Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

The Nally case

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

Suzy gives her thoughts on the Nally case and predicted there would be a lot of talk in the ‘sphere about this but it doesn’t seem to have happened yet. She also points to the ever hilarious rantings of United Irelander to be the opposite of what she believes. UI wants the man freed, yet Nally himself said he deserves jailtime.

After reading Suzy’s link to the Vincent Browne piece in the Business Post I was of the view that the man was definitely guilty of manslaughter and possibly murder. Vincent seems to suggest the victim was executed with the killing shot, a shot to the head. However there seems to be conflicting reports whether the second shot was to the head or shot him in the left arm and went through it and into his chest and lungs.

If you read UI as the counter to Browne then you will probably side with Suzy since it seems UI’s argument is the same as some of the loony liberals UI hates would post about on Indymedia. Suzy, pick a better person who disagrees with your view, you’re being lazy and going for easy kills. (This is the point in the post where UI decides he needs to make a rebuttal. Can you hear the mouse go clicky clicky?)

However my view softened when I heard an interview with Nally that was replayed on the Last Word tonight. He lives very close to where those two brothers were sexually assaulted and beaten last year and one died in hospital later from the beating. This was where the girl sliced the guys penis off too if I recall. They were travellers too that did it. And yes it does matter as all but the most openminded folks generalise, it is what humans do to prevent information overload.

An interesting fact was that Nally said he was guilty and he should do time. When he was reloading the gun he was of the firm belief that the other guy who had fled in the car was getting the rest of the clan to come back and kill him. It wasn’t about teaching a lesson to them, it was about the fact that he struck out at robbers on his land and then realised they could kill him or do worse before they killed him, like what happened to his neighbours. It was about he was an old man, he was alone, all he had left were his possessions and some of them were taken already. The state of feeling so weak and powerlessness can make one do irrational things. Thieves were on his land and threatening his world.

Seems to me he believed he was fighting for his life. If you believed that you could be sexually assaulted and murdered in a horrific way, what would you do? Me? I’d use force, I’d use every means to preserve my life. At the same time, there is a cost for destroying life, no matter who’s it is, if we respect our own life so much then we need to pay the price when we take another’s. I think the sentence the man got was fair.

Nally was asked did he speak to the victims family and he said no. He was asked if he did what would he say and strangely he said that they should cop on and start behaving and acting responsibly. I fear that Nally was just in the wrong place at the wrong time but that his case is just a convenient way to polarise people. Bigots love this kind of stuff to push their own agenda and their barely concealed hatred. A rally in Mayo will not be productive. People in Mayo should be reflecting on their community and what could have been done to prevent something like this. Look after your old people, tell your neighbours to check in with you, make sure everyone is safe, communicate with the Gardai more and as Nally said, some need to cop on.

Dáil does RSS – Encourage them to do even more

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

Via Where’s Me Country? is news that the Dáil is doing RSS feeds. They want feedback on it. I’d urge people to give as much constructive feedback as possible. This is the kind of initiative that needs to be encouraged. It makes democracy more assessible and we can do some clever things with RSS feeds.

Irish Slut – Number 1 on Google

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

So it seems if you do a Google for Irish Slut this site appears first. Oh my. Oh my oh my.

There they are – Digital Rights Ireland steps into the light

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

A while back I asked where was our EFF after once again listening to a biased, one-sided and truth bending interview with the folks from IRMA, who blamed all the woes of the record industry on piracy and those evil terrorist funding music downloaders. Today at 1715 on the Today FM’s Last Word a representative from Digital Rights Ireland is going to bring some balance to this argument. Tune in here.

This is no-doubt going to be the first of many times when balance is brought into media interviews about online civil rights.

Neil Gaiman signing in Dundalk tomorrow + Rattlebag details

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

Straight from the blog of the Dream King.

At 1.00pm (16/Nov/05) I’m signing in Hughes and Hughes bookshop, Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk.

Also he is recording his interview for Rattlebag tonight. The show will be broadcast on Thursday 17th November at 2.45pm. (GMT) You should be able to access the RealAudio of the Neil Gaiman Rattlebag interview here after the show airs. The link will be dead until then.

This is customer care – Will they do it in Ireland?

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

James points to the Typepad folks compensation for downtime when they moved/upgraded their servers. They allow you the customer to choose from a multiple-choice list of compensation types. That’s brilliantly done. It respects and trusts their customers. Oh oh and buzzword: empowers them.

Irish Times does a Forbes

Monday, November 14th, 2005

Via Gavin and Slugger is news that the Irish Times has another hostile piece on blogs. Doing a Forbes Irish style I guess we could call it. Slugger really decontructed the piece and showed what a badly researched and monstrously biased piece it was.

Just like Forbes we have the same emotive words to describe bloggers:

Anybody, anywhere with access to a computer can blog – you can use your blog for a personal attack, to preach racial hatred or merely to solve the world’s problems.

Well done the Irish Times. And I was considering giving yearly subscriptions to the Irish Times website to the Irish Blog Awards winners.

Google Analytics – Really fancy stats for your site

Monday, November 14th, 2005

Google Analytics released. You need an Adwords account. I don’t do ads on my site so not sure will I sign up. It’s very clever of Google, in a way – release really good stats packages that you can use and that they can use to monitor traffic and click-through rates. I’m sure it might actually encourage me too to put ads on my site if I think they could make me some money and Google of course would reap the rewards too.

What is quite interesting too is the use of additional colour (orange) on the Google Analytics webpage. To me this is a first, but maybe I never used AdWords before so I didn’t notice this.

Threadless T-Shirt Sale on Monday

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

T-Shirts reduced to $10.

Sunday the 13th links

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

Via the Irish Art Blog is news that Liverpool Registry office is removing heteronormative* art from their walls so as not to offend gays. Fucks sake. Bit overboard if you ask me.

The city, which has over recent years become one of the most gay friendly in Britain, is removing two paintings because they are too associated with straight marriage. One is of a young bride signing the register and the other is of Romeo and Juliet on a swing.

* always wanted to use that silly word.

Chile Presidential Candidates answer questions from blog readers. Another way of conversing with the public. Will we see the parties using blogs before the next election? and using them to actually converse with people and not talk at people without listening, as is the current case.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart). This makes me sad for a few reasons.

Torrent of Sigur Ros on Jools Holland playing hoppípolla and með blóðnasir. Saw them live in the Olympia on Friday night. Sinéad has a review here. Additionally read what memories are swirled up when she listens to them.

Store Pandora streams to your hd.

Girl from tomorrow type bracelet. ‘Embrace “interactive braceletâ€? concept includes LCD display, Bluetooth, camera.’

Ferrari Joyride around Paris.

Table with conveyor belt to get rid of the crap on it.

10 most powerful women in the blogosphere. We need more women in the Irish bloggersphere. We need more non techies too.

Adds to my Christmas wishlist.