What you want to say – 25th May 2016 May 25, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
for lefties too stubborn to quit
As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
Tomboktu on What you want to say – 1st May… | |
sonofstan on (British local) Election … | |
Tomboktu on (British local) Election … | |
sonofstan on (British local) Election … | |
Tomboktu on Noise annoys | |
WorldbyStorm on (British local) Election … | |
Tomboktu on (British local) Election … | |
WorldbyStorm on This Weekend I’ll Mostly… | |
Paul Culloty on (British local) Election … | |
banjoagbeanjoe on (British local) Election … | |
Wes Ferry on (British local) Election … | |
tomasoflatharta on (British local) Election … | |
tomasoflatharta on (British local) Election … | |
sonofstan on (British local) Election … | |
WorldbyStorm on 50th anniversary of the Carnat… |
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Is there an audience for Mystery Science Theatre 3000 for current affairs documentaries?
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Out on strike today and tomorrow with SoS and the rest of the UK’s universities.
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Solidarity. I work in a university and I can’t see any set of circumstances where Irish academics would go out on strike. The UCU seem to be a decent enough union.
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Michael,
“Out on strike today and tomorrow with SoS and the rest of the UK’s universities.”
And me.
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Where? We have good pickets here in Bath.
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Nottingham. Had to go my mum’s this morning so don’t know about pickets.
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Is the General Secretary of IFUT still an old WPer?
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Yup – Mike Jennings
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Just for clarity. Old WPer is an imperfect term. Mike Jennings went with DL in that split. Don’t know if he ended up in the LP. So, old ex WPer might be more accurate?
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Almost all the universities were affected by the 2009 public sector one-day strike; it was the first time IFUT took part in a national stoppage and their workplaces were fairly solid – not all third-level colleges organised by other unions were unfortunately.
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I like that I’m now a university!
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Sure what are you only a place of great learning 🙂
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*cough* formerly sonofstan polytechnic *cough*
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‘The Sonofstan School of Business School’
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Oh always with the literal reading …
One branch secretary sent a message on striking framed in terms of Sartre’s agony of choice.
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Out of curiosity how many regular CLR denizens are academics or work in higher education?
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Not me. Brain scrambled over the last ten years or so. Barely able to finish a book now. But then… would that be a red card for entry into academia?
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I don’t know Joe, a colleague here visibly blanched when I offered him a book to read. For working in management, the ability to say things like ‘add value’ to the ‘student experience’ without flinching is all that’s needed. That and the use of the word ‘strategic’ for anything beyond tomorrow morning.
YC – Michael Carley, Fergus D. and I all work in HE in the UK. There’s a few others that I know are at least Associate/ Adjuncts in Ireland, but I’ll let them volunteer themselves.
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Not judging, just curious is all.
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I used to do more, now I do less, but I still have a hand in at third level – MAs mostly.
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What SoS said plus Garibaldy.
Interesting question would be: how many of the academics are “first generation” graduates?
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“Donald Trump isn’t going to win.”-Jamelle Bouie, May 4
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/donald_trump_isn_t_going_to_be_president.html
“That Trump is a poor bet for November doesn’t mean he couldn’t win. He could.”- Jamelle Bouie, May 23
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/how_trump_could_win.html
What a difference a few weeks and a few polls make.
But there is some scepticism about the Trump surge in the polls.
“The problem is that the polls that make the news are also the ones most likely to be wrong”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/23/still-panicked-about-trump-don/kJuFeFnQMMPwvAGvSXwHJO/story.html
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I wouldn’t dismiss Trump’s chances, but a few national opinion polls are of little account in a 50 state election.
The votes from solid democrat states heavily outnumber the solid republican states. Any win for Trump will have to involve winning nearly all the swing states, or turning some democratic states republican. The only polls that matter are those in key battlefield sites.
The Trump campaign knows this, as does the media. But both will continue to push the significance of national polls: Trump will hope that doing so will help create some momentum where it matters, and the press just want a battle to keep the ratings up.
5-3-8 is very good on the stats.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/
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Nate Silver correctly predicted the outcome of the 2012 presidential election in all 50 states. But it took him a little while to catch on to the Trump phenomenon. Not that he was alone. Here’s a ‘mea culpa’ of sorts. I think his mistake was that he used too much data.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/
What caught peoples attention in the current race was Trump drawing even with Clinton in Ohio and Florida, the two key swing states. But he’s probably getting a bump from being the nominee, while Clinton is still contending with Sanders.
If the white working class is as pissed off as some say, Trump could be a contender in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin.
National polls? It would be interesting to know how many candidates who were trailing in the national polls won the presidency.
In any case polls almost six months from the election should not be used to predict.
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“the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Clinton 33 percent of whites…
She declared her support for a host of positions that amount to identity group politics,…
as we near the close of the primary season, Hillary Clinton has somehow succeeded in turning the election into a close contest that she could conceivably lose. …
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I take your point re national polls. I’m not suggesting they’re entirely irrelevant, and I doubt anybody has lost while substantially leading in those polls. But in both of Obama’s election the polls suggested closer results than eventually transpired, and I think that was due to their lack of a regional analysis.
The two-party system generally ensures that most US elections are close-ish on a national basis. If a large gap opens, the losing party will inevitably head to the perceived centre ground to undo the damage. But it is the vote among the electoral college that ultimately matters, and predictions of that vote require more subtle analyses than a simple head-count.
The white-working-class demographic already votes republican and has a reasonable turnout by US standards. I wouldn’t be at all complacent about Trump working on a plan that depends on that demographic, but he has to play to that gallery without further alienating the Hispanic/college-educated/black/Asian/etc votes.
The opening advantage is surely with the democrats, isn’t it?
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Certainly Hillary is the odds-on favourite.
But:
““the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Clinton 33 percent of whites…” Now if that means that Trump gets 67 per cent of whites, then he’s getting close to 47 per cent of the electorate from the white vote-,given that whites comprise 70/71 percent of the electorate.
It is a racially divided electorate,-alas. And Trump is doing his demagogic best to amplify the backlash that exists against everything from cultural change to immigration, globalization, working class immiseration, to Obama as president etc,
A long hot summer lies ahead. Time to head to the bush for a few months. After Labor Day the contest should really heat up. Trump could still implode; so could Hillary.
And Bernie?
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Al Gore wone a majority of the popular vote and lost to George Bush in the electoral college (with a little help from the Supreme Court). There are no other modern examples.
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apropos of polls, this is really interesting:
http://us11.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fbcf81e4dd2761d48aba0b6da&id=14df1d3e14
especially this bit:
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I’m sure everybody will be surprised to know Roddy is not an academic or in higher education!
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You deliver enough lectures on here….😉
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Just watched a FF commemoration on the RTE news.The band was playing “Sean South of Garreyowen”.! Alan Kelly’s supporters also sang it at one of their election rallies. What’s wrong with these people – have they no songs of their own?!
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Kelly did have a song of his own; who can forget…..
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Sorry that’s not it. He’s buried the Alan Kelly rap again….
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How do you know they were not playing ‘Roddy McCorley’ Roddy?
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Leaving Cert history question for 2021: “Sean South was a misguided 1950s naive crypto-provo terrorist who should have joined Fine Gael and pursued Redmondite gradualist policies towards national unity.” – Discuss with reference to revisionist historiography concerning the 1916 centenary commemorations of 2016. Bonus marks for answers as Gaeilge.
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Roddy McCorley was born and died within walking distance of my house.FF would have no more claim to him than Sean South as they abandoned the original Roddy’s descendants and neighbours to their fate.However Kelly’s clique were actually belting out the words to Sean South and most people nowadays identify the original Roddy tune with South.
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By the way Brian ,I hope you enjoy my “lectures” and if you need any help on your next northern project ,my vast reserve of memoirs are available. (for a fee based on the average industrial wage hourly rate!)
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Man has disrupted the ceremony at Grangegorman for the UK soldiers killed in the Easter Rising:
The man shouted that the service was an insult to Ireland and he referenced the Craigavon Two, two men who were sentenced for the killing of Constable Stephen Carroll in 2009.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/protester-disrupts-service-for-british-soldiers-killed-in-rising-1.2661929
One wonders when the British government will start holding ceremonies on British soil for the Irish combatants killed by its military during 1798, 1916, abd 1919-1921.
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Turns out the Canadian ambassador Kevin Vickers pushed the protestor away:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0526/791202-kevin-vickers-tackles-protester/
Very inappropriate. It’s the Gardai’s job to deal with this sort of problem, not a guest attending.
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+1
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He does seem to like getting stuck in, even if it’s not strictly inside of his remit, not exactly a good trait in an ambassador, or in a ceremonially grandiose parliamentary role.
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Totally inappropriate. The government should call in the Canadian Ambassador and make a formal diplomatic complaint about this undiplomatic behaviour. I’d go further – break off diplomatic relations with the Canadians. They have to be shown that they can’t send their ambassador over here to hop on a poor demented disso who is only exercising his democratic right to shout and protest.
He assaulted that poor man and all the Guards did was stand and watch and then take away the victim. It’s a scandal.
Break diplomatic relations with Canada and disband An Garda Síochána. These two actions are the least we should do in order to show how much we disapprove of this very inappropriate behaviour.
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Toronto’s Globe and Mail covers the story here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/former-sergeant-at-arms-kevin-vickers-tackles-protester-at-dublin-ceremony/article30171586/comments/
Interestingly, the comments that follow are by no means universally supportive.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/former-sergeant-at-arms-kevin-vickers-tackles-protester-at-dublin-ceremony/article30171586/
Here’s the link to the original G and M story. Canada, it’s OK, no one holds being boring against you, you don’t have to overcompensate.
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I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR NEW CANADIAN OVERLORDS
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The Irish Times (and other predictable Dublin media elements) have been backing off their initial spin about the ‘hero’ Canadian Ambassador.
Apart from south Co. Dublin law’n’order types, it appears that most people don’t react well to a foreign national savagely assaulting a peaceful protestor at what is clearly a highly unorthodox and controversial event for an Irish government to be engaged in.
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Isn’t that controversy undercut somewhat by the fact that only one fringe disso protested it?
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Isn’t that controversy undercut somewhat by the fact that only one fringe disso protested it?
It was kept pretty quiet. The reaction I’ve heard from most people (and read in comments online) at hearing of the incident was surprise that the Irish government was involved at all. The fact that the IT have dropped it entirely, despite quiet vigorous leg-humping of the issue for the first day, speaks volumes about the nature of the feedback they’ve been getting from highlighting this cosy little soirée.
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*quite vigorous.
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From the initial reports you could easily have thought that the ambassador had taken on a violent protestor.
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…which was the very same impression I got, too, from the way it was reported – and by people like the IT’s Ronan McGreevey who were (of course) actually there and saw it, so have no excuse.
The later footage showed a very different picture of what D4’s ‘hero’ did, however.
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Surely the Commissioner’s position is untenable now, combined with today’s Dáil revelations?
http://www.thejournal.ie/policing-authority-ohiggins-2791044-May2016/
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IMF has doubts about neoliberalism:
“The policies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK are often held up as the gold standard of neoliberalism at work.
But now it seems some at the IMF aren’t so sure this tradition is all it’s been cracked up to be. In their paper, Ostray, Loungani, and Furceri argue that these goals have both hampered the economic growth that neoliberalism champions and exacerbated the rise of inequality.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-neoliberalism-warnings-2016-5
“In a piece published on Thursday in its flagship magazine, three of the IMF’s top economists take on the “neoliberal agenda” of which critics have long accused the IMF of being a leading practitioner.”
https://next.ft.com/content/4b98c052-238a-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d
Dan O’Brien needs to intervene here and explain to the IMF that neoliberalism does not exist.
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Welcome as the article is, it does come with a caveat that applies to all articles in the magazine: “Opinions expressed in articles and other materials are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.“
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Wrote a blog about the riots this week in my neighbourhood in Barcelona.
https://maddurdu.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/the-eviction-of-the-expropriated-bank/
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Excellent, would you mind if I link to this in a short post? It’s important given the increased level of activity that we’re seeing on the continent.
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Yea of course!
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I am intrigued by the beige overcoat/raincoat worn at a formal cemetery ceremony by the Canadian Ambassador. Can anyone give a technical description of this practical fashion item, and where might I purchase one for myself?
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🙂
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Miriam O’Callaghan’s line of questioning this morning of Brendan Howlin about his personal life was inappropriate and excessive. She gave him the opening, and he indicated he wasn’t going to disclose anything about his sexuality or any details of relationships, but she pushed and pushed him on it.
The downside of the RTÉ D4 ‘Liberal’ set is that now that they (think they) secured marriage equality, they think lgb people must all come out, even if they actually say they’re not gay.
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Kind of shameful. I’m no fan of his, but it is not pertinent to his role as leader of the LP and genuinely is about his private life.
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And then there’s this hypocrisy
The Village, I remind you, outed Leo Varadkar, a few months before Varadkar decided he wanted to come out to the general public.
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That’s abysmal.
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Yes indeed, didn’t hear it, and no fan of Howlin, but who he sleeps/slept with is of no concern to anyone apart from the people directly involved. Compare also, the surprising and laudable delicacy with which most of the media most of the time handled Bertie’s private life.
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“If you have private wealth or if you work for Goldman Sachs you’ll be fine. But when public services are under pressure, it is those people who do not have the luxury of being able to afford the alternatives who are most vulnerable,”
Priti Patel, quoted in the guardian, in support of the claim that it’s rich boys like Dave and Gideon who are ignoring the fact that it’s the poor who suffer the consequences of immigration. And who, pray, ensures that public services are kept at a level such that the poor suffer?
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A while back when the gardai were “overstepping the mark” in their harassment of SF people, Adams and others would have called for the free state government to reign them in.The stock response from smug gits like Kenny and Martin was “down here politicians don’t tell our police what to do.” It now emerges that it was not deemed “strange” for the chief of police to meet a FF TD in a carpark to discuss matters of national importance.!
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And not just FG, the media as well, roddy.
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Can’t understand why McGuinness came out with this unless someone else was going to come out with details of a meeting. You would have thought that he should have told the PAC and the various investigations etc about this meeting.
Who else as his role as chairman of the PAC has McGuinness met secretly in Car Parks?
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Would I be paranoid or what if I thought that for example the arrest of Martin Ferris a few years ago in the middle of an election campaign or the sentencing of Tom Murphy on polling day was just an unfortunate coincidence?
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This piece about the bile BTL in the guardian has, ‘ironically’ a great long reply below the line from Bill Cooke
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/05/27/dawn-foster/if-i-ever-see-you-in-the-street-i-hope-you-get-shot/
Nails the paper for its vitriol and cowardice regarding Corbyn and Sanders. Seriously, scroll down
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What SoS said. Read it. It’s just right.
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+1
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