keeper of the keys

Young fabians blog post

2011-12-15T22:36:00.003Z

I wrote a post for the Young Fabians' blog about Labour's credibility deficit on the economy, you can read it here if you want.

Book review - Ask Not

2011-04-13T18:37:00.006+01:00

As a lecturer in Communications and a history graduate, Ask Not has all the right ingredients to appeal to me in a book. In a fascinating account, rich with historical details and primary research, Thurston Clarke traces JFK's inaugural address from conception to delivery. One of the most celebrated speeches of the 21st Century, its themes of service to community still resonate today.

Rumors (and truths) that Ted Sorenson had written much of JFK's Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage meant that JFK was particularly eager to establish his own authentic ownership of the inaugural. While the true picture emerges as a more complex interaction between Sorenson and Kennedy, who like all good speech writing teams had taken on aspects of each others writing, Clarke argues compellingly that the most memorable passages of the speech came from Kennedy.

Clarke is clearly enamored with JFK and anyone who has read the similarly excellent The Last Campaign, the first chapter of which is available free as a Vanity Fair extract, would be well aware of his political leanings. However, this no mere hagiography. Clarke gives time over to many of the issues which plagued JFK's, such as his affairs, conceited connections with celebrity and impatience with others whom he did not feel worthy of his respect. Its all the richer and more compelling for these details. One of the most amusing moment finds Frank Sinatra smashing his 'presidential helipad' as JFK seeks to create distance from him by electing not to stay at his house in the months following the inauguration.

One of the most interesting things in the book is an explanation of how it marked the transition from print to video as the primary means of presidential communication. The carefully stage managed spectacle and the close relationships which Kennedy fostered with television executives presaged a broader shift in political culture. I'd highly recommend the book for anyone interested in the history of the period, or exploring the intricacies involved in crafting a speech for the ages.

Ten lessons from USU

2011-04-12T03:33:00.004+01:00

While things are fresh in my mind, I wanted to just write down a few quick thoughts about how we ran the tournament from the adjudication core side, and what lessons for good or bad can be taken from it. CA-ing a large tournament is something that most people only do once, or at the most twice, so I thought it might be useful for people to have some ideas from someone who has done it. Some of the ideas here are specific to the US circuit, but I think a lot of them would be relevant to anyone hosting a competition, particularly a large-scale one.

1. Judges’ test

We opted for a judge test that was not a great debate and in fact one that was difficult to call. What we considered most important was to find judges who identified important arguments for each of the teams and problems than the result itself. Everyone can judge one debate badly, and particularly so with a lack of others to discuss things with. As such, I think the focus should be much more on reasoning than decisions, with other questions about debating serving to determine who had the requisite level of knowledge to judge important rooms.

2. Judge feedback

We had limited time at the competition and given a lack of personnel chose to prioritise ballot running over someone to specifically tabulate judge feedback. As a CA team we took a triage approach, picking out the best and worst forms and seeing if others correlated with them. Based on the limited number of outliers, our feeling is that we were fairly accurate with our initial allocation of judges. However, I think for other tournaments having someone tab feedback, which I know has been the norm elsewhere, would preferable if the personnel are available.

3. Judge allocation

We trusted the tab to do its job. There were only a couple of very rare instances where we changed people about, and that was only for clashes or where equal ranked judges were randomly selected to chair and we moved the more experienced to the chair of the panel. Too often CA teams allocate panels to teams that they’re friends with. Tournamon does a great job of ranking panels and allocating the strongest judges to where they’re needed (bubble rooms). Having this approach and altering judge rankings based on feedback rather than changing panels after the draw sped up the turnover of the rounds hugely. Along with the Herculean efforts of our tab team, this was one of the main reasons that we were able to turn rounds around so quickly and stayed tightly to schedule throughout.

4. Open adjudication

We opted to have open adjudication in all rounds. It is the norm at competitions on both coasts in the US.

There is a tension between “debating as competition” and “debating as education” that clearly exists on the US circuit. I belong strongly in the former camp. However, I see the merit to the arguments for open adjudication. A long time is often present between debates and announcement and I think that can lead to people to alter their views of debates and convince themselves more strongly that they have broken. Having them in room shortly afterwards means that people get immediate (and not forgetful/ drunken) reasons for why they did not break. If competitions are to have open adjudication throughout, then there needs to be a strong norm against ‘throwing’ rooms. Personally I am still in favour of one closed round at the end of a tournament as I think it the excitement of not knowing who has broken (both for teams that are in contention and for those who are on the same teams/ friends with them) outweighs those benefits.

5. Warm room

Based on our tab team’s advice we instituted a ‘warm room’ policy of posting results from previous rounds in the debaters’ rooms and asking speakers to check to ensure that their results matched what they were orally told by judges. I think this is a really good idea, and am thankful to the team for suggesting it. Combining it with the acetate system that has been used at Worlds would be even better.

However, based on the arguments of some of the people present, the results went up with speaker points present. This was decided in the moment. Although it adds some interest for people to see how they’ve done as they’ve gone along and for others to see who is speaking well, I wouldn’t recommend it to others. Round 6’s results weren’t posted until after the break announcement, so people still had some of the nice tension of not knowing who the last teams in the break were. However, I think leaving speaks over as a surprise until the end of the tournament is more fun for everyone involved.

6. Wing judge questions

We asked wing judges to ask two specific questions of chairs, and put them on their feedback forms. One was ‘have we allocated speaker points to the right speaker’ the other was to double-check the math on the ballot to ensure no low point wins were given. Judge errors happen, but judges do not want to think that they are the ones responsible. Based on the experiences of pilots, doctors and others, we decided that these two formal questions were useful. We had a lower level of ballot math errors than usual. In cases where it did occur, it is highly unlikely that people actually followed our request to double-check the scores. I would recommend that other tournaments follow this policy. If it became the norm it would hugely reduce the number of errors that can often lead to large time delays as an errant chair is tracked down and asked to re-do the scores.

7. Communication lines

Something will always go wrong. Competitions with over six hundred people will always have incidents. One of the most important things is letting people know what’s going on when that does happen. There were two moments like that during the tournament that had that heart-stopping effect. One was that the team allocation for one of the schools was entered with their original rather than new list, that required a delay to round one while we made sure all teams knew where they were going. The other was that due to a room number error, four of the teams were dropped from the tab in the last round.

Thankfully all four teams were from the same debate and all that was needed was to let them know positions and assign judges to that room. That took about a 15 minute delay, but we tried to make sure people waiting in all three rooms around campus knew what was happening. My experience, from Dublin Worlds forward, is that people are far more forgiving of delays and errors when they know the reason why, rather than seeing the CA team running around worrying but without that information.

The other major area of communications was responding to questions raised about various tournament policies such as the inclusion of international teams and the issuance of judge and debater guidance that went beyond the mere WUDC rules and also discussed accepted norms. In both instances, legitimate differences of opinion were present. Based on the experience of similar questions in the lead up to other major international competitions, I decided to respond quickly to such threads and to explain our position. I think in other cases things have got a bit out of hand because of an absence of prompt official response.

8. Written documents need to be orally explained

We gave out maps and phone numbers to everyone involved in the competition, and thought that would be sufficient to get people to rooms and to phone in case anything went wrong. We were wrong on that one. Things would have been eased if we had both given them maps and numbers, but also let them know where the buildings were and told them specifically in the briefings to refer to their maps. You cannot trust people to read what you give them!

9. Motion setting

We brain-stormed motions before the competition and finalised them over a nice lunch on the Friday that the competition started. We had some really interesting motions that were perhaps more novel that we didn’t run. We took a deliberate philosophy of erring towards debates that we knew ‘worked’ than taking a gamble on an entirely new, and perhaps very good debate. I’m not sure if that is better or not, but our view was that for a title championships we would favour motions that we knew from experience, or close approximation in other areas to be fair. On purely logistical sense, googledocs were wonderful and I would recommend them to every other CA team. You can all collaboratively edit motions and leave comments in real time. They made the process of creating and critiquing motions much easier before the DCAs arrived.

As a CA team, we were really happy that we managed to provide a fair and balanced set of motions for debate. The lowest percentage of any round was 1st prop for round 6 where only 8.6% of teams won. However, given that 23.9% of 2nd prop teams won, I think it was probably more of an issue of teams taking a while to figure out the motion than it being un-propable. Anyone interested can take a look at the statistics for every round here. I think it would be a good idea for as many tournament as possible to post this kind of data afterwards. Over time, they would help us to set fairer motions.

10. Thank You

Finally, and most important I would like to thank all those who made the tournament possible, be they judges, debaters, volunteers or colleagues.

As many of you know, I am shortly leaving Vermont after two very happy years to return to Europe. It has been wonderful to be part of the US BP circuit that is rapidly maturing into a force to be reckoned with. I owe a huge debt to all those on the US circuit and particularly those in the North East who have made me so welcome. Thank you.

Women's participation in debating

2011-03-28T02:31:00.002+01:00

There was a discussion on a friend's facebook account about women's participation in debating. I posted a comment there, but thought I'd copy it over here as well for anyone that's interested.

My thoughts are that there isn't much bias at play against women, just a major problem of retention. Kylie Lane, Beth O'Connor, Jess Prince and Naomi Oreb have all topped the tab at worlds since 2005. In our region (the North East) women have regularly done well too. Just from our Vermont team, Jess & John have won three tournaments this year, Sarah & Sam broke at Worlds and won a tournament, and Alli & Tom got to the Yale final. We don't seem to have as much of a problem retaining female debaters, and, as it happens, nor have UCD (my Alma Mater) lately. While not much research has been done on bias, Steven Kryger did write an interesting article for the Monash debating review in 2009 which indicated that there is no appreciable gender effect on results amongst experienced judges.

My gut feeling (and it's just that) is that people, as a whole, find it a little easier to get along with others of the same gender as them. The more women participate in a squad or on the circuit, the more people that others get to interact with, and form friendships with. The first year or two for any debater, no matter how good, is a tough slog where it's incredibly hard to reach knock-out rounds. What keeps people coming back is as much the friendships as it is the competition.

Why is it was a problem that women don't stay involved? At a simplistic level, I'd say it's extremely bad for teams competitively to lose 1/3rd of their (potentially) best speakers because they don't stay on after first or second year. For the circuit its bad because we get less diversity of views and opinions and have poorer debates as a result. (don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons to view it as a positive outcome, but these two, I would imagine, ought to appeal to all but the most insecure male speakers!)

So how to go about encouraging retention? Some things that have been implemented on other circuits range from a mixed-doubles competition (fun and ensuring 50/50 divide) in the UK, women's tournaments there, in Canada and Australia, and quotas for teams at major tournaments in Australia. Perhaps it's time to have a discussion about implementing similar measures in the North East. In the meantime, extra coaching and encouragement is always a good way to keep people coming back.

How history shapes people

2011-03-09T09:51:00.002Z

We know that our history shapes our lives to some extent. What a new field of economics is finding is to just how large an extent that is.

Tim Harford author of the excellent Undercover Economist wrote earlier on this year about the phenomenon:

The largest silver mines in the Spanish empire were the Potosí mines, discovered in 1545 in what is now Bolivia. Exploiting the mines was dangerous, and in the late 16th century, the Spanish introduced the mita system of forced labour. Villages near Potosí were obliged to provide one-seventh of their adult male population to work the mines, and the mita system continued until its abolition in 1812.

That is history. This is not: the former mita districts are 25 per cent poorer than apparently identical districts on the other side of a boundary that ceased to mean anything 198 years ago. A long-abolished colonial system has somehow shaped the modern world.

While the field is a relatively new one, it has profound implications for public policy. Circumstances determine much of people's lives, even where those circumstances linger in the mists of collective memory. Policies such as those being implemented in Brazil to create conditional cash transfers are perhaps one way of addressing these inherited inequalities, but more ways must be found. It is considered a classic example of injustice that a child ought not inherit the sins of their parent (or their parent's owner); we ought do more to make that a reality.

Cape Town Harbour

2011-03-08T23:10:00.002Z

I thought it was about time I got this blog going again. I've got a few posts half-written in the drafts that I'll post in the next few days. In the meantime here's a picture from my recent trip to the beautiful Cape Town in South Africa

Some reflections from China

2010-06-01T11:17:00.006+01:00

As many of you know, I was just in China for 10 days at the FLTRP Cup, a national debating competition in English, sponsored by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. While this was the 14th year that the competition has been run, it was the first time that it took place in the BP format. I decided to jot down a few thoughts on the competition and some of the wider issues surrounding it while they were still fresh in my mind.

The debates

One of the questions that was in my mind before going to the competition was ‘how free will people be to make arguments’. Not knowing much about domestic Chinese policy, this was a bit of a mystery to me. One of the most surprising and rewarding parts of the whole experience for me was the argumentative freedom that the students expressed. Sometimes this was to my own political leanings; I saw the top room in a round about immediate elections in Thailand, where the prop teams made some excellent arguments about the mandate that a government requires from the people in order to be legitimate. In another round, while not to my political liking, I heard another fantastic argument. In a debate about banning online groups from publishing the personal information of those who have transgressed morally, the speaker explained how law was a reflection of people’s desires, and sometimes the law took a while to catch up with the views of the people, so there must be room for a certain level of extra-judicial space. So far, so seemingly liberal. However, she rounded out the argument with the example that ‘most people in China think adulterers should be put to death, but the law doesn’t respect that yet’. While it’s not an outcome I’m personally in any way comfortable with, it did make me realise that it was the exact same argument as one that I would have found incredibly persuasive with a liberal example, and it still received good reward in the debate!

Overall the quality of the competition was a pleasant surprise. In judging a semi and watching the final, I, and those around me, felt that the standard was similar to that which would be present at any international competition, with clever, sophisticated argumentation. (There was one really interning argument in favour of banning child athletes which drew an analogy to child soldiers, for example). At the lower levels of the competition, there was an over-reliance on is/ ought fallacies (‘China has a Confucian ethic, therefore it should), but that was no different from what you often see in similar debates elsewhere with new debaters. The training the teams had done in March had clearly paid off, and given that it was the first competition in BP for many of the debaters, it really was remarkable how good they were.

One of the other really noticeable things about the competition was the level and quality of female participation. A recent leader in The Economist discussed the idea of gendercice and presented the frightening face of a preference for male children in China and other developing countries. However, at this competition, however unrepresentative it may be, a different picture emerged. Talented female students were clearly given every opportunity to shine, and took it with aplomb. For many of the foreign adjudicators the women were seen to consistently outshine the men, and it forced us to ask questions about the level of participation and success of women in our own circuits. While I have no intention of rehashing the debate that recently raged in the IONA circuit, I think it is worth nothing that the success and participation of women in China shows what most believe to be the case anyway: there is no innate reason why women either participate less or are less successful in debating.

Scale & impact

One of the most striking things about the competition was its scale, both in terms of the number of participants, and the ambition of the organisers. Universities were limited to one team each, and there were 128 teams taking part. That means that there were teams from 128 different universities at the competition from all over China. The organisers had clearly put a huge amount of effort into the competition, with all team’s transportation and accommodation covered in order to facilitate their participation. While BP debating in China is still relatively new, this competition switching over to the format was already making waves. The work of people like Steve Johnson (CA of this competition) Lok Wing Fat (who has run countless workshops in the country) and many others are creating a national impetus towards BP.

I chatted with several coaches from Chinese universities about their desire to set up regional competitions in order to help them prepare more for the national championships. When it comes to international debating, China have already started to make an impact, for example, Tsinghua University winning the inaugural EFL section at Vancouver Worlds in 2007. However, their full impact is yet to be felt. For me, this shows the enormous success that the BP format has had in creating an international debating format. However, it also highlights the Worlds community’s enormous challenge in figuring out how Worlds should function with an ever-increasing number of people wishing to take part. As Gregg O’Neill noted recently, the failure of the Future of Worlds subcommittee was an enormous disappointment. With so many of these debaters clearly harbouring ambitions of partaking in the championships, and a natural limit to the size the competition can be run at annually and sustainably, questions must be asked about how these problems can be overcome while still having a representative worlds that achieves its stated purpose – finding the best debating team in the world.

Recommendation

The competition had a large number of subsidised foreign adjudicators. While I was a little worried initially that this could come across as ‘foreigners come to teach the Chinese how to do things’, this really wasn’t the way in panned out at all. This was due to two things. Firstly, the students and coaches were very receptive to the experience and opinions of people who were experienced with the format and looked to learn as much as possible from them. The second thing was the approach taken by the CA team to promote and involve as many of the quality local judges as possible which saw a gradual shift towards more locally based judging as the competition progressed. If the level of funding for the competition is around the same again next year, then I’d imagine there will be travel opportunities for many of the people who would be reading this.

I would not hesitate to recommend the competition for a moment. It was an incredibly rewarding experience that really reminded me of why I enjoy judging and coaching students. People were eager to learn, there was a freshness to many of the arguments and the standard was genuinely impressive. Add into the mix a wonderful group of international judges, tasty, cheap local cuisine, and two days touring Beijing after the competition and you really can’t go wrong!

just me?

2008-09-30T20:55:00.001+01:00

Or does the Republicans voting down the finance bill because Nanci Pelosi said they were reckless and irresponsible not smack of reckless irresponsibility?

Obama meets the West Wing

2008-09-23T17:59:00.002+01:00

There's an amazing piece of dialogue in the NY Times for anyone who was a fan of the West Wing, here's my favourite part:

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Great stuff!

A long way left to fall?

2008-09-21T16:00:00.000+01:00

With the stock market withering like a plant in the desert sun, and commentators everywhere beginning to genuinely ponder the idea that the financial crisis could be as bad as the 1930's, it seems time to ask ''how bad is it going to get''?

I'm not an expert on stock markets by any means, but there is an interesting fact that could have relevance to today's crisis. The reason that people buy shares is, fairly evidently, for a share of the company's profits. In the long-term, shares need to give a higher return that the rate of interest in a bank. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to buy them in the first place. Historically, the rate of return on shares that the market has settled at means that people make their money back in 14.5 years, in other words an interest rate of 6.89%. That's a reasonable return, and enough more than putting your money in the bank to make the risk of buying shares worthwhile.

As the above graph shows, the prices at the moment are still well above that level. At the moment, the price of shares is around 25 times the annual earnings, or an interest rate of around 4%. Given that you can get a rate that's higher than that from a lot of banks' saving accounts, and the current market turmoil, there is every chance that share prices will continue to fall.

Notes: 1. I wrote this before the announced bailout, but think it is still relevant

2. The inspiration for this came from the Undercover Economist, a book I'd highly recommend

a sunny day!

2008-09-20T23:57:00.004+01:00

There was a lovely sunny day for once, and luckily I was out with my camera and managed to grab a couple of shots so I can remind myself that the weather really can be nice in the dreary months to come!

Aisling and Fergus

Aisling

Stephen's Green Lake

Me, taken by Aisling

Stephen's green evening sunshine

Fresher's week '08

2008-09-19T13:35:00.004+01:00

Brian after his shift at the grind

Ian and the (sadly non alcoholic) Kopperberg

Ciaran looking happy with Cranley's sticker...

Don't mess with the auditor during fresher's week!

Susan leaves her mark...

...and shows off her hemming skills!

James on security detail

Shane maintains that he was neither to fat, nor too ugly to model for Ralph Lauren, they just wouldn't pay him enough

Gregg being all busy and important.

Click to enlarge any of the images

L&H porn debate

2008-09-18T23:45:00.006+01:00

The L&H's annual porn debate was last night, so I brought my camera along. The lighting in the theatres is always really tricky, so these are a mix of flash and natural ones. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling normally gives a much nicer look than pointing it straight at people (because the light looks more natural instead of the overly bright/ shadowy look you get with a normal flash). The problem in those theatres is that the ceiling is brown, so if you try that you get very brown people (and not in the way that fake tan attempts to make them!

The Rabbi

The philosopher

The auditor

Conor and The crowd (the guy to his left doesn't count)

Dwarfed by history!

Mags takes the hecklers down

The pastor

Sheehy and Janine

Daithi in pauses for laughs

Ian getting his porn talk on

Aengus' debs

2008-09-18T22:41:00.003+01:00

It was my brother's debs during the week, so I snapped a couple of photos before he headed off!

First debate of the year

2008-09-11T23:42:00.005+01:00

The first L&H debate of the year was last night. I brought my camera along to record to occasion!

It's a large hadron collider!

Mags in one of her two (wonderful) speeches!

Jarlath, as seen on tv3

Mary before the debate

Aisling and me

Conor gets his verbosity on

Shane posing

Dec speaking

''One Cigarette is the Price of Oral Sex in UCD''

2008-09-07T12:35:00.011+01:00

It's news to me, but according to the Sunday Independent's front page banner headline, Irish students are ''Sex mad, booze mad and cocaine mad'', to the extent that they will exchange a cigarette for oral sex. As a story, it fits neatly with their editorial policy of publishing tawdry, sensationalistic, offensive and misleading stories. (Remember Liam Lawlor dying in a car with a prostitute that was, in fact, a translator?)

My favourite part reads as follows:

Derek Freedman, a leading specialist in STI treatment, said recently that he sees in his Dublin clinic a steady stream of UCD students, with many boasting they have had as many as 20 sexual partners, and often unprotected.

Aside from '', and often unprotected'' being the product of diuretic sub-editing, the content seems a little... unbelievable to say the least. It's notable that the ''boasts'' are not a quote from Dr. Freedman, and it doesn't sound like something a doctor would say, even if it were true. Moreover, can you really imagine somebody walking into a clinic and effectively declaring ''look at me, I had enough unprotected sex and got gonorrhea, I'm amazing!!!''. In the history of boasts about sexual bravado, that one doesn't rank so highly in the memorable quotes chapter. Never mind that the average lifetime sexual partners in Ireland is 10.6 making 15-20+ in your early twenties a very obvious exception to normal student (or adult) sexual activity. But ignore that, it doesn't fit with the story! Where's the sensation in that!

As for the ''One Cigarette is the Price of Oral Sex in UCD'' (the other part of the headline), it turns out that's something that happened, once, outside the ''notorious'' student bar in UCD. Those first year students who ran out and bought a pack of 20 for €5 thinking it represented pretty good value might find themselves a little disappointed.

McCain, a prisoner to the extremes of his own party?

2008-09-05T22:55:00.003+01:00

George Packer at his New Yorker blog has an interesting view about McCain brought about by Palin's selection as the Veep candidate, and the Republican convention. He thinks that McCain has become a prisoner to his own party's hard right; a lone moderate lost in a sea of extremely conservative (white*) Republicans. I'm not sure I agree. After a 30 year career in the senate, you'd have to be dozing a lot more than the average elderly man not to pick up a few basic political rules. The most fundamental is that there is no way that you can get elected if your own supporters do not come out and vote for you. The second most important is that after you get elected, you can change your positions relatively rapidly and radically. Given that his own speech tacked away from the extremities, he's already laying the grout work for a relatively centrist presidency. In the unlikely event that McCain does win the election, I wouldn't be surprised to see Palin placed in a Walt Disney style cryogenic freezing, ready to be thawed out for the 2012 election.

*The Washington Post carried the shocking statistic that "Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor were black."

attack dogs

2008-09-03T22:47:00.004+01:00

Fred Thompson, a former actor and Republican Presidential contender was speaking at the Republican convention yesterday. In what was seen as the most aggressive speech of the night, he went for the usual line of ''the democrats want to raise your taxes''.

According to seveal reaports, when Obama was picking Joe Biden as his running-mate, one of his major considerations was to pick somebody to do the dirty work for him, and go on the attack during the closing months of the campaign. It seems to be a job that he's taking to with relish. There won't be any Kerry-esque critique's coming Biden's way if he keeps going after people with the relish that he did today:

“I heard my friend, and by the way he is my friend, I heard Red October up there hunting for votes,” Mr. Biden said, imitating Mr. Thompson’s gravelly voice and alluding to one of his acting roles. “Fred got up there and he said well, the Democrats are going to raise your taxes.”

Mr. Biden said that the Democrats’ tax plan would raise taxes only on some corporations and the wealthiest Americans, including successful actors.

“Fred, look at me. We’re going to make sure you don’t get another tax break because I’ve going to give a tax break to the people right here in this room.”

They might not be friends for much longer...!

Bobby Kennedy

2008-09-02T21:58:00.002+01:00

I've started an economics course before my masters, and we're studying GDP and GNP at the moment. I finished a wonderful book recently about Bobby Kennedy (about which more soon), but I couldn't help but share this quote, which I think reflects the inadequacy of using mere statistics to measure our quality of life. This was from the first speech of his presidential campaign, and makes for a rather gutsy opening I think.

Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

How to sell ice cream

2008-08-27T13:09:00.003+01:00

I was at Wicked last night, which was generally excellent. I'd highly recommend that any students out there wondering about taking it in get their tickets on the day. Got great seats in person at the box office, at about half the price they were on Ticketmaster online!... They did have one very sneaky money-making idea though. Turn off the air conditioning during the interval, let the theatre heat up for 15 minutes, and keep pedalling the ice cream throughout... rather devious that one.

Festival of World Cultures

2008-08-24T18:18:00.005+01:00

Big congratulations to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Coucil for their organisation of the wonderful festival of world cultures. There was a great atmosphere and great music to be found on the coast today. It was also nice to see the sun make a guest appearance!

Sax on the coast

A very long Teddy's queue!

A well populated peoples' park

Lots of interesting instruments on display!

Please buy our CD!

There were topless drummers...

...and barefoot dancers

And even sand sculptures!

Tennis

2008-08-24T13:08:00.001+01:00

A couple of tennis pictures from one of the Fitzwilliam Open Semi Finals this week.

tea and scones anyone?

2008-08-23T22:07:00.005+01:00

From a lovely little café in Chester. Was away last week, and will be next week, so the posts will be sparse for a little while!

Nuke the Polish

2008-08-16T22:25:00.001+01:00

Not content with decimating Georgia, and refusing the recognise their territorial integrity in any peace agreement, the Russians have now taken to sending rather threatening messages in the direction of the Polish. More than the regular variety of threat that is; according to the Guardian, they have "reserved the right" to launch a nuclear attack on Poland if they agree to host US rockets. Just an idle comment? Something twisted by a paper looking for a sensational angle? Sadly not. A senior general has (no doubt with political approval) been quoted as saying

"By deploying, Poland is exposing itself to a strike - 100%,"

And went on to add, as if that wasn't clear enough, that

Russia's security doctrine allowed it to use nuclear weapons against an active ally of a nuclear power such as America.

A little worrying that. Generally, invading your neighbours is considered to be slightly bad form, but blowing them up altogether really isn't looked upon kindly. Russia have been flexing their muscles like an Olympic greco-roman wrestler for some time now, resuming long-range bombing flights and making noises about, well, just about everything. That they have progressed to using their military instead of their press department is deeply worrying, and should not go unchecked by the international community.

I think the Economist are on to something when they talk about increasing the power of the G7 to the exclusion of the Russians and preventing their progress in attempting to join the WTO. While the Guardian are right to a certain extent that

"Western governments should think long and hard before enacting measures to exclude Russia from the international arena"

their assertion that

"NATO members.... should rebuild, extend and enforce Russia's international obligations. They should not be wilfully tearing them down."

seems to totally ignore the situation on the ground. Allowing Russia to join the in with the G8 and movements towards allowing them to join the WTO were both based on them acting responsibly and becoming more democratic and accountable. When they move in entirely the opposite direction, it seems rather silly to reward them for their behaviour. Their newfound buoyancy is based around a massive influx in oil and gas revenue. Their reliance on natural resources makes them vulnerable to trends in the global markets, and therefore more susceptible to international pressure.

That seems to be the line that America are taking, with Bush making a reference to the G7's role in a speech yesterday. There is a bizarre brand of Anti-Americanism which derides America no matter what they do, good or bad. It was in evidence on the Drive Time radio panel yesterday, with one of the panelists asking ''why do we allow America to say they're the world's policeman in these kinds of situations''. (The same woman moments later deriding Bush's trip to China and his failure to stand up for human rights) What the world should really be asking for is decent leadership and a way to help bring to an end, or at the very least minimise, Russia's aggression towards their neighbours. Unless there are consequences for their actions, that's highly highly unlikely to happen.

Obama the celebrity, McCain the thief?

2008-08-16T14:40:00.002+01:00

As a photographer, I have an interest in copyright. Because I post images on the web, there's always a chance of somebody taking them without permission. It's happened a couple of times, and when I find out about it, I tend to be more than a little annoyed. (UCD found this out to their detriment when they used several of my images in their prospectus). Today I saw an interesting article over at Wired, which discusses the Ohio Republican party's unauthorised use of Jackson Browne's Running On Empty in a campaign ad. It seems that if the judge finds in his favour, there could be a large payout in the offing. For someone who is running with Law & Order and free market principles as his major policy planks, stealing somebody else's work to promote your own image when they have endorsed your opponent probably isn't the smartest move.

The Olympics revisited

2008-08-14T09:38:00.003+01:00

I wrote a week ago about why I felt that China having the Olympics was a good thing, and why I felt that a boycott would have been silly and counter-productive. One of my reasons was that the press having access to more of China would create more debate about their human rights situation than a boycott. Some people, including commenters here, felt that debate and scrutiny would have come about anyway. I thought a week in, that it was worth revisiting. Not only were human rights at the fore in the lead-up to the games with journalists on the ground filing stories for the NY Times, The BBC and many others, but they have continued to ask questions since, to the point that

A senior official for the Beijing Olympics today criticised parts of the
international media for coming to China "to peak, to be critical, to dig
into the small details and find fault" in the country's human rights
record. (guardian)

It's that kind of continuous questioning that I was talking about in my post. I firmly believe that a similar amount of attention and pressure would not have been applied if everyone had simply not turned up.

okie-doke

2008-08-11T23:14:00.003+01:00

I spied the current issue of the RTE guide in the shop at lunchtime, which boasts an 'exclusive' at home interview with Bill O'Herlihy. It got me wondering if there was a bidding war akin to the one for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's twins. What do you reckon the going rate for a Bill exclusive is these days?!

The king's trophy

2008-08-11T22:36:00.001+01:00

The king's trophy, originally uploaded by Randombassist.

There is a huge love of the king in Thailand, which is somewhat alien to me, and very disconcerting when you first arrive. His image is on every street corner, and many people wear clothing in his honour. In the cinema you are greated by the royal anthem where everyone stands to the king's honour before the showing. (For any of the Irish, this was described accurately by a friend of mine as a bizzare version of the Angelus).

I think it's interesting that he's such a focal point. For a country that has experienced much instability over the last 60 years, he has been a constant, so I think that's the main reason.

You're probably wonderng what that has to do with this photo; the trophy was blessed and presented to the organisers of the world debating championship by the king, which to them (and the winners) was a rare honour in Thailand. This is that trophy.

Will Ferrell

2008-08-08T22:07:00.004+01:00

This is one from when Will Ferrell came to the L&H earlier on this year to receive a James Joyce award. It was a great night with him giving a 30 minute stand up routine. I was in the press room when he was wearing a suit beforehand, but had a champions sports bag with him. One of the reporters asked him what was in it, and he said it was "just a new pair of sneakers". Turned out it was a full Irish rugby kit! My favourite quote of the night was his reflections on the James Joyce award:

“As I perused my leather bound volumes of Ulysses, Finnegan's Wake, Dubliners, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, standing in my mahogany library, a lot of feelings ran across my head, like, man, I should have read these books,”

Legend!

B&W portrait

2008-08-07T23:20:00.001+01:00

Eoin, originally uploaded by Randombassist.

Quite like this one, recent enough one taken in a bar in Estonia

how not to blow up your house

2008-08-06T21:00:00.002+01:00

I've been living on my own at home for the last week or so. The following is entirely incongrous to that.

Two ways in which it is possible for young men to set their houses on fire:

1. Make yourself some burgers and do them on the grill. But you don't like cleaning up, it's a waste of your precious tv watching time, so you put some tinfoil on the grill. But you're also a little impatient, so you put the heat up high. A couple of minutes of satisfying sizzling later and that beautiful wafting aroma of cooking meet drifts up. But then some smoke starts to come too. You pull out the grill, and you realise, whoops, the fat from the burgers is a little bit on fire.

Moral: Expend your lungs and open the back door

2. Order pizza from Dominos, and decide, what the hell, you'll get some brownies with it. After your pizza you're a little full, so you wait a while for the brownies. When you get peckish later on in the evening, you chuck the brownies in the microwave; you wouldn't want them cold would you? When you start to hear a strange, distinctly un-brownie-like crackling, you beging to wonder ''is that a blue spark... oh my god, what the hell'' and turn it off very quickly. You open up the cardboard box, and see the sparkling, lightly smoked tinfoil inside.

Moral: Tinfoil, it might just kill you some day

west pier lighthouse

2008-08-06T20:57:00.001+01:00

west pier lighthouse, originally uploaded by Randombassist.

Just another shot from the same night as the one below, this one was taken a little earlier with more light in the sky. It got windy enough that I decided not to stick around until they switched the light on!

we've tried everything else, so we might as well sell them cheeseburgers

2008-08-05T21:20:00.003+01:00

There have been cries around the world that China's human rights record means that the Olympics shouldn't be held there, or that we should boycott them now that they are being. I was involved in a debate about the topic myself against an American team (in the air force academy, which is very nice!). Although on that day we were asked to give the arguments in favour of boycotting, I find the other side far more persuasive. (the Americans lost, but that might have been for introducing nuclear was as the end result of a boycott - just a hunch...)

The main reasons that I think that the Olympics being in China is a good thing are as follows:

1. It creates a greater openness. It would be facile to say that the Olympics have improved the lot of ordinary Chinese, theirs being generally left unchanged, and in some cases even damaged. However, the games have brought increased international attention to China's human rights record. For example, both the BBC news and Newsnight led with stories about it yesterday. The Olympics are not, as China would like, just boosting national pride and prestige. With free reporters entering their country, many people are looking deeper than just sport and evaluating China's record. There's a lot more room for improvement, but will only come from greater engagement, not less. One need only look to the examples of North Korea, Burma and Cuba to see that isolating countries is not a very effective way of engendering liberal values. The only way that China will change is with pressure from without and within. The more knowledge there is about the situation on the ground, the more pressure there will be. That pressure can create change because

2. The Chinese government care deeply what people think about them. Their desire to be seen as a decent country has had a positive effect on global affairs in the last couple of years. The notoriously isolationist ''sleeping dragon'' has let out a fiery yawn or two in the direction of tradition allies that have made a big difference. Firstly, they have shifted from their (admittedly reprehensible) original position on Darfur and now support UN intervention. They have also been involved in putting pressure on North Korea to abandon their nuclear programme, and were instrumental in forcing the Burmese to accept international aid following the Tsunami there. While they could do much more on the international stage, these are good signs and should be encouraged. Switching to a more hostile stance as they start to engage more is the worst possible idea.

3. They're here to stay. They've grown 54% since the last Olympics. That bears repeating. In four years, they have added more than 50% to their wealth. That's an astonishing rate of growth. Its continuous re-telling robs it of its impact upon us, but there can be little doubt that China's growth is literally changing the way the world does not business. Many of the people who call for a boycott of the Beijing games do so for laudable ideological reasons. However, the chances are that a boycott or shaming of China would damage both them and us. Internally, it would make them more worried about dissent and more likely to crack down, and externally it would deepen their distrust of the global community. Many people have noted that the Olympics are China's ''coming out party'', proudly showing their new face to the world. Much better to welcome them cautiously and press for change than to disengage totally.

4. Precedent. From Hitler's Germany to Communist Russia, the modern Olympics have not had a stable relationship with democracy, and perhaps they shouldn't. Sport is something transformative which can cross borders and for a fleeting moment unite people in a common bond. When the Koreas walked out under the same flag last time around, it made a huge difference back home to the ordinary Koreans who dream that one day they they need not shout across mine-filled valleys to speak with their relatives. It's worth noting that as the Chinese people have accrued economic rights, their lives have genuinely improved both in terms of their life expectancy, and their freedom to make choices. It's not long ago that Mao decided he knew best how a farm should be run, and condemned millions to their death in the process. Things have slowly got better. By forming the many fleeting and lasting bonds that a large event like the Olympics we can help to show that there is another, better, way possible, and encourage the change in China to continue.

So, enjoy the games, and don't feel too guilty about it!

____________________________________________________________________

As an aside, if you want to check out the Irish medal hopes, check out this excellent blog which will be updated in the coming weeks.

Rings Image: Sherlock 77; the others are mine

fishing at dusk

2008-08-05T20:59:00.003+01:00

You might have noticed that there haven't been that many new photos around here lately. That's in part because I've been working away and quite tired, but more so because the weather has been miserable any time I've been around to go out! I thought there was going to be a nice sunset the other night, but it didn't turn out that well. Just took a couple of shots of the glow after it had gone down instead from the West Pier in Dun Laoghaire.

Bavarian Countryside

2008-08-03T23:03:00.003+01:00

This is my most viewed photo on Flickr, it's one of the first ones that comes up when you search for Germany on Yahoo. It's weird how popular it is, because although I like it, I don't really think it's one of my best.

possibly the greatest headline ever

2008-08-03T10:47:00.004+01:00

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

From the Onion

Frakonomics - thoughts

2008-08-01T20:52:00.012+01:00

If you've ever wondered about the link between abortion and crime, the motivations of sumo-wrestling cheats, or how the Superman radio show helped to bring down the Ku Klux Klan, then Freakonomics might just be the book for you. A collaboration between a prize-winning economist (Steven Levitt) and a journalist (Stephen Dubner), it is a very readable trip through some of the odder aspects of human nature, and an attempt to explain them by way of the application of microeconomic theory.

If that sounds like the dullest possible premise for a book, then you might be in for a bit of a shock. It reads less like a text book, and more like the thoughts of someone who is fascinated by people and seeks to understand them. I enjoyed this book for many of the same reason that I love The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In it, Douglas Adams manages to pick out little parts of how we behave and make them obvious to us. (for example, the editor of the eponymous guide's decades-long lunch break remind us all of a colleague or two!) It's that kind of insight which this book provides: it takes tiny things that people do and shows their relevancy on a much larger scale.

It is an odd book in many ways, sometimes careering from topic to topic with wanton abandon. As the authors state openly in their introduction, they do not have a unifying theme, which may not appeal to every reader. However, a theme is not necessary for every book, and can sometimes be an unnecessary restraint. Unless you have a particularly deep-seated grudge against short stories or magazines, you shouldn't have too many problems here. When I was reading it, I felt the chapters were like six very well written and accessible journal articles.

As it turns out, that's almost exactly what they are. At its most basic, the book is a popularisation of Levitt's academic work, and interesting work it is to. The most eye catching claim he's made is that the legalisation of abortion is the reason that crime dropped in the mid 90's. The theory goes like this: the people who had abortions after its legalisation tended to be young single mothers who didn't want that child, the very children who are most likely to become criminals. It's quite a compelling thesis, although it has come in for some questioning from other economists. I should point out that they in no way endorse that drop in crime as a reason for allowing abortion (they take no position), but rather just state that it exists. At its most basic the thesis makes a lot of sense. If you abort all the children, there will be a drop in crime. That doesn't mean that you should abort all the children, just that the two have a causal relationship. It's those relationships which the book attempts to explore. If it has any message, it's that the conventional wisdom is often wrong, and that just because a conclusion is startling doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

I had a couple of niggles with the book, the main one being the last chapter which asks whether the names that black parents give their children are economically disadvantageous in comparison with the names white parents give their children. Although it's an interesting question, it is more so in an academic than a general situation, and it reads like that, with lots of tables and not a lot of text. I also think it might have been of more interest to the authors than me, because between them they had six children under the age of six at the time of writing! [as a personal disclaimer I read this chapter while waiting for a blood test, so I concede that might have influenced my mood too!] The other problem that I had was that they sometimes exaggerated just how 'rouge' Levitt's theories are. He won what is effectively the Nobel prize for economists under 40 and is a tenured professor at the Chicago School of Economics, not really the hallmarks of a maverick outsider!

That said, as I try to get my head around Economics before I start my masters, I can't help but think that it could do with more people who write like this. Science has succeeded in bringing its stories to a wider audience in a way that economics certainly hasn't. You don't need to know the intricate details of Newtonian Mechanics to find the story of an apple falling on young Isaac's head interesting. Nor should you need a Ph.D in advanced econometrics to find it fascinating that most drug dealers still live with their mothers, swimming pools kill more kids than guns in the U.S., and that the school a child attends makes only a tiny difference to their academic performance.

Image: Penguin celebrations cover, Freakonomics site

Croatian sunset

2008-07-31T23:26:00.005+01:00

One from last summer this, from Pula in Croatia. They have amazing Roman ruins all over the two, it's definitely worth a visit.

In other news, the Guardian quoted my previous post, so I was happy with that given that I'm only a week back blogging! I'll have a couple of posts over the weekend including thoughts on the intriguing Freakonomics which I've just finished, so stay tuned.

Wielding the knife?

2008-07-29T21:10:00.008+01:00

David Miliband is a man who has, on paper at least, my ideal life. He got a first in PPE from an Oxbridge college. He went on to work in a think tank, and then became Tony Blair's head of policy. They liked him so much, that they parachuted him into a safe Labour seat so he could come sit with them on those plush green sofas they like so much. Within a year he was a junior minister and not too long thereafter he was promoted, to cabinet secretary and then minister for the environment. With the advent of Gordon Brown, he was made foreign secretary, in a move that was seen by many as a reward for holding off on his ambitions for the top job. Not bad going really. He even managed to get married and have a couple of kids along the way.

However, I think the man that Alastair Campbell once nicknamed "Brains" has today made a very large error of judgement. The just posted comment piece on the Guardian website, will be seen by all as the sound of the Guillotine swooping down on the head of the hapless Gordon Brown. Although he doesn't call directly for his ouster, any political observer knows that calls for 'clarity of leadership', and the need for Labour's case to be made 'afresh', with no mention of the current Prime Minister, is nothing other than a mutiny.

The article he's written reads like a manifesto, laying out the areas that he feels Labour should attack David Cameron on, such as his conservatism, faux environmentalism, and his exaggeration of the problems facing Britian's ''broken society''. The closing of the piece says it all really:

New Labour won three elections by offering real change, not just in policy but in the way we do politics. We must do so again. So let's stop feeling sorry for ourselves, enjoy a break, and then find the confidence to make our case afresh.

So why is it such a big mistake, d'aprés moi? After all, Gordon Brown is about as popular as George Bush, but lacks even his meagre vestiges of personality. You certainly wouldn't call the dour Scot ''folksy'' or be intrigued enough to think that you might have a laugh over a pint. The Labour party's donors would be afraid of touching him wearing a HazMat suit His hapless leadership, the declining economy, feeble data security, by-election bumbling, problems with the NHS, the excrutiating back-track on the EU Constitutional referendum, an election that never was... it's not exactly a CV that you'd like to hand your employer when discussing your previous occupation (as he surely will be shortly).

Let's be clear, he's owed no loyalty either. The insidious way in which he operated from the treasury and forced Tony Blair from power means that he can expect no better from those he placed around him. No, the real reason that I don't think Miliband should be striking is that things are too bad for Labour at the moment.

They are almost absoloutely certain to lose the next election, they're almost 20% down in the polls, and managed to lose one of the safest seats in Britain last week. (To put it in perspective, the Conservative's hold no seat as statistically solid as Glasgow East.) David Cameron is in the ascendancy and most importantly, the electorate feel like straying from their regular menu item and trying something different. On paper, Miliband is the perfect opponent to Cameron. Both youthful, well bred, eager to tout their environmental commitments.

Which is why I think it would be a shame for one of Labour's brightest young stars to burn himself out. Much better to let someone like Jack Straw replace Brown, lose the election and be forced from the party leadership than to do so himself. By stiking now, he would be like a gormless cartoon character who chases a diamond that has been thrown in the air. For a fleeting moment he'd stare at it Gollum-like only to realise that in the process of catching it, he managed to jump off a cliff.

Photo: Nick Wheeler

Ten Word Answer

2008-07-28T22:27:00.007+01:00

In The West Wing, the president's adviseres fret about '10 word answers' that manage to sum up a candidates position succinctly in a neat little sound-bite for the morning's papers. I noticed that Barak Obama, when asked at a black media members convention about his position with regard to reparations, used a beautifully crafted exaple of the species:

“The best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.”*

Undoubtedly pre-packaged and re-heated, but I think it works.

*If anyone mentions that it's actually 20 words, I'm going to thump them... you've been warned!

Touting the taboo?

2008-07-28T20:16:00.008+01:00

IRELAND is a small country, whose western coast is the exposed and routinely battered edge of Europe. In the same way that Ireland is exposed to the elements, we are also more exposed to ebb and flow of the global economy than many of our mainland colleagues.

In reality, we don't have a huge amount going for us economically. We're isolated geographically, we don't have large stores of natural resources, our industry is mainly footloose, and we face increasing competition over the coming years from the states who have recently entered the EU, eager to copy our success.

Yet, there is no need to panic. We have our advantages too, such as a high concentration of technology companies and a youthful population. Those companies were attracted here by our low corporation taxes and unfettered access to EU markets. It is no coincidence that Google and Microsoft both have their European headquarters in Ireland. The question we face is how to keep those companies here, and how to keep ourselves ahead? The answer is straightforward: education.

What we lack in natural resources, we must make up for in a well educated, dynamic workforce. We all know it, it's pretty straight forward; it's why we put it in the national development plan...Which makes it all the more baffling that the government continue to dramatically underfund 3rd level education, with colleges expected to cut expenditure by 3% in the coming year. Given that the majority of universities are already running deficits, jacking 4th level fees and turning to the private sector to make up their shortfalls, it's hard to see where that money is going to come from, unless they carry through with their threat to cut courses in 2009-10.

The universities are crying out for money, but it's not forthcoming from the short-sighted government; student's don't vote en-masse and most people are more concerned with their own pocket, so cutting back at 3rd level is politically acceptable. That's why I think it's time that we reconsider 3rd level fees. They were scrapped with the admirable aim of encouraging greater participation beyond second level. However. they didn't address the underlying reasons that poorer people don't go to college such as a lack of role models, poor understanding of the university system, and the feeling that they need to get to work straight away. That's why schemes such as the Trinity Outreach Programme and UCD's New Era work, wheras free fees didn't; they address the root casues in a targeted way.

What ''free fees'' (a rather stupid way of saying it I think, but it's caught on!) have done is to let the middle classes (of which I am undoubtedly part) further themselves a step down the ladder with fee paying secondary schools and grind schools. It shows that people are clearly willing and happy to invest in education. An investment which will just be shifted back up to 3rd level from 2nd, and an investment that will not effect the number of people going to college.

By re-introducing fees for that bracket (perhaps income tested at the highest tax bracket or households over €100,000) we can increase funding for Universities, and ensure high quality eduction is provided, protecting the most important assett Ireland holds. With the extra money, we can also expand funding of the initiatives that genuinely make a difference to the poor people free fees were meant to help. Not bad for a days work.

Photos

A picture!

2008-07-27T22:44:00.005+01:00

Canon 5D 17-40 F4L

This is one from the Swiss Alps taken in May. There's something about the slope and sweep of it that really appeals to me. I took all the photos on that holiday in black and white as a bit of a challenge! The snow really lends itself to B&W with really strong contrasts between light and dark.

Thoughts on The Undercover Economist

2008-07-27T14:54:00.004+01:00

I've just finished The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning (or refreshing their memory) about the fundamentals of economics. He manages to liven things up with interesting examples and writes in a very straight-forward, readable way. There were a couple of really interesting things in it which I thought were worth sharing.

The first is that placing a tariff on imports has the exact same effect as taxing your exporters. That seems a little crazy at first, but makes sense when you think about it. In very simple terms, if people in a foreign country buy your good in their currency, then you have to buy one of their goods with that currency (or trade it with a bank or individual who will). If there's a tariff on buying their goods, then your efficient export industry have to pay more to buy foreign goods because of the tariffs on them, in order to protect the inefficient industry that the tariff is designed to protect.

He also explains the reasons underpinning fair trade very well, and gives the lie to many of the myths which surround globalisation.

Is it bad for the environment? No.
Does it make poor people poorer? No.
Do people work in worse conditions than they did before multi nationals arrived. No.

I can't do justice fully to his arguments, you'd have to read the book for that. However, he did use one striking example that addresses it's effect with regard to the second two points; in 1975 China's economy, in spite of holding one sixth of the world's population, was only the size of Belgium's. With a more liberalised economy, they are now the fourth largest exporter in the world. Meanwhile, the isolated, insular economies of North Korea and Zimbabwe continue to expose their people to crippling poverty and autocratic rule.

All that got me thinking about the current Doha round of world trade talks, started in 2002 and currently reaching the make-or-break point in Geneva. In Ireland, we stand to gain in cheaper food and greater spending power by reducing the subsidies which we give to our farmers. But won't it make food more expensive? Mean that there's less at a time of international crisis? Cripple farmers economically?

Not really. There was a striking statistic in Thursday's Irish Times; the average full time farmer in Ireland makes a little over €43,900, about €12,000 more than the average industrial wage. Meanwhile, farmers in poor countries, who are already suffering because we cut our foreign aid (disgracefully) in the recent mini-budget, lose out. Our food would not be more expensive, because we would no longer be spending half the EU's budget subsidising our inefficient farming industry, and could instead spend that money on buying cheaper food from poorer countries, with the added bonus of helping those poor farmers and their countries to develop. If that doesn't happen, it will because of vested interests and not the interests of our countries, international ethicacy or common sense.

sub editors everywhere, fear this man!

2008-07-25T09:46:00.007+01:00

The Guardian today carry a letter that the Times's restaurant
critic, Giles Coren, wrote to his sub-editors, after they made what he felt to be an
egregious error while editing his copy. It turns out this isn't the first time he's submitted an angry email or two. One of the earlier offerings he dished up contains one of the
best put-downs I've ever come across

never ever ask me to write something for you. and don't pay me. i'd rather take £400 quid for assassinating a crack whore's only child in a revenge killing for a busted drug deal - my integrity would be less compromised.

Now that's anger

2008-07-24T14:23:00.001+01:00

5D 24-105 L

I've decided (with more than little cajolement) that it's time to bring this blog back to life. Here's a photo to get the ball rolling. From Dun Laoghaire Pier in April this year. It wasn't a great sunset until the sun went down, but then the clouds really started to glow.

40 Foot

2007-07-08T11:31:00.001+01:00

One from the 40 foot, 3 blended exposure of 6, 15 and 30 seconds.

Miserable Day

2007-07-03T20:43:00.000+01:00

Bandstand against the sky

Rainbow on the horizon, not seen anything like it before!

HSS and the Pidgeon House

A couple from today, really dramatic sky as a result of the miserable weather!

A couple of edits

2007-07-02T11:40:00.000+01:00

Upper Yosemite Falls from Swinging Bridge

Hetch Hetchy (don't drain the resevoir!!!!!)

Sorry about the complete lack of posts lately, I've been working insane hours. Lately I've been working on trying to blend to edits of the same picture in order to preserve more of the detail. So in the one of the bridge here, the original shot that I had, had the whole area of water completely white, which looked awful. However with a few simple edits, you can bring back a bit of the detail. These are both from Yosemite last summer.

killiney hill afterglow

2007-06-21T20:30:00.000+01:00

High dynamic range shot from Killiney Hill from Tuesday evening

steps...

2007-06-15T20:04:00.001+01:00

Stepping out into the light

Bathing steps, Sandycove

Steps!

Cormorant rock

2007-06-12T17:47:00.000+01:00

Cormortant rock, with a cormorant on it...

Stephen's green

2007-06-10T14:35:00.000+01:00

One from St Stephen's green shopping centre yesterday, turned out exactly as I wanted it to, which is always a nice (if rare!) thing.

Times Square dodge and burn

2007-06-09T18:07:00.000+01:00

Just playing around with an old picture. Converted it to black and white and used dodge and burn to darken up the sky

mini marathon

2007-06-08T07:30:00.000+01:00

just a shot from the mini marathon. So many women! Click to view this one large, it's only then that you get a lot of the detail. I love the one man trying to direcet them all, reminds me of the old story about the pebble controlling the flow of a river.

As with every other year, there were a few interlopers as well, no doubts raising lots of money for charity in most cases!

Cover shot!!!

2007-06-02T14:29:00.000+01:00

Got the cover shot for this issues Irish Runner for a features picture of my mum, who has run all the Women's Mini Marathons to date (25th on Monday). It's a nice family thing to have her on the cover with me taking the photo, and the editor Frank Greally was very kind to both of us in the editorial! Might get more work from in future given how enthused he was. Anyway, here is it, my first cover shot!

P.S. good luck to anyone reading this who is running on Monday!

The cover

The picture on its own

Inside picture to accompany article

Another couple from Dun Laoghaire

2007-05-29T16:12:00.001+01:00

Click to view large

Another couple from down in Dun Loaghaire last night, it was a lovely sunset.

Dun Laoghaire Sunset

2007-05-28T22:50:00.001+01:00

Grand Central B&W

2007-05-27T17:09:00.001+01:00

One that I edited into B&W from Grand Central when we were over in New York and Yale.

some more from Earlsfort!

2007-05-27T16:00:00.000+01:00

A couple more from the L&H night in Earlsfort Terrace

one of Hugh looking dashing in his black tie.

One of Charles Lysaght's notes

Ruairi Quinn

2007-05-24T15:08:00.000+01:00

To continue the electoral theme, here's a couple of pictures of Ruairi Quinn from the recent L&H challenge as part of the ''goodbye to the terrace'' series of events in UCD. He gave a brilliant speech, recollecting his time in the L&H, and what the experience had given to him.

During the speech

Something to do with Thomism...

it's a montage...!

2007-05-22T12:35:00.003+01:00

Playing around in a last ditch effort to avoid studying. Some political figures past, present (for a couple of days at least!) and potentially future.

it's a montage...#

2007-05-22T12:35:00.001+01:00

Cutty Sark

2007-05-21T16:54:00.001+01:00

Very sad news today, that the Cutty Sark was gutted by fire. Just thought I'd post a picture from when I visited last summer. London truly wouldn't be the same without her. If you click to view the image full size, you can just make out of the hull in the blue section ''where there's a will is a way''. Let's hope the will to rebuild her can be achieved.

A couple more fashion ones

2007-04-29T11:02:00.000+01:00

A couple more of the fashion shots from this issue of the Observer. The models are Sharleena and Kerry, Clothes from Penny's

one from Europe

2007-04-28T11:36:00.000+01:00

A random shot from Europe last summer as I've not taken any pics in the last few days!

Rugby

2007-04-25T15:04:00.000+01:00

A couple of decent enough rugby shots from UCD V. Belfast Harlequins in thier relegation showdown that UCD won on Saturday.

Dennis O'Brien

2007-04-25T15:01:00.000+01:00

Front page shot from this week's Observer.

The spire

2007-04-19T20:04:00.000+01:00

The spire, the sun, some people...

fashion shot

2007-04-16T01:30:00.000+01:00

One from this Saturday's shoot, I'll post a few more tomorrow, decided for a less saturated/ granier/ dark edges (vignetted) look to bring out the 60's theme a bit more, might post the other version too to show the difference!

Tulip

2007-04-14T18:23:00.000+01:00

It's a tulip, don't ya know.

Easter Sunday sunrise

2007-04-10T15:28:00.000+01:00

Sunrise from Killiney hill on Easter Sunday

Dun Laoghaire Sunset

2007-04-07T15:23:00.000+01:00

East Pier lighthouse

Wide angle of east pier

a yacht at sunset

Carlisle pier afterglow

The sun set yesterday in Dun Laoghaire. Here is the evidence. ;)

2007-04-05T21:27:00.000+01:00

More beautiful weather today, took a few shots around the lake in UCD, where we sat around for most of the day! Was experiement with a strong fill flash in lighting people, quite like the results.

S.

Aine with fill flash

Shane with lighter fill flash

Human Pyramid!

campaign pic

2007-04-04T21:29:00.000+01:00

Scott

Was asked to take a quick campaign pic by Scott, who is running for Arts Programme officer, turned out well enough.

Killiney hill sunset

2007-04-03T00:01:00.000+01:00

Took a trip up Killiney hill for sunset this evening. Didn't get there quite early enough to get many shots from the woods, but got a few that were nice enough anyway. It's so beautiful up there, definitely have to go back during the summer and take some sunrise shots looking out over the bay.

The setting sun cast long shadows

The sunset itself, you might just notice the cranes over Sandyfor silhouetted in
the bottom right hand corner!

Gorse in the sun's glow

Some other who'd made it up there

Liverpool

2007-04-01T22:08:00.000+01:00

Mecca

Albert Dock (I like the colours!)

Striking a pose with the sun

Pillars

I was over in Liverpool with my Dad yesterday to see us DEMOLISH Arsenal 4-1, one of the best days I've had in a long time. Anyway, here are a few of the pics from the day. The first is, obviously, from Anfield, and the others are from a trip we took down to Albert dock, the still impressive area that used to be the main port in England.

Fitzgerald and Donaldson

2007-03-29T20:26:00.000+01:00

Interesting portrait of Garrett

Geoffery in full flow

After this week's developments up North, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures from a recent paper delivered to UCD's Law Society by Geoffery Donaldson. One of the respondents was Garrett Fitzgerald.

We the people

2007-03-23T13:28:00.000Z

Finally got round to editing this one... from the summer! Hoping it'll bring me luck in my WIP interview on Wednesday ;)

s.

Federal Proecutors?

2007-03-21T12:32:00.000Z

Pesky civil servants getting you down?
Think that poor black people don't deserve a vote?
Never fear! There is a solution. You can just have your attorney general fire your prosecutors.

That's what George Bush in effect did when he asked A.G. Gonzalez to ''clamp down on voter fraud''. One might wonder at this whether there is a widescale problem with voter fraud in the US. If they have to fire lots of people, there must be a lot of people casting votes who shouldn't be right? Not quite; on closer examination you begin to realise that 'voter fraud' is another neat label with which to mask what is actually going on.

Fraud in this case means clamping down on poor people voting. It means blocking voter registration drives to the point that the league of women voters had to suspend their registration efforts in Florida. It means trying to introduce harsh voter identification laws in stats like Arizona in an effort to stop people who would not vote for the Republicans from voting. Quite why a driving liscence was considered to be a pre-requisite for casting a vote is still unclear.

That Bush does not want his top aids to testify at the Senate Judiciary Committee about this matter is indicative of somebody who has been caught once more in the act. The anti-democratic, and quite possibly illegal action is shameful, and should have the full scrutiny of the other branch of government brought to bear upon it.

Malaysia night, UCD

2007-03-19T16:14:00.000Z

Colourful Clothing

Funky sword dance

Traditional dancing

Dragon for Chinese new year

A few from the recent Malaysia night, held in Astra Hall.

Pretentious editing for the hell of it...

2007-03-17T23:56:00.000Z

Gregg, levels and charcoal effect.

Connie with diffuse glow, slightly boosted red channel.

Tiernan, gaussian blur in background, lowered colour, levels tweak and some pastelle type effect thing.

A few from the Galway IV, I was bored (read: not doing the work I should have been doing), so decided to play around in photoshop!

Ha'penny bridge

2007-03-16T20:17:00.000Z

Ha'penny bridge at night

Ha'penny bridge at night

Ha'penny bridge at night

Was in town to see Julius Caesar in the Abbey the other night. Got there a bit early so decided to head down and try and take a picture of Ha'penny bridge that had been in my head for a while. It's probably slightly cliched at this stage, but I still think it's kinda fun!

smedias '07

2007-03-14T16:24:00.000Z

Anto Kelly jumos in the lake

NCAD protests at the possibility if being moved to Bellfield

Brennan during Fresher's week

Here are the 3 pictures that I have decided to enter for 'News Photographer of the Year'. Thanks to everyone who helped me pick them! I'm thinking about reviving this blog again, so keep an eye out for more posts in the near future!

S.

one more...

2006-07-24T20:04:00.000+01:00

Brighton Veil Sunset

2006-07-18T18:44:00.000+01:00

Among the best pictures I've ever taken, 2 nights ago at Brighton veil with the West Pier to my back. Can't ask for much more!

Another Cork one...

2006-07-17T22:08:00.000+01:00

The flowers were all in bloom and everything was rather lovely after the storm cleared on Saturday!

One from Cork

2006-07-16T23:36:00.000+01:00

One from last weekened in Cork.

2006-07-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

Firstly to apologise for the lack of posts lately, I've been very busy! I've got a few pics from the last while that I'll post over the next few days for anyone who has been missing some regular updates! In some good news I was made photo editor for the Observer during the week, so there will be plenty more picture coming along the way in September. I'm pretty excited about it, should be good fun!

Anyway, this first one is just a portrait that I like, did some basic editing by desaturating and blurring the backround, but the actual person is pretty much untouched.

One From Dun Laoghaire

2006-06-27T00:31:00.000+01:00

The Sentinel

End of East pier, 2 second exposure

What a miserable day. Anyway I went out for a walk this evening becauase I was fed up being stuck indoors with the rain all day. Here are a couple that I took along the way.

Kung Fu

2006-06-23T16:57:00.000+01:00

Staff fighting form

One of my brother from earlier on in the day. Took about 2 hours to properly seperate him from the backround so that there were no white lines left behind.

2006-06-20T16:12:00.000+01:00

I've been editing some more of the pictures from the UCD ball, I never got around to finishing them at the time because the exams were approaching rather too quickly for my liking. I'm very gratefull that I was shooting RAW (a more flexible format for editing later) because the camera had a lot of difficulty setting the exposure correctly with the harsh and very quickly changing lighting. Here are a few of the ones that I liked more on the second visit.

A tougher edit

2006-06-16T15:13:00.000+01:00

I left over some of the Yosemite photos to process at home, this is one of the ones that I wasn't sure about at the time, but having processed it now, am quite fond of. A lot of the difficulty in taking good photographs is the limitations imposed on you by the dynamic range of the camera: you don't want to blow highlights out, but you also want to retain the detail in the shadows. It's for that reason that a lot of landscape photography is taken either early in the morning, or late in the evening. Beacuse it's not as bright you're more likely to get all the detail that you want in a photograph. It also gives you a certain glow, as the sun casts different colours and longer shadows as it goes through the lower portion of the atmosphere.

An Irish summer...

2006-06-14T15:19:00.000+01:00

The young

The old

A couple of pictures from the Dun Laoghaire/ Seapoint area yesterday. I'll let the pictures do the talking on this one!

Still life

2006-06-14T14:58:00.000+01:00

I was never very good at drawing in school. And my art teacher could hardly be said to have enoucoraged me along the way. I think that's part of the reason that I love photography, it allows people who can't pait to capture things none the less. With photoshop you have a whole plethora of tools available to you which allow you to get an image to look the way you imagined it. For photojournalism those options are naturally limited, you want to represent things in as natural a way as you can, given the limitations of the medium. However for other compositions you're free to do what you want to a picture to get it to look how you want, and this is one example of that from me recently. Not entirely sure about the effect, but it's intersting so I thought I'd post it none the less!

Fauna

2006-06-11T16:45:00.000+01:00

Home again!/ Flora

2006-06-11T16:36:00.000+01:00

Arrived back safely! Here is the last full series of Yosemite pictures that I intended to post here. Yosemite teems with wildlife everywhere you look, so even someone very poor at capturing animals/ plants like me has a good chance! Hopefully I'll see everyone soon, a much less selective bunch of pictures will be going up on Bebo soon too.

Homage to Ansel

2006-06-09T02:51:00.000+01:00

Leading lines

Lower Yosemite Falls

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls

You can't come to Yosemite without thiking about Ansel Adams, probably the greatest landscape photographer there has even been. He made Yosemite his home, and decades later his images still have an enduring quality that would put most modern work to shame, in spite of the facilities aforded by digital editing etc. The Ansel Adams Gallery is located in the village, and I had a great time wandering around looking at the magnificent pictures. I couldn't resist having a go at a couple of black and whites myself, and although they pale in comparison, I'm happy enough with the result.

''There's nothing worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept'' - Ansel Adams

Rolling Thunder II/ Chasing the rainbow

2006-06-09T02:43:00.000+01:00

Lower Yosemite Falls raibow, 7.30 AM

Bridalveil falls, evening

Birdalveil falls, mid-afternoon

There are spectacular waterfalls everywhere you look in Yosemite. However you have to be a bit more lucky and well prepared to catch them with rainbows. I've been chasing them around the park for the last few days and here are the best few.

Sunrise

2006-06-07T03:45:00.000+01:00

Bridelveil fallls

Yosemite falls

Looking back from the base of Lower Yosemite falls, sunglight in the mist being thrown off it

Got up at half 5 this morning. Some would justifiably mad, but I think it was worth it!

first impressions of Yosemite

2006-06-05T22:26:00.000+01:00

Sunset over Half Dome