An Irish woman’s social, political and domestic commentary
Electronic Voting – Do you trust it?
At last year’s elections, Ireland increased its usage of electronic voting. I accept that I’m an election freak and therefore was against it on transparency and craic at the count grounds BUT check out this article……THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE THE SOURCE CODE!!!
At the mercy of tolls
GUBU hates the NRA (that’s the National Roads Authority). The reasons are many and complex but one issue deserving of more focus is that of tolling roads. The NRA states that when it builds roads “An alternative toll-free route must be available for road users. While the Authority proposes to develop toll charges that are at an affordable level in order to attract traffic on to the new toll roads, certain users may wish to forego the improved service and shorter journey time such roads will offer and remain on existing roads” (source)
But the Minister, Seamus Brennan, states today CONFIRMING WHAT I ALREADY SUSPECTED
“Under existing public-private-partnership tolling arrangements entered into by the National Roads Authority, it is the authority’s policy, but not an actual requirement, that a toll-free route would be available close to the tolled road.”
He wants to force trucks to use tolled roads. A letter to the IT is in order I think.
Eurovision Coup
I’m a Eurovison fan and will blog more on the subject but for the minute I was shocked and horrified to read in today’s Irish Times that despite the fact the telephone voting was introduced the heads in RTE ignored the vote and gave a result from their own jury anyway!! Outrageous!!
“Voters had a five-minute slot in which to register their selections after all of the songs had been performed. Because Ireland was third of the entries to disclose its voting, the phone lines could not be kept open for any longer than the five-minute slot. Eircom, which operated the phone lines, had agreed with RTÉ that it would collate all of the votes within nine to 10 minutes of lines closing. While the company fulfilled its obligation, RTÉ decided to use a jury verdict rather than phone votes.
Spokeswomen for both RTÉ and Eircom said RTÉ’s Eurovision executive producer, Mr Colm O’Callaghan, had decided unless he had the results of the phone vote “in his hand” while Austria was still giving its vote, he would fall back on the jury vote. While the telephone vote was ready by the time Ireland was asked for its vote, Mr O’Callaghan had already made the decision to use the jury vote. “It was a live show and you couldn’t really take a chance with something like this,” the RTÉ spokeswoman said.
Eircom said its decision not to charge voters for their calls was a goodwill gesture and should not be interpreted as an admission of failure on its part regarding its role in the voting. “The system and the technology on our part worked as it should have on the night,” a spokeswoman said.”
Mourning Customs
Here’s a short article on Victorian mourning customs.
I’m not suggesting we go that far.
Archaic customs have a use
I’ve reflected a lot recently on the usefulness of organised religion in a society, issues of personal faith aside. I might dwell on that at a future date, but in the meantime, today’s Irish Times features an article on bereavement and I thought this quote was worthy.
“Years ago, people would wear a black armband as a signal that they were grieving, so people would be more aware and offer support . . . . In the current climate, we have no signals and, more than that, when a bereaved person looks around it seems that everyone is having a wonderful time while their life is falling apart,”
I think there’s a lot in this. All that wearing of black and black bordered notepaper or for example, not sending Christmas cards, did allow someone the space to go through a tough process without having to pretend that they were coping. It may have seemed archaic but I would bet anything it was better than being forced to go back to work a couple of weeks after a death or enduring social occasions grimly because everyone thinks its better to get one’s mind off the misery of bereavement.
Hmmm.
New York Times Redeems Itself
Three excellent articles in the NYT today.
1. From the editorial commenting on the increasingly desperate attempts to find WMD in Iraq:
“Two of the suspicious trailers contained equipment that American military experts concluded was almost certainly intended to produce biological weapons. These included, in one trailer or the other, a fermenting machine, a dryer, a system to bring in fresh water and eliminate contaminated water, and equipment to contain the emission of gases that might give away the laboratory’s purpose.”
Sounds like a poteen still to me.
“American authorities have begun broadcasting offers of rewards [ BRIBES FOR LIES] in an effort to get lower-level Iraqis to lead them to illicit weapons, and military experts continue to pore over documents that may offer leads. All that is fine, but we still believe that the best way to spur this investigation and give its findings credibility is to invite the United Nations to send its inspection teams back in. They are ready to go if invited.”
2. Good one on how lame and biased the main news organisations are, how they’re tied into the government and how they do deals with Congress on regulation. All stuff Chomsky wrote ten years ago but finally its getting an airing.
and finally..
3. Good analysis on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East.
Much relief about Clare
At last. I know they’ll spin this a gazillion different ways, but Clare has done the decent thing and I believe her resignation at this point, after the so-called victory’ will have an important impact. You should listen to the interview beside the article. She explains herself very well.
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