Equality In Ireland Leaps Forward

With all the commotion and controversy surrounding the election, it may have gone unnoticed that, in the space of one day, Ireland made a huge leap forward for gay rights.

On Friday, for the first time ever, the Irish people elected an openly gay person to the Dáil. In fact, they elected two, both members of the Labour party. More importantly, the two individuals ran, not as "gay candidates", but as candidates who just so happened to be gay.

On the same day, with a lot less commotion than the election, the first public civil union occurred in Dublin. While not the first to take place (two couples had already married in private), they were the first to allow a newspaper to cover the event (The Daily Mail, no less).  Considering it was just 18 years ago that homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland, it is clear, as a society, we've moved so far forward. 

Olympic Logo Sparks Claims of "Racism"

Iran has threatened to pull out of the 2012 Olympics claiming the event's controversial logo is racist. According to reports, they believe that the logo intentionally spells out the word "Zion". The biblical term is usually used to refer to Jerusalem, but is considered offensive by neighbouring Iran.

In a letter to the president of the IOC, the head of the Iranian National Olympic Committee claimed:

"Unfortunately, we all are witnessing that the upcoming Olympics faces a serious challenge, definitely spawned out of some people's racist spirit.

"The use of the word Zion by the designer of the Olympics logo .... in the emblem of the Olympics Games 2012 is a very revolting act."

Bizarrely, this is the first time that this issue has been raised, despite the fact the logo was unveiled back in 2007. However, there have been other reports of "hidden" images in the logo, including a depiction of oral sex.

The Election Race Runs On And On

With forty of the forty-three constituencies completed, the final three, Galway West, Laois/Offaly and Wicklow have begun recounts. While both of the Galway and Laois/Offaly recounts are believed to be fairly straightforward, it appears the Wicklow one is likely to run on and on.

Before the voting had even closed, it became apparent that there would be difficulties with the election in Wicklow. Reports began to emerge that the ballot, which can be seen here, was "overly-complex" . Due to the huge number of independents running, two columns were required, with fourteen of the party picture boxes empty, and one candidate being photoless. This has lead to claims that people were "confused" as to which boxes to enter votes into.

Add to this, there are in total 24 candidates, 11 of which received fewer than 1000 votes, which has meant that the elimination and redistribution of votes has been a long and fruitless process. As of the thirteenth count, no candidate had been eliminated, and a recount has been called, due to Dick Roche being only three votes behind his FF colleague, Pat Fitzgerald. According to local reports, the Sinn Fein candidate has also called in legal advice, ahead of what they believe will be a close call for their candidate in the battle for the last seat.  As it stands, it could be a while before this constituency knows exactly who it's representatives will be.

The Other End Of The Spectrum

With the news of the total wipe out of the Green Party as well as Fianna Fáil, the majority of the headlines were of course dominated by the major candidates. However, spare some thoughts for the smaller candidates who also suffered heavy defeats. Four candidates across the country, all running as independents, received less than thirty first preference votes:

Sean Forkin (Mayo)

Benny Cooney (Dublin Central)

John Dominic Keigher (Dublin SE)

Peadar Ó'Ceallaigh (Dublin SE)

29

25

27

18

Now, in order to be placed on the ballot one must complete the necessary forms, including obtaining the backing of thirty signatures. So, in this case, these candidates failed to even receive the votes of all the people who nominated them. After weeks of campaigning, one can only imagine that this must be utterly galling.

The Mood Of The Nation

The votes are still being counted and recounted to decide the seat winners, but each constituency has now declared their first count. On the above right is the first preference majority winners in this election, in stark contrast of that in 2007.


Images taken from the RTÉ website.

No Mythical Creatures Were Harmed In The Making Of This Video

Unicorns, lasers, rainbows, Dawson. I've no idea what it's all meant to mean, but honestly, it's a trippy, fun video to start the weekend with. And don't worry, all of the unicorns were professionally trained to do stunts, so they're fine.

Can A Bad Review Be Criminal Libel?

This week, a French court will rule on whether a law professor in New York committed criminal libel, by publishing a bad review of a book.


The review in question can be found here for those that are interested. It's not a particularly harsh review. There is a degree of criticism of the text and editing, but it is reasonably balanced. The reviewer Thomas Weigend, a constitutional law professor lays out his reasoning quite clearly, and even suggests exactly how the work could be improved. 


The author, Ms. Calvo-Goller, has claimed that the review “may cause harm to my professional reputation and academic promotion.” The case obviously could not be heard in America due to it's freedom of speech, and the choice of a Parisian setting seems to be due to their stricter laws on the subject.


If the article had contained personal attacks, this could be understandable. However, allowing authors to sue over bad reviews sets a dangerous precedent, basically making it impossible for unbiased critiques to exist. What is the point of reviews if one can object and remove those that are in any way negative?


Besides which, it seems counter-productive for the author herself. It was not a particularly major review. It was an online review that few people would have read. Authors will always receive poor views from someone, somewhere, and should be prepared for such events. However, by bringing this as a criminal case, her actions themselves are doing far more damage to her reputation than one review ever could. 

Facebook: Helping Creepers Everywhere?

Facebook stalking; everyone's done it at some point. But now it seems like it's being made far too easy.

As anyone with a Facebook account will have noticed, the picture viewer has been updated to display photos better. What people may not have noticed is that there is now a download picture button underneath each photo.










Oddly enough, this option doesn't just appear under your own photos, or under photos of friends. It's available for any photos that haven't got a privacy setting, even people you're not friends with. It's not yet known if this is a programming error, or Facebook just didn't see a problem with it. Either way, if you don't protect your photos correctly than one and all can download them (in high quality, no less).

It's not just Facebook itself that's aiding Facebook stalkers. A third party app, Breakup Notifier, allows you to choose friends that you're interested in romantically, but are in relationships. The app then emails you to notify you straight away if their relationship status changes. Presumably with this playing in the background.

And they say romance is dead.

Which candidates are most visible on the web?

At the moment, the news and internet in Ireland is of course currently dominated by discussion of the upcoming election. Now there is a way to tell exactly who is receiving the most coverage.

David Dolphin, a graduate of both the University of Limerick and NUIG graduate created the site http://td2011.com/, which measures how much of a presence individual candidates have on the web. Updated daily, the website tracks how often candidates are mentioned on online news articles, blog posts, and websites. As well as detailing a candidates overall ranking and stats, the website also lists a candidates current standing compared to others in the same constituency.

Unsurprisingly, the five most prevalent candidates are the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, Sinn Féin and Green Party respectively, with Dylan Haskins currently the highest ranked Independent, at 14th. While obviously news coverage can be either positive or negative, and is in no way a guarantee of election, it still makes for an interesting read.

The top 10 are as follows:

1^st Enda Kenny (Fine Gael) 

2^nd Micheál Martin (Fianna Fáil) 

3^rd Eamon Gilmore (The Labour Party) 

4^th Gerry Adams (Sinn Féin) 

5^th John Gormley (Green Party / Comhaontas Glas) 

6^th Brian Lenihan (Fianna Fáil)

7^th Michael Noonan (Fine Gael) 

8^th Mary Hanafin (Fianna Fáil) 

9^th Willie O'Dea (Fianna Fáil) 

10^th Joan Burton (The Labour Party)

Taxing The Internet

In the run up to the general election next week, two separate parties have come out with similar "computer tax" policies. First off, the Green's proposed an usage based internet tax, to replace the tv licence fee that they would scrap. Their logic behind the tax is that it would fund journalism. "Good journalism, whether on the television, radio, in print or online costs money."

Fine Gael emerged the next day with a similar replacement to the licence fee, a public broadcasting tax that would “apply to all households and applicable businesses, regardless of the device they use to access content”. Although the finer details of the idea have yet to be decided, as it stands, the tax could apply to iPods, e-readers, Android phones, as well as computers and televisions. Obviously enough, it penalises people and companies who've made efforts to become carbon neutral by switching from paper usage to electronic.

Asides from that, specifically with the Green party policy, people will be double charged. They already pay their internet service provider for the data usage, and this proposal will add further cost on top of that, despite the state not providing the service. In this regards, the tv licence fee made sense in that at least the state was providing a direct service for the fee.

If you consider the importance placed on Ireland being a "knowledge economy", it seems a move backwards to create further costs to technology driven businesses. One can opt out of having a television, and therefore a television licence. Industry, on the other hand, cannot choose to forego the use of internet services, and thus could not avoid such charges.

Obviously, both parties are only mooting these as possibilities at the moment. Hopefully consideration will be put into the widespread effects of such a move happening.

War Of The Worlds Re-Dubbed

 
It's a style of music that's been around for a few years now, but dubstep finally starting to pick up some steam. It first appeared as out of garage and grime artists, but has since come into it's own. It has a spacey sound, due to it's sparse instrumental, with a distinctive "wobble" of the bass.

It's recent popularity is due some part to uses of it by mainstream acts like Britney and Rihanna. However dubstep acts in their own right have begun to break through, with Magnetic Man, Katy B and Chase & Status all securing recent hits.

For those who know nothing of dubstep, most people would recommend starting with one of these artists, or James Blake, runner up in this year's BBC Sound Of poll. However, in my opinion this "remixed" version of War Of The Worlds is an amazing introduction.


War of the Worlds by erwtenpeller

Belgium "World Champions" In Negotiation

Belgian papers today carried the headline of "World Champions". The reason? After 250 days of negotiating, Belgium now holds the record for the longest periods of government formation talks.

Since elections took place back in June last year, representatives have attempted to thrash out an agreement, to no avail. One of the big stalling points has been the feeling among many in the Flemish region feeling their counterparts in Walloon rely too heavily on them for economic subsidization. This has lead to further strain in a country already split heavily by linguistic, political and cultural differences.

Just a month ago, over thirty thousand citizens marched through the capital, Brussels. However, as the delay continues, the Belgian people appear to be coming up with new and stranger ways to protest. A Belgian celebrity has called on the men of the country to grow beards and upload them to his website. As it stands, nearly 100 men have risen to the challenge, and displaced their protest facial hair.

On the day preceding the record, 249 students stripped down to their underwear in the streets of Ghent, apparently to symbolise the "foolishness of the politicians". This protest took place during a "people's festival" in the city, jokingly celebrating the new record.

One female politician has asked the spouses of her fellow politicians to withold sex. "I call on the spouses of all negotiators to withhold sex until a deal is reached," she said in the newspaper interview. "Have no more sex until the new administration is posing on the steps of the Palace." It's yet to be seen if any of them will actually heed her call.

In the meantime, it seems a deal is still is far from happening.

Times Are Hard All Over

As the Dail was dissolved, people throughout the land rejoiced at the fact the the Fianna Fail government that had staggered on too long had finally been put out of it's misery. And with good reason. The country is in serious financial trouble, and times are as hard as they've been here in a very long time.

Amazingly though, all of the people yelling loudly about how Fianna Fail had destroyed this country seemed to have missed any other news stories that day.

Over in Egypt, the country is in chaos. After rigged elections, and corruption that has actually brought the country to it's knees, people are having to take to the streets to force change. Their lives have been ruined to a degree that most Irish people will thankfully never know. People have lost their lives. To be honest, right now, our woes don't even compare.

Yes, things are tough here at the moment, it is a difficult period, but people really need to gain some perspective.