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I don’t what she said, but I support my Prime Minister, whatever it was she said…
Great spot by DUP Press Officer Clive McFarland on Facebook… more »
Why are there not more Nationalist blogs?
Interesting question by Ian Parsley, which he promises to come back to… Why are there so few nationlist bloggers in the Northern Irish blogosphere? Well, there are some. And to be honest, there are not that many more unionist blogs. Talking to a senior broadcast journalist recently he even went so far as to suggest [...] more »
Euro crisis: “It is nice to have a big umbrella…”
The Guardian’s Economics blog starts with an interesting observation Those who watched Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund a year ago say he played a blinder. Although he was to leave Washington under a cloud shortly afterwards, DSK impressed with his no-nonsense approach to his fellow Europeans. The IMF‘s managing [...] more »
“At present persons granted an Irish visa are not permitted to use that visa to travel to the UK.”
Not that we didn’t already know that… However, the Northern Ireland Tourism Minister, the DUP’s Arlene Foster, fielded a number of NI Assembly questions back in Feb/March on the issue of the Irish Government’s “Visa Waiver Scheme for nationals of 16 countries who hold a valid visa for entry into the United Kingdom.” Here is [...] more »
SDO: Year 2, approaching solar maximum…
Here’s a short video compilation of some stunning views of the Sun in 2012 - as seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). And Science at Nasa has a, erm, cheerful message as we approach solar maximum – “Enjoy the show!“ [Once more, with feeling... - Ed] Indeed. more »
OFMDFM: “We welcome our friendship with the Peoples Republic of China…”
In the Irish Times, David Adams takes issue with the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers’ “kowtowing last week to a visiting delegation from China”. On Slugger, Patrick focused on some of the propaganda aspects of the visit, and the OFMDFM press releases during the visit should probably be noted at that point. From the Irish Times article [...] more »
Discovery’s Final Final Flight
Having completed its final mission last February, yesterday the Space Shuttle Discovery took off from the Kenedy Space Centre for the last time on the way to its final destination – the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. During the flight, piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747 (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft NASA 905), [...] more »
ICC World Twenty20 Final to expand to 16 teams
Not that Ireland’s cricketers struggled to qualify for this year’s final tournament in Sri Lanka, but the path to the 2014 World Twenty20 finals in Bangladesh has been eased by the ICC Board’s confirmation that “from 2014 onwards, the number of teams participating in the ICC World T20 from 12 to 16 men’s teams.” From the [...] more »
India and Pakistani Peace Process: “Stuff like this doesn’t happen overnight…”
One of the thing about our (and other) Peace Process is that it is hard afterwards to distil what made things work. Here for instance, the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement was apparently borne of the work of a lot of people who previously could not agreement amongst themselves on anything much. Ahsan Butt writing [...] more »
Euro crisis: “Barroso absolutely confident that Spain can meet its economic challenges.”
With Spain probably in recession, again, and the cost of its government borrowing topping 6%, again, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso is being ridiculed for his optimistic futuring. As the Guardian’s Eurozone crisis live-blog notes European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has just been quizzed about the eurozone crisis, at a summit on sustainable [...] more »
The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman) – an insight into a newspaper that’s maybe not so fictional
‘news’ is often a polite way of saying ‘editor’s whim’ Given the shift from print to online and e-ink, maybe Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists was a suitable first first book for me to finish reading on the Kindle. Considering the economic pressures on the newspaper industry, his novel perhaps captures the spirit and soul of [...] more »
Clinkers, Rivets and Flatcaps: Celebrating Titanic and the Men Who Built Her.
The panicked screams of the dying could be heard long after Titanic broke in two and finally slipped under the icy waters of the North Atlantic. By the time the last voices faded and the inky dark became silence once more, over 1,500 souls had met a terrifying and lonely fate. The disaster was a [...] more »
Two more convicted of menacing comments on Facebook…
I heard a story recently of someone who took writing “Romani ite domum” on the boards of a building site, every night on his way home from the pub; he was protesting the building of a supermarket on the site of a local cricket pitch. The thing is he was clever enough to publish a [...] more »
University of Ulster: “part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up”
It’s a big day for the University of Ulster as it welcomes senior Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Liu Yandong to officially launch its Confucius Institute. While promoted as independent educational and cultural bodies, the Confucius Institutes have perhaps been more accurately described as “an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up.” Who said that? Some [...] more »
Riding the Boosters
Stunning images, and enhanced sound, in this video from Nasa of the view from the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters as they push the shuttle up into orbit, and then fall back down to Earth. Enjoy! As the Guardian’s GrrlScientist says The number in the upper right hand corner is airspeed. The glint of light against the backdrop [...] more »
“Whether that’s a hardened, remorseless soldier with a weakness for ginger cats, remains to be seen.”
Having praised the viral nature of the marketing campaign for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, the Guardian’s film bloggers got caught out by an April Fool’s ‘rumour’. But they’re back on track following a more traditional promotional event – a Q&A with the cast after a preview of 5 minutes of new footage. Still. Can’t. Wait. Here’s [...] more »
To Benedict, we Irish liberals are not going away you know…
Father Kevin Hegarty in the Irish Times fights back against Benedict’s contemporary, counter Reformation: There is a tendency of conservative church commentators to argue that liberal clerics are an ageing, disgruntled minority who have turned their misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council into a kind of holy writ. To them we are castaways on a [...] more »
#BostonCollege and the clash of law with the covert politics of peace…
The Boston College tape court case is reaching an interesting pass, though it’s unlikely to be the final decisive stage. The circuit court hearing is worth listening to (takes about 45 seconds before anything happens) for a number of reasons. One, it’s an, albeit brief court room drama featuring what must be the most comprehensively [...] more »
John Bercow: What should a 21st century Parliament look like?
The Speaker of the House of Commons was omni-present on the last day of the Political Studies Association conference. After a morning session with NICVA, a post lunchtime session on engagement and impact, he wrapped up the conference by delivering the closing lecture. School children studying politics packed the room, more than making up for [...] more »
Titanic: “We do not tolerate the plundering of cultural sites on land…”
According to the BBC report notes, once the centenary of its sinking has passed on April 15, the wreck of the Titanic will be protected under Unesco’s 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. From the BBC report The convention aims to prevent unscientific or unethical exploration. Irina Bokova, director-general of Unesco, said the [...] more »
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Round up of Tuesday’s Political Studies Association conference
If you want to get a flavour of the proceedings at the Political Studies Association conference on its opening day, then the Storify collation below will bring you some of the images, tweets and sounds of the day. Particular highlights included: the Opening Plenary with David Blunkett, Peter Riddell and Matthew Flinders; and the late [...] read our review »
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“Unionism Decayed 1997-2007″ by David Vance: book review
I initially wrote this when the book was first published three years ago; whilst certain elements of it now sound dated, its basic premise that the period of 1997-2007 was a period of irreversible decay for Northern Irish Unionism can still be argued as a valid opinion. My own feeling is that it did indeed [...] read our review » -
Eamon Nancarrow’s misadventures in Rock…
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, they say. When I last saw Eamonn Namcarrow, back in the mid 1980s he was a congenial, good-natured and highly sociable young lad. The next time was 26 years later, in Lavery’s Gin Palace in Bradbury Place. He’d just brought out his first book, Holywood Star about [...] read our review »
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