Archive for September, 2003
Tuesday, September 30th, 2003
When I spoke to the Computer Society at NUI, Galway earlier this year - on the topic of the introduction of electronic voting in Ireland - I didn't put anything online, as my notes were all handwritten. I have now transcribed them, and include them below.
Posted in Computing Technology, Electronic Voting | Comments Off on Lecture on electronic voting
Tuesday, September 30th, 2003
The draft constitution is now available on the site. I have also provided a summary of the main changes. I will shortly make html versions of the files available on this site. Please feel free to submit comments either on this site or
Posted in Labour issues | Comments Off on Draft now online
Tuesday, September 30th, 2003
I've posted previously about the proposed by-laws in Galway, relating to leafleting and activities in public spaces. There is a vigorous campaign against the laws, and I recently interviewed one of the co-ordinators, Kieran Cunnane, via email.
Posted in Freedom of the press | Comments Off on Interview: by-laws in Galway
Friday, September 26th, 2003
There's an article in the New York Times today looking at the US Census Bureau's calculation of poverty rates. The article calls for an update of the figure to reflect changes in consumption patterns - which, it is envisaged would increase the number of people falling within the definition of ...
Posted in Income and poverty | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 26th, 2003
Mark Dilley's new site leads to the Labor Notes conference he recently attended, 'troublemaking in troubled times.' So what idoes it mean to be a troublemaker?It means the doubter. It means the critical thinker. It means the one who stands up for herself. It means the one who stands up ...
Posted in Labour issues | 1 Comment »
Thursday, September 25th, 2003
Declan McCullagh's Politech pointed to an article on the Daily Kos concerning Diebold. Seemingly Diebold forced a website, BlackBoxVoting.org, offline. The domain now appears to be back on, though resolving to a different URI (http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm) - I am unsure whether this is a new development. According to the site:After 15,000 ...
Posted in Computing Technology, Electronic Voting | Comments Off on Diebold controversy
Thursday, September 25th, 2003
From an email that was passed to me earlier today:It is with great personal sorrow that we inform you of the death of Edward W. Said, today, the 24th of September, 2003, at approximately 4 p.m. EST. Edward had been very ill for the past couple of weeks and ...
Posted in Education | Comments Off on Edward Said is dead
Thursday, September 25th, 2003
There's an increasing buzz regarding the upcoming WSIS. That's the World Summit on the Information Society, and its happening in Geneva in December. The Association for Progressive Communications and the CRIS Campaign (Communications Rights in the Information Society) have released a guide for NGOs and civil society. At the same ...
Posted in International Affairs, Media regulation | Comments Off on WSIS getting closer, groups swing into action
Thursday, September 25th, 2003
Some of ZNet's staff have started a fascinating project - an alternative/radical online newspaper, due to start online in early December. Unlike other sites, the New Standard will be news based, and will promises easy methods to syndicate their content, for use on or off-line. We will see how it ...
Posted in Alternative Media, International Affairs | Comments Off on New alternative outlet
Thursday, September 25th, 2003
George Monbiot and Todd Gitlin recently took part in an interesting debate about activism on OpenDemocracy.net. I recently picked up a copy of Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist and look forward to reading it - particularly comparing it to Hitchen's Letters to a Young Contrarian in the same series. ...
Posted in Political activism | Comments Off on Gitlin and activism