Gerry Lynch

Ryanair Takeover of Aer Lingus Blocked by EU Commission

by

The European Commission has blocked Ryanair’s proposed takeover of Aer Lingus. Good news for Northern Ireland, as Dublin Airport’s rapid growth and improved northern road connections has made it the key long-haul transport hub for the region. Although locally in Belfast, Easyjet, Flybe and BMI remain stronger, a merger of the two main Irish airlines into … Read more

Italy’s Five Star Movement – is this what The End of History looks like?

by

Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole and Lucid Talk…

In 1992, Francis Fukayama predicted in The End of History that the end of the Cold War would impend not only an era of triumphant liberal-democratic capitalism, but one where political evolution had reached its final form. Western democracy, he argued, was the best form of state organisation practically achievable by humans.

The folly of such naïve Western triumphalism, already being challenged by China’s authoritarian wave of economic growth when Fukayama wrote his book, was laid bare by Mohamed Atta and his accomplices on September 11th 2001, before finally being buried by America’s failure to create new orders in Iraq and Afghanistan. But within Western societies, it could be argued to have some grain of truth.

The class-driven politics of the greater part of the 20th Century is dead in nearly every established democracy. The model of working-class left and bourgeois centre-right was in trouble long before the implosion of the Soviet empire. Technological changes and, arguably, the success of European-style welfare states in expanding the middle-class rendered its logic outdated.

Read more

Evangelical Alliance’s ‘Welcome’ to Gay Couples – Home-Wrecking, Faith-Destroying

by

Cross-posted to 8aNoWay.com…

Christian conservatives are always at pains to point out how ‘welcome’ people in same-sex relationships are in their churches. But how what do they mean by ‘welcome’ – does their understanding of that word match what the rest of us might mean by it?

The Evangelical Alliance in the UK has recently published a document entitled Resources for church leaders: Biblical and pastoral responses to homosexuality (commendably published free online), which helps us explore what is meant by welcome in that theological context.

At the heart of the document are nine fictional case studies of LGB people attending evangelical churches. Let’s explore the sort of experience that the people in one of the fictional case studies, Oliver and William, whose story is briefly detailed, might experience in a fictional Evangelical Anglican parish, which I’ll call St. Paul’s, acting in compliance with the guidance contained in the document. All I have done here is follow one of the case studies through the guidance contained in the document – all quotes below come directly from it.

Read more

Wealth and Poverty In Brazil

by

Income inequality in Brazil – a favela nestles against a luxury high rise development. Thanks to @fascinatingpics on Twitter. Favelas of Brazil. The boundary between wealth and poverty. Perspective. twitter.com/Fascinatingpic… — Fascinating Pictures (@Fascinatingpics) February 20, 2013

Southern Poverty Pimps?

by

Buried in this Salon article provocatively entitled ‘Southern Poverty Pimps’ is an interesting indirect observation that promoting tax credits as opposed to a higher minimum wage amounts to an effective subsidy of employers who pay their staff badly by employers who pay their staff well. This raises wider questions – would the UK be better … Read more

The Sad State of North Belfast’s Riverside…

by

Crossposted at Slugger O’Toole…

The Harbour Commissioners with Sinclair Seamen's Church in the background - two of Sailortown's little visited gems.
The Harbour Commissioners with Sinclair Seamen’s Church in the background – two of Sailortown’s little visited gems.

A bright, cold, day earlier this week saw me head out for a constitutional along what is now rather a pleasant route along the banks of the Lagan past the Odyssey and up to the Titanic Museum. With the hazy afternoon sun making the East Belfast bank of the river look particularly pretty, and the tourist information signs informing me of the Belfast Maritime Trail, I changed my mind and instead turned left at the Lagan Weir and decided to walk to Sailortown and then on for home.

By chance, the next day I had the opportunity to do the same walk a second time in cloudier and colder conditions, when an American academic friend who has visited Belfast regularly for some years told me he had never been in the New Lodge or Tiger’s Bay. A perfect opportunity for a bit of maritime heritage trailing plus an introduction to North Belfast.

My friend lives in Detroit. The urban DMZ feel at Donegall Quay made him feel right at home.
My friend lives in Detroit. The urban DMZ look at Donegall Quay made him feel right at home.

If one is a maritime history buff or a fan of 19th Century architecture, there is enough of interest to make the walk worthwile, but sadly right-of-access issues mean the walking route regularly departs from the river and at times is downright ugly. As I said, there is enough that it still might appeal to tourists with a particular interest in Victorian North British architecture or maritime history, or locals interested in a part of Belfast that was key to its development as a major industrial port, but this walk must be staggeringly off-putting to any run of the mill tourist.

Read more

Steven Agnew cleans Arlene Foster’s clock on gay marriage…

by

Well done to Green Party MLA Steven Agnew for setting DUP Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster straight that civil partnerships are NOT equal to marriage and that all religious symbolism or language in civil partnership ceremonies in the UK is banned – by civil law. The scary thing, Arlene is about as gay-friendly gets in the … Read more

Which Angel do you prefer?

by

Walking around Sailortown today, I noticed the Flying Angel statue outside the Mission to Seafarers was just about to fall into complete shadow given the tall houses recently recently built directly opposite it on Pilot Street. This isn’t something I pay a lot of attention to, mainly because I pass it too regularly. The last of some glorious late afternoon sun was just catching parts of the statue. From one particular angle, the angel’s right hand seemed to be aflame, a nice visual metaphor of an angel burning with the power to assist.

I took out my phone camera (HTC One X) which isn’t bad but isn’t all that good and grabbed a few shots, one close in, one further back, one from a completely different angle which lost the glowing hand effect but got some of the immediate skyline including the (sadly disused) Franciscan Church of St. Joseph’s just down the street. I wonder which capture people prefer?

Up close and personal? Is the context too limited? Does the daytime moon just become distracting wthout being big enough to be interesting?
Up close and personal? Is the context too limited? Does the Mission’s cross just look like a stray piece of scaffolding or an aerial mast? Does the daytime moon just become distracting wthout being big enough to be interesting? I love the way the flaming hand stretches right out at you, though.

Read more

3830 Write-Up for the ARRL DX CW Contest 2013 – G6PZ (GI0RTN Op) SOABHP

by

ImageAnother great weekend of high pace, high power, modern contesting at G6PZ, this particular event being very much a game of two halves.

The first 24 hours were marked by a relatively quiet ionosphere, returning to normality from a late week disturbance, and consequently relatively low energy levels in the ionosphere. That made for spectacular conditions on 80 and 160 on the first night, while 40 remained fair-to-middling, at least from England. The MUF seemed to sort of hover around the 7 MHz mark on the transatlantic path, with sudden rushes of callers from particular regions as the F layer aligned just right – here a burst of W9s, there a bunch of Texans – but even the New England stations were weak at times. N7GP called in to give me Arizona on 160 at 0316 – I’m pretty sure the first time we’ve done that from G6PZ in ARRL CW. The 80 metre four square works great as a receive antenna on 160 when we’re in single op configuration, but top band receive remains a problem on this small plot of land when we’re operating multi-single.

Read more