The Guilt of an Expat

The events of the last couple weeks in Ireland are nothing less than shocking. So much so that it's knocked me out of the blogging ennui that I found myself in recently. There's so much to say about the mess we've gotten ourselves into that I don't really know where to start. However start I must.

The one thing that has struck me is how negative everything is. Amid all this talk of bailouts, cuts and austerity measures; there has been nothing positive. No talk of spurring on the economy. No talk of rejuvenation. No talk of how to bring the economy out of its death throws and return it to prosperity. I understand that if there was any talk of such lofty ideals it would almost certainly have been drowned out by the cacophony of negativity coming from the media, analysts and commentators in the last few days. However there just seems to be a lack of anything positive to say.

All of this is having a particular effect on myself. Every time I read something about the state of Ireland's finances, there's this little pang of guilt inside me. So given that it's been on the front page of every (real) newspaper, it would be accurate to say that I've been feeling quite bad about abandoning the sinking ship when I did. I try to console myself and tell myself that logically, I saved the state money by moving as I was in receipt of Job Seeker's Allowance. I still feel though that I should be doing something.

What can we do? I have this idea. Unfortunately, I have no idea of how to make it happen or even if I did, I don't think I'd be the person with the most suitable skill set. So with that set of caveats out of the way I can get into the meat of it.

What does Ireland need? Ireland needs money, jobs, good news. In short Ireland needs entrepreneurs. Irish people creating our own jobs, our own success stories would do quite a bit to life the morale of people. The idea is to collect Irish expats together to form essentially a venture capital company aimed solely at sponsoring new Irish companies. In the current climate it should be easy to get the venture registered as a charity in various countries and then those charities are part owners of the company in Ireland.

Its an easy story to sell to people, to try to get people involved in; Irish people pulling together to dig ourselves out of this hole. Ex-pats doing something for the ol' sod and all that. More importantly, I feel that we've become a little too reliant on foreign direct investment. Not just to invest, but to make the jobs. I don't know many people whose response to unemployment is to take the bull by the horns and try to make something happen for themselves. We need to change that culture. Not only that but it's another way of channelling that much desired FDI through takeovers. Believe me, in the tech business; all you need is a good a idea and to know the right people to get the word out there; and Google (or Apple or some of the other big players) will probably buy you up.

I just wish I could make it happen.

Surreality

Cork won the All-Ireland.

For only the sixth time ever, Cork are the All-Ireland Senior Football Champions. No one can question that this victory was deserved. Cork were looking ragged and unimaginative after a dramatic opening few minutes. However a late burst in the first half set the stage for a more expansive second half. Cork's victory was assured due some spectacular points in the second half; Donnacha O'Connor's stands out but Kerrigan's left footed effort was nothing short of heroic. An impressive cameo from Nicholas Murphy helped secure the middle for Cork.

None of that would have mattered if it wasn't for mister consistency; Daniel Goulding. Nine points in total, seven from placed balls which kept Cork in touch when they were desperately needed. The goal in front of Hill 16 was clearly much more slippery than the Canal End. Down struggled to make any production at that end, while it the combination of Down's indiscipline and Goulding's accuracy made the difference in the end.

Goulding was rightly awarded man of the match for his efforts, winning my brother €50 in the process. This tops off what is always the surreal experience of watching Goulding play on the TV. A guy that I played GAA with for around 14 years just won an All-Ireland and was Man of the Match to boot. Growing up it was always obvious that Dan was a talent. I remember watching him play in an under 12 final where he scored all bar a couple points of Éire Óg's tally that day (with the very capable John Gleeson in a starring role at corner back too). Playing full forward with Dan in the corner was a dream; he was almost always available for the breaking ball or making intelligent runs Even though he was always the best player on the field, it's still a little weird to think that he is THAT good. Like, it's Dan; I've gotten the better of him a few times in training (few being the important word there).

In an added layer of hilarity; the Examiner did a pre-final special supplement which included a focus on Éire Óg as we had Dan and Ciarán Sheehan on the Senior team and Kevin Hallissey on the minors. It was written by Fintan O'Toole (not THAT Fintan O'Toole) who played with Goulding and myself on that same Éire Óg underage team!

NFL Week 1: Ever Seen a Zebra Screw a Lion?

To say that Week 1 of the NFL was full of surprises is an understatement. I'm going skip talking about most it though to talk about the main talking point from the weekend. I should also find some synonyms for talk. I will though add that my fantasy team brought me in a healthy 110 points putting me in 633rd position overall. Compare this to my current ranking of 1,514,494th in the Premiership Fantasy Football. I think I know which game I'm better at predicting.

For next week; I'm betting on Michael Vick coming up big against the unlucky Lions and I've decided to take a cheap gamble on Arian Foster repeating his heroics. I was very tempted to go with Aaron Rogers this week, but the Bills have a pretty good secondary (well relative to the rest of the Bills team). Plus Vick is a LOT cheaper.This has left me money to splash on receivers; Ochocinco, Austin and Dallas Clark get onto the team. I'm going with the Viking's defence to capitalise on their dome's noise to score some serious points against the Dolphins.

Now onto the burning issue of the day; watch this and write down if you think this is a perfectly acceptable catch.

Maddeningly, the zebra impersonators known as the referees didn't see this as a perfectly fine catch against all logic and intuition. This call cost the Detroit Lions their first victory since about 100BC (hence the post title and not some weird porn). The issue of course being "a lack of control of the ball through the process of catching". It's very tough. There is a logic to the rule; you can't have people juggling the ball around in the hands and call it a catch. However, surely having complete control is not completely necessary. It capped off a really crappy day for Detroit with QB Stafford getting injured and likely to miss a couple games. Dose. Talk about a kick in the teeth. 

Fantastic Football! (Now with added steroids!)

It’s that time of year again people. That’s right; the NFL season kicks off this Thursday night with the mouth watering clash of the defending champions Saints against the Vikings. I’m not going to talk about this week’s games though. I’m going to focus on the fantasy game being run by NFL UK. It’s very easy to use and really adds to the games as you start roaring on particular players or teams. Anyway I thought I’d give a bit of a rundown of how to pick your first fantasy team.


There are eight slots to fill: 1 quarterback, 2 running backs (RB), 2 wide receivers (WR), 1 tight end (TE), 1 kicker and 1 defence. There is an $18m salary cap, and players range from $4m to $1m. The good part is that in true NFL style you are not restricted to any number of changes next week. That means you can focus week to week on exploiting the bad match ups to get some cheap points. The scoring system is quite straight forward. Any RB, WR or TE get 1 point for every 10 yards they earn for their team and 6 points if they get a touchdown. The QB gets a point for every 30 yards of passing and three points per thrown TD. He’ll also be scored in the same way as the other offensive guys for any scrambles or runs he goes on. The kicker simple enough gets 1 point for every point he earns for the team. The defence get 3 points per sack or recovered fumble or interception, 2 points for a safety, and a bonus 6 if they return an interception for a TD. Yards returned for by any special teams’ players don’t get points but they get the points for a TD as per usual if they manage to get all the way to the end zone. That’s easy enough right?

When it comes to picking your players you have got to be looking for value for money in that week, so keeping an eye out for mismatches is a must. Generally anyone playing Oakland, Detroit, or St. Louis can be expected to do well. As the season progresses the main NFL website will keep detailed statistics of every player’s performances which will make it easier to spot not so obvious beneficial match ups. When it comes to the individuals, you need to ask yourself how often a player is going to get the ball in that game and how likely is he to score big when he does. Receivers (both WRs and TEs) can have some good yards per catch statistics, but the good teams usually have 3 or 4 receivers to spread the ball to so even the number one guy might only get a few catches a game. Any teams main RB is guaranteed plenty of chances to run with the ball as well picking up the occasional pass too. Therefore it makes more sense to spend money on RBs than receivers. Generally QBs don’t have great points per dollar payback either as they need a big game to bring in a decent haul of points. My generally priority order goes like this: running back, running back, receiver, receiver, quarterback, defence, receiver, and kicker.

Some notes on that. Don’t ignore defences. They can be cheap, but can also put up some big points as the Eagles defence did last year. Ignore kickers. It’s next to impossible to predict which teams will kick a pile of field goals in a week. Just get a cheap guy from a team that are able to get into kicking range most of the time and you should be fine. Even though the QB is relatively low on the priority list, you will also inevitably end up having to spend money to get a good one. It’s not worth it to spend $2m on a QB who’s just going to be handing the ball to his RB for the whole game. You should budget $3m for your QB in general. With all that in mind I’ll talk through how I picked my team for Week 1.

First Choice: RB Chris Johnson - $4m. He’s expensive, but last year he showed me that he was worth every penny, over and over again. He racked up over 2,000 yards of rushing, some decent receiving yards and a heap of TDs last year. What’s more; the Titans’ offence is built around him. He is guaranteed to get his hands on the ball many, many times in a game. He’s almost a no-brainer at the worst of times and this week Tennessee host the generally terrible Oakland Raiders. I’m expecting an explosive start to year from Johnson.

Second Choice: WR Chad Ochocinco - $3m. I know I broke my own rule of thumb but it needs to be done if you see a combination you like and you want to get it. Even thought the Bengals start with a seemingly tough assignment against the Patriots, Tom Brady’s forces are not the team they were. Even at that, it’s their offence that keeps them going rather than their defence. The Bengals are an up and coming team and with the addition of T.O. to their receiving core this should give QB Carson Palmer more targets and also create more room for Ochocinco.

Third Choice: QB Carson Palmer - $3m. He wasn’t really my third choice; he didn’t make my first draft of the team, but I had to switch QBs to free up some cash for elsewhere. Taking him means that I have a lot riding on the Bengals-Patriots game, but sometime you have to roll the dice. The same analysis as above applies. I think the Bengals could be a much stronger force this year and Palmer definitely has the skills to break into the group of elite QBs in the league. I will admit it’s a big gamble though.

Fourth Choice: RB Tim Hightower - $2m. My first few picks cost me quite a lot so I had to start saving. Hightower at $2m is a good match up choice I think for two reasons. Firstly, Arizona are playing the St. Louis Rams who were the worst team in the NFL last year. Secondly, with Warner retiring and Leinhart being left go, leaving new boy Anderson as the QB I would expect Arizona to run the ball a heck of a lot more in the opening couple games at least. Anderson doesn’t exactly come with a great record, so when they get near the goal line I’m hoping the Cardinals go to Hightower to punch through to the end zone.

Fifth Choice: TE Vernon Davis - $2m. In reality, Davis was probably the first name down in my head. One simple reason; when the 49ers get near the goal line, it is Davis who gets the short receptions for TDs. He puts up decent points as a result at half the cost of Dallas Clark or Jason Witten. San Fran open against the Seahawks who have been turned on their head by new coach Pete Carroll. This could mean a productive day for Smith, Gore, Crabtree and Davis.

Sixth Choice: K Matt Prater - $1m. I chose my kicker next to get that out of the way. Denver’s Matt Prater looked like a solid choice from the $1m ones available. I refuse to believe that spending more on a kicker is worth it; simply because it’s so hard to predict who will score big in a given week.

Seventh Choice: D Arizona - $1m. I took Arizona’s defence based entirely on their match up. The St. Louis offence couldn’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag last year and they’ve announced that rookie QB Sam Bradford will be leading their team out on Sunday. I’m seeing at least 2 sacks and 2 interceptions in this for the Cardinals’ defence.

Eighth Choice: WR Devin Hester - $2m. I left this till last as it was the one causing me most problems. Do you go for the number two receiver on a throwing team and hope he has a big game or do you go for the number one guy on a lesser team? It’s a tough choice and I nearly rolled the dice with the Cowboys’ rookie receiver Dez Bryant. Instead I decided to go for a solid choice with a good matchup. Hester is the main man in Chicago. While the Bears won’t be in the Superbowl, they should get past the Detroit Lions who were marginally less terrible than the Rams last year. They bolstered their defensive line with the number two draft pick this year, which should mean more quick passes to the speedy Hester who will be expected to do the heavy lifting on his own.

So that’s my team. Any feedback is appreciated. If you sign up for the NFL UK fantasy football, let me know what your team name is so that I can gloat when I beat you week in week out. My team is the DG Dragons just so you know that it actually is me when they show the leader board on Sky Sports.

Net Neutrality and Why You Should Care About It

If you’ve been tuned into the gadget world, the phrase net neutrality will have been thrown about a lot recently thanks to Google and Verizon (who are an American telecom if you didn‘t know). The two giant corporations came out with draft legislation for net neutrality, the first of its kind but it has come under a hail of abuse and has placed the two companies in the centre of massive debate in the telecom industry.


In a nutshell, net neutrality is the idea that all bytes are created equal and should be treated as such. Internet service providers (ISPs) shouldn’t be able to discriminate and prioritise certain traffic over others. Sounds good in principle yeah? Like all fluffy ideas, there are issues. Enforcing complete net neutrality would prevent ISPs from filtering spam, not displaying child pornography and provide the necessary network management at peak times. As much as we’d like to think it; access to the internet is not unlimited and when everyone tries to get on at once the ISP has to do something to try to ensure everyone gets some piece of the action. A bit like the rolling blackouts they do in LA when it gets hot to reduce demand on the power so that the whole city doesn’t go dark at once (that may seem a little obscure but I was watching a Criminal Minds episode in which that featured last night. I can only assume it’s true…)


There are concerns though at the moment that ISPs will start managing their traffic a little too much, effectively stopping peer-to-peer file sharing, charging certain websites (like Google/Youtube) to ensure a quality connection for its customers who visit that site or even blocking off competitor’s websites altogether.
Like all corporate disputes however the key issue is money. Google and many other internet based companies make huge profits off the back of the infrastructure the ISPs provide. The ISPs in comparison work with very tight margins and huge capital expenditure cost. Basically, the ISPs are fighting net neutrality as it gives them power over the internet companies. Internet companies obviously don’t want to have to pay and a more subtle annoyance will be having to pick and choose their markets rather than just being open to the world once you’re on the web.


So far the ISPs haven’t been going down this road because bandwidth has been plentiful for the most part. However, there is a crunch coming. The crunch is coming in the mobile area due to spiralling data usage from smartphones. While cabled service can provide huge speeds and carry massive amounts of data, wireless is severely limited in comparison. This is specifically why Google and Verizon made an exemption from net neutrality in their legislation and is the main talking point on the interwebs.


I would like to dispel the notion that I’m turning into a corporate whore since moving to London, but the fluffy principles of net neutrality just don’t stand up to reality and not just for mobile networks. If we want ISPs to continue upgrading our networks then someone has to pay for it. Internet companies can provide that money without hurting the consumer too much. Not only that but I don’t think it’s fair that Google (through YouTube in the main) can take up such a massive proportion of the strain on the networks and not be expected to pay for the service. As long as sensible laws are enacted to protect consumers privacy and against anti-competitive behaviour, then I’ve no problem the net not being neutral.


Why I think you should care about this though is that for the internet generation that we are; free and open access to everything on the internet has been take as a given. The internet was the modern wild west; no laws, no regulations, no barriers to entrepreneurs. While it will never be fully tamed, the internet is coming more and more under control. There are more barriers now to setting up an internet start up, most of them non-financial. Illegal file sharing is being clamped down on. Governments are quickly catching up with legislation to govern the net e.g. legislation to tax online betting is in the works in Ireland. The debate over net neutrality is about what is the core philosophy of the internet, and as much as many people will hate it; it will be money that decides which way the legislation falls.

The T.O. Show Comes to Town

It's that time of year again. Sports of various codes are swinging back into action. The Premier League starts in under two weeks, but I'll leave my take on that till a closer date. The NFL doesn't kick off for another three weeks after that but the NFL has provided one of the most interesting signings of the summer. Screw the LeBron James primetime hour, the T.O. show rolls into Cincinnati this week and it's looks like a match made in heaven.

T.O. finally saw sense and took a large pay cut (he's down to $2m for the year) in order to play for a team that are real contenders. Not only that, but Chad Ochocinco (neé Johnson) and QB Carson Palmer have been vocal in trying to get T.O. to come. Ochocinco and T.O. are actually good friends which should help the bruising to T.O's ego which will come from him having to play second fiddle to Ochocinco. Hopefully, this shows that T.O. is ready to put his history behind him and focus on the serious business of winning that coveted superbowl ring. The Bengals now have Benson (a quality running back), Palmer (A Heismann Trophy winning, Pro-Bowl, first overall pick in the draft, so yeah quality) and two excellent wide receivers and had the fourth best defence in the league last year's regular season. This makes the Bengals serious contenders for the coming year.

I still think it's the Cowboy's year though. Or the Vikings.

The Raoul Moat Saga

Ever since the tragic events of the 3rd and 10th of July, newspapers, politicians and all entities that one could ascribe the "establishment" label to in any regard have been scathing in their vilification of Raoul Moat. In fairness, as far as anyone can be called a villian; he can. However, the lack of sympathy being shown and the lack of understanding of those who show sympathy is appalling.

To quote the most establishment figure one can find, the Rt. Hon. David Cameron

“I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community.” 

So, David, let me try to enlighten you why some people feel sympathy for a killer. There are a few reasons why people do this.

First of all, we must remember that Moat's life story covered miles of news pages and the story had twenty four hour coverage on television. It pervaded the everyday lives of people. Once people saw his background, his breakdown and his kids it became a whole lot easier to humanise him. The word "monster" is used too often by the media to label people, and people readily latch onto it for paedophiles. It's easy to call up images of trolls or other hideous beasts and put paedophiles in the same category as them. In fact it's easy to put any group of people in that category as long as you don't know them. That's basically where racism comes from. Knowing people doesn't necessarily lead to complete understanding, but it does lead to a little understanding and a little sympathy.

Secondly, people are conditioned to root for the underdog. Whether in sports or in life; when someone is facing nigh impossible odds, ninety-nice times out of a hundred the neutral spectator wants the underdog to win for it to be dramatic. Such conditioning has been achieved through years of Hollywood movies where the hero overcomes the forces of the entire universe to rescue the treasure and/or girl. There's a plethora of glorified convicts on the the run from the law in our collective psyche; Ned Kelly, Butch Cassidy, even Robin Hood for crying out loud. Regardless of his crimes, when the faceless state brings all of its draconian powers to bear on one individual, the natural inclination of people is to cheer for the little guy.

Thirdly, the manner of his death. It was a tragedy. Any death is. Worse than that, it was a tragedy which many see as have being preventable. The police had Moat surrounded for over five hours before he shot himself. I'm going to bet I'm not the only one thinking that some form of tranquillizer or something could have been used to bring him in peacefully. I'm sure the police officers did the best they could, but the feeling still remains.

Lastly, someone died. It is perfectly natural to feel sympathy when someone dies, regardless of whether you know the person or not. People should be celebrating the fact that we are able to feel sympathy for killers. Empathising and sympathising with other people is what gels society. A lack of empathy and sympathy is what makes it possible for people to commit violent crime. We feel sympathy, thus we have not turned into the animal during the hunt.

So rather than condemning the sympathy, we should try to understand it and focus it on the positives. The messages being sent out by the Prime Minister and the rest of the establishment only serves to divide the state further from people and hardly serves the purpose of building Mr. Cameron's "Big Society".

You Know What? We're Pretty Awesome

So there I was, hurtling along in the sky at about 500km per hour, around five km above the ground in long rather heavy metal cylinder. The thought struck me; how is it that such an incredible feat of human engineering and genius that is powered flight does not inspire awe in all who see it let alone use it.

It seems rather incredulous, but we've become normalised to the thought of air travel. It has become common to the point of boredom as evidenced the fact that the time spent on safety instructions by the cabin crew is usually spent by the passengers sleeping or reading or listening to an ipod or some combination thereof. I have flown approximately 66,510km in my life, and I would not consider myself a prolific traveller. My elder sister puts her mileage in the 100,000km area. At least.

It's the same with other engineering marvels. We have had images from all over the world beamed into our homes for decades now. We can converse instantaneously with friends on the other side of the world. We use a series of giant explosions to land an object accurately on a planet over 50 MILLION kilometres away, AND then we able to land that object carefully enough that it's able to drive over the alien landscape AND collect samples and data AND transmit that data back to us. When you sit back and think about how a little while, the breath and depth of human advancements are simply mind boggling. We adapt to using new technology astoundingly quickly and integrate it into our lives. Can you imagine now a world without mobile phones, without the internet? We now have robotic limbs for paraplegics; the only limit on what's next is our imagination (and the laws of physics I suppose).

Despite this ability to adapt, I do worry at times how we'd cope with disaster, and I mean society ending disaster. I've just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy which is a masterpiece showing man's struggle in a post-apocalyptic state. It also shows how woefully under prepared the world is for that sort of disaster. Think about how long you could survive on the food in your house right now. I'm guessing a week at most. Without a shop to buy your food from, what would you do? Could people adapt quickly enough to that? It's a fascinating question. All I know is having done scouts as a kid would suddenly become useful at last.

So the next time a telemarketer phones you, take some time to remember how amazing it is that they are able to harass you like that. Take the time to enlighten them to the majesty of technology. Not only would it educate them, you'd be guaranteed not to get any more calls from that company again.

Gamesmanship or Cheating?

Last week, Ghana were knocked out of the World Cup owing chiefly to Luis Suárez handling the ball on the line preventing a last minute Ghananian(?) goal. The aftermath featured much gnashing of teeth, much lamenting the lack of some sort of penalty goal system and of course, much vilification of FIFA and Sepp Blater. Suarez himself seems to have gotten off lightly much to the chagrin of the internet (or at least the small part of the internet I observe).
Professional fouls such as that one have been around forever and permeate all levels of every sport. I remember being coached at age twelve to "take out" any players that were one-on-one with me when I was playing in goal. I have a particularly clear memory of tripping a player through on goal in a Cork County Under 16 Hurling Quarter Final, and I mean I just swung my hurley at the guys heels. I got away with that one, but even had I been sent off, it would have been an acceptable loss. In any sport, what counts is winning. In team sports, it's the team's results that count. Players are always taught to play selflessly; to pass to the player in a better position, to take the hits in the tackle, to run yourself into the ground in the name of the jersey. Add to this conditioning, the pride involved in playing for your country on the biggest stage in the world. Given these combination of factors, is it any surprise that Suarez did what he did?

There is a huge difference here between what happened here and Henry's handball and Maradonna's Hand of God. This is very evident in the popular psyche. Henry was vilified in his own national media following the game. The Hand of God follows Maradonna around to this day, and has firmly embedded itself in English football folklore. Suarez was treated like a hero; a modern day knight who sacrificed himself for the good of the country. In my view, rightly so. The guy didn't try to hide what he did. He shamelessly took the bullet for the team. It was the last minute of the game, there was literally nothing left to lose. Even if there was a penalty goal rule like that in rugby, I can guarantee you that he would have still done it. It was an instinctive reaction, borne out of those years of indoctrination into a team playing psyche. In those micro seconds all a player cares about is stopping a ball going into the goal.

The mental process involved with the Hand of God or the Hand of Frog is different. Those were calculated efforts to direct the ball in a specific direction. This may sound like something I'm asserting, and essentially it is. It's borne from personal experience. It just makes more sense. Unfortunately I can't seem to ba bale to explain it in any more precise fashion.

Despite this and all the other controversies that have dodged this World Cup, I can guarantee that there will be no goal-line technology, no video referees and no penalty goal rule. Why? Not just because Sepp Blater is as stubborn as a particularly bitter mule, but I get this feeling that FIFA want the controversy. They look at the way these injustices are manipulated by the national media in the affected nations, and notice how these are used as fuel to fire interest when those two sides next meet. This means huge interest in the sport, and in turn huge advertising revenues for the national FAs and FIFA. If you doubt me, just imagine what would have happened if France and Ireland were in the same group for the forthcoming European Championships Qualifying campaign; the tabloids would be frothing at the mouth, the Joe Duffy public would be baying for blood and the viewing audience would be HUGE.

Also, screw it. In sport, like in life, shit happens.

Damn Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys

This is not an anti-French rant. It is a lament. The events of that fateful meeting in Paris many months ago are not forgotten, but they are accepted. At the least, I accept them. In sport, as in life, shit happens. Shit happens at all possible levels. The standard of refereeing at the World Cup shows that in spades. Like many other Irish, I wanted to see the French get beaten in the same sort of way that we like to see the English get beaten. It's not that we hate them or that we're bitter; just that we latch onto any reason to support one side over another. That and we love a good complain. Particularly in the summer, when the weather isn't as terrible as it usually is, we need something to complain about. So, France are suffering our ire at the moment.

While I was rooting for Mexico against France, the French team's woeful display left me infuriated. The complete lack of effort, the lack of desire, the lack of any sort of passion or pride in the jersey seemed so out of place at the World Cup. Fair enough their team is managed by an incompetent astrologist, but what ever happened to individual pride, individual leadership and more importantly, national pride? Each player can only ever play in three World Cups barring a few extraordinary exceptions. This is the competition that every kid grows up dreaming about. At the very least you'd expect them to give it a lash. Much like the Irish did in 2002 when after losing by far our best player to a dispute, the team rallied, gave it a lash, and lo and behold made it to the last 16 and were a heartbeat away from the quarter finals. Without any doubt, even again lacking our world class player, Shay Given, the Irish lads would have been giving it socks and not giving up at all.

I'm reminded here of a West Wong quote:

Leo: You know, it was a screw-up. But I gotta say, I love the way he did it full speed, bam. Like there's a Sam Seaborn-shaped hole in the wall.

That's the attitude I expect from ALL teams at the World Cup. That was the attitude the Irish team showed that night in Paris. Playing away from home, against a team ranked over thirty places higher than them, facing a one goal deficit; the odds were heavily stacked against them. No one thought it could happen. They gave it a lash and it produced a highly entertaining and competitive match. Surely that's the kind of team you want at the World Cup?

When FIFA "clarified" the rules on the draw for the play-off matches, I have no doubt that a desire to see the big money teams of France, Portugal, Russia at the World Cup played a factor. This strategy has spectacularly back fired with the impotent performances of France and (so far) Portugal. Will a lesson be learned? You gotta be kidding me.

Gold in Moscow; Gold in London?

Sandwiched in the middle of the unending World Cup coverage and the GAA championship, I hope I am not alone in feeling that accomplishments of the Irish boxing team in Moscow are not getting the coverage they deserve. The Irish team are coming home tonight with FIVE medals; one gold, one silver and three bronze. This meant that the Irish team grabbed second place on the medals table behind Russia with their seven golds, aided presumably by the sort of home field scoring that was seen at the Beijing Olympics. Particularly considering that there was only seven fighters on the Irish team, this is a phenomenal level of success.

Omens look particularly good for the 23 year old Paddy Barnes. Already an Olympic medallist at the tender age of 21, he should be coming into his prime come the London games in two years. Watching his final on RTE last night, the control and discipline he displayed in the biggest fight of his life so far tells me that this guy has that winning mentality, has the toughness and the tactical awareness to go all the way in London.

Darren O'Sullivan, a primary school teacher by day, found himself on the wrong end of a 16-7 defeat in his final. This score is a little unfair on O'Sullivan though. He was level with his opponent right up to the end of round 2, where a late flurry left him a little behind. He had to chase it in the third round, which left him vulnerable to his taller opponent; who used every extra inch of his reach to his benefit.

Team captain Kenneth Egan brought home a bronze. After his controversial silver in Beijing, I thought that his decision to remain amateur to fight in London was a mistake. After this showing, I am more convinced than ever. For Egan, anything that is not the gold medal in two years time will be a disappointment. He will be 30 when he fights in London which brings with it questions over his physical fitness. The guy is an absolute hero, and I hope to be in the crowd cheering him on to gold. I just hope this doesn't backfire horribly on him.

Of course, in London, women will be competing in the boxing arena for the first time. This means Katie Taylor gets to kick some ass. All in all, London should prove to be a happy hunting ground for the Irish boxing team.

The Pleasure, The Pain, The Pageantry, and The Punditry: World Cup 2010

After four years of waiting, after no less than eight hundred and fifty three qualifying games, two thousand, three hundred and forty four goals, and a bucket load of controversies, the 2010 FIFA World Cup is finally upon us.

Regardless of how much fun I derive from the next month or so of over indulgence in sport, FIFA have come out of this World Cup campaign very tarnished in my eyes. I don't think Ireland should have gotten a replay of the infamous match in Paris as they were tied by the rules on that occasion. However, the staggering level of resistance to the introduction to video technology to aid the referee baffles me. I just don't understand why FIFA cannot implement some sort of workable system when practically every other major sport on the planet has. Not only that but the ruthlessness which FIFA approaches the World Cup as a marketing opportunity means that little or no benefit will be seen to most South Africans due to prohibitive sponsorship deals and it's ruthless defence of trademark. It has most certainly left a sour taste in my mouth anyway, but I'm sure I'll forget about it quickly enough like the unprincipled market slave that we are really are.

Anyway, onto the actual football. I have some shocking predictions that may shock and disturb you. You may want to sit down or guard them from any elderly relatives.

1. France will not get out of the group stage.
2. Argentina will not get past the quarter-finals.
3. The US will make the semis.
4. Brazil will win.

Just remember to tell them I told you so...

Damn you, Capitalism!

Last week, those very smart people over in MIT unveiled a design for a plane which could reduce aviation fuel consumption by up to 70 per cent, make about as much noise as a really tiny kitten and as the picture shows is quite pleasing on the eye too.

Using a blended wing body as opposed to the usual narrow body design, this is the latest in a long line of design development that aims to radically increase the efficiency of aircraft. As anyone who's worked out their own one out, regular flying leads to a crater like carbon footprint. So, this should make a massive dent in the carbon emissions of the western world, yeah?

If only it were that simple. That most dastardly of things, capitalism, comes in and ruins everything. These sort of designs have been knocking around for a while, but market forces hold them back from any sort of commercial roll out. Look closely at that picture; there are limited passenger windows. Earlier designs such as what has know become the Boeing X-48 didn't have any passenger windows and that provoked such a negative reaction in focus groups that they were dropped as commercial prospects and now exist entirely as military or NASA projects.

It's not just consumers that would be holding these designs back. The narrow body design is universal, which means that it's what all airports, ground crew and all the other various pieces of machinery that interact with a plane are built to work with. In particular, refueling in this type of aircraft takes more time and for that reason alone the low-cost airlines would ignore them.

Concorde showed that while there can be a niche for non-standard design, it also shows how difficult it is to change and how unenthusiastic many airlines and airports are for change. True, Concorde was obscenely loud and inefficient, but it had it's selling point and made a profit on its (two) routes. These planes have a selling point, and its appeal is much more broad based than high flying executives needing to be in NY in 2 hours for a meeting. There's hope that these designs will one day be the staple of our air travel experience, but without significant US and EU subsidies, that could be a long wait.

Invigilating: A View From the Other Side

In the course of my education, I sat many an exam. 99% of the time when you sit an exam, you are oblivious to the goings on around you. The room next door could be on fire, but unless I remember the precise statement of that ridiculously named theorem I spent most of last night trying to understand, I'll happily ignore all alarms going off around me. However, for the last couple weeks, I have been on the other side of the fence: invigilating. I've supervised a wide range of subjects and students, and I have a few observations to share.

1. Class and society hoodies all have TERRIBLE puns on them. Universally terrible. I think the History one "We get all the dates" and the Philosphy one "We think about doing it a lot" are the worse offenders. Please, someone, be original!

2. Some people have either no dress sense or must be going straight from the exam to a night club. Hmm... that's actually quite possible, but I refuse to believe that it's universally true. Seriously though, some people need to realise there's a time from tonnes of make-up and fancy clothes. 9am exams are not them.

3. Arts departments need to get better at naming their modules if they want me to take them seriously. I've found two types of annoying module title: ones that have absurdly general titles (HI2001 - Ireland, Europe and the Wider World for example) or titles that are just absurd in themselves (GG3001 - The Nature of Geography).


4. On the other hand, many sciency subjects are so specific that I doubt they'd ever be used again e.g. ZY4012 - Population Dynamics of Birds. I really wonder what makes the dynamics of bird populations so particularly interesting.

5. Does wearing a WWJD? bracelet in a religion exam count as cheating?

6. When did it come into vogue to wear ear plugs during an exam? I seem to have missed that boat.

7. It's a lot of fun to read all the various papers and imagine how you approach to answer questions that you know little to nothing about. This is much more fun in the humanities as they use words the lay person can understand in their questions. My favourite one was from the AP2002 (The Social Psychology of Organising) paper. Question one was "Explain the relationship between money and happiness." I immediately knew that the answer lay in differential equations and the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey interaction model.

8. Why, oh why, did those engineers insist on doing precise drawings on the normal scripts when graph paper was available? GAH! The inaccuracy of it all hurt me inside.

9. People have some odd exam rituals. One (very) mature student brought their teddy bear into the exam with them.

10. Despite the availability of perfectly safe cheating mechanisms (the ol' writing on the leg and going to the loo routine is actually impervious) some people are still idiots and try smuggling written notes into the exam. You'd be surprised how quickly an invigilator adjusts to noticing when people aren't looking at their script or are fidgeting at all. Just so you know, materials has been confiscated from at least two people in exams I was invigilating.

11. I have no sympathy for people who forget to bring a spare pen while managing to remember to bring a pen in the first place. Like, you're doing many exams and presumably writing a lot! What did you think was going to happen! Also people who use a pencil but don't bring a topper or an eraser.

12. You'd think that after several exams, people would remember that they have to write their seat number down on their scripts too even though there's no box for it. Also, people who leave it until you're hovering over them waiting to collect their script to begin filling out their details on their five exam books are the single most annoying people in the world and every time I'm tempted to "accidentally" drop a couple of them in the bin.

13. When checking someone's student id and details, I'm mostly just checking if they're hot and if so making a mental note of the address on their timetable.

That's Just Not Cricket

Earlier today, an England team won the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup. The English squad included one Irishman, one Pakistani, and more South Africans than you can shake a stick at. Despite their reliance on their foreign born players (none of their top three scoring batsmen were born in England), without a doubt this victory will be the source of an infinitely large number of boasts by drunken English yobs for the next while. I am very much looking forward to England getting beaten in the soccer World Cup now.

It does raise the issue of player eligibility though. While Pietersen and Kieswetter never played for South Africa, Morgan did play for Ireland. According to the ICC's rules for player eligibility a player is only eligible if "he has not played Representative Cricket for any other Member Country during the 4 immediately preceding years". This would seem to suggest that Eoin Morgan is very ineligible to play for England, having played with Ireland up to 2007. However there is a catch: 

Cricketers qualified to play for Associate and Affiliate Members can continue to represent that country without negating their eligibility or interrupting their qualification period for a Full Member Country up until the stage that the cricketer has played for the Full Member Country at Under 19 level or above.

So, in other words, if you're from one of the "lesser" cricketing nations, you're fair game to any of the full members (providing of course you've fulfilled the residency requirement).  This to me seems like a ridiculous double standard.

When you add in the non-existent rules about an associate member becoming a full member, this all becomes very haphazard. There is no clear timeline on when Ireland, arguably consistently the best Associate member over the last ten years and definitely the second best at the moment (behind Afghanistan), will ascend to elite status of Full Member. As a result, our best players defect to England for a chance to play test cricket which is denied to them with Ireland. This leaves Ireland with a team which is unable to compete with the test nations (as all the players who are at that level have been poached), which provides the ICC with a convenient excuse to not upgrade Ireland to Full Member.

The hilarious thing is that the ODI and Twenty20 World Cups have shown that so called inferior nations are capable of holding their own against the big boys. I'm sure everyone remembers Ireland's remarkable victory over Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup. That was not an isolated incident. In that same tournament, Ireland drew with Zimbabwe and beat Bangladesh; both full members. Ireland beat Bangladesh again in the Twenty20 World Cup last year and in that same tournament the Netherlands beat England. While this year's World Cup didn't provide the upsets of previous years, the facts remain that Ireland have reached the Super Eights of two World Cups, outdoing many Full Members in the process and are yet no nearer to reaching Full Member status than they were before.

Ireland applied for Full Membership status last year, but the process of that application could take several years to be worked through. The criteria for Full Membership seem quite arbitrary. Improvement in the cricket structure is necessary but a "flexible approach is to be taken and not one based on win rate". The criteria also asks for a strong financial setting, but given that Ireland can't get consistent games against top nations without Full Membership, we can't get the revenue that those tours would bring. Also mentioned is the incredibly vague need for a "cricket culture".

However, even if Ireland do achieve Full Membership and eventual test status, Morgan would need to have not played with England for four full years before he can put on the green again. After the ease of his defection to England, how does this seem fair? Surely, the ICC should include an exemption for players returning to their original Associate Member nations, particularly if they have just gained full membership status. The presence of that experience in the Irish squad would improve the standard of the entire team no end.

A GAA-GAA Romance

Nope. This is most definitely not about Lady Gaga. About as far as you can get from the very urbane, very post-modern and the very emm... unique style of the New York musician. No, this about that most Irish of institutions the good ol' GAA.

Last weekend saw the Football League finals, so very shortly the serious business of the Championship will begin. In fact, the first Championship game is due to played on Saturday when Galway travel to New York. Personally though, I couldn't be more delighted that Cork lifted the League trophy yesterday though. For several reasons.

I know the league means diddly-squat, but Cork won it in convincing fashion and blooded many new players from the U-21 set-up too. Cork only lost twice in the league a 3-9 to 0-16 defeat to Tyrone (the scoreline clearly indicates that Cork lost despite dominating) and losing the Mayo two weeks before the sides met in the final, which can be discounted given the hiding given to the westerners in the match that mattered.

Personally, that final was notable for the presence of two players from my own club on the Cork team. This is remarkable as not only is it a small rural club, but until a few years ago the club's primary focus was hurling. Daniel Goulding was the club's first ever representative on the Cork football team, and now Ciarán Sheehan joined him in the full-forward line last Sunday. Ciarán chipped in with two points while Goulding proved to be Cork's most potent weapon again with a haul of 1-5. It is a bit odd watching a guy whom I played with since I was eight years old light up Croke Park, and collect all sorts of accolades at Senior Intercounty level.

Of course, it's not all about the football. Cork are also in the Hurling League final next week against Galway. Similarly to the football, Galway and Cork met in the last round of the league, with Galway taking the spoils in a meaningless match. Could this be an omen for a League double? Not really, but it does allow us Leesiders to dream of a double in September...

Nick Who?

I have a confession. Not only have I not watched any of the UK leader's debates, I have been completely negligent in following the campaign. That being said, I wasn't at all surprised the reaction to Nick Clegg's performance in the debates so far. He had no expectations. People were expecting Brown and Cameron to be the main event, duking it out like heavyweight boxers. Well, Brown would be a heavyweight (in every sense); Cameron is a lightweight (in every sense). There was absolutely no expectation on Clegg. All he had to do was stand toe to toe with the big two and he'd be getting the Lib Dems unprecedented coverage in what the media rightly or wrongly have always boiled down to a two horse race. He didn't just do that, he managed to manipulate Cameron's "change" mantra against the Tories; positioning the Lib Dems as the real route for the protest vote.

However, I can't see this situation lasting. I think the polls will keep showing string Lib Dem performances, right up to election day, but when it comes to people actually having to tick that box, the fear of a hung parliament will push people either back into Labour's bosom or the Conservatives ice-cold death grip (I never claimed I'd be impartial). The reason for this is fundamentally that the Lib Dems cannot win the election. I've been playing with the BBC's Election Seat Calculator and it seems that the Lib Dems would need at least 44% of the vote to be able to achieve an overall majority. For comparison, Labour would need a mere 34% to be in with a chance of an overall majority. Not only that, but as the Tories' and Labour's focus now also include regular attacks on the Lib Dems and scaremongering over a hung parliament, I very much think when push comes to shove people will go back to the old guard.

What this does highlight is the scale of the gerrymandering that has gone on in the UK. It has become high impossible for a third party to be able to challenge effectively. It may not be as bad the US, but it's getting there. With a PR or List system, not only would the Lib Dems be in a much stronger position, but so would a range of smaller parties. It's times like this that I'm thankful we have a system that makes slightly more sense here.

The Team that Refused to Die

The Prince and the Pauper headline is being over used in today's papers, albeit with very good reason. In a season which saw Portsmouth F.C. enter administration, aborted winding up orders, unpaid wages and on the weekend that brought confirmation of relegation, Portsmouth managed to book a date in the season's finale; the FA Cup Final. Their opponents in that final on May 15th will be Chelsea F.C, who are seemingly steamrolling their way to the Premiership title and owned by Mr. Moneybags himself, Roman Abramavich. The contrast could not possibly be starker.
This is the beauty of knock out competitions, which the GAA championships have lost a little of recently in my opinion. The idea that the little team can do it against all the odds, that David can conquer Goliath lives on. When Portsmouth went into administration, you could see the team pulling together a bit, and they began playing with heart; something that surprised this hardened cynic. Then they got thumped by 5-0 by Chelsea which effectively killed off the tiny glimmer of hope of survival in the Premiership. For this team of rejects and misfits to beat Chelsea in the final would come with a particular satisfaction after that humiliation in front of their own fans.
More than just the romance of the cup, getting the final also earned Portsmouth a place in the Europa league next year. However due to their financial difficulties, they were unable to apply for a UEFA club licence; which considering how much getting into Europe would boost their revenue, has a certain irony to it.

I'm not for any second considering that Portsmouth could actually beat Chelsea in the final. They won't. In all likelihood, they'll get trounced. The Chelsea team will have a nice kick around before they all jet off the South Africa and walk away with some extra bling to add to their collections. In their last, five meetings Chelsea have scored sixteen goals whereas Portsmouth scored one. No team has ever won the FA Cup and been relegated in the same season.

But still, there's a glint in Avram Grant's eye that says maybe, just maybe...

A Prescription for Panic

It took 12 full years, but two months ago, the Lancet finally retracted the paper of Wakefield et al. which drew a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The damage the hysteria surrounding the paper caused can be seen in graph below that I plundered from the BBC. There was a noticeable drop in the uptake of the vaccine, which unsurprisingly lead to a spike in the cases of measles in the population.

I'm not going to go into the medical and statistical faults of the study (I'm not a medcine-type-guy and talking statistics bores normal people), but suffice to say that the link was tenuous and the science sketchy at best. The problem wasn't with the science. The Lancet always publishes controversial articles on the edges of science. In medicine in particular, it is necessary to generate debate to ensure the safety of both new and established treatments. The problem was how it was jumped upon by the press. That wasn't helped by Wakefield holding a press conference upon the paper's publication. Over 1500 articles were published on the alleged MMR-autism link over the following few years despite many large studies which proved no link.

Is it the media's fault for jumping on a story? In a word; no. Science is published in journals in a manner that is not easily accessible to the public. It takes the researchers and/or the media departments in their universities to start stirring the shit. Aside from MMR, probably the most famous example of this is Peter Duesberg. Duesberg is an expert in cancer causing genes. However, he is best known for a very public campaign decrying the link between HIV and AIDS. While some debate on the origins of AIDS was acceptable in the 80's, Duesberg still espouses his views and is considered a major influence on former South African president Thabo Mbeki. Duesberg sat on an advisory panel to Mbeki and the South African government's subsequent failure to provide antiretroviral drugs is thought to have cost thousands of lives. 

How did Duesberg get into this position? He used his right as a member of the National Academy of Sciences to publish a paper without peer review, by-passing the usual crap filter. Through this he was able to gain the credibility in the media to participate in debates on AIDS. Just as we are seeing with the global warming denialists, when there is a scientific debate of major impact going on, the media feel compelled to show all sides no matter how ridiculous they are. Then the crazy theory gets picked up by a political cause and from there it snowballs. Duesberg's theory was that AIDS was the result of environmental issues; large amounts of recreational drug use being paramount amongst them. This was desirable for those who wanted to stereotype the gay community as bringing AIDS upon themselves and also for cementing AIDS as the "gay plague". 

I for one would not expect any newspaper editor to be able to parse the science and divide the crap from the better theories. Even in the broadsheets that have specific science reporters, I wouldn't expect all of them to  be experts in immunology, general relativity, photonics, whatever the story is this week. The responsibility lies with the scientists themselves who are the best judge of the quality and validity of their own work. Unfortunately, scientific ethics is not taught to students in university. From my experience, the university is more interested in you producing something that they can release a catchy press statement about, with the university's name all over it in giant bold letters, naturally. 

Privately funded research is unsurprisingly not exempt from this either. In fact, the research that Wakefield's infamous MMR paper was based on was funded by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR. Conflict of interest much? At least he is now facing charges of professional misconduct for that (amongst other things). 

Simply, ethics needs to be highlighted much more in the training of scientists from all disciplines, not just the health sciences. Where there are the bad apples, the whole scientific community needs to come out strongly to shout them down. The Durban Declaration about AIDS in 2000 or the UN's IPCC reports on global warming are good examples of the scientific community doing what it should.

How to Pass a Law

Ok, I'm an amateur when it comes to passing legislation, but here's my interpretation of how you go about things.

In the US:

1. Have an idea, preferably one that can be synopsized to a single sentence. This sentence will usually be vague and aspirational so as not to tie you down to any specific proposals. Something like "Make America safer for Americans" if you're Republican or "Make Poverty History" if you're Bob Geldof, or "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others" if you're somewhere in between.
1a. Get some photos of the President and other high ranking politicians in compromising positions. This will be very useful later.
2. Win an election. Easy enough if you have the right friends.
3. Make up some draft proposals. Get flamed by the opposition. Get flamed by the public. Get your office, home, car, child's school, mother etc. blockaded by angry protesters. Expect farcical and fanatical opposition.

4. Negotiate with the opposition to try to find a solution more amenable to the masses. As long as the bill still conforms to your initial vague aspirational statement, then you can't be accused of running away from your ideals. Just remember that a large amount of the opposition are convinced that you are either an elitist, baby-killing communist or a knuckle-dragging, inbred racist, so you're not going to get everyone on your side no matter how much you give in.
5. Try to pass the bill in the House. Use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you get it passed.
7. Try to get it passed in the Senate. Again, use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 until you get it passed in the Senate.
(In general, these phases are the most annoying and you may have to cede authorship/sponsorship of the bill and sacrifice all chance of doing anything else in your political career.)
9. Get the President to sign it. This is easy of the election you won in step 2 was the presidential election. Otherwise, step 1a comes in handy again.

In Ireland

1. Get enough seats to be needed in a coalition.
2. Have an idea. Commission a consultant to write a report about it.
3. Wait for a scandal to happen.
4. Comment that action on this scandal is imminent. Commission a report on the report in view of the specific scandal.
5. Introduced the bill to the Dáil in the last two days before a break to limit debate. Force the bill through the Dáil and Senate in record time through your use of the whip.

Dermot Ahern version


1. Put together some version of your religious beliefs that look vaguely like legislation.
2. Use your influence to push it through.

The Grand Slump

Am I the only one left feeling unfulfilled after this Six Nations?

After the drama of last year's championship, it was inevitable that this year would not live up to the same level of excitement. However, tension was almost completely devoid from this year's proceedings. Mistake after mistake after mistake robbed me of any enjoyment of the game as it slowed to a halt. The effects of whatever new rules that were brought in seem to have reduced the game to a kicking dominated affair. Defences are so good that running the ball is dangerous, as the Wales-France match showed. Two intercept tries from France, who were happy to play for territory all tournament. The result? Grand Slam for them. The England-Scotland encounter was about the most dreadful rugby match that had ever been inflicted on the world.

There were flashes of brilliance, and yes, there were moments of tension. Today's match in Dublin had both of them. I however benefit from having Sky Sports and I watch the Super 14 matches occasionally whenever I have the time. The gulf in pace, runnig, excitement is ridiculous. In the 39 games played so far in the season, each game is averaging 53.5 points. In the Six Nations this number is 39.6. Essentially, that's an average of 2 more tries per game. And that's not even "international standard" rugby.

Since the game went professional, the skills needed for a good defence (essentially fitness, strength, teamwork) have all benefited, and the natural flair needed for attacking rugby has remained static. Some of the ELVs that were experimented with last year I think would actually have been good to encourage a more running attacking game. Keeping the back line 5m back from the scrum gave people more space to run; making quick throws easier encourages counter attack play and discourages kicking for position; free kicks rather than penalties means less kicking for touch and for goal and more attacking play. The whole point was to increase the emphasis on attacking play to force coaches and teams to think and train more in that way.

I'm not saying that there's no place for the grinding tension of close control near your opponents' line, but can't something be done to at least make a RANGE of tactics effective?

P.S. I know that the photo is not from this year's Six Nations, but it's cool.

Forgive Me My Sins

My blog has been neglected of late. I could blame many things, but it's mostly because I got a little lazy. I hereby beg forgiveness from the internet gods and shall hope that no punishment shall be inflicted.

Speaking of punishment and forgiveness...

While I was away last week (the ISDA festival was flipping unreal), a story broke about Cardinal Brady. The basic version is that he was in a meeting where victims of Fr. Brenden Smyth's sexual abuse were forced to swear an oath of silence about their allegations. Unsurprisingly, this led to a tide of calls for Cardinal Brady's resignation.

Morally, there was fault. He knew about the monster that was Fr. Smyth and all he did was pass the buck to his superior's and not say anything in the intervening twenty years before Fr. Smyth saw justice. Twenty more years of abusing innocent children could have been prevented. Surely, resigning is the only correct course?

Personally, I don't think so.

The then Fr. Brady was in no position of power. He did the best he could within the structures. Can we blame him for not speaking out? Not really. The culture at the time was one of denial and cover-up. Fr. Brady was not the only one to know. Practically everyone knew on some level what was going on. I lay the blame at the higher levels of hierarchy at the time and not at the lowest level. Realistically, everyone who could replace him was probably complicit on a similar level. He could do a lot more trying to work from the inside.

The key question is whether his ability to lead the Church has been compromised. In reality, I don't think so. Given the small role he played in the past, given the potential good he can do from where he is now, given the ability of the man; I can only see him doing good from here. I don't want to sound insensitive, but I do not think that the victims of Brenden Smyth are served by his resignation. Fr. Smyth was the perpetrator. The hierarchy at the time were the ones complicit.  Not Cardinal Brady.

These calls for his resignation come from a desire for vengeance against the institution rather than from some viewpoint of justice.

Debating, Sexual Discrimination & Numbers

There's been a lot of chat recently about how women are under-represented and under or over performing at IVs, Worlds etc. depending on what result you want from it. So I've decided to do what any good number cruncher would do in this scenario; I'm going to put some numbers on it.

For this I'm using the tabs from the recent National Law Debates in Galway and from the Cork IV in December. This is as they are the two most recent tabs I have and I am confident that I was able to identify female names from male names (I wouldn't be so confident with a Worlds or Euros tabs). I also used the total speaks for the competition, not the individual speaks. I could make up some valid reason, but it's 99% because I'm lazy and it's easier to work with.

IV	Male Mean	Male Standard Deviation	Female Mean	Female Standard Deviation
Cork	362.2577	28.45621	361.3617	25.18145
Galway	372.2174	21.89606	370.8286	23.90482

What does this teach us? Apart from the fact that judges at Galway were more generous, it clearly shows that there is no meaningful difference between an average male or female speaker. The boxplot of the cumulative results from both IVs also shows this in a nice visual way. It also shows that the 25% and 75% quartiles lie essentially at the same point, showing that the distributions are essentially the same. A t-test gives the probability of there being no difference in the actual means as 0.772; for there to be a statistically significant difference, that number would have to be less than 0.05.

So one thing is abundantly clear from this; there is no discernible bias towards male speakers from judges.  One thing that has to be remembered here though, is that these were all mostly Irish judges. My own admittedly stereotyped view of the world would suggest that a bias is more likely to exist in not-so-liberal countries and thus would be more prevalent at Worlds (this is the angle I'm selling to try to get a research grant).

Where a difference does appear is in participation numbers. In both IVs the proportion of male to female speakers is approximately 2:1 (32.7% female in Cork, 33.6% male in Galway). Given the small total sample size, the 95% confidence interval (i.e. the range of possible values) for the true proportion of female debaters is between 27.3% and 39.35%. Clearly this is where there is a problem.

As a white, heterosexual, private-schooled male (and thus not part of any oppressed minority), I'm not going to spend too much time discussing the various options available to the debating community to help solve this problem. Just to say that when it comes to participation, I think the onus is much more on the individual societies to up their game in recruitment, training and retention than on changing the rules of the game. There clearly is nothing wrong with the game itself which handicaps women.

George Lee: Vain or Victim?

A mere nine months ago, George Lee was elected to the Dáil. His election was indicative of the mood at the time; the public had become staunch Fine Gael supporters, mainly due to them being "not Fianna Fáil" as much as anything else. Lee, by his own admission, similarly picked FG as they essentially have no prima face stand-point on economic issues like the rest of the opposition parties do, and so would be maleable to his suggestions. This is not unusual; Garret FitzGerald joined FG for the same reason, and nearly managed to transform the party and move it away from it's traditional roots of being the large farmers party. I don't blame Lee for that choice; it makes sense if you want to have an immediate impact to choose a platform that will let you do that rather than joining some smaller party or runing as an independent.

However, FG seemed to give Lee the cold shoulder, and treat him as a sort of circus act. They'd wheel him out to get the crowd in, and then force him to hand things over to the big boys, Enda and Richard, when things got serious. Sure, he's only a journalist who doesn't know anything about politics right? They didn't treat him like a serious politician but expected him to have the loyalty of a serious politician. Big mistake.

Lee is a damn good economist by any measure, as his pre-RTE career shows. Yet FG, were slow to bring him into the fold and let him help craft policy. Why? There's the sense of seniority about politics in Ireland, that age somehow makes you more qualified, that years spent helping people with medical cards makes you an expert on the economy, that you have to do your time in the back benches before moving up. Kenny was presumably wary of the wrath of the other backbenchers if he promoted young Lee too quickly. That would seem to have cost him a great electoral and governing assest.

The worst thing coming from it though, is that now we have a very high profile example of how closed a shop politics is. We all knew about the nepotism, but to see a major political party essentially give up a very well educated, very well known. very intelligent, trusted voice on the economy tells me that these politicians are out first to look out for their own. This is a huge disincentive to experts from all fields to trying to get involved in politics. When people talk about the detachment of politicians from everyday life; this is what we mean! In any business, not only do you want to best people, you promote them when you find them and you do all you can to keep them.

That all being said, I do think Lee may have been a little premature in going. He should have known that politics here isn't going to change over night. He got a front bench offer when he made the threat, and he should have realised the power his high profile gave him to embarass FG. He could be doing something today to help the country but he was too proud and self-rightous to accept the offer when it was made. Who cares if it was made under duress? Practically every decision in politics is made under duress.

My Problem with Neo-Nazis

Or one of them anyway.

I just can't seem to understand why neo-nazis deny the Holocaust. Assuming that the hate Jew, fags, crips and all who where murdered in the death camps, surely it's more consistent with their mindset to be proud of having wiped six million "undesirables" off the face of the planet.

I could understand Germans wanting to deny the Holocaust. The massive guilt of having to deal with that can lead to a very natural human response of denial, which I'm sure we've all done at some point. As a nation however, the German people seem to be taking it very maturely and more than willing to openly talk about it.

Why would neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust? It doesn't make their cause any more palatable to normal people, it only shows them as being further on the edges of the mainstream discourse than one could have possible imagined. Is it a natural response to them seeing the jewish people get "sympathy" territory and treatment from the international community and they want to snuff out that? If so, then they grossly overestimate how much influence they have, which shows them to be complete buffoons when it comes to political awareness on top of everything else.

It just doesn't make any logical sense!

The Greatest Show on Earth

Superbowl XLIV is a mere three days away. I am literally wetting myself with excitement. 


The Superbowl trail is littered with monumental stories, implausible comebacks and Goliaths being laid low. If New Orleans win on Sunday though, you'd find it hard to get a better story or find a city more in need of that win than any other. Only a few shorts years ago, the city was destroyed and the Saint's stadium the Superdome housed thousands of the homeless despite suffering terrible damage itself. Drew Brees decided to come to New Orleans, not only because nowhere else would have him, but because he genuinely wanted to help a city on it's knees.

Brees has managed to turn the fortunes of the team around, and has led them to a first ever Superbowl appearance. I've seen videos from New Orleans when they beat the Vikings for the NFC Championship; the place went mental. The whole city has been lifted by this. Not only that, but the whole team and Brees in particular have been incredibly active in the city, helping out with whatever charity work they can. Brees has even moved his principle residence to New Orleans, an unusual event for an NFL pro. 


If Brees and the Saints win it, it couldn't happen to better guys and neither could it be more important for a city.


That is the story. Unfortunately, it's Payton Manning and the Colts that stand in their way. As much as I want the Saints to win, I just can't see it happening in reality. The Colts are the complete package, with only a perceived weakness in special teams as their only constant criticism. The Colts defence can do a good enough job on the New Orleans line to make life tricky for Brees, and I can't see the Saints brutish but unsophisticated defence stopping the most intelligent quarter-back in the game from picking up another Superbowl MVP to weigh down his already groaning trophy shelf. 


There's been alot of chat about the possibility of Dwight Freeney not playing. It's a factor, but I don't think there's enough in the Saint's defence to stop the key Colts plays. If the game is to be won or lost by either side, it's when the Colts have it that matters. If the Saints defence can actually get to Manning again and again and make hits without giving away oodles of penalty yards, and if they can shut down the Colts running game, and if their man-coverage secondary can hold up; then they have a chance. 


That's a lot of if's though.

Well, that was a January

It's hard to believe that January 2010 is already drawing to a close. I made a 'resolution' before the end of 2009 to try to make this year as interesting as possible. This involved taking opportunities when they presented themselves, taking more risks, and trying my hand at new things.

In general, I think I've kept to that. I've definitely held back a lot less that I did before and as I found this can be a double edged sword. I've pushed, pulled, taught, traveled, partied, parted, hugged, hurt, cried, kissed, laughed, lied, played, plotted, built, broke, risked and was rewarded.
There have been low points, the last month has been on a whole extremely positive. Technically, my life hasn't progressed in the last month; I'm still unemployed, still single, still broke but I'm a hell of a lot happier now. As always there are prospects to fix at least partially fix those problems, and I am feeling quite optimistic about them.

Roll on February and whatever new opportunities it brings

An Endless Circus?

Another year, another round of tense negotiations in Northern Ireland, another series of threats, missed deadlines and political posturing. The latest series is over the admittedly sensitive issue of policing, with some parades thrown in there for fun and games. Sure, everyone loves a good ol' parade yeah? Yeah? Hmm...

This system that has evolved of re-negotiating things that had apparently been agreed more than ten years ago in the Good Friday Agreement has proven to have become the downfall of the centrist parties; the SDLP and the UUP, as those on the extremes shout and cry fowl until they get some concession. We are now left in the absurd situation where the DUP, once thought to epitomise some of the worst bigotry of during the Troubles (who can forget Ian Paisley calling the Pope the antichrist in the European Parliment) are now being out-flanked on the right by the Traditional Unionist Voice party (who recently called the Irish language "a leprechaun language"). 


This had lead to some critics call for an end to the d'Hondt method and enforced coalition. Senator Fiona O'Malley raised this in the Seanad this week, saying "it rewards people from the extremes and does not reward people who bring together communities and serve all of the people within their communities. While we continue to prop up a dysfunctional system, frankly it will never work and there will be crisis after crisis." There is some truth in her words, but while we may not like it; it works at one very important thing. It has stop the armed conflict.


I don't think anyone is under any illusions that the current system is intended to be temporary until things calm down a wee bit (whenever that will be). It has brought Sinn Féin and the DUP to the table. In time it will bring the TUV to the table if they do become a force after the next elections. In the time since the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA, UVF and UDA have all decommissioned their arms. The current system gave the North the breathing room to do this, to be able to move past violence without the spectre of extremely confrontational politics going on in the assembly. Without a doubt, that would have made the task so much more difficult. 


The key question will is when do we change to a "proper democratic system"? Well for one thing, devolution has to be completed and will have to been so for quite a while. The people of the North need a sense of normality about their lives without the drama of these almost annual re-earthing of the old troubles. It's going to take a long, long time. When hatred is bred from birth, it does take a few generations at least to wean the community of it. 


When the deal was struck back in 1997, Tony Blair said that the real work was only beginning. Those are words worth remembering now.

They think it's all over... but it's still f***ing going!

It's past 3am. I've had a long day building a set for a play, and I've to be up and gone in 6 hours to finish it off. I should be in bed. What's keeping my up? American football (much to the chagrin of many of my friends and family).
After the Colts took apart the Jets in the second half of the AFC Championship match earlier, the Saints and Vikings are still going at it, hammer and tongs, in overtime.

Fumbles in the NFL are counted like how Prachett's trolls count; one, two, many, lots. The Vikings have had enough fumbles to bamboozle any troll (at room temperature). They've blown it so many times when they could have won this game already, most noticeably at the end of each half of regulation time. The Saints have hit hard defensively, but seem to be getting absoloutely hammered by Minnesota's defence.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, one thing is painfully clear to me even now. This is Brett Favre's last season without a doubt. No more dramatic returns for the old warrior. He's gotten beat up so badly so far in this game that I'm amazed he's still walking let alone playing. The biggest hit was when a 26 year old, 125kg mountain of muscle named Hargrove picked up the 40 year old and drove him into the ground. I really hope the old man gets to the Superbowl again and that he'll be fully fit to play. It would be a fitting end to one of the most remarkable careers in NFL history.

Right now, the Saints have gotten into field-goal range, but the Saints have a very inexperienced kicker and the Vikings can still do something...

This advice is actually helpful

Wait, You mean we have to PAY for it?

Last night, the Massechit, Massachusetss, American voters decided to give a big f*** you to Barrack Obama on the anniversary of his inauguration. For me, the worrying things is not that the Democrats have lost the supermajority in the Senate; it's that arguably the most Democratic state in the country returned a Republican a little over a year after the Democrats swept into power in a very convincing fashion.

To me, it seems like the US electorate liked to hear Obama talk about saving them and their families from massive healthcare bills, but when push came to shove the idea of someone having to pay for it through taxes seemed anathema to them.

From my basic reading of the plans before the House and the Senate, the proposals don't really look that redical at all. The vast majority of people will still pay their own health insurance or their employer will. Medicaid would only be available to those earning less than $30,000 (rough figure based on 4 person family). Yet still, Republicans get away with scaremongering; claiming that Obama is "socializing" healthcare.
I have two rebuttals:
(a) Compared to Public Health Insurance models, he really, really isn't.
(b) If there was one thing in the world to socialize; it's healthcare! You generally don't have an option about getting sick; and you can't say that this person or whatever "deserved" to get sick due to their lifestyle alone and therefore deserves to pay for it. Not only that but health is the most important thing to get right for people for without that they would be unable to access any of the freedoms they enjoy by living in the US.

I am confounded that the American people would vote again for the Republicans, who royally messed up their time in power in the last decade. This blow and the presumably heavy losses that the Democrats will endure in House elections in November will yet again freeze all hope of progress on this and the issue of social security. Huzzah for democracy, indeed.

Yerrah, Fuck it

At the start of this year, I made several promises to myself. I wouldn't exactly term them resolutions as it seemed more of philosophical change in my approach to life than anything else. I would do my best to be optimistic, to take some risks, and in general stop waiting for interesting things to happen and instead to go and make them happen.

So far, it seems to be working. The last 2.53 weeks (I like being precise) have been very interesting indeed. Nothing has changed in my situation in that time, but things just seem a whole lot better. Even the plans and plots and schemes that didn't work out have given me a renewed sense of optimism. This isn't the sort of fake optimism I was forcing upon myself earlier, but genuine optimism that life is getting good again.

The one thing that has contributed a lot to this change has been me changing the way I approach decisions. I'm a thinker and many times in my personal life I over think things. I'm trying to replace that with a balance of thinking for a while and then going "Yerrah, fuck it" and just doing whatever feels right. Despite being male, I seem to have developed a pretty good intuition for all sorts of things. While I haven't done detailed statistical analysis on it (yet), I do think that when I follow my gut instinct, even if things don't work out the way I like, I'll feel much better as a result. There are so many times in my past where I wish now I could go back and give my past self a giant kick in the behind and just say "Go for it. Like, do you really have that much to lose?"

This is so much more true in love, where even though there can be pain and humiliation, that is only temporary and can usually be solved by a good night(s) out with friends. The pay-offs though are huge when it goes right. Therefore, in gambling parlance, taking those risks are a good bet as you have positive expectation. You may get burned, but the good more than makes up for it. This is essentially a fancy way of saying "Tis better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all". Crucially, it is expressed in mathematical terminology and so is better.

So the next time you are faced with a tough decision that seems to have no logical resolution, just say the magic words "Yerrah, fuck it" and go with you gut. You'll be happier for it.

P.S. I couldn't exactly find a suitable image to express these abstract ideas. Sorry.