This page provides links with some commentary to the best articles from around the web. Think of it as an ILR blog. It’s a good way to record some of the best progressive commentary on events of the day as well as providing a resource for future articles. Comments are always welcome.
Ireland bends over backwards to install new IKEA flat-pack furniture store. Clamour for generic Swedish furniture products only slightly smaller than the frenzy amoung the unemployed for entry level positions.
The media hype surrounding the venture was extraordinary. Dublin was plastered with billboards, but IKEA got more than its fair share of free publicity too. Even Dublin Bus took out ads to explain that the number 13 would now be terminating at IKEA. This wasn’t the first bit of asssistance from a public body: the planning board changed its rules for the Ballymun store, which is six times larger than any other retailer in the country.
The tough economic times may even have helped: when IKEA advertised for 280 entry-level positions at €9.40 an hour, they received 4000 applications.
Gavin Sheridan has posted the first selection of documents that he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act relating to then Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O’Donoghue’s trip to India with his wife and private secretary.
These are the same documents that Ken Foxe of the Sunday Tribune obtained to write his article which first broke the story of O’Donoghue’s exorbitant expenses.
Jamie of Blood and Treasure has a link to a story about China’s unofficial black Jails where petitioners are held illegally:
As explained here and elsewhere before China still has a petitioning system, whereby people with grievances against local and provincial authorities are permitted to go to Beijing and lobby with the relevant ministries. In response, local authorities have set up offices in Beijing whose job is to intercept petitioners and detain them illegally in unofficial black jails, where they are maltreated in various ways until they agree to return home.
The link above goes to an account by Xu Zhiyong of his attempts last year to investigate a Beijing black jail, an attempt that nearly got him badly beaten up at the time. In late July Xu was arrested for “tax evasion” and has not been heard from since.
Black Jails have no legal status in China, but the fact that so many of them exist and have been able to continue operations for years right under the nose of the central government indicates that they are officially tolerated.
Ian O’Donnell, Professor of Criminology at UCD is responding to the Irish Prison Services report which among other things points to the increasing numbers of those who have been imprisoned for non-payment of court ordered fines. Although the amount of time these people spend in prison is short its still an offence that should be dealt with in the community. Fine defaulters are often recidivist offenders, so avoiding imprisonment in the first place would be cheaper and put less pressure on the prison services. It’s a point made by the Irish Penal Reform Trust too, who go on to highlight two other critical issues in the IPS report: the increased use of mandatory and presumptive sentencing and the increase of 54% in short-term sentences.
IPRT and O’Donnell agree, alternatives to custody must be found. But how?
O’Donnell has a practical suggestion:
The White Paper on crime being drafted by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform provides an opportunity to set out how to overcome obstacles to implementing recommendations on these issues. This task takes on added urgency at a time when public spending is under unprecedented pressure. In this context I have one suggestion to make. This is to take four old prison places out of commission for every three new ones constructed. This would establish a firm link between new buildings and an overall policy of minimising the use of custody.
Whelan makes the point that while its argued that Carroll may be the most over endebted (and therefore the rest of the developer loans taken over by NAMA might be better shape) the opposite is more likely the case. Most of Carroll’s half developed projects are based in Dublin where there is a reasonable chance they will be completed and will be marketable. While about those developers who are trying to develop properties in fields in Mullingar.
But ultimately the case shows the too close relationship between the banks, developers and the government - how they do they are working together to survive in the short term.
The Carroll case revealed the latest, and most disturbing, aspects of the unholy banker-developer alliance. Justice Peter Kelly concluded that the survival plan put forward by the Carroll group was “fanciful” and “lacking in reality” and he was supported in this assessment by the Supreme Court.
However, despite the reality that Carroll’s business simply could not be saved, all the Irish banks involved, apart from ACC, actively supported this survival plan, allowing Carroll to continue rolling up interest and also taking the highly unusual step of providing the funds to pay off unsecured trade creditors.
According to the Truth O-Meter Sarah Palin said this in a note posted on her Facebook page.
“As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!
…..And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Of course it is. Fortunately, T O-M searched through the plan and found that none of this was true.
“Lou Dobbs is a strange man. One day he’s railing against “Obamacare,” stoking the birther and deather paranoia that an illegitimate president’s health care plan will mandate euthanasia. Next day he’s practically singing the praises of single-payer healthcare systems ’round the world.
It’s kind of French of him, but last week, CNN’s government-out-of-my-face bloviator began a monthlong, nation-a-night series to “learn from other countries’ health care plans.” He’s already toured the single-payer systems of Denmark, Canada, and England, and the heavily regulated, public/private plans of Germany, France, Holland, and Switzerland. And, as if he were channeling Michael Moore or something, he’s been rattling off stats showing that most of these universally covered foreigners are spending less on healthcare but living longer than we do.”
For African Americans – and to a large extent, Latinos – the recession is over. It occurred between 2000 and 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During the seven-year long black recession, one third of black children lived in poverty and black unemployment—even among college graduates– consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment. That was the black recession. What’s happening now is a depression.
Return of the Big Bonus on Wall Street: "A guaranteed bonus might strike many people as a contradiction in terms. But on Wall Street, banks have become so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders that they are reviving the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payouts — guaranteed, no matter how an employee performs."
In Bellmullet court on Thursday, five Shell to Sea protesters were up for hearings on charges ranging from last August 2008 to this June 2009. Judge Anderson dismissed several charges on technical points but was very harsh in serving two of the campaigners with four and eight month prison sentences. Maura Harrington, a well known Shell to Sea campaigner and spokesperson who has already spent time in Mountjoy prison twice this year for acts of civil disobedience against Shell, was given a four month prison sentence for Section 8 public order charges (failure to obey the directions of a garda).
Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa has booked a £5m bonus for meeting synergy targets after cutting 2,800 jobs at the tour operator following its 2007 merger with MyTravel.
