2011 has been a very interesting year for the southern Irish party political left.
The general election in February brought the largest number of left wing deputies into the Oireachtas in its 90-year history. Sixty-three TDs were elected on a variety of social democratic, left republican, revolutionary socialist and independent left platforms.
The combined left vote broke [...]

In a year of revolution, causes have been easier to identify than consequences.
In 1989, following the end of the Cold War, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote in The End of History? of the “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism”, marking “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal [...]

The French and British authorities are engaged in a war of words over which country will be first to be downgraded by the credit ratings agencies. At least the hostilities are purely verbal - these ‘heroes’ of Tripoli are prepared to use other methods when the odds are overwhelmingly in their favour.
The immediate cause of [...]

Commodity prices are a particularly sensitive indicator for the world economy due to their strong and pro-cyclical price fluctuations. These in turn are linked to supply inelasticities - the obstacles to and pronounced time delays in changing the supply of many commodities.
Agricultural commodities frequently require a minimum of a year to increase output due to [...]

NamaWineLake has an excellent post on the relatively simple point that if the Kenny Report (first published in 1974) was implemented tomorrow the government could save the money that it expects to raise from the Household charge. Although capital programs have been cut back they are still acquiring land in order to build roads etc. [...]

Films of the Year Archive
After a disappointing year in 2010, this year was considerably better at the movies. There were a number of big disappointments (I’m thinking mainly of Terrence Malick, Lynne Ramsay, Gus Van Sant, Steve McQueen and the Coen brothers) and some recently flourishing national cinemas (Taiwan and Germany in particular) were absent [...]

Baby Jesus, mild and meek
Grant us all an outlook bleak
Guarantee a life austere
Misery throughout the year

Baby Jesus, barely born
Look upon a world forlorn
Billions facing daily strife
Promise them an afterlife

Through your death upon the cross
Exalt obedience to the boss
Put their suffering into perspective
Serve as an ideological corrective

Baby Jesus, it’s an emergency
Banish the people’s thoughts of insurgency
Justify [...]