Gonzo gave his immediate reaction to Barack Obama’s speech late last night but it’s also worth reading Micky Kaus’ suitably sceptical take at Slate“A little flat, and not just because of it’s now-required State-of-the Union laundry-list passages”
Meanwhile Máirtín points to an Irish Echo report from a couple of days ago on the reaction by some to Obama’s suggestion that a US envoy to Northern Ireland was no longer required - as previously noted by Brian.“I’m Shocked, I really am,” veteran Democratic activist Brian O’Dwyer said. “The stupidity of it, that somehow the idea that it is all over (in Northern Ireland) and there is no need for an envoy; this of all things. Irish American is most proud of...
You have to hand it to the Americans (and particularly the Clintons). Their sense of political drama is sometimes faultless. Tonight Hillary Clinton followed up her cracking performance last night by proposing an acclamation of Barrack Obama as the Democratic candidate for the President of the US. It was enough even to get to the old Republican (Democrat-loathing) hacks at Fox News. It was a big play from Hillary, marrying her long term committment to health care and blue collar workers. Will it mean catharsis for the riven Democrats? Fox News thinks it is. Obama needs a little Hillary in his tank, to get to the tough places that, so far, only Clinton has managed to penetrate....
I mentioned the launch of Nasa’s new GLAST telescope previously and they’ve now released the first light images. Oh, and they’ve renamed it the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope - a short history of telescopic observations here. There’s a dynamic image of the Vela pulsar too - which beams radiation every 89 milliseconds as it spins.
No mention, though, of the discovery of pulsars by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.. or her part in Pluto’s downfall.. [Image Credit: NASA/DOE/International LAT Team]...
In the Irish Times there’s a fairly comprehensive rebuttal of Cardinal Séan Brady’s “criticisms of the European Union’s approach to religion” - as previously noted here. Another blow in the Church v State [Lisbon] clash?A democracy has a duty to make laws in the interests of all. As an entity whose population is religiously diverse, the EU cannot legislate purely on the basis of the theological convictions of a single faith without violating this duty. Furthermore, in democratic public life, individuals must account for their beliefs and will inevitably be criticised for them.
The Cardinal has effectively characterised the imposition on religious bodies of the duties to accept criticism and provide justifications for their political demands...
Just as Brian reckons there’s trouble brewing between church and state, Will Crawley notes a Ted-ish tendency in the Italian clergy.. Expect “secret sects, satanic groups and New Age movements” to be invoked.. again.....
Anthony McIntyre had planned a book tour of the US to promote Good Friday, The Death of Irish Republicanism. In the Sunday Life his publishers relate the reasons given for the refusal of a visa.The publishers said it was unlikely Mcintyre would be given a visa as long as George Bush was in the White House. A spokesman said: “The refusal is based upon his felony conviction. As he is not a politician going to the US on ‘peace processing’ business, he does not get a waiver to entry despite his conviction, as other convicted IRA members have.
“He could apply again, but the likelihood of his being able to enter the States is slim to none, given both his record and the political climate. “We expect the status quo to remain in place.”...
Apparently the representative of Emperor Pope Benedict XVI in Ireland, Cardinal Séan Brady, “has suggested that EU hostility to religion may have prompted some Irish voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty. That wasn’t one of the options available in the Eurobarometer poll.. as noted previously by Mick. But the only option that was close only received 2% support. More from the RTÉ reportHe warned that ignoring this trend had inevitable political and social consequences, not least on levels of support for the European project itself. He said it may be important for the EU to review its prevailing pragmatism that results in Christians being denied the right to intervene in public debates, or at least having their contribution dismissed as an...
Whilst Craigavon Borough Council has been criticised by Sinn Féin councillor, Johnny McGibbon, after they voted to join the UK-wide celebrations and raise the London 2012 Olympic handover flag this weekend, the Department of Culture, Arts, and Leisure tells us that on Sunday 24th August,At Belfast’s celebrations, the Lord Mayor of Belfast will be presented with a London 2012 handover Flag by children from our ethnic communities to mark the beginning of Northern Ireland being part of 2012.
That would be the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sinn Féin’s Tom Hartley, presumably.. Although, perhaps an alternative will be used.....
The key to recognising some of the main beneficiaries of the decision to progress with a £46m dual carriageway between Broadbridge Maydown and City of Derry Airport comes in the notes to editors in the ministerial statement.1. The A2 is part of the Northern Key Transport Corridor connecting Belfast to Derry via Coleraine. It is the main road connecting Limavady to Derry and provides links to the Maydown and Campsey industrial zones and to the City of Derry Airport, the key air transport hub in the northwest.
And that will certainly help in the problem of finding someone to buy the airport.. Of course, as was the case with previous compulsory purchases of land around the airport “in the public interest”, the Derry Journal report notes - “Vesting orders for...
David Cameron’s dash to Georgia at the weekend completely caught out Labour. The man with no discernable foreign policy outwitted the specialists and made Labour look slow witted by comparison. But can he live with his promises to back Georgia?...
An Post have issued a new stamp to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the laying of the first Trans Atlantic Telegraph Cable by Cyrus West Field, a US paper merchant. The new stamp features the British battleship HMS Agamemnon and the US Navy’s Niagara. But the anniversary is not as straight-forward as it might appear.. For a start, the cable had failed by September that year due to a lack of understanding of the processes involved by the chief electrical engineer on the project, Edward Whitehouse - who ignored the advice of Belfast-born scientist William Thomson - later Lord Kelvin. The first official message, 99 words long, from Queen Victoria to James Buchanan, President of the United States, was sent on 16th August 1858 from Valentia Island and took over 16...
The Irish Times picks up on comments from PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde in the Guardian on briefing US politicians on policing - their involvement here having been noted previously.In an interview with the Guardian, Sir Hugh Orde described how a key part of the power-sharing strategy has been to persuade senior politicians in the United States that policing was being conducted in a fair and even-handed way.
“The work we did in the States for the past six years has been unravelling 35 years of a very one-dimensional interpretation of policing,” said Sir Hugh, who took over his current post in 2002. He said he had spoken to all leading US politicians with an interest Northern Irish affairs, including Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy “and dear old President Bush,...
Reading through the list of films by Guillermo del Toro I realised that I’ve seen, and enjoyed, most of his work as far back as Cronos - even Mimic. Although Pan’s Labyrinth has been sitting on my DVD to-watch pile for some time.. I might give it a spin this weekend. The Irish Times also has an interview with the director of Hellboy II : The Golden Army ahead of its release - next Friday in the Republic of Ireland apparently. And if Peter Bradshaw’s review in the Guardian is anything to go by, and it usually is, Hellboy II will be sitting on that to-watch pile before long. Of course, if I knew my Hellboy history [or read a newspaper - Ed] I would have found this line from Bradshaw’s review less surprising - “The battle against...
Cassini has been sending back close-up images of Enceladus after its fly-by [and the BBC reports are getting bloggy - Ed]. Saturn, pictured again, is still a planet, but it seems that some people still haven’t gotten over Pluto’s annus horribilis - and those plutoids didn’t help. There are those still honking for Pluto’s return to full planet status, or as the Professor puts it, “The Pluto planet controversy continues.” Alan Boyle of MSNBC reports here on the Great Planet Debate.. and his comments zone includes comments from chief honker, Alan Stern, of Nasa’s New Horizons mission.....
It’s been easier to get a close-up view of Saturn’s moons than the Perseids this year. But then there is a telescope, of sorts, orbiting that particular gas giant. The Cassini-Huygens mission has already landed a probe on Titan, and snapped the spectacular image of Saturn eclipsing Sol, as well as providing evidence that Titan has liquid ethane on its surface. The Huygens probe took pictures too. But yesterday Cassini swept past Enceladus for a second time. Skimming through jets of icy water vapor and organic chemicals just 30 miles above the surface of the moon at a speed of 17.7 kilometers per second (40,000 miles per hour) relative to Enceladus, to send back more data and more images. There’s a fly-by update site and a blog too. Here’s...
If you are fortunate enough to get clear skies over the next few nights don’t forget that it’s time for the Perseids meteor shower - it’s a regular event. Best viewing will be early on Tuesday morning but there should be plenty of meteors visible either side of that time. Astronomy.ie are running a Perseid Watch 2008 and the Royal Observatory is predicting a larger number of meteors than usual as the Earth ploughs through the dusty debris left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle. The comet last dropped by our neighbourhood in 1992, it’ll drop by again in 2126 - passing within 15 million miles of Earth - there’s an [java req] orbital diagram here. Fortunately we probably won’t be around in 3044 when it’s been estimated that it’ll...
With a spectacular opening ceremony underway in Beijing, and Sarah Brightman currently centre-stage singing in Mandarin, spare a thought for the hard-working scientists at Cern. They’ll be spending their weekend testing the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator to ensure it’s properly synchronised with the Large Hadron Collider ahead of the official ‘switch-on’ on September 10. And there is some fascinating speculation on what the LHC will find here. All of which is more or less an excuse to repost the particle physics rap.. in case anyone missed it.. Hey, it’s Friday!...
I had suggested that the elevation of DUP MLA Mervyn Storey to Chairman of the Assembly’s Education Committee could see “more skirmishes ahead in the battle against The Un-Enlightenment.” And Lo! It came to pass.. The NewsLetter today carries his comments on his “personal” belief that“Creationism is not for the RE class because I believe that it can stand scientific scrutiny and that is a debate which I am quite happy to encourage and be part of. The issue for the current Education Minister (Caitriona Ruane] is that she tells us she’s all for equality – surely if that is the case, you can’t have one set of interpretations being taught at the expense of others.”
Time for the introduction of those guidelines, in...
Congratulations to Ireland’s cricket team after their close win over Kenya at Stormont today, in the semi-finals of the qualifying competition, secured them a place at next year’s Twenty20 World Cup....
I don’t know if WorldbyStorm managed to catch a glimpse of the partial solar eclipse over the archipelago this morning but if, like me, you didn’t, you can watch NASA’s online broadcast of the total version from China. There are other viewing options too. The image is the Aug. 11, 1999 solar eclipse as viewed from the Mir space station....
Well we have water on Mars and, as James Randerson says, NASA have a cool video of the panoramic view from the Phoenix lander. I’ve added some related audio clips from Mars Phoenix lander lead scientist Peter Smith of the University of Arizona and from William Boynton, lead scientist for the TEGA instrument. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University Arizona/Texas A&M University. And as Charles Arthur asks, “So, water. Anyone for terraforming?”...
The strong indications have already been noted, but we now have confirmation from the latest samples taken by Nasa’s Phoenix lander“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”...
Time for a little levity.. and a little science. Via the Guardian’s Ian Sample who spotted it here. As I noted previously, the Guardian’s had some great articles on the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. And as Ian says, “Yes, it’s a rap about particle physics, yes it mentions antimatter and the Higgs boson, but you know what? I quite like it. There, I said it.” And you know what? So do I. Enjoy the Large Hadron Collider rap! Seriously....
If you haven’t heard of the Antikythera Mechanism before this will probably be more startling than the revealed seabed off Rathlin Island. The “technological marvel of antiquity” was discovered by sponge divers in 1901 near Antikythera, a small island off Greece’s south coast, and has perplexed and astonished researchers ever since. The complicated gearing mechanism is believed to have been constructed between 150-100BC. In 2005 a 8-tonne X-ray machine was transported to Greece to study the mechanism and the results, which have just been published in Nature, link the mechanism not just to scientific calculations, but to important cultural events. The report has also been picked up here and here. And there’s a fascinating video...
Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Minister Paul Goggins, MP, has announced a funding package of £600,000 over the next three years for accredited Community Based Restorative Justice (CBRJ) schemes. The funding will be jointly provided, on an equal basis, by the Criminal Justice Agencies and The Atlantic Philanthropies. That’s despite criticisms of the CJI report on those currently unaccredited schemes....
Whatever you think about Barack Obama he has a certain brilliance in how he handles the media. But even after all the plaudits in Europe and an extremely tired and ropey campaign from John McCain his media qualities do not appear to be playing for him in the national polls. Think World Cup Final in 1974 (those of you who can remember that far back). 70 minutes of Dutch Total Football and one goal; twenty minutes of German precision, two goals and the championship of world soccer! ...
In an otherwise unrelated post, Máirtín passes on word that Oregon-based Ed Carpenter’s Trillian sculpture, selected in 2005 for the Broadway Junction Public Art Project, has been shelved. Apparently due to the escalating cost of steel and the current economic climate’s effect on increasing costs for all raw materials. Belfast City Council are promoting the re-run of the competition to select a new design as an “opportunity for local artists..”“This new landmark piece of public art will symbolise the cultural confidence of Belfast and we hope it will become a positive symbol for the city for years to come,” [Cllr Bernie Kelly] added.
Which is what they said about Trillian.. Last word to Máirtín[Apparently], the...
Officially, Emperor Pope Benedict XVI declined the invitation to address the European Parliament this year owing to other commitments and his age. Unofficially, according to sources in this Times report, it’s because of the church hierarchy’s “great disillusionment” with the European project as the EU “has become more and more secularist”. Besides concern with the Anglican church’s supernatural well-being, secularism was at the forefront of the thoughts of one of the three cardinals despatched to the Lambeth Conference. Cardinal Ivan Dias’ concern was reported in the Times.He described modern secularism as being engaged in “spiritual combat” with the Church. The Cardinal said: “This combat rages fiercely...
Fair Deal got there first, but the actual proposals - “Strenthening the Common Travel Area” [direct pdf link here] are worth noting. The proposals on the Common Travel Area follow from the Cabinet Office report in November last year and are expected to be implemented via the the draft Immigration and Citizenship Bill. As Mick noted a week ago it’s presented as a reciprocal move to what’s already in place in the Republic of Ireland. Not that there was much public debate in advance of some of those moves..
From the consultation document [pdf file]
Sea and Air Routes between the UK and the Republic of Ireland
2.1 In common with the Republic of Ireland’s approach to travel within the CTA, we intend to:
• carry out checks on...
Mark over at Global Dashboard notes that the top five countries in the development table (including the Republic) “have had 44 changes of government following peaceful democratic elections” since 1960. The bottom five? Just 2 each!...