Slugger O'Toole

Green Party prospective candidate for the Pottinger Ward in Belfast City Council. Worked for 15 years on e-democracy and e-participation (e.g. http://huwy.eu/). Formerly a Lecturer in Information Systems at Queen's University Belfast, and ran the Appropriate Technology Centre at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. MA (Materials Science), Ph.D. (Appropriate Technology), M.Sc. (Artificial Intelligence).

Latest comments from davenewman (see all)

davenewman has commented 298 times (4 in the last month).

1. Comment on 2013 elections: the alienation of Freelander man
   on 5 May 2013 at 7:19 pm

   The article is not about the 4 main parties. There are still more Green than UKIP councillors, and there is not a single council run by UKIP. They have a way to go before they catch up with the Greens, let alone the Lib. Dems,

   (I tried to post this last night at 1 a.m., but CloudFlare told me the site was unreachable as soon as I submitted the comment.)

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2. Comment on 2013 elections: the alienation of Freelander man
   on 5 May 2013 at 1:04 am

   The article is misleading in that it did NOT cover the 4 main parties. There are more Green councillors than UKIP councillors, even after these elections. There are Green controlled councils, but not a single UKIP controlled one.

   And in my local area of Oxfordshire, including the seat of David Cameron, UKIP failed everywhere. It was Labour, Lib. Dems., Greens and Independents that took enough seats from the Conservatives to loose them control of Oxfordshire County Council.

   Now the rise of UKIP is unexpected, and therefore news. But they have a way to go before they catch up with the Green Party, let alone the Liberal Democrats.

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3. Comment on Open thread for the holiday weekend (usual rules doubly apply)…
   on 4 May 2013 at 9:18 am

   Any comments on this week’s elections in England (and one in Wales)?

   They were mostly for county councils, for example:

   http://www.oxfordshireelection.org.uk/

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4. Comment on If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
   on 3 May 2013 at 8:40 am

   Not much of a UKIP vote in Oxford City (from our tallies last night), but they are likely to win seats in the test of Oxfordshire.

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5. Comment on What is the Civic Forum and do we really need it?
   on 13 April 2013 at 11:45 am

   The Civic Forum was destroyed by politicians who didn’t want any other source of influence, let alone power. They ignored every recommendation that came of the the Civic Forum meetings, as they were not tribal enough for them. By continually belittling the Civic Forum, the intelligent and dedicated, but non-political members gave up.

   So any revival needs to define the relationships between such as body and the Assembly. A revising role, as in the House of Lords would be suitable. We need career politicians to be kept in check by people with connections to the ground – particularly through community, voluntary and business organisations. We need practical reality checks. Imagine if appointments to the board of NI Water had been scrutinised by qualified engineers, not just political advisers and money men: we would never have lost all water for weeks in Belfast.

   I suggest the model be the senate in Chile. As well as the members of the Senate, they have a virtual senate, though which citizens can participate in Senate debates – leading the senators to be more informed about the unintended consenquences of proposed decisions.

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6. Comment on Halappanavar Inquest: Midwife’s remarks rather than clinical mistakes beg legislation and public debate
   on 12 April 2013 at 12:59 am

   To what extent was an abortion denied because the mother was brown, and therefore despised by some Irish people in the hospitals? I have noticed more racism in Dublin than Belfast (don’t know about Galway). Would a conversation with a white Irish mother be more of the nudge,. nudge, wink, wink is there a way around this, rather than a straightforward request and denial?

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7. Comment on Margaret Thatcher dies….
   on 8 April 2013 at 3:33 pm

   Let us all sing, “Ding dong the witch is dead”.

   Do you think Maggie was a good enough lawyer to get out of her contract with old Nick?

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8. Comment on Fracking: The problem regulating an unpredictable industry
   on 30 March 2013 at 3:23 pm

   It is the extraction of oil or gas using lots of pumped water (i.e. fracking) that produces lots of waste water that needs disposal: more than in traditional oil wells.

   The article shows how the careless disposal of the waste water leads to earthquakes, even when the actual extraction is done under tightly controlled conditions.

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9. Comment on Absentee OFMdFM leadership thawing out in Brazil?
   on 13 March 2013 at 3:44 pm

   They were only visiting the Sao Paulo Chamber of Industry, FIESP, not the federal ministries. In a piece in ig.com.br I see ” a Fiesp recebe nesta terça-feira os dois primeiros-ministros do país europeu.” (the two prime ministers of this European country). A commentator on the page said “VOLTEM DEPOIS”. (http://goo.gl/v23WW)

   But at least Newton was there: Newton de Melo.

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10. Comment on “The Conclave is very much a struggle for the institutional heart of the Church”
    on 13 March 2013 at 3:29 pm

    It once took the conclave 3 years to decide on a pope.

    Will all the journalists still be on Chimney Watch then?

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