United States President Born In United States; Apparently This Is News.

After weeks of goading the President, Donald Trump finally got what he wanted. Obama released his "long-form" birth certificate, proving that he was indeed a citizen of the United States.

Obama referred to the claims as a 'side show' that distracted from important issues such as the federal budget.

"We don't have time for this kind of silliness." Mr Obama said. "We've got big problems to solve. We can solve them, but we're going to have to focus on them - not on this."

The claims first appeared during the 2008 election, when several conservative critics claimed that Obama had been born elsewhere, leading to Hawaiian authorities releasing a simplified form of the document. However, the issue resurfaced in the past few months, as Donald Trump repeatedly questioned if Obama was legally eligible to hold office. So, why did he do this?

In the past few months, Trump has began to position himself for an attempt at running for the office of President. Despite his lack of political experience, and lack of policies, Trump has found himself several fans in the Republican party. However, considering there are numerous other candidates, and an incumbent president likely to hold on to his position, thus Trump has found himself fighting a bit of a battle.

Hence his recent tactic of repeatedly questioning the authenticity of Obama's victory, giving several interviews solely on the subject in recent weeks, despite the fact he's yet to officially announce his intention to run. For weeks, he's attempted to undermine the office of president. So, when the falsity of his claims was revealed, was he repentant?

No. Trump said that he was "proud" of this achievement, and that thanks to him, the debate can move on from this to the real issues. Despite being the person who had dwelt on this issue for so long. Now that Obama has finally called his bluff, what else can Donald Trump actually bring to the table?

British M.P. "Playing Air Guitar" In Important Debate

During a debate on military cuts in the House of Parliment, eagle eyed viewers noticed one of the M.P.'s was less than focused on the issues at hand. Conservative MP, Graham Evans, can be observed absent mindedly strumming and playing air guitar. The video has sparked anger from Labour's Shadow Defence Minister, Michael Dugher who accused the Conservatives of not treating the debate "like the whole thing was some sort of joke."


The clip has proved popular on the internet, with many people dubbing music from Guitar Hero in sync with the video:




Evans has since insisted that he was "only tapping", and blasted claims that he wasn't paying attention. As yet, it's not been confirmed exactly what song the MP was allegedly trying to play.

Viral Marketing: The Highs And Lows Of 2011's General Election

All of the major parties attempted to use viral marketing to sway voters, from party leader's recording videos, to Fine Gael releasing a flash game and Fine Gael e-Valentines.

Added to this, several of the individual candidates created personal videos, with some being more creative than others. So, did this give them a boost?

1) Mannix Flynn 

Running as a "New Independent" in Dublin South East, Mannix revived the "Dub Rap" from the 80's during this interview, which promptly spread across the net. Despite being on of the most viewed videos of the campaign, it did little for Flynn, who was eliminated on the second count.

2) Dylan Haskins

Also running in Dublin South East, Dylan Haskins placed a lot of importance on internet campaigning, with a active blog, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. His video urged people to get behind him and support his campaign, but it failed to achieve this, as Haskins was eliminated from the election after the forth count.

3) Michael Dolan 

A country song, called Dolan For The Dail attempted to support Michael J Dolan's campaign to be elected for Fianna Fáil. The song attempts to promote Dolan as a new option, but it didn't work. He fell early in the race, being cut after the forth count.


4) Michael Conaghan 

Not technically a video, but still one of the more unusual attempts at promoting a candidate. Created for Michael Conaghan, running in Dublin South Central, the song is a remake of Horse Outside by the Rubberbandits, called Rest Outside. Not long after the song hit the web, the Rubberbandits slammed the effort, and insisted that they in no way supported the candidate, or were asked permission for the use of the song.

Despite the controversy, Michael Conaghan was still easily elected, picking up over 10% of the first preferences.

5) John Dillon

Also taking the form of a country flavoured song, Independent John Dillion recieved support in the form of "Dillon's Gonna Win". Despite the optimistic name of the song, Dillon didn't win, coming in fifth in the three seater constituency. 

6) Martin Heydon 

Possibly the most bizarre of all the videos to surface during the campaign was for Martin Heydon. Running for Fine Gael, in Kildare South. An overtly apocalyptic assessment of Ireland's state, it takes huge swipes at Fianna Fáil's record, and references Superman, Johnny Cash and the Terminator.  

While it's impossible to tell if the video helped Martin Heydon's campaign, it certainly didn't hinder him. Heydon topped the poll and was elected on the first count, taking a third of the votes.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

Is Ireland About To Embrace Leader Debates, American Style?

As the start of the General Election 2011 approaches, it seems more likely than ever that there will be a leader's debate during the campaign.

Fresh from his election as leader of the Fianna Fáil party, Micheál Martin has declared his interest in partaking in such a debate with the leaders of both Fine Gael and the Labour party. During Martin's first press conference as leader, he said that the "traditional module of election debates is seriously flawed and must change".

"Specifically, I have asked them to agree to hold two

debates between us three, one at the start of the

campaign and one at the end.

In addition there would be a series of one-on-one debates

between us and a separate debate in the Irish language."

As expected, the smaller parties that would be excluded from such a debate are unhappy with such a scenario. Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin criticised the idea, saying: 'Once again we have a Fianna Fáil leader engaged in the politics of exclusion and only willing to debate with parties from the consensus for cuts.'

Mr. Martin's call comes days after it was revealed that Sky News have approached the leaders of the five main parties to televise a leaders debate, chaired by Adam Boulton. RTE, TV3 and TG4 are also said to be interested in holding such a debate, although they are said to still be considering their respective formats.

It is not yet known whether all parties involved would take up such an offer. However, both Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore have called for such debate to take place, so as it stands, it appears that the likelihood is that Ireland shall follow the UK's lead, and have the party leaders fight for the hearts and minds of the public through a televised forum.