What you want to say – 21st December 2016 December 21, 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.
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If the letters in Frank Kelly’s “12 Days of Christmas” were written by Nuala to Gobnait, does that make it the first Irish lesbian song?
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Silicon Valley’s power brokers want you to think they’re different. But they’re just average robber barons.
A good article against the fetishisation of silicon-valley capitalists.
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I see the “Pakastani asylum seeker” who was blamed for the Berlin massacre is now released.Has it got to the stage now where anyone “foreign looking” is now an immediate suspect for racist police.It reminds me of a sketch from “not the nine oclock news” where PC Savage arrested a man for “possession of curly black hair and thick lips”!
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I don’t think it’s that bad Roddy. At least not yet.
What happened was that someone followed the guy who got out of the drivers seat of the lorry on foot, and lost him after a couple of kilometers. Then the police arrested someone of that general description that the witness gave.
The Pakistani fellow ran away because he feared he might be implicated – so in that respect at least the false trail is due to the general suspicion of furriners and especially asylum seekers.
Berliners however are harder to frighten or rope into your standard racist narratives than others down in, say, Bavaria.
Spiegel has been reasonably good in reporting the whole thing.
Take a look at some of the short interviews of Berliners here.
Says man on street.
The police are saying they expect to nab someone soon.
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I intend to make a point of visiting at least one Christmas market before Christmas.
And to drink at least one more Glühwein in the open air 🙂
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From die Zeit
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German police have offered a reward of €100,000, for information leading to the arrest of the new suspect of the attack, who they named as Anis Amri, a man whose asylum application was rejected. Police reportedly have discovered identity documents of his under the seat of the truck used in the attack. Didn’t foreign nationals kindly leave their passports in other attacks elsewhere too? A sniff in the wind of scandal perhaps.
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Snap, Alibaba- isn’t that just odd to say the least? Leaving behind your ID card etc? Have no idea what to make of this?
On a lighter note I’m waiting for the foreign affairs specialists on social media to explain how 12 is absolutely nothing compared to the dozens dead in Mexico or how Berlin has been bombing Syria non- stop for the last 30 years now..
GW- great to see Berliners keeping their heads- looks like your ‘man in the street’ is the only person talking sense today.
Roddy what struck me after the Paris attacks on November last year was how one of the guys got back to Brussels and wasn’t taken in although he had been stopped at the border- looks like the police weren’t operating on a (any brown face’ will do basis- which is reassuring to say the least.
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May says Irish citizens’ rights in UK up for discussion.
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Kenny and Flanagan have rejected this as a misunderstanding by May. I don’t believe her threat.
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Still the phoney war and May may be the Chamberlain of the story.
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Kathy Sheridan in the IT has an article entitled ‘Beware the seductive simplicity of Apollo House occupation’- well, well, well…
Is this the same Kathy Sheridan that wondered aloud so long ago why Ireland doesn’t have a Syriza or Podemos?- Kathy mustn’t be aware of Barcelona’s mayor’s recent past on occupations etc.
There are now 30+ homeless people in Apollo House- where would they be if the occupation hadn’t happened? Does Kathy know?
Too simple- she claims we need professionals to cater for this fragile population- blah, blah, blah..can somebody send her the abc on direct action?
I think Kathy in a very subtle even compassionate way- is arguing for the status quo- let the professionals do it- they know best. Aren’t ‘home sweet home’ proving the very opposite let the amateurs do it they know best- in this case let the homeless do it- they know best.
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I like this sentence in the RTÉ report on the High Court case:
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RTE keep trying to get Peter McVerry to condemn the Apollo House action and, while not involving himself in it, he keeps refusing to say anything critical. Have they noticed he’s a jesuit?
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are the homeless doing it?
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Yes, in the sense that they are actually occupying Apollo House..
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The basic assumption in much of the reportage is that ‘homeless’ also means incapable of agency or even subjectivity. You exist to be ‘helped’.
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i thought it was the ‘Irish Housing Network’
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‘A High Court judge has ruled that the occupants of Apollo House in Dublin must vacate the property, but delayed the execution of the injunction until after Christmas.’
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/apollo-house-judge-says-occupants-must-vacate-in-january-1.2913959
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I’ve found a strange Irish political website that’s been running for a while, called Political Irish
The website seems to be obsessed with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and has an admiring article on Julius Evola.
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Also, the forum has a lot of links to Breitbart articles, although some of its posters seem to be ambiguous toward BB.
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Worse than bb their major source of information seems to be the British Daily Mail.
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it was set up coinciding with a time that poltiics.ie was having major technical trouble/neglect, but has been totally swamped by racists because few other people post on it, (which nearly could be said for p.ie too :?)
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Speaking of right-wing websites, the far-right is launching a new social network called Gab, endorsed by white nationalist Richard B. Spencer:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/18/gab-the-social-network-for-the-alt-right?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
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Just a quick note that the latest issue of the social movements journal Interface 8/2 is now available free online at interfacejournal.net/current/. The theme is social movement auto/biographies but as always the issue also includes general items and reviews.
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Adorno – Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda (1946)
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And Kershaw’s biography of Hitler (it’s much more than that) shows the man to have been an affectless shell apart from his rages. And sentimentality towards dogs.
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This made me laugh: people are wondering if Ted Nugent will play
Tonald Drump’s inauguration and one commentator on the AV Club
said about Nuge:
He has a history of refusing government service.
http://www.avclub.com/article/celine-dion-reportedly-joins-lineup-stars-who-wont-247714
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The Irish Times today has a picture of people queuing for food parcels at the capuchin day centre. From the front with faces clearly identifiable. As far as the IT is concerned, these people are objects of pity or horror, not subjects who might be mortified at being plastered all over the front of the paper.
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The IT has a history of being ‘respectable scumbags’.
After the 1916 Rising, they ran the names, addresses and employments of every prisoner and internee. The RIC and DMP also dropped in to landlords and employers to try to emphasise the broad hint (Harry Boland’s sister talks about this in her BMH witness statement).
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The media basically have no manners.As most people will know,Martin McGuinness is battling some sort of illness at the minute.Last Monday he appeared on TV,noticeably frail looking.Both BBC and UTV zoomed their cameras in on his face and back of his head to highlight this.I have not seen cameras so closely scrutinising anyone so blatently before.
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roddy, I’m very sorry to hear that. I hope he’s on the mend soon.
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I think I would have to go with the American approach with this, and we need to know as much as possible, I think the Lenihan situation where the Finance Minister was ill during a financial crisis, if the media know then markets know then citizens need to know, but that is only if he has been fully disagnosed, maybe they are still doing test as was refferred to last week.
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Applies here, too:
Republicans in power balloon the deficit with tax cuts to the rich every time they’re in power. The great inventor of fiscal responsibility, Ronald Reagan, began this and it will never end. It’s impossible to convince the press that the Republicans are full of shit about deficits, and it’s only slightly less impossible to convince most Democrats of it.
The Republicans claim to be the austerians, and the Democrats actually are. The rich get nice things, nobody else does, and then we wonder why voters aren’t happy. And, no, that voters don’t necessarily vote logically about this stuff doesn’t refute that fact. What they hear is one side saying that true austerity is the path, and the other side saying that austerity light is. Not enough nice things come with either, so better to go with the true austerity than the fake austerity.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2016/12/zombie-narratives.html
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Michael Martin said in the Dail on October 25th that
The Dáil rose on 21 July and resumed on 27 September. In July we were all told major works were to be undertaken to physically refurbish the Chamber, but that did not happen. Therefore, it transpired that there was no necessity for the longer than usual summer recess.
https://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2016-10-25a.84#g162
which sounded like a remarkable claim considering the discussions over the amount of legislation this government has progressed, I emailed Michael Martin and Fianna Fail about but have gotten no reply or explaination, clarification or retraction. I ask the Oireachtas about it and got the reply below,
On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 1:19 PM,
As you’re probably aware there were quite extensive works undertaken in the Dáil chamber during the summer recess (read more here and here). The quote may reference the wider restoration work to be completed in Leinster House but this would not have impacted on Dáil sitting dates. Perhaps Michael Martin’s office may be able to clarify the quote however.
Thanks,
Best regards,
Press Officer
Communications | Broadcasting | Web
Houses of the Oireachtas
Dublin 2
the Irish Times, the Irish Mirror, the Independent and the Sunday Times all quoted Michael Martin without clarification ( only the Irish Times added a qualifying sentence some hours later), I can’t get any of them to either stand over publishing the quote without clarification or make a correction.
Its need to be actively corrected if what Michael Martin said is not true.
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I found this infographic on Cracked.com, of all places!) listing US news sources by political stance and factual accuracy:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-fake-news-killed-facts-in-2016/
Anyone interested in doing a similar graphic for Irish news sources?
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https://twitter.com/dehester/status/813321396092813312
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George Michael’s death got me thinking about how impressed I was about his actions challenging Sony Music for the way they treat entertainers.
Wikipedia says:
“Panayiotou and others v Sony Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd. ([1994] ChD 142) was a contract and entertainment law case before the High Court of Justice’s Chancery Division. The plaintiff, entertainer George Michael, argued that his recording contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. Michael alleged that the defendant had failed to promote his album Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 with due vigour as punishment when the artist decided to downplay his status as a sex symbol. Michael described his situation as “professional slavery” because his contract required that he produce music and cede the copyright to Sony for many years, leaving him no control over how the music would be marketed nor placing a reciprocal requirement that the label invest in promotion. Had the case succeeded, it might have curtailed the practise of signing artists to multi-album contracts. The court wholly rejected the claims.”
RIP to this person of great stature.
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Son of immigrants. Imagine british pop under UKIP rules. Unlistenable with prejudice.
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Not really my kind of music but he was a character
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I thought Faith was a really good song. Made me see him in a different light. A lot of the rest passed me by as music, but as a masterclass in how to respond to sexual ‘shaming’, ‘Outside’ had its importance too.
It also makes me think how pop music once had a bigger meaning than that espoused by the x factor: it could be light and breezy while still being the work of genuinely creative artists.
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Former member of the Young Communist League.
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A bit of a ruckus at Drexel University, Philadelphia. The university has issued a statement condemning a Professor there, George Ciccariello-Maher, after the latter issued a satirical tweet against white nationalists:
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https://twitter.com/DrLeeworthy/status/813708441533513728
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Carrie Fisher.
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Just saw that. Bloody hell. George Michael was an even more remarkable person than had been realised, Fisher was a great character too. And then there’s poor old Rick Parfitt of Status Quo who had a very rough year of it before dying just before Christmas. What a year this has been.
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