Archive for March, 2005
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
There's a very interesting new report out from Ireland's Central Statistics Office. Called 'Measuring Ireland's Progress 2004' it examines Ireland's economy and society on over 100 issues, comparing them in many cases to statistics across the EU (and beyond, including Norway, Iceland and candidates for EU membership Bulgaria and Romania).
There ...
Posted in Income and poverty | Comments Off on Progress in Ireland
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
Well, this is good news. It seems that the United States is backing down and allowing a UN Security Council motion calling on the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation in Darfur.
Posted in International law and structures | Comments Off on ICC to investigate Darfur
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
Following the Terri Schiavo story I've been somewhat concerned by the binary nature of much of the discussion. "You're with us or you're with the terrorists" except in pro-choice/pro-life terms. [At the outset I should say that there has also been serious engaged consideration such as by Zwichenzug at The ...
Posted in Society and culture | Comments Off on Binary logic
Monday, March 28th, 2005
Clancy over at CultureCat lists some feminist songs (for a friend who wants examples for class). One she doesn't mention that I always find intriguing is Peggy Seeger's Gonna Be An Engineer. Peggy was, of course, the partner of the great British songwriter Ewan MacColl (he wrote First Time Ever ...
Posted in Society and culture | Comments Off on Feminist music
Friday, March 25th, 2005
There has been an interesting series of articles in Liberation about blogging by students in France. Informative - seemingly something in the region of half of students in France have posted on blogs - and interesting. The first piece looked at recent cases of students getting into trouble due to ...
Posted in Online communication | Comments Off on Blogging in France – response from educational establishments
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
Foinse has a report on the lack of interest in the Irish Language Officer position in the Students Union at NUI, Galway. Seemingly nominations had to be reopened, and the election has yet to be held, when nobody applied for the position originally. There are quotes from various SU reps, ...
Posted in Society and culture | 2 Comments »
Saturday, March 19th, 2005
I have filed a formal complaint with the General Secretary of the Irish Labour Party in relation to the actions of Cllr. Ann Ferris in accordance with Article 14.2 (b) (i) of the Labour Party constitution (which provides for the expulsion of members from the party). I will not be ...
Posted in Political activism | Comments Off on Wicklow councillors try to block accommodation for Travellers
Saturday, March 19th, 2005
I'd got quite good (I think) at posting at least daily over the last few months, so even though I've only missed two days it feels like a great lapse. It's not that there haven't been important things to post - we've got the craziness of Wolfowitz's nomination as head ...
Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Busy days
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
Lawrence Lessig has decided not to publish in journals that force him to sign over his copyright or that do not allow him to license his article under at least a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license. [This is a relatively restricted license that would not allow commercial use - thereby preventing ...
Posted in Intellectual property issues | Comments Off on Lessig stops publishing – in journals with restrictive copyright terms
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005
It's a slightly out-of-the-way issue, but one I'm glad the Labour Party is addressing. Irish pensioners have a right to free travel on public transport, but people who have emigrated - and in particular those thousands who emigrated through economic necessity in the 1950s and earlier - are not eligible. ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Income and poverty, Political activism | Comments Off on Extending free travel to Irish emigrants