GUBU

GUBU
An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Various

1. Funny website here devoted to debunking 'Euromyths' in the British press.

2. Am taking it easy today after frantic day shopping yesterday. Recommended reading for women of child bearing years is The Red Tent, a historical novel about Dinah, one of Jacob's daughters. It's an amazing story - details here. Anyway, one of the interesting things is that Jacob prospers because his several wives are extremely industrious. He has sheep; but they spin the wool; they grow food; they make clothes: they are always producing. In our more recent agricultural-based society - up to the 1970's anyway - women were also busy; they might have sold eggs from the few hens they kept, made bread, kept a kitchen garden or knitted jumpers: they were always adding to the revenue of the house in some way.

Today's housewives, freed from subsistence, don't produce anything - they just consume. They occupy their minds thinking of things they need to buy and spend hours hunting for real or imagined bargains. So instead of writing pulitzer prize winning articles I went out and bought a steamer yesterday. Which I must say was a great purchase. I steamed the pototoes on one level (best ever spuds) and salmon steaks on the next level (gorgeous - wrapped in silver paper with some lemon, celery, butter and black pepper). Definitely the way to cook and I felt triumphant. Now, feeling triumphant about cooking a lovely, healthy, economic meal is not the worst thing in the world. But it shouldn't really constitute the pinnacle of one's week.

Or should it? Is the drive to add value an unworthy goal implanted in my head through a combination of capitalist indoctrination and catholic guilt? What is the evolved attitude? Is there a Budddhist position on this? I was clearly taught in primary school during religion class that if you had a talent and didn't use it, that was a 'sin'. In fact, there's a bible story about this in which the word talent is used altho' it meant money, which is worse. Its place in the Gospels always perplexed me but it's clearly a heavenly endorsement of investment and profit; somewhat at odds with the trashing of the traders in the temple. Is one required to fulfil one's "life work" (say in my case, presenting the Late Late) or is it ok to relax and devote oneself to one's family? Perhaps the steamer was a bad example. There were many more hours spent trying on summer clothes (the sun came out - always sparks a wardrobe crisis). Apart from the fact that I realised I am going to have to lose some weight, I was acutely aware that I was in a compulsive purchase zone, which is not a comforting state of mind.

I suppose, like everything else, it's all about balance. However, one conclusion is clear: a life devoted to consumption is an unhappy one. Whether driven by economic necessity or self-actualization great satisfaction is derived from production. Maybe that's why blogs are so popular? Hmmm......

I didn't buy the clothes. I am going for some long walks and made a pact with myself not to buy anything until June 1st. 24 hours hasn't passed and I feel slightly panicky but am hoping liberation will follow soon.

posted by Sarah | 12:46 0 comments

Monday, April 26, 2004

Show off Ministers

So Ireland has the presidency of the European Union. Our main function in this capacity is to tolerate daily calvacades of important looking cars speeding around accompanied by motorcycled gardai in body hugging leather. Even if you can't see them you can hear the sirens screaming - just in case you forget. Our esteemed cabinet decided that nothing impresses consituents more than seeing their representatives whizzing by, in not one, but preferably 10, black mercs followed by hacks on junkets in white executive minivans. They came up with the stroke of conducting the meetings of the various European ministers in each of their home towns. Charlie McCreevy brought at all the Finance Ministers to Punchestown and Brian Cowen, Minister for Foreign Affairs, brought his counterparts to Tullamore.

To get to Tullamore from Dublin one passes through Enfield. Or rather, one by-passes Enfield; on the new €11m by-pass, built presumably with some finance from German taxpayers. Except, what's the point in being in a garda escorted high speed multi-vehicle cavalcade if no one sees you? So the LAST thing you'd want to do is take the by-pass. Noooooo. If you have stuff to show off you have to someone to show off to. So that's right. Don't take the by-pass. Drive straight into the village...halt all the locals going about their business...stop all the traffic....its Friday morning...pensioners are out getting their money at the Post Office. The country market is on..HUGE audience. Scare the life out of all them. Maximum exposure. OBVIOUSLY you're going to ignore the fancy new road. OBVIOUSLY you're going to tear through the town to SHOW-OFF. What's the point otherwise?

posted by Sarah | 23:32 0 comments

More Bush

Worth quoting from Maureen Dowd in today's NYT:

In Bushworld, our troops go to war and get killed, but you never see the bodies coming home.
In Bushworld, flag-draped remains of the fallen are important to revere and show the nation, but only in political ads hawking the president's leadership against terror.
In Bushworld, we can create an exciting Iraqi democracy as long as it doesn't control its own military, pass any laws or have any power.
In Bushworld, we can win over Falluja by bulldozing it.
In Bushworld, it was worth going to war so Iraqis can express their feelings ("Down With America!") without having their tongues cut out, although we cannot yet allow them to express intemperate feelings in newspapers ("Down With America!") without shutting them down.

posted by Sarah | 09:36 0 comments

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Side effects of pregnancy

Despite all the ante-natal classes, web surfing and reading there are some well kept secrets about pregnancy. Like attempting your first bowel movement..but I won't go into that. Today's post declares that for the first time in about a year I wore a bra which a) fitted me b)was comfortable and c) made me look uplifted. At the risk of unnecessarily titillating (bad pun I know) my less sophisticated readers I think I should detail the serious changes a body goes through in order to produce another human being. The day I got married I wore a 30D size bra. During the pregnancy I had to keep upgrading until by the time I was due I was wearing a 36C. For the uninitiated in the bra sizing department, the number refers to the circumference of the rib cage just underneath one's boobs. That means my rib cage had expanded 6inches throughout the pregnancy. Once the baby is born and there's breasfeeding going on the size of the actual boob fluctuates wildly depending on time of day and general supply. At the start of the day a bra can be squeezing you and by the end of the day the material is puckered because they've shrunk. Anyway, I seem to have stabilised at 34D.

However, the side effects of this side effect are:

1. I had to go through my underwear drawer and fish out all the old 30D/32C perfectly good premium label bras and give them to the Vincent de Paul. About €800's worth of lingerie which will never fit me again. That hurt.
2. I've still got the medium priced plain ones in the 34C/36C category which I have to hang on to for possible future use but which annoy me every time I see them.
3. Despite the fact that I've had to buy about 10 bras in the last year I only have 2 (one black one white) which fit me at the moment.

The investment involved here is quite considerable and is absolutely necessary. Maybe there should be a bra-subsidy for child bearing women? It's like the VAT on tampons argument. If I'm minister I'd abolish that.

posted by Sarah | 15:08 0 comments

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Who needs a referendum?

Heard Colm MacEochaidh on the Last Word today, which I must say is pretty good these days. Anyway McEochaidh pointed out that when McDowell was AG in 2001, he advised the government to introduce legislation saying that children born to diplomats in Ireland were not automatically citizens. If he can introduce a law qualifying citizenship for one group of children born in the country why can't he do it for another group?

posted by Sarah | 22:08 0 comments

Dail debates

Great craic in the Dail yesterday. From today's IT:

Mr McDowell accused the Opposition of being "pathetic", "petulant", while the Labour party whip, Mr Emmet Stagg, claimed the Minister had a "unique record of being wrong on constitutional matters", to which Mr McDowell said Deputy Stagg "has a unique combination of nastiness and unruliness".

The Minister said the proposal had been criticised as racist, but it was "scaremongering" and "wide of the mark" to say that holding the referendum on the same day as the local and European elections would bring out racist elements in the electorate. Mr McDowell introduced the 27th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, insisting it was a "very simple" proposal.

When he said it was "important on occasion to remind Members who talk about citizenship that loyalty to this State, which has only one army, is a fundamental political duty of all citizens", Mr Higgins retorted: "Tell that to the tax exiles as well."

McDowell does have a terrible record on what's constitutional and what's not. Must compile a list.

posted by Sarah | 09:50 0 comments

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Great reasons to vote FG (not)

A bad day. First, I turn on the news to see that FG have decided to support the government's citizenship referendum. How pathetic. There are some good arguments for sorting out our immigration problems but screwing with the constitution is not a solution. Then, I receive an email from one of our esteemed MEP's. I had written to him asking him to explain why he had voted for the new IP patent enforcement bill in the EU. Justin monitors the situation.

So here's the mail:
Dear Sarah,

Many thanks for your email. The vote on computer patentability took place on the 24th September 2003, this was the day that I announced by retirement from the European Parliament, so as you can imagine, it was an exceptionally busy day. Secondly, this was an area that I am not an expert on. In such a case, I ususally follow the EPP group voting line.

Best wishes,

John Cushnahan MEP

Here's my response:

Dear John

Thanks for your reply which I will forward to my contacts in the software community. I am sure they will be impressed at the considered approach to this issue by Fine Gael. Coupled with FG's decision to go along with Herr McDowell's referendum its great to have such compelling reasons to vote Fine Gael.

Sarah Carey

I shall have to take this further.

posted by Sarah | 19:23 0 comments

Bush spin

Here's a very nice note by Brad de Long on the insidious little ways the spin is spun.

posted by Sarah | 16:22 0 comments

John Negroponte

The brother sends this link to a photo of Johnny (formerly ambassador to Honduras during the death squad era). Note the Fox news microphone and Picasso's Guernica. How apt.

posted by Sarah | 16:20 0 comments

Saturday, April 17, 2004

More fathers

Gerry from Dublin writes: (praise omitted as questions are pertinent)

"What is your latest piece about? Absent fathers? Single fathers?...Is this crisis an accepted fact now? I didn't realise. And why don't they have positive role models? Are all men now officially crap? And who is poor, men? Why are men poor and not women? .....this is just a stew of feminist cliche, sociological assumptions and knee-jerk prejudices. Why are the kids fat? "

I think it's fair to say that mid-rant I did mix up two categories. The middle class separated or divorced father and the under-class (a label I've decided to use since the term working class is so woefully ironic). I'm primarily referring to the latter where fathers really are absent: the poor areas with high teenage pregnancy rates. Part of the reason teenage pregnancies are so high in poor areas is because motherhood is the only status achievable for young women. It's either that or shelf stacking. But, thanks to government supports for single mothers (which are not huge, but enough to just about survive on), the men are really only required for conception and sort-of-hanging-around. John Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy jail will tell you that he is now seeing 3rd generation heroin addicts in his jail.

If you're born in a certain area of Dublin, chances are you won't know anyone who has a stable job and if you're literate when you leave primary school you'll be lucky. This means that boys grow up not knowing any man who lives in the home, goes out to work, provides a disciplinary force and brings his sons to play sports.

However you can see that this problem is twofold. Firstly, men have been written out of the equation. But that's because in these same communities, traditional structures like the extended family (destroyed under council relocation programmes e.g. inner city to Tallaght) and religious influence have collapsed. In the absence of a moral force, they (men) simply abandoned their responsibilities, treated the women like shit and left. Women found they could cope quite well without them and over the last 25 years it is quite normal to have a single mother household OR the mother and the granny (who'll be quite young herself) running the house. Meanwhile the guys are getting pissed in the pub watching The Premiership on Sky. Now, this would not necessarily mean doom for the next generation if the second problem, poverty, was properly tackled by the government. Because it's poverty which keeps people down and destined to simply form the next generation of the socially excluded. I've always argued that it's so simple to solve this without wasting billions in various social welfare payments. Primary schools. Just pore millions into primary schools. There should be hot breakfasts, lunches, good pupil/teacher ratios, free books, after school supervision, sports facilities. The schools should be havens of excellence and luxury. Instead they are rat infested and neglected while rich people don't have to pay university fees. Thanks to the Labour party for that one.....

As we all know the reason Dublin is full of middle class successful people with relations in the country is because the peasants got free secondary education and made the best of it.

However, onto the middle classes. The separated/divorced lot. Their treatment of women, whilst not in the beating category, has earned them their isolation. Crippled with status anxiety they earned enough money to keep their wives at home and then lost all respect for them. Took them for granted while they headed for the golf course feeling smug as the women dropped the girls at ballet practice and the boys at soccer in SUVs. Then the equally educated women said, screw this, kicked them out, got jobs, and childcare and the Dad's show up on Saturday with the latest Playstation and bring the kids to......McDonalds!! If these Dads want to stay Dads they should get out of the office and spend their weekends with their children instead of indulging themselves and snogging their secretaries at Christmas parties.

In conclusion, I think poor men can choose to stay and get a job and rich men can choose to interest themselves in domestic life. And the rich kids are fat because they eat too much and the poor kids are fat because they eat cheap food like chips.

On the teacher front here are some stats:

In the voluntary secondary schools the ratio of male to female principals is two to one.

In the community and comprehensive schools sector 72pc of male teachers hold a promotional post but only 40pc of female teachers do and they are most likely at the lower rungs of the ladder.

Last year 81pc of principalships were held by men, down 4pc on the previous year while 58pc of deputy principalships were held by men, up 2pc.

Figures from the Department also showed that 54pc of assistant principal posts were held by men last year, down 4 pc while the percentage of special duties posts held by men was up 4pc to 46pc.

Last year there were only 17 female principals of community and comprehensive schools, up four in a year. There were 37 deputy female principals, up five.

posted by Sarah | 11:53 0 comments

Friday, April 16, 2004

Fathers

Marion Finucane on Radio 1 did another one of those pieces on how dreadful it is that fathers are not being included in their children's lives. The sorry sight of the 'McDonald's fathers' who have no where else to bring their children was cited. It was claimed, for example, that even at primary school level, men are being 'phased out' of teaching in primary schools and this is dreadful. As usual the automatic presentation is of men being victims and someone else is doing the excluding. Isn't it true that in most cases, men have every option to include themselves. They could bring their fat kids to sports events instead of McDonalds and the reason they are not in primary schools is because they simply don't apply for the job! No one is 'phasing' them out of schools. In fact, the few that do apply go into management very quickly because they've no interest in hanging out with kids in the first place. It's just a career. Women can cope by themselves because they had to, not because they chose to. Who would choose to raise a family alone? (well, apart from the rich). Boys/men are in crisis, and don't have positive role models; but that's because they're poor, not fatherless.

posted by Sarah | 11:08 0 comments

E-voting fiasco

So Joe McCarthy, my favourite citizen, has made a breakthrough. After persistently seeking, under FOI, information about e-voting he discovers that there were discrepancies in the trial run in the last election. They showed that 1,294 votes had gone missing in the 2002 general election in Dublin North, while 716 too many had been counted in Dublin West. Local polling officers were blamed for 'administrative' errors i.e. they filled out the forms wrong and that its all due to human error. But here's the point: If the polling officers had made those mistakes under the manual system it would have been discovered as soon as the ballot boxes were opened. The mistake would have been investigated on the spot and a resolution or sign off done under the actual , live eyes of the public. Instead, one guy has to pursue an entire department and pay for the information under the now doubled fees for Freedom of Information. So much for transparency. That's why we always think those lying bastards are lying to us. They are!!!

posted by Sarah | 11:01 0 comments

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Guns for hire

Just for the record, a quick word from Salon on those 4 men killed last week:
"The four men killed in Fallujah were not U.S. troops but rather employees of a little known company, Blackwater USA, that resides within an industry that until last week, few people even knew existed. Breaking out of the "guns for hire" mold of traditional mercenaries, corporations like Blackwater sell the sorts of services that soldiers used to provide. Known as "private military firms" (PMFs), they range from small companies that provide teams of commandos for hire to large corporations that run military supply chains. This new military industry encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of revenue dollars.

In Iraq, they're also accounting for a growing share of the force and the casualties. There are 15,000 private personnel carrying out mission-critical military roles, and they have suffered at least 30 to 50 killed in action, including the four dead contract workers whose bodies were discovered on Tuesday. Scores more have been taken captive in just the last week. "

posted by Sarah | 21:48 0 comments

The World Today

As Iraq worsens, Bush endorses a 'plan' which flies in the face of hundreds of UN resolutions regarding Israel's settlements on the West Bank and the Palestinian right of return. Amazing how he manages to take decisions which will result in thousands of deaths and people still consider voting for this lunatic. Meanwhile I consulted Delia on how to poach an egg. It was lovely. On other fronts Hugh and his OED has an update on meet with and I am confused about how much food to give my now weaned child. Outrage-fatigue has set in and I am tempted to immerse myself in the daily minutae of domestic life where I am God. I must resist.

Here's Hugh's take on meet with:

The usage "meet up with" is clearly American in origin, and was originally seen by Americans as being a "provincialism", as it's first recorded use in print was in 1837, in Sherwood's 'Gazetteer Georgia'. In English usage this side of the Atlantic, "meet with" has been around for a very long time, since at least 1275, but only in the sense of coming across someone or something, crossing paths, etc., rather than in the sense of meeting somebody by design. Incidentally,
it has also been used occasionally as a euphemism for sexual intercourse!

The simple use of "meet" is the primary usage (first recorded in 1205). The use of "meet with" you dislike WAS also used to indicate meeting a person by design in the early modern period, but is now noted as obsolete by the OED. I suppose that it may well have transferred to American with the original colonists, and survived (possibly in conjunction with the
"meet up with" noted above) as so many other artefacts of language have done.

Whatever happened, it has clearly filtered across the Atlantic through the usual means, and so the Americans have managed to shorten their speech patterns through lengthening ours!

posted by Sarah | 10:58 0 comments

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Iraq, US Elections and all that

Yet again, the left has been proved correct, as Iraq descends into a possible civil war. This will provide opportunities for Bush/Bliar to make heroic speeches about standing firm and accusing the left of being weakling pacifists. The simple fact is that the 'left' analysis of international affairs has been vindicated time and time again. Their position has nothing to do with a reluctance to get involved in combat or make hard decisions: it's about making intelligent decisions.
A correspondent has made a link between the left's amorality /moral relativism on individual matters and their apparent moral relativism in relation to international matters. He suspects that they are too idealistic and try to explain away everything bad in the world rather than making a stand. This may be true on personal issues but I think with regard to military interventions this is not fair. I could sum up the left's position as follows:

- The world view which sees the rise of Islam as a global threat is medieval and over simplistic. Fundamentalist Islam is a huge problem but its a problem for Islam as well as the West.
- The refusal of the US to enforce a settlement in Palestine which forces Israel to return to pre-67 borders is inflaming the whole situation
- You will not fight terrorism successful by breaking the law (Guantanamo etc)
- You will not fight terrorism successfully by bombing a country and killing innocent civilians
- Doing the above makes matters worse not better.

Surveillance, intelligence, good security, helping moderates, conflict resolution: these are the tactics that are useful.

posted by Sarah | 16:57 0 comments

Tribunal costs

While the threat of paying my legal costs for the Tribunal still hangs over my head, I see that the costs which the government are all already paying for the Tribunal team included the following:

More than €11,000 has already been spent at Gruel, the trendy restaurant on Dame Street not far from Dublin Castle. This is for sandwiches, coffee, pizzas etc. If the barristers are being 2.5k a day why can't they buy their own lunch? Who else has a job where your salary is paid and the company buys all your lunch as well? My legal bill will probably be around this amount. Our single income household will suffer sorely if I've to fork this out, yet these guys won't pay for their own sandwiches.

A training session from Carr Communications for a member of staff. The training session cost €190 in August 2003. Who? Why?

A new coffee machine was bought in December 2002, for €729, and a "save a cup, Beca bin, for coffee cups", was purchased for €162 a month earlier. The latter item was delivered by King Ireland, who charged €342 for "catering supplies and one food item", that same month.

This is a weird one: The delivery and collection of the legal team from Dublin Airport led to a €127 bill from Michael Divine Chauffeur Services on September 3rd, 2002. A bill from the same service, apparently relating to September 5th, 2003, cost €420. Why are they being picked up from the airport? Why can't they get a taxi? Where were they?

RKD Floral Displays Ltd was paid €135 in January 2003 for the supply of "Christmas trees and festive trimmings". Six planter units six months later cost €112. A bill from the same company in January 2004, was for only €89, presumably on the basis that the festive trimmings from the previous year were used. How economical of them.

posted by Sarah | 10:04 0 comments

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Ahern at the Tribunal

So our esteemed Taoiseach makes his long awaited Tribunal appearance and within hours cracks on all the main issues:
- He may well have met Gilmartin
- He did take phone calls from Gilmartin

There was nothing wrong with either of these things so why deny it in the first place? Will there be a resignation? Of course not. In the meantime Gilmartin also says that he told Ahern in 1989 that Redmond and Lawlor were looking for money. Did Ahern do anything? Of course not. This is on top of the nice letter he'd had FF write Padraig Flynn in 1998 enquiring about the missing 50k. Flynn simply never replied. Did Ahern EVER ask him once on all the occasions when he personally met him since? God no.

In the meantime I can't help noticing that Mary O'Rourke's statement, and all last week's statements from Moriarty were all printed in detail in the press prior to the witnesses' appearance. Wholescale leaking. Is there a whisper? Will the Tribunal teams aggressively pursue the origin of these statements? Methinks not.

posted by Sarah | 23:41 0 comments

Citizenship

Thanks to Kevin for sending this "check out the concept of citizenship in one of our glorious imminent EU fellow member countries".

posted by Sarah | 18:48 0 comments

Citizenship referendum

Herr McDowell is determined to bring his citizenship referendum to the people on June 11th, local and european election day, thus muddying the waters nicely. Apart from the obvious strategy of deflecting everyone's interest from economic issues, the referendum is nasty in concept. "The Government maintains the referendum is needed because the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which stated that every child born on the island of Ireland is an Irish citizen, is being abused. This right was enshrined in Article 2 of the Constitution after the Agreement was accepted in a referendum, leaving the Republic with Europe's most liberal citizenship rights.

In 2001, 3,153 people were granted residency because they were the parents of Irish-born children, while this figure rose to 4,027 in 2002. Nearly a quarter of all births in the three Dublin maternity hospitals were to non-nationals. In January 2003, the Supreme Court ruled by a five-two majority that non-national parents of Irish-born children did not have an automatic right to remain here. However, the court judgment has not led to a fall in the number of applications for asylum from over-16 females, who still make up 60 per cent of the numbers lodged with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform." (IT)

What this report, as all others, fails to mention when they quote the 25% non-national births in the maternity hospitals is that most of these are to perfectly legitimate foreign nationals in this country. In Holles St, there were about 9,000 births last year. About 2,500 were to non-nationals BUT only 239 were to women who showed up in labour having just flown in from Nigeria or wherever. To hear the government talk, one would think that all 2500 were maternity tourists. Our current citizenship laws are problematical but why go the sledgehammer route which will just whip up racism? Blame our poor health service on the blacks. That'll do instead of a proper health policy.

The Government plans, it is understood, to change the Constitution so that citizenship will only be granted to a child if one of his/her parents has lived on the island of Ireland for three years.

posted by Sarah | 09:41 0 comments

Sinners at mass

This article from today's IT worth quoting:

"The Bishop of Kerry last night said it did not make any sense "if a couple who are not believers ask for a church wedding. And one wonders if it makes any sense if a couple who do not go to Mass expect a Mass on the occasion of their wedding......People who do not share this faith will consider the sacraments meaningless rituals and empty rites and should not receive them. To do so would be a lie, a charade, an abuse," he said. "Disregard for the dignity and sacredness of the sacraments is also shown when people attach more importance to the clothes, presents and meals than to the spiritual and religious significance of Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage and, indeed, Ordination," the bishop said".

I think he's right. I've know one couple who were outraged when their local priest refused to marry them. They never went to mass or at least contributed to parish funds. They had been shacked up for years and had two children already, who they never brought to mass either. Then they were furious when the priest asked them why they wanted a wedding mass at all! The bride's mother, who did attend mass regularly, pleaded their case and in the end he gave them a blessing. But he also refused to allow them play "The wind beneath my wings". Common sense prevails.

Another unmarried non-believing couple I know brought their child for christening. The priest gently questioned them on their motives for bringing the child. They confessed that they were really doing it for the granny. The priest advised them to come back later when they felt they could actually give the child a 'proper' catholic upbringing.

I think the church has to be commended for these actions. All too often they are accused of oppressing people and forcing religion down everyone's throat. Usually there are hysterical parents wanting to take their children out of religion classes in school. Paradoxically my friends in the catering industry assure me that first communion is bigger than christmas for parties. I'd start with banning the communion dress and make them do it in their school uniforms.

posted by Sarah | 09:32 0 comments

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

E-voting goes on

My former boss and current social acquaintance Annrai O'Toole co-authors a piece in today's IT about e-voting. He says "Ill-informed "experts" are not helping the debate on e-voting" although he then goes on to call critics of the proposed system Luddites, (twice) which I suspect won't help the debate either. e.g.

"Computers are used in aircraft, cars and navigation systems because they are less prone to errors than humans. Yet, to listen to some "experts" going on about the unreliability of computing machines is like being back in times when rail was being introduced and they thought it wouldn't be safe for humans to travel faster than 20 m.p.h"

Having reassured the nation, very convincingly I should add, on the invincibility of the actual Nedap voting machine, he does acknowledge that he has concerns about the counting software.

"If we have reservations it is about the counting software. The problem is not its technical complexity - we could write a program to perform the entire Irish general election count using Microsoft Excel in a day. Our concerns are about the transparency, both perceived and actual, of the software itself. We believe the source code should be freely available. Indeed, for a very modest sum the Government could fund an open-source project to have the universities write a piece of code to count the votes........In fact the electronic tally data provided from now on should be published on the web so every voter and every school can see what happened in their community. Analysing voter trends should not be limited to a high priesthood of tallymen. Electronic voting could yet make experts of us all!"

Many of the criticisms of e-voting centre on the counting system. For example, he neglects to mention (or perhaps space did not permit) that one of the flaws of manual counting is being deliberately imported into the computerised and supposedly more accurate system. That is that when surpluses (after the 1st count) are being distributed they are done so on a random rather than actual basis. For the non-pr/stv expert that means the following:
Candidate 1 gets 15,000 number 1's with a quote of 10,000. To be absolutely accurate, all 15,000 of his votes should be counted again to examine who gets the number 2's. If Candidate no. 2 gets 5,000, i.e. 30% of the total then he should be awarded 1500 votes i.e. 30% of the 5,000 surplus. However, because it would take forever to count all the total votes every single time there was a surplus, there is a random system in place. I 've seen this happen. They put all the paper ballots into a bin. Take off 5,000 and only count those votes and award them accordingly.
One of the (few) advantages of a computerised system is that this random element would be unnecessary and all votes could be counted for each surplus. For some bizarre reason they've decided to import this random element with the computerised system.
Finally, AOT's comments that the source code should be published as should the full results are also worthy. Yet the government refuses to publish the source code (they bought it on the basis that it was proprietary and therefore confidential). This is one of the major criticisms people have made. And, as far as I am aware, each returning officer will give a printout of each count to candidates, agents and the meeja. I guess the meeja will put it on websites HOWEVER, this information will not include the votes from each module. In manually counted elections, people can observe the votes from each ballot box being counted. Therefore they know how each candidate did in pretty small electoral areas. With this system they will only get the votes for the whole constituency. That's a huge information gap for political pundits. Still, the views of luddites like them don't count......

posted by Sarah | 20:07 0 comments

Public transport vs humanity

A quick post in praise of the human race. Without my car for various reasons I made an attempt to travel by DART (commuter trains). I presented myself at Blackrock station with the intention of going to Dun Laoighre. There are two rail tracks, north and south bound - the north one being on the 'road' side and the south one being on the 'sea side'. I bought my ticket and then observed the rather steep stairs and pedestrian bridge providing access to the south bound rail. I asked the ticket guy where the ramp or tunnel was (as I had the pram). He instructed me to get a north bound train to Sydney Parade (two stops up). Cross the rail on their ramp and then catch a south bound train to Dun Laoighre. Given that there is a usual 10 minute wait for trains this was a slight inconvenience. I stopped abusing public servants but did ask in disbelief if this was not illegal. "Ah well love, its been like that for a hundred years". Fortunately at this point an orange jacketed employee stepped forward and between the two of us we carried the pram up and down the steps. When the train arrived another gentlemen rushed forward to help me put it on the train and then a third helped me get it off. So while infrastructurally things were against me, people were nice. I think most people are.

posted by Sarah | 19:28 0 comments

Pedantry

It's contagious. Two letters in today's IT:

1. Full stops

...the importance of a full stop rather than a comma becomes all too apparent when signs on the London Underground, pictured in the "Weekend Review" (April 3rd), inform passengers that if they see a dubious package - "Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station staff or call 999." All of a sudden, a sign intended to promote vigilance actually encourages negligence. Let us just hope that the commuters of London are as ignorant of punctuation as their Metropolitan Police. -

2. Meet with

Nowadays everyone meets with everyone whereas they used to just meet each other, except in America where the insertion of the superfluous preposition has been the norm for a long time. I wonder if any historian of the language can confirm that this change in common English usage has taken an exceptionally short time to become so widely, and unwittingly, accepted in these islands.

posted by Sarah | 08:38 0 comments

Friday, April 02, 2004

A day in the life of the full time mother

So today was hubby's second day in new job. Here was my day.

7am wake, breast feed, change nappy, leave baby with Dad for 15 minutes whilst grabbing a few more minutes in bed, up, sterlise bottle/feeding stuff, boil kettle for bottle, eat cereal, make baby food/bottles for day, drink tea and make and eat sausage sandwich whilst chattting to and entertaining baby inc. moving around about 5 times, attempt to express milk (picture milking a cow), 15 mins and 1 useless ounce later give up and make extra formula, feed baby, put him down for nap, wash-up breakfast stuff, read paper, baby wakes, send emails whilst baby on lap and trying to tap computer, wash hair over the bath whilst singing to and chatting to baby, dry hair whilst singing to and chatting to baby, sort some admin papers out whilst singing to and chatting to baby, do 5 sun salutations whilst singing to and chatting to baby (very unyoga) iron clothes whilst singing to and chatting to baby, make sandwich and eat whilst singing to and chatting to baby, get going out stuff ready, friend calls to collect, struggle with car seats and buggies, go to baby gym and play for 1 hour, go to supermarket and get stuff for dinner, buy new shoes (!), home, talk to mother on phone whilst rocking baby in seat, get baby's dinner ready, feed, get bath ready, Dad home! be nice to Dad and enquire about toughdayattheofficedear, make adult dinner whilst Dad bathes baby, eat dinner, clean up after dinner, give baby breast feed and put to bed, Dad makes tea, chat for few minutes, watch Eastenders whilst attempting to zone out, impossible as Dad enquires about location of trivial possession and missed too many episodes so confused by storyline, encourage Dad to go to pub, collapse for 10 mins, inspired to log on blog, still to do: take baby-food out of freezer for tomorrow, wash bottles to sterilize in morning, could iron last few things to get rid of them, catch few minutes telly, go to bed early as will be up for 4am feed!!!!!!

posted by Sarah | 21:13 0 comments