Thursday, August 28, 2008

Morning Vocals

A colleaque of mine is currently humming this in work. I forgot how much I loved the song.





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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I am alive.

Hiking and exploring might be considered adven...Image via Wikipedia I am alive. I am just busy with the thesis and work. In the meantime, please hold and an operator will be with you shortly. I also figured this image is quite apt considering the current state of my sanity. :-)




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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Judicial Diversity: Strategies for Change

Judicial Diversity: Strategies for Change
Evening Seminar
Keynote Speaker: Baroness Usha Prashar CBE, Chairman, Judicial Appointments Commission, United Kingdom
6 – 8pm, Thursday, 18 September 2008
Venue: The Atrium, Law Library, Distillery Building, Church Street, Dublin 7
Organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL)
and the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University College Cork (UCC)
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Judicial Diversity: Strategies for Change The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights at University College Cork and are organising an evening seminar on judicial diversity. The purpose of the event is to open up a discussion about the possibilities of achieving greater judicial diversity in Ireland. This seminar is aimed at members of the judiciary, practitioners, parliamentarians, policy makers, academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), students and anyone interested in judicial diversity. The event is scheduled to take place from 6-8pm on Thursday, 18 September 2008 in the Atrium, the Law Library, Distillery Building, Church Street, Dublin 7. Baroness Usha Prahsar CBE, Chair of the United Kingdom’s Judicial Appointments Commission is the keynote speaker for this event. Other speakers include: Professor Kate Malleson, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London and Dermot Feenan, School of Law, University of Ulster If you are interested in attending this event please RSVP to Joanne Garvey, ICCL Administrator by 5pm on Monday, 15 September 2008, Tel: (01) 799 4504 or Email:
info@iccl.ie The Speakers Baroness Usha Prashar CBE is Chairman of the United Kingdom’s Judicial Appointments Commission, a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a non-executive Director of ITV, Trustee of Cumberland Lodge, non-executive Director of the Cabinet Office, a Governor of Ashridge College, President of the Community Foundation Network, President of UK Council for International Student Affairs and a Patron, The Runnymede Trust. Her previous posts include First Civil Service Commissioner, Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Chancellor of De Montfort University, Executive Chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales, Director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Chairman of the National Literacy Trust and Director of the Runnymede Trust. She sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher.Professor Kate Malleson joined the Queens Mary School of Law in 2005. Before coming to QM she taught at the London School of Economics. Her main research interests are the judiciary, the legal system and the constitution. She is currently working with colleagues at UCL on a three-year AHRC funded project on the selection process of the international judiciary. The project will identify and analyse the criteria and procedures by which judges are nominated and elected to the international courts.She has a particular interest in the current constitutional reforms in the UK and acted as a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Select Committee assisting it in its review of the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Bill. She also gave oral evidence to the House of Lords select committee on the Bill and last year was asked by the House of Lords Constitution Committee to provide a written report on the effect of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 on the relationship between the judiciary, Parliament and the executive. In 2006-7 she chaired a JUSTICE committee on ‘A Bill of Rights for Britain’ which reviewed the problematic legal and political issues involved in assessing whether or not there is a case for creating a specific British bill of rights.Dermot Feenan is a Lecturer in the Law School, University of Ulster. He was Co-chair of the International Research Collaborative on Gender and Judging, 2006-2007, set up under the auspices of the Law and Society Association, which hosted sessions at the Society’s Annual Meeting in Baltimore, 2006, and its joint meeting in Berlin 2007 with several other socio-legal associations worldwide. He has held visiting positions at a number of universities, including: Cornell, Keele, Melbourne, Monash, Oxford, and Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently completing a paper for publication on the topic of women’s experiences as judges, as revealed in his research on Northern Ireland and as reported in the literature, in order to enhance knowledge and understanding of law, legal authority and diversity. He is also designing a research project on women judges’ experiences in three common-law countries, which will lead to further publication.

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Thursday, August 7, 2008

UCD Library and Plugoo Chat

A screenshot showing the Google Talk, Labs Edi...Image via Wikipedia
You may notice that there is a new plugin below called "Plugoo Chat". So what does this extra Plugin do, apart from take from your bandwidth you might say. Well Plugoo is effectively a chat client that is webbased. However it is web-based in that it is linked to your preferred IM client, in my case GTalk. So when I am logged into GTalk, I am also logged into Plugoo on this blog and persons/visitors can chat with me online about bits and pieces about the blog in real time. Pretty Neat huh?!

I cannot however claim full credit for finding out this software. Here is the strange/good part. UCD Library used Plugoo on its main page as a method of having a real-time online conversation with the Enquiries desk. It is a fantastic way of interacting, an otherwise boring run of the mill type website. As their Speil goes "UCD Library Instant Messaging Service: a pilot chat service is being offered by the Reader Services Department of UCD Library. Queries about library admission, borrowing, general reference and information etc... are welcome". UCD Library also have a SecondLIFE library in 2ndLife, as well as Facebook, (See here for the SiliconRepublic article on UCD's FB), RSS for updates to the Main site such as opening hours etc. There is also individual RSS Feeds for different themes and different disciplines which are kept relatively up to date. All it is missing is an interactive Twitter account and it would be just the Cherry on the Icing.

This is part of a trial which UCD Library has been undergoing in the last year trying different ways of interacting with students and potential users of the Library's services. Will be interesting to see what happens after the trial runs out. I do like the Plugoo chat feature on the main site and I have used it in the past for locating things. The staff are relatively on the ball all of the time on the Chat side of things which ensures it is not just an empty interactive Service.

Visit: UCD Library

Visit UCD Library 2.0

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We Got Fluffied

Clouds above Pacific. The picture also shows a...Image via WikipediaWell the weather was shite outside, however the spike in traffic was noticed. Hence we Got Fluffed......w00t






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Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Some Dáil Speils

Ok so we had Seanad transcripts yesterday. Today it is the Dáil's turn:

Mr. J. O’Keeffe: On a point of order, is a copy
of the Minister’s script available?
Mr. McDowell: It is coming.
Mr. J. O’Keeffe: I would like to make some
comments on it in my contribution.
Mr. McDowell: It is coming.
Mr. J. O’Keeffe: So is Christmas.

Dáil Éireann, 20th February 2007.


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Monday, August 4, 2008

More Seanad Transcripts

I love Mary O'Rourke. :-) Who cares if she is from Westmeath, She is just Fablis.

Ms O’Rourke: I too wish to join in the praise to Senator Norris for his courage which he has displayed in spades for many years in the way he has addressed issues. Before speaking on the Bill I thank the Senator for bringing it before the House where we had an acrimonious mini debate this morning in which, across the House, various insults were heard.
Mr. Dardis: Never.

Mr. Coghlan: Not by all of us.

Ms O’Rourke: Yes. We sound like a bad opera, “oh no, oh yes”. He is behind one or in front of one or whatever.

Mr. Dardis: Did the Senator say “pantomime”?

Ms O’Rourke: I did not, I said a bad opera.

Mr. Coghlan: Singing as well.

Ms O’Rourke: No, we are not singing. I wish to echo something the Minister said, namely that it was never the Government’s wish to vote down the Bill. I was involved for weeks in seeking to bring about some agreement. Senator Norris will be aware of that.

Seanad Éireann, 16th February 2005


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Seanad Éireann transcripts

Well I am doing the Analysis of the Civil Partnerships Bill transcripts from 2004 in the Seanad. As Usual there are some gems in the convos which the transcripers have collated.
"Mr Quinn: I thank Senator Norris for initiating this debate. It is valuable and has opened my eyes to many questions and challenges I had not thought of previously. It is not over, it will go on. There is a little bit of Latin I love to drop in and it is seldom I have a chance to do so —obesa non iam contava, the fat lady has not sung yet.
Dr. Henry: I hope the Senator was not talking about me.
Mr. Norris: I think it may have been me."

Seanad Éireann, 16th February 2005




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