Archive for May, 2004
Monday, May 10th, 2004
To add weight to the argument that the citizenship referendum in Ireland is racist, it turns out that the Irish government does not track the number of passports issued at embassies overseas. I've said for some time that the 'grandparent' rule - whereby those who have a grandparent born ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity | Comments Off on Citizenships of convenience
Monday, May 10th, 2004
Two interesting stories in the EU observer today deal with political realignments in Europe, and the Italians are central to each. First, there's the founding of a new Europe-wide party, Europe Left by parties on the 'radical left' including the Italian and French Communists, the German Democratic Socialists, and parties ...
Posted in Electoral politics | Comments Off on European left to splinter?
Sunday, May 9th, 2004
So here's the situation: while only citizens are allowed to vote in referendums in Ireland, all those resident in an area are allowed to vote in elections for local government. The problem was that following the latest iteration of the electoral legislation, you have to present one form of identification ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity | Comments Off on Save me from cynicism. Please.
Sunday, May 9th, 2004
Maureen Dowd passes on a quote from Bush's interview on Al Arabiya that I had not previously seen: "Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers."
"No! He can't have said that," I ...
Posted in International Affairs | Comments Off on Bush to help Iraqis rid themselves of foreign invaders
Saturday, May 8th, 2004
Those following the story of the 'fake' terrorists in Macedonia, will have seen the story get more complicated. The background is that in 2002 Macedonican police killed 7 people, claiming that they were terrorists who had ambushed the police.
It turns out that the seven were actually illegal immigrants who had ...
Posted in International Affairs | Comments Off on Committing to the war on terror
Saturday, May 8th, 2004
(from a Yes Men press release):
At the Heritage Foundation's annual Resource Bank meeting in Chicago last Friday (30th April), protesters masquerading as a right-wing think tank took the stage and announced that in light of Bush's shortcomings, they were nominating former Reagan Attorney-General Ed Meese for president.
The audience applauded for ...
Posted in Political activism | Comments Off on Protesters ambush conservative think tank
Thursday, May 6th, 2004
In response to Bush's craven remarks about 'the America he knows' ZNet has distributed an essay by Vijay Prashad that notes some of the omissions in Bush's world view, serving up many examples of documented brutality in US prisons:The prison guards within and without US are guilty of sadism and ...
Posted in International Affairs | Comments Off on Knowing America
Wednesday, May 5th, 2004
What's the difference between the United States and Iraq under Hussein? According to George Bush, it's that the US investigates its trained torturers:"We're an open society. We're a society that is going to investigate, fully investigate, in this case, what took place in that prison," Bush said. "That stands in ...
Posted in International law and structures | Comments Off on Tortured logic
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004
My annoyance at Liberal individualism is peaking again these days. Last week it was liberals such as Al Franken, talking on the Daily Show I think, trying to reclaim the phrase 'I support the troops.' Now, of course, on one level the reclamation makes sense - if one is highlighting ...
Posted in International law and structures | Comments Off on Why liberalism is morally insufficient
Saturday, May 1st, 2004
I had planned to post an item about U.S. soldiers' treatment of Iraqi prisoners, but events overtake me, and now there is also a report of ill-treatment of prisoners by British soldiers. Latest reports are casting doubt on the veracity of some of the photographs of British soldiers, but it ...
Posted in International law and structures | Comments Off on Brutal acts of occupying troops