Logan, Cold & 17K
Hehe, thanks to the Eurosong contest in Belgium, nostalgia, a memorable tune and perhaps a little devilment on the part of blogorrah.com, Johnny Logan and Kaye Styles have entered the Irish charts at number 25! The song has not appeared in Germany as far as I know.
The weather here has been surprisingly warm - one of the warmest Octobers on record I hear and its been very dry but today it has taken a dramatic turn in the wet direction and Thu will bring the first really cold spell - down to -2!
I went running again - on the 21st I did the 10K again but yesterday I dug up the courage to go the full 17K! Conditions were lovely and I had the thought of Kaffee & Kuchen (coffee and cake) to urge me on when the going got tough. This is an approx guess of the route - the nicest bit being when we run north on a bank overlooking the Wannesee.
Time: 1:30 approx - we run for 2k to warm up and then do some streching etc.
Regarding politics, I’m disappointed that lack of integrity is being seemingly rewarded - just look at this weekend’s poll. If we compare this to Sweden where 2 ministers had to leave office as soon as it was discovered that the did not pay their TV license and one of them paid a maid/cleaner in cash. see “Swedish minister resigns over TV licence fee”
October 31st, 2006 at 3:30 pm
hey well done on the running? 17k excellent stuff, you’ll be doing the marathon in no time. Did you change service provider as my rss reader was not picking up your new messages and didn’t realise you were writing!
I don’t agree that people are rewarding the lack of integrity of certain politicians; personally, I think they disappointed with the poorness of the opposition, and at times, the hypocracy of the opposition. Richard Bruton, for example on Today Tonight, cried foul of the actions of Bertie Ahern for breaking “integrel” laws, but yet agreed with the Irish Times in publishing confidential documents of a tribunal, which effectively undermined the tribunal’s work and thus undermined a democratically created body. Hmm, yes, actually I can see that the lack of integrity is being rewarded :-p
October 31st, 2006 at 3:51 pm
i’m in a transitional period at the moment - the old provider still has the domain and requires paperwork to close it but when the domain moves, the rss feed will work again.
There is a blurring of what is right and what is lawful.
Bertie Ahern did something that he claims was lawful and which has now been legislated against even though he still doesn’t admit to being wrong (he just apologised for the fuss)
Be very careful about the law - the paper published information which it received. I’m not sure of the law, but it may be the person who leaked the information rather than the paper who committed the crime.
By refusing the reveal the source of the information, the paper may be guilty of obstructing the tribunal.
One or both cases may be rejected on the basis that it was in the public interest etc - the court will have to decide that and we are a long way from a decision yet.
Finally - even if they are found guilty, should we not have a press that can report freely and fairly on matters of legitimate public interest. Integrity goes beyond what is written in law.
It was FG/Lab who introduced Freedom of Information remember
October 31st, 2006 at 4:46 pm
The paper published information that it knew was confidential information belonging to a tribunal. Is that fair to the person who gave the information in the first place? Is that fair to the tribunal processing the information? Is that fair to the Irish people who elected the representatives who initiated the tribunal? It seems like a two finger salute to the Irish people to me, but hey who cares about our justice system, it’s apparently in the public interest.
Legitimate public interest is a lovely term being bandied around at the moment. Where is this phrase defined and who decides when something is in the public interest and when it is legitimate? Is it legitimate to interfere with the workings of a tribunal and effectively to make it impossible for anyone else to trust that tribunal?
The paper did have a choice, they could have waited for the tribunal to process the information accordingly, but no, obviously the vague notion of legitimate public interest is more important than our justice process, which seems to be what Fine Gael believe also. This to me is a complete disgrace and utterly defies the integrity of our constitution. Regardless of the integrity or lack of it of certain people, surely they deserve the same treatment as anyone else under our constitution?
October 31st, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I presume Richard Bruton was expressing a personal opinion and not stating official party policy - was it Questions and Answers or Prime Time (not Today Tonight)? I’d like to hear exactly what was said and in what context. For example, I am not comfortable with the Tribunal being undermined but I do believe that they do have grounds to defend their actions.
The court ultimately decides if it was fair and legal to publish the information and I await the decision with great interest.
Definitions are never absolute (incl. definitions of light, time and the universe) but how about this:
“matters are defined by the Press Complaints Commission as being in the public interest (and therefore an exception to the prohibitions of the PCC’s Code) if they are a matter of i) detecting or exposing crime or a serious misdemeanour ii) protecting public health and safety iii) preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of an individual or organization.”
from http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/media/efterms.html
October 31st, 2006 at 8:07 pm
It was a clip from Questions and Answers. Had a quick review of it and you are right , he did say it was his personal opinion.
Unfortunately, regardless of the court decision, I think that the integrity of the tribunal is badly damaged. If the paper had waited until the module dealing with the Taoiseach was reported on, then they could publish the story accordingly within the interest of the public and the interest of knowing whether the tribunal reported this matter or not. But now anyone else may be slightly reluctant to give any information to a tribunal. Though sadly, this doesn’t appear to be a problem to those rowing behind Geraldine Kennedy and co.
October 31st, 2006 at 9:32 pm
I admit that the reputation of this tribunal has been tarnished sooner rather than later but it is the tribunal that is responsible for keeping documents private and it must take appropriate steps to do so. Prosecuting the press is not the best solution!
The timing of the leak was motivated by someone seeking to damage the Taoiseach apparently ( and we can pretty well rule out FG & Lab )
But the timing of the paper is irrelevant for 2 reasons. Firstly, the date a when leak is published does not affect the integrity of the system of tribunals. Secondly, the issue was not in the terms of reference of the tribunal and it was almost certainly not going to be published.
As mentioned in the program - if we hadn’t found out about Lowry, he could be Taoiseach now and is that what you want to happen? Could any editor allow the people vote for a Taoiseach & government without such mportant information?
PS Note that even if every newspaper was prosecuted, it would be possible to spread the leak via blogs, websites, email, word of mouth, text, bebo, posters etc. etc. etc.