Global
Beijing accounts for just 1% of FDI in Europe so Ireland will have to wait…
Nice observation from Simon Carswell in his Bottom Line column today in the Irish Times, regarding the recent high level visit of the putative leader of the Peoples Republic of China. …these visits really only suggest the potential that exists. China accounts for just 3 per cent of exports and most of that is dairy [...] more »
Review: “Be outraged; there are alternatives…”
It was only four years ago that John Maynard Keynes, for so long deeply unfashionable amongst those with serious economic and political clout, seemed to be making a comeback. As recession loomed, ‘stimulus’ was the word on every politician’s lips. What worked for Roosevelt in the thirties should work for us now, albeit with only [...] more »
“The boom years were the dream. Hard work and tighter belts are the new reality.”
Jolly little thought via Gerard O’Neill: For decades workers, faced with exploding global competition, were compensated by governments with cheap goods, early retirement and welfare on credit: a dream of affluence for life to replace jobs for life. Now the competition is as intense as ever, societies are ageing and their nations are poorer than [...] more »
History like you’ve never seen it before….
Drunk History vol. 6 w/ John C. Reilly & Crispin Glover from Drunk History Great history telling schtick, one of a series of five… more »
New media, Libya and the shift in politics now civilians have “rushed the field”…
There was an interesting conversation between Noel Thompson and Jonathan Chavez on Hearts and Minds last night, regarding how new media is changing politics… Well earlier in the week, I’d been conducting my own series of interviews with John Pollock who is contributing editor to MIT’s Technology Review… His latest work looks for a feel [...] more »
Aurora Borealis over Europe
Another wondrous view of the Aurora Borealis as captured by the crew of the International Space Station. This time as a backdrop to the equally wondrous sight of Ireland and the United Kingdom under night-time conditions [0-18s]. Video via NasaCrewEarthObs. This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The [...] more »
Greece: “good luck for the next restructuring…”
As the euro crisis rumbles on, confirmation, if any were needed, that Greece is, indeed, heading back to the polls. You can follow further developments on the Guardian’s live-blog. Meanwhile, having cajoled the vast majority of their private sector creditors into taking part in a bond swap deal in March, the Greek government [who? - [...] more »
“Vesta is special”
Having arrived at the 530km-wide giant asteroid Vesta in July last year, Nasa’s Dawn Mission scientists have published some of their findings in Science magazine. As the BBC’s spaceman, Jonathan Amos, notes They confirm that Vesta has a layered interior with a metal-rich core, just as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury do. Using information about [...] more »
In praise of… The Antikythera Mechanism
I have noted it before [with videos from Nature], but the Antikythera Mechanism is a pretty wondrous object. And, as the Guardian’s ‘in praise of’ editorial points out, ”A BBC4 programme on Thursday night retold the tale.” The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project is worth a look too. Here’s a shorter version of the story And, almost as [...] more »
Euro crisis: “Europe will be lucky if it ends up in stagnation like Japan for the next ten years”
Back in Limbo Greece, stage 2 in the 4-stage attempt to form a government with a parliamentary majority ends without agreement – as the BBC notes Mr Tsipras said he had failed to reach agreement with mainstream parties because of his insistence on rejecting austerity measures demanded by the EU and IMF as part of a [...] more »
Norman Mailer, the hipsters of 1969 and a new breed of “pyschic outlaws”…
A nice slice of Norman Mailer running for the Democratic ticket in the New York Mayoral campaign of 1969, courtesy of Adam Curtis’s BBC blog, who then goes on to make this observation of a class of person that Mailer’s (not very successful) electoral appeal drew towards, namely the ‘hipsters’: …this new breed of “psychic [...] more »
A flexible library service for the 21st century?
Following Alan’s piece on libraries, I picked this ‘advertorial’ from Google plus this evening… about how a US county library system is cutting costs and improving flexibility in their free at the point of delivery services by enabling the whole library service act as a functioning unit as opposed to the one discrete library… more »
Euro crisis: “Hollande is man of the moment, but Europe’s gaze is firmly fixed on Athens”
As the Irish Times’ Arthur Beesley notes All of this puts Hollande’s push to renegotiate the treaty in the shade. German chancellor Angela Merkel was quick to rebut her new French partner yesterday, but that can be read as the opening gambit. Her staunch ally Nicolas Sarkozy has been deposed. She has no choice but [...] more »
Greece: “Country in Limbo”
Gerry’s analysis notwithstanding, in Greece they’re trying to come to terms with those election results. As the BBC reports Greece’s centre-right leader, Antonis Samaras, has said he cannot form a coalition government, hours after he was given a mandate by the president. His New Democracy, which backed the last EU bailout, emerged as the biggest [...] more »
Hollande wins in France…
According to reported early estimates Socialist Francois Hollande has been elected as France’s new president, early estimates say. He got about 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off, according to projections based on partial results, against 48% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The Guardian’s live-blog will have further updates. As for what it means for the fiscal [...] more »
Premiership: Not all teams are actually ‘participating’ in the same competition
Stuart Brennan of the Manchester Evening News has a great piece on how gross forms of inequality drive out competition and depress open markets. Of course City, if they close out this season, have bought the Premier League. But then again, which Premier League winner hasn’t? The problem that United fans have got is that, [...] more »
Northern Ireland – China relations and human rights
China’s persecution of ’barefoot lawyer’ activist Chen Gaungcheng continues to cast a long, dark shadow across the two-day visit of US Scretary of State Hillary Clinton. The BBC reports a senior US diplomat: The United States believes that no state can legitimately deny the universal rights that belong to every human being – or punish those [...] more »
Euro crisis: April is the cruellest month…
Apart from all the others… And it doesn’t matter how big your umbrella is. BBC Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt, on springtime in Europe What is being exposed is a major flaw with Mrs Merkel’s fiscal pact. It is undemocratic. It ties the hands of future governments – and that, of course, was its intention but [...] more »
The End of the Northern Ireland Model of Peace Processing?
Even with the recent apparent spike in terrorist activity, including a large car bomb abandoned near Newry, and public paramilitary displays, it’s probably premature to talk of “the IRA’s resurgence”. But that’s the reference used in this article by Michael Rubin Perhaps the most important fact I learned was that British security officials believe that their pact with [...] more »
“Pa bryd y cawn fyned i Seion” – the forgotten history of Welsh Mormonism
It’s a fairly remarkable fact that the place outside these islands with the largest percentage population of Welsh descent isn’t Scranton (from the Western Mail), Gaiman (From the Argentina Independent), or the Welsh Tract of Pennsylvania (from Wiki). The winner is Malad City in Idaho. The link is to this year’s Malad Valley Welsh Festival. Here’s Malad City’s Wiki with an [...] more »
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Total Politics: Top 20 NI Blogs…
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Just your average family gathering at Christmas, with a bit of an argument about the seating cleaning arrangements… Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the [...] read our review »
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