finian McGrath led the charge, quickly followed by John Halligan and Thomas Pringle. It really does appear as if the campaign is now in its final days or even hours. Since my last blog post on Saturday night a few more issues have come up that I want to address.
One comment suggested that I was holding Norris to a higher standard than any of the other candidates. To quote Brian Lenihan, I don't accept that at all. The president is the leading citizen of the country and has to be held to a higher standard. I mentioned Bobby Molloy's and Kathleen Lynch's stupid interventions previously. Add to that list Charlie Flanagan, Tony Kileen and even Trevor Sargent who did equally stupid things. But none of them are running for President. If Mary Davis, Sean Gallagher or MDH made equally ill-advised submissions to courts then I'd be taking them to task also.
And then there's Gay Mitchell. He is another person who made a submission to a court. While I haven't seen the original document, I gather that it was to a court in Florida asking for a death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment for a man convicted of a double murder in pursuit of his anti-abortion agenda. This was done while Mitchell was Fine Gael Foreign Affairs spokesman. This again is interference in the judicial affairs of a foreign state and is again unacceptable unless it is FG policy to plea for clemency in every capital case. But I doubt it is. This case played to Mitchell's religious right, Iona Institute buddies and so the letter was sent.
There is still the ongoing Zionist agenda stuff doing the rounds too. Occam's razor kicks in at some point. The case was over ten years ago, reported on in newspapers and Norris has even spoken about it on radio interviews. It doesn't take the Illuminati to hide his submission for a decade and a half before releasing it at the right moment. It was out there waiting to be found but nobody went looking. Blame lazy journalism, blame lack of interest, but don't channel Jim Corr and invent a worldwide conspiracy against Norris.
Finally, if Norris withdraws, that puts 15 nominations back in play. Will there be another candidate put forward by that group? Or by the ULA/SF? Except that I think his health might get in the way I'd make an approach to Christy Moore. He's a strong lefty, republican but in a clean way and extremely popular across the country. That would certainly put the cat amongst the political pigeons.
PS - thanks to all for reading. Previous blog post was my 2nd most read post in almost two years of this carry on.
One comment suggested that I was holding Norris to a higher standard than any of the other candidates. To quote Brian Lenihan, I don't accept that at all. The president is the leading citizen of the country and has to be held to a higher standard. I mentioned Bobby Molloy's and Kathleen Lynch's stupid interventions previously. Add to that list Charlie Flanagan, Tony Kileen and even Trevor Sargent who did equally stupid things. But none of them are running for President. If Mary Davis, Sean Gallagher or MDH made equally ill-advised submissions to courts then I'd be taking them to task also.
And then there's Gay Mitchell. He is another person who made a submission to a court. While I haven't seen the original document, I gather that it was to a court in Florida asking for a death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment for a man convicted of a double murder in pursuit of his anti-abortion agenda. This was done while Mitchell was Fine Gael Foreign Affairs spokesman. This again is interference in the judicial affairs of a foreign state and is again unacceptable unless it is FG policy to plea for clemency in every capital case. But I doubt it is. This case played to Mitchell's religious right, Iona Institute buddies and so the letter was sent.
There is still the ongoing Zionist agenda stuff doing the rounds too. Occam's razor kicks in at some point. The case was over ten years ago, reported on in newspapers and Norris has even spoken about it on radio interviews. It doesn't take the Illuminati to hide his submission for a decade and a half before releasing it at the right moment. It was out there waiting to be found but nobody went looking. Blame lazy journalism, blame lack of interest, but don't channel Jim Corr and invent a worldwide conspiracy against Norris.
Finally, if Norris withdraws, that puts 15 nominations back in play. Will there be another candidate put forward by that group? Or by the ULA/SF? Except that I think his health might get in the way I'd make an approach to Christy Moore. He's a strong lefty, republican but in a clean way and extremely popular across the country. That would certainly put the cat amongst the political pigeons.
PS - thanks to all for reading. Previous blog post was my 2nd most read post in almost two years of this carry on.
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