Slugger O'Toole

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technopolitics has commented 17 times (0 in the last month).

1. Comment on Steven King’s been a very naughty boy (but plagiarism is not just what it seems)…
   on 7 October 2011 at 12:01 pm

   Editors never check anyone’s work any more. Look at the recent scandal at RTE over it’s appalling decision to broadcast the thoroughly defamatory Fr Kevin Reynolds story. Who is going to carry the can for that? Look at UTV’s appalling standards in publishing footage from a video game – a video game! – and claim it as IRA manoeuvers.

   The only checks nowadays are by the lawyers. And even then, if you’re beating up on an easy target, like a priest, or a terrorist organisation, even the lawyers don’t get that bothered, because the only penalty is likely to be a little bad press.

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2. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 11:43 pm

   First tight one coming in, Sunderland Central. Tory target number 178. 19,000 to 12,000 Labour to Tory. Not very tight in the end. Swing of 4.8%. Need many more seats in different places to get a better view.

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3. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 11:31 pm

   Betfair market 42% for a tory majority, 58% hung. 0% chance of a labour majority, by the way.

   Washington & Sunderland just coming in…safe labour again, big swing from labour to the tories, albeit from a low base (tories on 22% now versus 53% for labour)

   Turnout up 7% to 54%, but I’m curious to see what happens where turnout pushes to 65, 70% with a ten point jump. How will these people vote? I’m betting Lib Dem…

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4. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 10:58 pm

   Tories up 5% in Sunderland, Labour down 10%. Bears out the opinion poll, give or take.

   As for Gerry and abstentionism, I’m not all that sure the Tories are ready to forgive Brighton, even at the price of government…there are still a few old ghosts wandering the halls of conservatism muttering…

   And re: the Betfair numbers, there’s not really insider info, and there seems to be a massive variety in swing…swing from Tory TO Labour in Scotland and Wales, upwards of 7% in England.

   This is far too tight. It will go to the wire. Diluted Orange, I hope you got good odds…what was the price?

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5. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 10:33 pm

   Betfair Seat Forecast (as at 10:15pm): 316 Conservatives, 226 Labour, 75 Lib Dems, 30 Other

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6. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 10:29 pm

   won’t accept brown – maybe. I’m with ItWasSammyWilsonWhatDoneIt, Milliband for PM. (David, presumably

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7. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 10:17 pm

   And the DUP should be pleased if these numbers come to be true!

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8. Comment on UK Exit Poll
   on 6 May 2010 at 10:13 pm

   Early days. Lib Dems have got to be annoyed, a salutory lesson in peaking too soon, perhaps? Still, the fag end of the count will be where this one matters. Could get litigious and drag on for a few days with some tight constituencies.

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9. Comment on “it’s an abuse of their human rights..”
   on 10 April 2009 at 4:48 pm

   willowfield, I’m sure Ms. Ruane was not actually drawing from her reserves of legal interpretation, and was merely invoking the same, tired old rhetoric of the (allegedly oppressed).

   And for my third link in this sequence to Monty Python’s classic, “Loretta’s” ‘Don’t You Oppress Me!, when being told that he did not have the right to be a woman (because he was a man) is the same kind of gibberish that attaches to rights.

   FD – your view on what constitutes a right is entirely valid, and to hold that view remains your prerogative (a word which, in a curious twist, is defined by Priceton’s wordnet as ‘a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right)’). The legal stuff may be a little different though. And as for Ms Ruane’s audience, it could similarly be argued that we collectively have the right not to be subjected to the inane. Balls, perhaps, but an interesting subjectivity surrounds the rights debate.

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10. Comment on “it’s an abuse of their human rights..”
    on 10 April 2009 at 3:19 pm

    FD – tongue firmly in cheek, I’m not entirely sure that there are any perceived injustices – real or not – that could not justifiably be interpreted as compromising some rights or other. And I guess that’s part of the problem. So if you’re human, and you’re aggrieved, then you’re going to feel as if something that was yours – a right – has been denied or compromised in some way. With such a broad scope for interpretation, imagination, in a Wonka-esque kind of way, becomes real. Ergo, there’s no such thing as an imaginary right.
    Also, the right doesn’t have to be as perscriptive as Ms. Ruane suggests – such as the Right to Not Be Tested At 11, or some such. Rather, it could be argued that the right to education is compromised. Or the right to development. It has even been argued in international legal journals that the right to life extends to a qualitative definition (under the delightful sobriquet of prescriptive legal positivism), and that therefore one’s Right To Life under international law is compromised should it be lessened in quality in any way.
    This is generally the point at which all non-lawyers, and most lawyers, throw up their hands and cry out ‘well, what chance does that give me?’, much as Brian was trapped by the philosopher’s contention ‘only the true Messiah would deny his divinity!’. His response? ‘All right then, I am the Messiah – now f%^k off!‘

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