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What you want to say – 31 October 2018 October 31, 2018

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. Polly. - October 31, 2018

I was politely waiting for the Left Gardeners’ Corner to bloom again, in order to ask this question but got impatient. Does anyone know the allotments at Chapelizod? I am about to put down my name for one but am still dubious about whether they are too close to a busy road, and at the same time not secure from adventurous children or adventurous Phoenix Park deer. Grateful for any local knowledge.

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Joe - October 31, 2018

Polly, don’t forget the threat from wild mink and otters coming from the river for their five a day. If I was you I wouldn’t touch them allotments with a barge pole. JOKING. I know nothing about them :).

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Polly. - October 31, 2018

Aaaargh feral mink and now I wonder perhaps I have also underestimated the risk of things escaping from the Zoo. It’s a jungle out there.

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GW - October 31, 2018

Not to mention the vampire lampreys known to haunt that part of the Liffey. Particularly active at this time of year :-).

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Alibaba - October 31, 2018

Some mates of mine have allotments. They tell me the critical issue is to get one close to where you live, Polly. This makes it viable to pop along for a hour or so on a reasonably regular basis, especially when the novelty days are gone.

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Joe - October 31, 2018

Sound advice. But if the allotment close to home is prey to feral mink, vampire lampreys, rutting deer, feral zoo animals, escaped kids and noisy, polluting traffic?

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GW - October 31, 2018

I’d do it – you can’t beat a spot of veggie gardening for physical and mental health.

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Polly. - October 31, 2018

You know what, you have to make your own fun in this life. I think I’m going to do it.

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GW - November 1, 2018

Let us know how it goes Polly – we gardenless can get some vicarious pleasure from it.

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2. Alibaba - October 31, 2018

Sgt Maurice McCabe retires at midnight tonight. Time to talk and time to spill, after his and his family’s well earned rest.

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3. peaceandneutrality - October 31, 2018

First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases
November 16-18, Liberty Hall. Admission €10.
For more information see: http://www.NoUSNATOBases.org

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4. Paddy Healy - October 31, 2018

Pretending that a progressive coalition can be negotiated by Sinn Féin with FF and/or FG is part of it’s movement to the right. Even more telling is the Failure of Sinn Féin to mobilise even a thousand people in a street protest in the 26 counties since the water charges.
Sinn Féin is the Big Political Loser in Presidential Election—Tommy McKearney Former H-Block Hunger Striker

Sinn Féin and Coalition in Dublin


“In a two-tier economy there is no middle ground……The need to continue constructing a dynamic socialist republican mass movement remains an imperative
Sinn Fein is the big loser from the Irish presidential election.”

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5. GW - October 31, 2018

Support for Joe’s assertion that a deal will be reached on Brexit in this readable paper.

The thesis is that the deal will include the NI backstop, perhaps reworded, a temporary customs union and an extension of the transition period (i.e. period of total vassalage of the UK to the EU). During this period the UK would not be able to sign trade deals, presumably.

According the writer, Andrew Duff:

Despite panic attacks at Westminster, the two
negotiating teams of Michel Barnier and Olly Robbins
continue to move closer to each other. Agreement
on the customs union and on transition extension
seems secure. There has been completion on Cyprus
and Gibraltar and other outstanding issues too. Irish
backstop aside, the Withdrawal Agreement is ready to
be signed. Logic impels one to assume there will soon
be a deal.

He asserts that the interests of the DUP are to give in to a permanent legally binding reworded Irish Backstop clause.

I still rate the chance of cock-up leading to no deal at higher than 50%, given the current state of British politics.

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CL - October 31, 2018

‘there are now two distinct and highly subjective realities: the world of the negotiating teams, and the paradigm of Tory politics…
If the process inches towards a successful outcome, it will only be through highly secretive negotiations in Brussels, accompanied by skillfully drafted statements, containing both coded references for the EU, and overt reassurances for Brexiteers.’
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/1027/1006996-brexit-negotiation-teams/

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CL - October 31, 2018

‘all is not smooth sailing for the DUP.
Although they continue to oppose the backstop, it is
obvious that its eventual application would put Northern
Ireland in the uniquely advantageous position of freeriding
in two customs unions at once’ -Andrew Duff.

Not so.

‘To keep open land borders in Ireland would require — as a last resort — a regulatory line along the Irish Sea, with the UK province’s sitting in the EU’s trade and regulatory zone….

one senior EU diplomat closely involved in talks described Britain’s acceptance of the backstop principle as “a catastrophic mistake” that may have boxed in both sides….
Brexit brought back to the fore a highly sensitive question that had been sidestepped: whose laws should apply in Northern Ireland to keep the borders open?…
“Ireland was faced with a question that it has never really answered before: if there has to be a choice will you line up with Europe or Britain,” …
The EU was, in effect, demanding Britain pledge to potentially cede control of much of Northern Ireland’s economy and trade policy. The terms would be fully detailed in Britain’s exit treaty, irrespective of what future relationship the UK sought with the EU. ..
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has said even watered-down versions of the backstop cross her “blood red lines”.

Mrs May is aiming for a deal with Brussels that would allow her to claim a Northern Ireland-only backstop will not be needed. No one knows whether it will pass muster in Westminster…
Some EU diplomats wish alternative paths had been taken to avoid this stand-off, but recognise it is now impossible to undercut Ireland.”
https://www.ft.com/content/73ac4a5c-d83f-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8

:Will Ireland’s diplomatic triumph result in a hard border?

With both sides having nothing to gain from failing to agree on a Withdrawal Agreement, the likelihood is that something will be cobbled together so that Brexit can proceed in an orderly manner.
But with English nationalism and DUP atavism in play reasonableness may not prevail.

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CL - November 2, 2018

“EU Brexit negotiators are exploring a compromise on a plan for Northern Ireland that would give the UK stronger guarantees that a customs border would not be needed along the Irish Sea….
Under the backstop compromise, Northern Ireland would remain in a deep customs union with the bloc, applying the union’s full “customs code” and following single market regulations for goods and agri-food products….
The new compromise would give Mrs May some legal certainty that Britain could not be forced to accept a customs border with Northern Ireland….
Sabine Weyand, the EU’s deputy chief negotiator, indicated to ambassadors that a Northern Ireland-only customs union with the EU would still be needed in Britain’s withdrawal agreement as a final fail-safe measure — a so-called “backstop to the backstop” that London strongly opposes.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ee75a230-dde7-11e8-9f04-38d397e6661c

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Joe - October 31, 2018

Support for GW’s assertion that no deal is likely https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/31/eu-prepares-for-a-no-deal-brexit-amid-lack-of-progress-on-talks.

Subsequent Guardian report says that Raab has said he is confident deal will be done within three weeks – i.e. by 21 Nov.

Ye pays yer money and ye takes yer choice.

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6. Joe - October 31, 2018

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/arsonist-attacks-home-of-senior-manager-at-quinn-industrial-holdings-37478243.html

Things are quiet for two or three years. Then Sean Quinn holds a public meeting at which he cries and laments his plight. And then arson attacks etc resume. Sickening.
Warning: Maybe be careful for CLR’s sake if you want to respond to this.

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7. Tomboktu - November 1, 2018

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8. Paddy Healy - November 1, 2018

Finding who was to Blame Was not Part of Scally’s Duties
Solicitor who represented Vicky Phelan and Emma Mhic Mhathuna BLASTS SCALLY REPORT, Says the Scandal is still being COVERED UP!
Daily Mirror Exclusive https://wp.me/pKzXa-KR
Solicitor O’Carroll : “The Scally Report you can deal very simply with, you just read the bloody thing and you see from the Terms of Reference that he was not instructed to look at the errors that the lab made so all he looks at is the positive results from the lab, ..“You cannot say the lab is safe if you ignore the errors it is making, which he does.”
“Mr O’Carroll also reveals that some of his other clients had their pre-cancerous cells missed in FOUR consecutive smears.”

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9. GW - November 1, 2018

A good analysis here on the causes of the disaster in Brazil here.

Nunes puts the Brazilian media squarely in the frame (rather than the somewhat marginal ‘social media’) in turning anti-corruption protests from 2013 into anti-PT protests, which later were used by Bolsonaro to construct one of his bases of support.

Severe repression of trades unionists, indigenous people, activist women, LGBT people and leftists is likely. What can we do in solidarity? Fighting against the erosion of the right to political asylum is one thing – many Brazilians may soon need it.

(Unfortunately this podcast is in the deeply annoying Soundcloud gated garden, rather than simply offering a standards-based RSS feed. You can play it in most browsers, but need to jump through hoops to download it.)

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10. Paddy Healy - November 1, 2018

No This is Not Ireland!
We’ll KNEEL no longer!’ Italy-EU clash BOILS OVER as Italy dismisses ‘THREAT’ letter-Daily Express
ITALY Minister Matteo Salvini hit back at the European Union for “threatening” the country to change its 2019 budget proposal, urging Italians to take to the streets to signal Rome “will kneel no longer” https://wp.me/pKzXa-QL
By Aurora Bosotti, Daily Express The Italian Deputy Prime Minister dismissed calls from the EU for “clarifications” on Italy’s new budget proposal.
Matteo Salvini lashed out at Brussels, calling on Italians to march down the streets on December 8 to signal their unity and support for their ministers’ economic policy. Addressing citizens with a live video on his Facebook page, the Lega leader said: “Mothers, fathers and children telling those Brussels misters ‘let us work, let us live’. “We have a right to work, a right to health, a right to education, a right to a pension. In Brussels they have nothing else to do but send us disapproving letters, threatening letters, telling us to change our budget plan, not to change our pension law. Telling us not to reduce taxation but to actually add more.”

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11. CL - November 2, 2018

The contest next Tuesday, two visions of America.

” there is Squirrel Hill, where Tree of Life synagogue sits between two Protestant churches; where a Palestinian street food truck sells falafel outside the orthodox Jewish Shaare Torah synagogue; where Irish and Italian Catholic families share the neighbourhood with Asians and African-Americans, and where Taylor Allderdice High School has been one of the most integrated institutions in the city….
Like many other Jewish organisations in the US and around the world, HIAS…has helped resettle asylum seekers, overwhelmingly Muslim, from war zones in the Middle East and elsewhere. This has been deemed a mitzvah, a duty….

But for Robert Bowers, as he prepared to point his AR-15 at elderly worshippers, this was, as he put it, “sugar-coated evil”; “genocide”; participation in an “invasion” bent on slaughtering “my people”…
Bowers’s poisoned beliefs were nonetheless the fruit of accusations about Jewish complicity in immigration. From the phobic obsession with George Soros, who has replaced Hillary Clinton as the object of punishment chants at Trump rallies, it has been a natural progression to blame Jews generally for the racial adulteration of America….

The contest between two definitions of American nationhood — one embracing immigration, and one insisting on white, principally Protestant homogeneity — has been a constant in the history of the US…
Trump… Startling even to his own party,..has, at the last minute, sought to capitalise on white grievance by raising the possibility of depriving the children of undocumented immigrants of their “citizens’ birthright” under the provisions of the 14th amendment to the Constitution….
The possibility of a Yankee Duce has been a perennial anxiety in history….”
https://www.ft.com/content/0b189030-ddd1-11e8-9f04-38d397e6661c

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12. Alibaba - November 3, 2018

Rotten proposals for the proposed abortion law amendments:

https://www.thejournal.ie/abortion-law-amendments-4319032-Nov2018/

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13. Joe - November 3, 2018

Odds seem to be shortening on UK/EU agreement on Brexit.

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14. Paddy Healy - November 3, 2018

The Real Reasons for Which The Irish Rich Elite and Fine Gael Want to Abandon Neutrality-Nothing to Do With Defence of Ireland! https://wp.me/pKzXa-Ut
FG MEP Brian Hayes ADMITS That There Are Reasons OTHER THAN “DEFENCE” For Changing Irish Neutrality-
Politics Professor, Dr Mary C Murphy Was Right! She set out possible scenarios in which Ireland might be required to be giving (to EU) in terms of neutrality or taxation, in a debate on the future of Europe Economist Colm McCarthy sets out The Reasons
Brian Hayes MEP: “However Ireland, as one of the most successful small countries, a country transformed by EU membership, must be aware of other (EU member) countries’ concerns. It would be bad politics to do otherwise—–A policy of developing our security d defence interests, similar to what Sweden and Finland have done in recent years, will make it easier for us to be part of THE CORE of EU decision-making and EU design” Sunday Independent March 11
Dr Mary C Murphy of the Department of Politics and Government at UCC said there may be an element of “payback” for Ireland in return for the support the State has received from others members of the EU27.
Dr Murphy was speaking in the final session of the Killarney Economic Conference, Jan 13 2018, which was chaired by Mark Hennessy of The Irish Times.
She set out possible scenarios in which Ireland might be required to be giving in terms of neutrality or taxation, in a debate on the future of Europe.
Economist Colm McCarthy:“After 5 years of strong recovery, the country’s economic prospects are exposed to developments in EU Policy under 3 headings: There will be profound effects from Brexit, about efforts to harmonise corporation profits tax and about future governance of the Eurozone.” Sunday Independent March 11

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EWI - November 3, 2018

‘Killarney Economic Conference’ = just another right-wing conflab.

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15. Paul Culloty - November 3, 2018

Even with Corbyn’s republican sentiments, hard to see how a joint Labour slate would work in practice?

https://mobile.twitter.com/DarranMarshall/status/1058445682015641604

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EWI - November 3, 2018

(i) isn’t ‘Labour’ in the North essentially Newton Emerson’s mammy and a gang of unionist entryists?

(ii) Corbyn & co.’s Irish Republican credentials are a hell of a lot better than the ILP’s. Therefore the ‘problem’ may operate in the opposite direction!

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16. Tomboktu - November 4, 2018

I don’t know what the headline is here:
“Labour Party gives award to SWP activist” or
“SWP activist accepts award from Labour Party”.

Either way, it’s not what one would expect.

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Joe - November 4, 2018

Maybe it’s the start of the Labour Party wind down. Their annual conference will morph over the next couple of years into an annual awards ceremony. A sort of All Stars for liberals and centre social democrats.

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17. CL - November 4, 2018

Today is John Stewart Bell day. Bell a Protestant atheist from Belfast who revolutionized physics.

“On 4 November 1964, a journal called Physics received a paper written by John Bell, a theoretician from CERN. The journal was short-lived, but the paper became famous, laying the foundations for the modern field of quantum-information science.”
https://home.cern/about/updates/2014/11/fifty-years-bells-theorem

“If twin particles, say for example two particles of light (photons), were to be emitted from a single source, and fly off in opposite directions, the properties of one would still depend on the properties of the other – they are ‘entangled’. In the bizarre world of quantum mechanics some of the properties are not concretely realised until they are actually measured – until then they do not have a concrete existence – yet they are still entangled.”
https://www.johnbellday.com/about-john-bell/

“A trio of scientists who defied Einstein by proving the nonlocal nature of quantum entanglement…honoured with the John Stewart Bell Prize…
The recipients each led separate experiments in 2015 that showed two particles so distant from one another that no signal could connect them even at the speed of light nevertheless possessed an invisible and instantaneous connection.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-bell-prize-scientists-spooky-quantum.html

In “The BIG Bell Test …more than 100,000 people around the world… obtained results strongly disagree (with) Einstein’s worldview, close the freedom-of-choice loophole for the first time, and demonstrate several new methods in the study of entanglement and local realism.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-big-bell-testglobal-physics-einstein.html

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18. CL - November 4, 2018

The neoliberal crisis continues to deepen.

“Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has overtaken the centrist party of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, for the first time, according to an opinion poll released Sunday, in a further sign of the rise of the far-Right in Europe…
the French president’s approval ratings have plunged to 21 per cent amid rising discontent over his failure to fulfil his election pledges to slash unemployment, boost growth and cut taxes.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/04/french-far-right-overtakes-macron-eu-parliament-election-poll/

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19. Starkadder - November 5, 2018

Richard Seymour on Northern Ireland:

.in the pebbledash, gray concrete, rained-on estates of Northern Ireland, Unionism is slowly dying. And with it, an idea of Britain.

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20. Joe - November 5, 2018
21. CL - November 6, 2018

“Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has told Theresa May he is willing to consider proposals for a review clause in any backstop plans for the Irish border in the wake of Britain leaving the EU.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/leo-varadkar-open-to-conditional-review-mechanism-for-border-backstop-883235.html

“Michel Barnier has cast doubt on reports that Brussels could offer the UK an escape route from the Irish backstop, an EU demand which could keep Britain in the bloc’s customs territory after Brexit. …
“I don’t see what you’re speaking about, a review clause. ..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/06/brexit-latest-theresa-may-set-pressure-cabinet-accepting-new/

“Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD has said the Brexit ‘backstop’ cannot be time bound or temporary and that it cannot “be couched in ifs, buts or conditions; but must be an absolute and permanent guarantee…
“Yesterday when the Taoiseach said he was willing to consider proposals for a review clause for the backstop, he shifted position. …
The Taoiseach’s announcement yesterday was a cock-up, plain and simple, and I would ask him to clarify his position and invite him to set aside any notion or proposal of a review clause in what is to be our insurance policy in the face of Brexit.”
http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/51472

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22. Paddy Healy - November 6, 2018

Told you NATO was going to Split a year ago!!
Trumps Withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty With Russia is an Anti-European Measure-French President Macron
Full Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-Ut
“When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and it’s security ..We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America”-Mr Macron told France’s Europe 1 radio in an interview.

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23. Paddy Healy - November 6, 2018

French President Macron calls for creation of a ‘true European army’ to defend against the United States !!!
Full London Independent Article https://wp.me/pKzXa-Ut
“We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,” President Macron told France’s Europe 1 radio

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24. CL - November 6, 2018

“A mysterious cigar-shaped object spotted tumbling through our solar system last year may have been an alien spacecraft sent to investigate Earth, astronomers from Harvard University have suggested….
The theory is based on the object’s “excess acceleration,” or its unexpected boost in speed as it traveled through and ultimately out of our solar system in January.”
https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

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WorldbyStorm - November 6, 2018

Okay. Cool. I like that. Thanks CL.

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