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What you want to say – 25th May 2016 May 25, 2016

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. gendjinn - May 25, 2016

Is there an audience for Mystery Science Theatre 3000 for current affairs documentaries?

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2. Michael Carley - May 25, 2016

Out on strike today and tomorrow with SoS and the rest of the UK’s universities.

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CMK - May 25, 2016

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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FergusD - May 25, 2016

Michael,
“Out on strike today and tomorrow with SoS and the rest of the UK’s universities.”

And me.

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Michael Carley - May 25, 2016

Where? We have good pickets here in Bath.

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FergusD - May 25, 2016

Nottingham. Had to go my mum’s this morning so don’t know about pickets.

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Michael Carley - May 25, 2016

Is the General Secretary of IFUT still an old WPer?

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murf - May 25, 2016

Yup – Mike Jennings

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Joe - May 25, 2016

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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Brian Hanley - May 25, 2016

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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sonofstan - May 25, 2016

I like that I’m now a university!

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murf - May 25, 2016

Sure what are you only a place of great learning 🙂

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RosencrantzisDead - May 25, 2016

*cough* formerly sonofstan polytechnic *cough*

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sonofstan - May 25, 2016

‘The Sonofstan School of Business School’

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Michael Carley - May 25, 2016

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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yourcousin - May 25, 2016

Out of curiosity how many regular CLR denizens are academics or work in higher education?

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Joe - May 25, 2016

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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sonofstan - May 25, 2016

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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yourcousin - May 25, 2016

Not judging, just curious is all.

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WorldbyStorm - May 25, 2016

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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Michael Carley - May 25, 2016

What SoS said plus Garibaldy.

Interesting question would be: how many of the academics are “first generation” graduates?

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3. CL - May 25, 2016

“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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6to5against - May 25, 2016

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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CL - May 25, 2016

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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CL - May 26, 2016

“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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6to5against - May 26, 2016

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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CL - May 26, 2016

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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JC - May 26, 2016

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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4. sonofstan - May 25, 2016

apropos of polls, this is really interesting:

http://us11.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fbcf81e4dd2761d48aba0b6da&id=14df1d3e14

especially this bit:

We believe it likely that the weight of interviews generated before 9pm on a Friday has the effect of consolidating a Leave lead as a result of the survey process itself – demographic quota cells fill up and ‘close’ once the target number has been hit. If a specific cell, such as 65+ men, is filled early with people disproportionately likely to support Leave, no additional 65+ men will subsequently be allowed on the survey. As a result, interviews with 65+ men are unlikely to be politically or attitudinally representative of all such 65+ men even though in demographic terms they are identical. But they are not, and their presence possibly introduces a small skew into in favour of Leave (or UKIP, depending on the question looked at).

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5. roddy - May 25, 2016

I’m sure everybody will be surprised to know Roddy is not an academic or in higher education!

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Brian Hanley - May 25, 2016

You deliver enough lectures on here….😉

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6. roddy - May 25, 2016

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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sonofstan - May 25, 2016

Kelly did have a song of his own; who can forget…..

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sonofstan - May 25, 2016

Sorry that’s not it. He’s buried the Alan Kelly rap again….

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Brian Hanley - May 25, 2016

How do you know they were not playing ‘Roddy McCorley’ Roddy?

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botheredbarney - May 26, 2016

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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7. roddy - May 26, 2016

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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8. roddy - May 26, 2016

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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9. Starkadder - May 26, 2016

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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Starkadder - May 26, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 26, 2016

+1

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Liberius - May 26, 2016

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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Joe - May 26, 2016

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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Dr. X - May 27, 2016

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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Dr. X - May 27, 2016

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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Dr. X - May 27, 2016

I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR NEW CANADIAN OVERLORDS

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EWI - May 28, 2016

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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Liberius - May 29, 2016

Isn’t that controversy undercut somewhat by the fact that only one fringe disso protested it?

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EWI - May 29, 2016

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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EWI - May 29, 2016

*quite vigorous.

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Michael Carley - May 29, 2016

From the initial reports you could easily have thought that the ambassador had taken on a violent protestor.

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EWI - May 29, 2016

…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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10. paulculloty82 - May 26, 2016

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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11. CL - May 28, 2016

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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Tomboktu - May 28, 2016

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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12. maddurdu - May 28, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 28, 2016

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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maddurdu - May 28, 2016

Yea of course!

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13. botheredbarney - May 29, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 29, 2016

🙂

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14. Tomboktu - May 29, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 29, 2016

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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Tomboktu - May 29, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 29, 2016

That’s abysmal.

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15. sonofstan - May 29, 2016

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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16. sonofstan - May 29, 2016

“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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17. roddy - May 29, 2016

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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WorldbyStorm - May 29, 2016

And not just FG, the media as well, roddy.

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irishelectionliterature - May 30, 2016

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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18. roddy - May 29, 2016

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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19. sonofstan - May 31, 2016

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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Michael Carley - May 31, 2016

What SoS said. Read it. It’s just right.

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WorldbyStorm - June 1, 2016

+1

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