My new favorite song….
I just thought I’d share 😉
Ireland
Ireland in Isolation
This article highlights a danger for Ireland Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization. Ireland is an Island! Almost everyone I’ve met in Ireland never think of Ireland as an Island (the center of the universe maybe, just not an Island). We have become so complacent about the availability of foreign goods and produce, we have forgotten that without cheap oil, we will have to live within our own agricultural means. Something the Lisbon “Yes” folks don’t seem to get yet. They believe that the mobile economy will balance the trade products and that putting fishermen and farmers out of business will not harm Ireland as a whole. Cheap oil has made this possible, and is no more. No more cheap fruit, and beef, no more massive highways and individual car ownership.
John Lennon sang Imagine, just Imagine no Oil.
The Civil war of Europe
One effect of the Lisbon treaty is to bring into stark relieve the different perceptions of politicians and citizens. More than a century ago in the United States there was a Civil war. And while the popular belief was that this war was over slavery, it was not. It is an issue which Europe faces now and in the future. What faced the U.S. was not an issue, but a right to deal with an issue locally, within the individual states representing the members of the United States. A confederacy of independent but unified States joined in common defense. The E.U. is currently just such a confederacy, but the Lisbon treaty seeks to move that into a Federalist, Centralist Nation. In the U.S.A. the Federalists sought to force the freeing of slaves on all the states, a centralist decision, which the State governments of the South had previously supported Slavery and while the topic was abhorrent, the subject could just as well have been health food or something. The central Federal government forcing decisions on State governments.
This is the fundamental goal of the Lisbon treaty, to allow the creation of laws created in the Federated European Parliament to be issued to member State/Countries superseding local control. Just as in the U.S., this was the trigger for the Civil War. The Confederacy lost the argument, and a more ridged Federal, Central government was established. As in the U.S. a decision will have to be made, will Europe be a Federal Government, or will it retain it’s individual Nations in a loose Confederacy of United Nations. War is an alternative to this decision making process.
The only government that has allowed it’s citizens to vote, to allow them to choose what they wanted, were the Irish. But the politicians of the member states want a federal government and have decided that their citizens shouldn’t be allowed to choose. They now seek to ignore the ‘No” and force another vote again until they get their ‘Yes’ because a for them, a ‘No’ will restrict their power. There is no up side for the peoples of Europe, very government seeks to restrict and control it’s citizens the question is who will do the controlling. Will the Irish control the Irish, or will Brussels.
The choice is ours!
Twitter Branedy
More exploring has brought me to Twitter . I am mostly interested in seeing what it’s like. Having no friends to speak of means very few social connections, but if Web 2 is a social internet, then you have to be out there to functionally operate in the Web 2 world. I will see what will happen, it can’t create more spam than I already get 😉
A vote of ‘No Confidence’ for Brian Cowan
One other outcome from the Lisbon ‘No’ vote is a general presumption of a vote of ‘No Confidence’ of Brian Cowan and his government. Having set as a principal goal of his administration, a ‘Yes’ Vote for the Lisbon Treaty. The utter failure to attain this goal constitutes a complete failure of Mr. Cowan’s leadership. Couple this with his inability to present this before the EU Commission as the definitive response of the Irish People, he now seeks to nullify the voice of his own people.
It’s time now to vote directly for a ‘No Confidence’ of Brian Cowan in the Dáil.
Lisbon
Why did all the politicians believe that a constitution that had been voted down by the French, could be rename and sold to the Irish?
Why do Politicians now try to pass off the Irish No vote as not representative of the rest of the population of Europe who didn’t get to vote?
Why did the Politicians believe that a childish ‘Because it’s good for you‘ argument that doesn’t work on children, would work on the Irish Adult population?
Big questions. Questions that will never be answered by the current crop of Politicians because they don’t know any part of the Why in these questions.
I can think of a few, here’s one
A) It was only good for politicians
Hail Brian Cowen, Prince and heir to king Bertie
Brian Cowen the anointed heir (prince) apparent of the Irish nation still can’t explain the Billion dollar surplus revenue one year and deficit the next. Heir to the man who banks out of a suitcase, and quiet keeper of skeletons in the closet, will soon take the reins of government. Is there anyone out there that might believe things will get better?
If most of the politicians in Fianna Fáil rode into government on Bertie’s coat tails, how many could ride in to it now, on Brian’s? Wouldn’t it be more democratic, if there were new elections? So that maybe, the people of Ireland could choose what government they had?
UPDATE: I’m vindicated, Brian is the Worst thing to happen to Ireland since Cromwell!
Web Apps and customer vs carrier benifits
I have been in the market for a PDA replacement, and all the conversations I’ve seen, point to the Web Applications being the solution and replacement to client side development on such things as the iPhone/iPod Touch. This harkens back to the the early days of Web when Netscape was being put forth as the new web operating system. The issue then, and in many ways still is, bandwidth. The thin client on the browser required all code from the application to be loaded before the application could activate and the user become productive. This issue still continues in the mobile internet, currently most users using webapps experience delays in application behavior. And this brings up a new concern.
Mobile Web applications are benefiting wireless carriers (who profit from the addition bandwidth use of their users) more than the consumer. In some cases there are ‘unlimited’ data plans with carriers, but mostly there is a cap on bandwidth usage, with hefty overcharge fees applied.
It only makes sense to promote web applications if you are a carrier, or a lazy programmer. This is part of my reasoning for having a PDA, local offline applications. Particularly in Ireland where WiFi or other networks have been slow to deploy and 3G networks are very expensive. Low bandwidth Client-Server applications are the only really customer centric, consumer friendly application development path.
Web Apps are not the best path to my pocketbook.
Time for a new government in Ireland
It looks to be time to form a new government in Ireland that respects Freedom of Speech and maybe elect some new (less corrupt) politicians that respect the law, don’t take bribes of English Money, and don’t perjure themselves before a judicial tribunal. Politicians that don’t try and censor Blogs that have an opinion contrary to theirs.
Venn diagram of Bertie the Politician
This is a perfect pictorial representation of Bertie’s testimonial at the Tribunal Berties Whiteboard
My Blogging Station in Tallaght Hospital
My MacBook blogging station
Happy New Year from the Hospital
As I’m still stuck in (and blogging from) the hospital this New Years Eve, I will wish that all the rest of the blogging world remains OUT of the hospital this New Years Eve and hope you can remain in that condition throughout this next year. So I’ll wish you a Very Happy (and sensibly drinking) New Year.
A night, and two weeks at the Tallaght Hospital
What started as a regular stressful holiday season has, by way of my lousy diet while I toil away in Dublin, was made more ‘thrilling’ when in the early morning hours of the Tuesday prior to Christmas I was shocked into awareness of my shortness of breath, and a racing heart rate. As I am not normally in this condition I panicked and began pacing the room.
Knowing this was a dangerous sign, I tried to step through all the conditions that would cause my symptoms, heartburn, blocked sinuses, heart attack, stroke. None of which managed to reduce my heart rate, and the only thing that made me feel better, was standing and pacing the apartment. Believing I could not self-diagnose my problem further, I googled the nearest hospital that I thought I could drive myself to, and found the Tallaght Hospital.
Having managed to get to Tallaght, and finding myself lost in the shopping mall parking lot without signage to the hospital entrance. I did manage to find the A&E entrance by about 4:00AM and into the parking garage which was conveniently located across from the entrance.
I entered, and spoke to the receptionist, and the took my information, and then I sat in the waiting room with a very few others who appeared to be awaiting on other admitted patients. It was really only moments before the duty nurse called me, and I explained my situation. And she attached me to an EKG with more wires that the average computer would need. The appearance of worry on her experienced face did not ease my own concern, but she did manage to explain with confidence what she was doing. I was admitted into a recovery area in the A&E and given several drugs to assist my heart and blood pressure, and monitored for about 6 hours before they were satisfied, and I was moved into a corridor and there I remained for another 6 hours, being fed, and monitored while they found me a room to move to.
And this constitutes the fun part of the visit, from there, the story is more boring than interesting. If you ever get sick, don’t do it during the holidays, between the vacation, and holiday days off, almost no ‘testing’ gets done, and without testing, your treatment does not progress rapidly. Mind you I’m almost certain this has little to do with the staff, as everyone has been all of professional, curious, friendly and even humorous (not in a ‘Scrubs’ way). But I place these delays on the management, as their ‘ability’ to schedule, and resource manage the hospital facilities seems to absent. Perhaps it is just the holidays, but my testing and final treatments could have freed up a bed, and a room, for more than a week of my current two week stay had they scheduled better.
In any case, as a review, I can say, honestly that the Tallaght hospital has proved a positive. I would definitely come again, even if unwillingly, should I require the need again.
Katy French was a drug addict!
Let’s be clear here, EVERYONE knew that when she collapsed that it was drug related. Either from an overdose or due to some cheap drug dealer cutting the batch with something toxic. Katy was part of the problem, someone who appears perfect, and assumed that her partaking in illegal drug usage was her right as a celebrity. Above the law, and granted special rights. The thing is, will this lead to more celebrities being tested, of maybe minsters, lawyers and Guarda being tested. Not a chance in hell, this government is swimming in drugs it knows it, and in part, supports it, profits from it.
You will not stop the drug problem!
Until you start taking it down from the top, celebrities, minsters, lawyers and Guarda.
Guess what, you will have more luck legalizing Cocaine than arresting any of these drug users.
Shannon Airport
Any person, let alone any politician in Ireland claiming that the closure of Shannon Airport hasn’t been ‘on the books‘ of this government for the last 10 years is either lying, or is ignorant of the truth. Ever since the ‘Open Skies’ policy the writing has been on the walls of every government building, ‘Dublin is Ireland‘ and Shannon is just an inconvenient problem that will now disappear. Wait until Aer Lingus begins to remove the Shannon/Dublin, and the Cork/Dublin routes. Then you will see that the air routes are more valuable to the airline, than the actual flights. Then you will know that Aer Lingus will begin to be sold off piecemeal just like the Eircom debacle.