Although it might not look like it now Brian Cowen has the chance to become a legend. On his own lunch box anyway, The EU is in crisis and not the crisis that is headlining today. But a crisis that has been building up for the last 15 years.

Eurobaramoter is the EU polling agency to find out what people think of the EU and one fact that comes from it. Is that people across Europe are gradually being to dislike the EU. Back in 1991 71% of people in the EU thought that EU membership was a good thing. Now it is 58%. Funnily enough Ireland has the third highest positive response to that question with 74% saying it is positive. (The Dutch and Luxembourgers are higher.)  Europe is slowly losing the people. The response to this seems to be belligerence.

In many ways peoples apathy and distance from Europe is the cause of peoples apathy and distance from Europe.  People in Europe don’t vote in general elections based on a parties European policy. They vote on domestic issues. Parties are given free rain to do what they want not what the people want to do in Europe. After the rejection of the EU constitution in France and Holland the Lisbon treat was created to avoid referendums.But how long can this apathy last. Could the European elections soon herald a boost for euro sceptics?

The EU is asking Brian Cowen why this happened and what to do about it. This offers a opportunity. There seems to be an attempt by many of the pro-EU people in the media to spin it as Irish people voting against Abortion. As if Abortion was the main issue in this campaign. The polling in the Irish Times tells us alot.

The largest 2 blocks of voting no were Not knowing what it was about, and the loss of power( add big countries have to much power to this list). Together they account for 62% of the No. That is almost 32% of the people who voted.  While spinning the vote as to do with Abortion helps reinforce some peoples opinion that only non-decent people vote to no to EU treaties.

It will be interesting to see if the rest of Europe pushes on with the EU treaty. While some are calling for the eviction of Ireland from the EU. Annegrethe Rasmussen in the Danish Information paper. (Translated with google translator) said

The Irish have now said no twice in the same decade to the EU treaty. It might be reasonable to ask them whether they would not choose a looser ties to the European Union such as. Norway or Switzerland.

Yes we the people have vote no to the last 2 treaties but we are the only nation to have voted on the last two treaties. 4 nations got to vote on the constitution Spain, Luxembourg, France and Holland. Did people call for France and Holland to be excluded from the EU? No of course not. So why is Ireland different? In many ways that question answers why Irish people voted no. The Irish feel vulnerable to being marginalised, seen ignorable by much of the rest of Europe the reaction of the Sarkozy and Merkel to plough on regardless even though the rejection by the French and the Dutch resulted in the stopping of the process.

But this gets away from my point and the making of Brian Cowen. The Lisbon Treaty is not the EU and the EU is not the Lisbon Treaty. A vote against the Lisbon Treaty is not a vote against the EU. Governments have worked hard on creating the Lisbon Treaty and rather then consider the idea of coming up with a treaty that could pass referendums in every country  they would rather drop Ireland. This is where Cowen can come in.

The leaders of Europe are going to ask him what can be done to solve this crisis and he can say “a better treaty” and propose foundations of Europe that can be supported by the people. We have discussed some alternatives before. Cowen could be the guy who creates a new better Europe. Whether or not they listen is of course another thing and whether or not Cowen can come up with something good remains to be seen. .

This one I didn’t want to post on until Lisbon was over with and today’s front page Business Post story gives me the perfect segue.

Sunday Business Post:

The Government is conducting a major spending review which is expected to lead to…capital projects being scaled back…Particular emphasis is being placed on capital spending in education and health, which accounts for large elements of government expenditure.

Noel Whelan (Irish Times, Last Saturday):

No consideration appears to have been given to whether the current, temporary difficulties in the public finances should be addressed by tax increases.

Incomes in Ireland are currently under-taxed. The fact that Irish workers are the lowest taxed in Europe was emphasised this week by Brendan Butler of Ibec, not in response to the publication of the exchequer returns but during the debate on the Lisbon Treaty

I never really know what to make of Noel Whelan, he is known to be very close to Fianna Fail and it is often tempting to read him on a Saturday as an extension of thinking which is quite close to the top of Fianna Fail. If that is the manner in which to read him then last Saturday was a quiet piece of political kite-flying, that favourite passtime of politicians or a solo-run-also a favourite.

Cowen himself has never talked of tax increases on wages, have never brought it about at budget but he did commit himself wholeheartedly to the National Development Plan which secured funding for capital spending in health and education as well as roads and infrastructure. Perhaps the government reckon that they can put up taxes in certain parts of the economy and finance the capital spend out of that. It would be very interesting to hear government make that argument to people, tell them the tax we pay does not finance the public services we want.

This is especially so in education and health where primary schools get 50% less per child than secondary and some of our universities are crumbling and our hospitals and health system where….well how long have you got? Tony Blair got people onside to invest in services in the UK after 20 years of Thatcherism, could or would Cowen do the same here? In very simple terms it is investing in our future for spending in these areas is not an indulgence if we do not want to get locked into a cycle of boom and bust, binge and purge, like the past.

My Virtua Fighter 5 review may be a bit late, but I've got an excuse: I actually had to play the game as it was meant to be played before reviewing it. And playing Virtua Fighter 5 in its whole depth and beauty takes time - much time ...<!--break-->

Is Virtua Fighter 5 really the best fighting game of its genre? What are its ups and downs, and why is its gameplay generally described as "terribly deep?" Find out all this and more in my in-depth mega review, exclusively on GamersGlobal.

At first it was just sort of quaint, how the media seemed to always give Obama a pass and never probed or asked him any hard questions, but many just attributed it to it being their "Honeymoon" with the black presidential candidate.

Then it became a bit more unnerving when all the media fawning and groveling of Obama got to the point where it even became the butt of the jokes on Saturday Night Live, a show that is far from being conservative in any respect.

Then it really got scary when even the SNL skits mocking the media bias in favor of Obama, which were very popular on YouTube, began to be pulled by ABC and YouTube from the Internet - the only place that I know of, on the web, where you still can see the full SNL skit, mocking groveling Jorge Ramos, of Univision, and his fawning, sniveling, fellow reporters at the CNN/ Univision Clinton/Obama debates, is at this site:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Saturday_Night_Live_CNN_has_crush_0224.html

Let's see how long it remains up, before the Obama "Kabal" has their minions at Google and AOL remove it as well, like the rest!

Then the media bias in favor of Obama became so shamelessly, and openly brazen "in the tank" for Obama, that CNN, MSNBC, and NBC could well be said to have become but propagandist "surrogates" of the Obama campaign, running nothing but 24/7 pro-Obama "infomercials for the Obama campaign in their newscasts!

Then any and all critique or disparaging of Obama, or his America-hating resented wife, has become so utterly socially "unacceptable" of late, that it's coming to the point where one has to wonder how long it will be before it becomes "simply" illegal to dissent, criticize, or question, in any way, the "Obamamessiah"!

Now it has gotten so ridiculously absurd, and Obama and his Obamamoonies have become so thin-skinned ultra-hypersensitive to the smallest criticism or the most insignificant slight of Obama's "Messianic Personage," that he has even created a web site to, quote: "fight the smears" after a reporter had the audacity (how dare he!) to ask Obama about his wife's alleged "Whitey" tape (something we all know she is very capable of having said, given her hatred of America, her animus against white people, and the huge racial chip she wears on her shoulders). Next thing you know, Obama and his "worshipers" will come out with "Fight the truth.com" as well!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/

Even the caustic Bill O'Reilly on Fox, known for his blunt acerbic treatment of his subjects, has been bending backwards so much to say only good and supportive things about Obama, that he seems to be doing the "Calypso" over at the Factor, and topped it all off last week, by devoting an entire segment to defending Michelle Obama and haranguing her conservative detractors by telling them she's "off limits" to their criticisms! Is this indicative of another Bill O'Reilly "Best Seller" book in the works: Instead of "In Defense of Women" by H.L. Mencken, maybe "In Defense of Michelle Obama" by H.L. Mendacious O'Reilly, perhaps?!?!

And now E.D. Hill and her show, "America's Pulse" has been removed from her time slot at Fox, because of something she said that the Obama camp and the Obamamoonies found offensive to their black, Marxist, "demigod" Obama! Can it be said that Miss Hill's "America's Pulse" raised the "pulse" and blood pressure of Obama and his sniveling minions and had them seeing red (their favorite flag color)? How ludicrous can it get?!?!

But what is even more sinister and foreboding is the way that Fox News and O'Reilly have buckled and stooped to Obama and his followers after the despicable George Soros "Media Matters" launched an all out campaign against Miss Hill and Fox News.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200806100009

Fox News, the only place where one used to "hear it as it is," and not the radical socialist propaganda spewed by the Marxist, terrorist-loving, secularist, "Liberal Mainstream Media." I wonder if Fox and O'Reilly see an Obama victory in November as inevitable, and thus are sucking up to the Obama camp to gain some "crumbs of favor" in their eyes! Don't make me laugh! It is sickening.

I would like to remind Fox News, Roger Ailes, and Bill O'Reilly, that their meteoric rise to prominence as the cable news network with the highest ratings in the nation is thanks to conservative viewers like me, and that this new strategy of "smooching" the hem of Obama's garment in obeisance, and of being so over-diligent in the politically correct acquiescence of the least Obama slight upon the smallest sign of a whimper from the Obama camp or Media Matters, could turn out to be very disastrous for Fox News and its ratings in the end!

I for one will stop watching Fox News, and will rely solely on proven reliable conservative Internet news sources for my news from now on, until Fox reverses its Obama-groveling decision to chastise and remove E.D. Hill for ruffling Obama's "dovish" terrorist-loving feathers! I urge other conservatives and admirers of Miss Hill to do the same, and therefore I call upon a Boycott of Fox News by all concerned conservatives.

Let's see how Fox's ratings will fare without its conservative audience, when pandering only to the far-left that hates them with a passion, and to the whining, cultist, deranged Obamamaniacs!

Let Fox News know we won't stand for any more sell-outs to this "Black Nationalist" "Marxist-in-sheep's- clothing" Obama, and that we will call "an apple an apple" and "an orange an orange," no matter how politically incorrect or "seditious" against the "Obamamessiah" it may be to his "Kool-Aid drinking" followers, or to the "Fifth Column" commie Marxist "Moles," and the Soros "Kabal" trying to "shoe him in" at all costs into the White House!

I already called Fox demanding they re-instate E.D. Hill, and have sent them several e-mails voicing my dismay and my displeasure. I urge others to do the same.

BOYCOTT FOX NEWS - BRING BACK E.D. HILL - SACK OBAMA INSTEAD!

Here is the Fox web site: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html

Here are the Fox News contacts:

Fox News toll free comments hotline: 1-888-369-4762 or you can e-mail your comments at:
yourcomments@foxnews.com

You can also write Fox at:

Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

To contact Bill O'Reilly: Oreilly@foxnews.com

To contact Brit Hume, General News Mgr at Fox News: brit.hume@foxnews.com or at: special@foxnews.com

To contact Mis Hill and offer her your support: americaspulse@foxnews.com

To contact Fox News Advertising (where it hurts them most):

FOX News Channel
Cable Advertising Group
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
(212) 301-3000

FOX Business Network
John McCann
Vice President, Sales
(212) 301-5009
john.mccann@foxnews.com

Intersting analysis over at Open Democracy about the reasons Lisbon was rejected and an attempt to conceptualise the ‘democratic deficit’ that was apparently at the heart of the rejection. It is interesting from perusing the papers today that this analysis is taking a lot of hold, that it was the local context that informed voters perspective on Europe.

I am not sure there can be any other way of approaching this short of asking all people to be European citizens in the fullest possible sense of identification.

As Richard Sinnott outlined in the Irish Times yesterday, that is a huge ask of a country where 59% describe themselves as solely “Irish”. The analysis is interesting for it suggests that the lack of a joined up system between the EU, our executive which negotiates treaties, the Dail and the media/public is what constitutes a lack of democracy in Europe. That the EU itself is ok but the procedures in this country for connecting voters to it, plugging them in and getting the buy-in or cache that wins referenda is not there. They may not be off the mark in one sense, school water charges anyone?.

Yet there is a more fundamental disconnect expressed here, I think the word that swung many voters was consolidation because pro-EU as we may be we do not want a Federal State. There is a chaotic element to Europe that is reassuring to voters, it tells them that no one is in charge per se and it remains an intergovernmental plaything at its very core. The idea of consolidation, of rationalising, of tidying up is a bridge too far at present. The idea hints at a centrality and organisation that we are more familiar with at national level, an ability to organise policy and law from the centre. It did not need to be spelled out because it was not a rational argument, it was an emotive response.

Like a pavlovian response, voters were presented with a “consolidating” treaty and thought, hang on. They didn’t do it in huge numbers, 53%-46% is not a landslide, but they did it in far greater numbers than in Nice I with a lot of “soft no” votes coming down to vote and abandoning the 60% pro-EU majority that seems to be latent in the country. Most notable voters in this regard were Munster and Connaught voters who saw this as a step they would not take - by as much as 60% - 40% in some cases.

Personally I think it was far more than a democratic deficit that swung it, dislocated social groups were wary of voting in favour of distant sites of governance (real or perceived). When the socio-economic activity is moving rapidly out of their locality and either outsourcing abroad or drying up as an industry the desire and impulse is, naturally, to retain control as locally as possible.

A month or more ago I purchased a Sony HDR-SR11 it is a High Definition Camera with a 60GB drive in it. I want to relay my experience with this camera as it is not all good.

When it comes to shooting video and quality of Video I have no complaints. The camera delivers as advertised. But when it comes to processing those videos one might as well smash the damn thing.

First things first it records to the Hard Drive in a .MTS format and “REQUIRES” that you use the tool provided by Sony to move the files off the camera. When it does so it changes the file somehow “MAGIC” and changes the file extension to .m2ts which is supposedly in a AVCHD format.

They provide some software to put the clips on a DVD but their is no real editing software that is provided with the camera. But getting the media to load in its native format on a MAC is a non starter. I have yet to find any MAC support.

Second it is rumored if you “BUY” Sony Vegas that it supposedly can mitigate the files for proper editing.

I Like Sony products but let me tell you something Sony has blew it. I am a geek and I deal with media on a daily basis and nothing has pissed me off more than the process Sony makes you go through.

Why they do not encode in a normal format is beyond me. All of the utilities they provide down convert the media into a non high definition experience. In all honesty I hate the camera due to the fact it is nearly impossible to edit the videos with. My advice is go buy a product from another company stay away from this line of cameras completely.

Obama supporters are all in a frenzy over a toy being sold over the internet by a Utah couple. The toy is a sock monkey wearing a suit with a lapel pin for Obama. Obamamaniacs have been filling online forums and blogs with angry words over what they see as the "degrading depiction of a black man as a monkey."

I don't have much to say about this except to tell the Obama supporters to get over it. Most of America is getting damned tired of Obama and his supporters framing everything in terms of racism and trying to put Obama beyond criticism.

And as far as the "Sock Obama" toy being a "degrading depiction of a black man as a monkey," I say bulls**t.

Obama is clearly Black, and he does look like a monkey with those big ears flopping around as he spews out his Marxist dribble disguised as hope and change. And besides, this is still America and a free country - until and unless, of course, we suffer the disaster of being foolish enough to elect Obama as president.

The Utah couple has it right - let's be sure we "Sock Obama" and stop all this monkeying around.

German developer Daedalic Entertainment recently released the game Edna Bricht Aus in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Releases in additional territories are about to follow and the english name is already set as Edna & Harvey: The Breakout; you can also have a look at the english version of the website. <!--break-->

Erm, right. But you know: talking with stuffed toy bunnys is not entirely new to us at GamersGlobal. We do that all the time in our imaginary office. These bunnys actually do know when Alan Wake is set to be released. They don't want to let us in on that topic yet, but we'll keep contact. With our diplomatic skills we are bound to find out more one day.

As crazy as the storyline of Edna Bricht Aus might sound and as ancient as it might look (you could call the system requirements ultra low end): the first ratings of the game speak for themselves anyway. German website www.gamigo.de calls it the new queen of the adventure genre and rewards it with the rating 9,9/10 while the website www.gamona.de thinks that Edna's adventures are worth a rating of 93% and three awards (Gold, Gameplay and Sound). I could go on to sum up further very good ratings here, but if you are a german-speaking reader of GamersGlobal just head for Daedalic's german website and find out for yourself; they have embedded links to all reviews currently available there.

What seems to strike the reviewers most is the detail and effort that the developers have put into making the game feel like an adventure of the olden days. Even the verb bar is back that many still might know, featuring verbs like look at, take, talk, use and through which you control the game. In modern adventures, those things are mostly done with clicking on the mouse with the left or the right button; in this case they aren't. The gameplay also seems to be without many flaws, always logical and never frustrating, although the general level of difficulty is set pretty high from the beginning on. The fact that it never gets frustrating or boring is not only linked to clever gameplay, but also to another feature of the game.

You probably still remember the sentence "I can't do that" from many adventures you've been playing. Especially when you were stuck and just tried to combine every single object in your inventory with each other you might have stumbled over this sentence a lot. And it might have gotten on your nerve. This apparently won't happen to you in Edna Bricht Aus, because you can to everything. Repeat: everything. If you want to talk to the bin: do so. Edna will do. After all, she's completely sane, you know? If you want to use a bottle of ketchup with furniture in a room although there is no use to it: no problem. Dialogue is implemented into the game for every single stupid thing you could ever think of; just imagine the effort that this must have been. And here's another good news: The voice acting seems to be no turn-off as well. Up to now everybody says that it is top-notch for every character in the game; especially for Mr. Droggelbecher who can only say his surname, but with many different intonations. Bless him.

We at GamersGlobal weren't able to play the game ourselves yet, no wonder with it being sold out at many stores at the moment. So we can only tell you what others think about it; and they seem pretty convinced it's good. But we'll let you in on our thoughts about it as soon as we can grab hold of it. Daedalic Entertainment are working on two more adventures currently: The Whispered World (PC) and A New Beginning (PC, Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii).

If you are a little crazy yourself, by the way, you could head to ebay because Daedalic Entertainment just started an auction which will end on June 20th. They are selling the licence and distributional rights of the game for the republic Vanuatu. But the distributional right is linked to you publishing the game completely translated (texts and voice-acting) into the language Bislama. Daedalic Entertainment will support you with a localization kit. Do you need any more proof that those guys definitely have a certain sense of humour? You will also get a signed version of the original game and a certificate, which you can get from the developer's office in Hamburg. If you go there, the devs will also invite you to a meal. The current highest offer is 131 Euro. That's only half the price of Rock Band in Europe, that is.

A shame I don't know Bislama. But probably one of my gifted stuffed toy bunnys does.

I've gotten lots of email and comments about my criticism of privacy-revealing behavior related to Chief Judge Kozinski. After reading that criticism, I am more convinced.

1. Privacy is not determined by technology: The core point that's important to me here is to reject the sense many have that "privacy" is that stuff you can't get access to technically. So something's private if encrypted, but if there's a way for me to hack into it, it is public. I reject that sense of the norm of privacy. Think of a party line telephone. Anyone on the party line had a simple ability to pick up the telephone and listen to any conversation going on. But if you did that, others would rightly call you a louse. You had invaded the privacy of the people having a telephone call, even though it was technically trivial to listen to that private conversation.
   
2. This FTP server was improperly configured (given its use): Though you could access this (or practically any) FTP site through the web, this was not a web site. It was a file server. Just like the server that contains the files for this blog, that means it enables people to get access to files. But it also enables the maintainer to control who gets access to what files. So with this blog, if you download a file I've linked from the blog, you can easily figure out what directory that file is located in. But you can't (without serious hacking) see the other files in that directory, or see the directory structure. That's because those friends who have helped me set this up have disabled that ability. Yale Kozinski apparently didn't with the Kozinski server. So again, as with the party line, it was trivial to see all the files in any particular directory, or the directory structure. But that doesn't make peddling the list of stuff kept on the server to news organizations not a violation of privacy.
   
3. Metaphors are metaphors.: My original metaphor here was about someone jiggering a lock and breaking in. That was a metaphor. As with any metaphor, there are an infinite number of ways the metaphor is like the particular example, and an infinite number of ways it is unlike the particular example. The parts I found analogous were these: like someone breaking in, the litigant went where he wasn't invited; like someone breaking in, the litigant found stuff in a place anyone could have placed it; like the den where anyone could place stuff, you can't know who is responsible for whatever is there; like the den in a private house, privacy means not having to defend or explain what is in your den. As I explained in the comments, I didn't mean the metaphor to suggest the litigant was a criminal for trespassing. As many of you know, I am not a believer in the trespass theory of cyberspace. But just because you're not a criminal doesn't mean you're not a chump.
   
4. "Hacker": I called the litigant a "hacker." That was the nicest thing I said about him. I do not subscribe to the view that "hacker" predicates only of criminals. RMS is famous for his greeting "Happy hacking." It means nothing more than someone who explores. But again, that it is a good thing to explore does not mean it is a good thing to wander into someone's den.
   
5. The irrelevance of the MP3s.: Some suggest my view would have been different had I known the judge had MP3s on his site. Those sorts are wrong. Indeed, I did know he had a few MP3s on his site -- the first reporter calling me about this told me that. That fact does not change anything in the analysis. As the Fed Circuit has indicated in an unrelated case, an unindexed FTP site is not a "public" site. The fact that you have copyrighted MP3s on a nonprivate site does not make you a copyright infringer. Kozinski was not offering this content to the world. The fact that some Russian MP3 sites found it doesn't change Kozinski's responsibility. Obviously while I don't support the practice of wrongful distribution of copyrighted material, I certainly do believe people have the right to space-shift their material, and even share it with a friend ("Hey, listen to this...") That's all that's happening here.
   
6. Your privacy should not depend upon your political party.: This also disappoints me here -- the schadenfreude. Here's a Republican judge getting in trouble for racy content with questionable copyright status. So we (or some of us) liberals get all outraged and angry at his bad behavior. But had the politics been different, would the reaction have been the same? Privacy, in my view, is more important than this. A Republican judge deserves his privacy as much as the rest of us.
   

I'll add to this as I think of it. Now I'm late to taking my kid to see Alcatraz.

Well that really is the question to be asked. Where do we go now. The rest of Europe seems intent on ploughing through with the text but it will not be easy. Ireland was the only country to ratify this by the people lending it a large amount of respect. It makes it alot harder to challenge. If we said no and every other country said yes in referendums that would be one thing. But this is not the case.  Also Ireland as a member of the Euro and one of the most pro-Europe country makes it harder to dismiss unlike if it was they UK. So if we look at some of the problems what are the quick fix solutions. (I don’t know a lot of how Europe works so forgive my naivety )

Loss of commissioners: The main reason for reducing the number of commissions is that there is not enough tasks for 27 commissioners. Which is fair enough but what lost Irish voters is that we would lose a seat at the commission table that discussions that would effect us we would  have no say in. So a solution to this maybe be to continue to have 27 but have 9 of them being commissioners without portfolio. I.e each country has a vote and a seat at the table.  But only 18 have a portfolio.

Tax Concerns: Write into the Treaty. “The EU will never ever ever touch Ireland’s tax rates cross are hearts and hope to die. NEVER NEVER” I.E very bluntly.

Comments from Europe: French Foreign Ministers should be banned from talking.

Self Amending: The No side had an argument that once we signed this then all other treaties could be done without referendum. We in Ireland like the idea of referendums We like the idea of bring power closer to the people. This would need to be copper fastened.

Treaty: The treaty was a mess 247 pages and not understandable. Shorten it and rewrite it clearer. James Zogby in the huff post said.

A treaty for, by, and of the bureaucrats won’t be voted on favorably by a public that has grown mistrustful of bureaucrats.

Implementing some off those policies and I think you would get it to pass in a second referendum. But that is far from the ideal solution. Europe needs to go back to the people all the people. And find out what it is about. 5 peoples have had a say on this text 5 of the most Europhile countries. Three have said no. Quick fix solutions are not the way forward. To dismiss that and plough on through with this will make Europe worse. Ratifying by parliaments is not the way forward. Parliaments are elected by people on domestic issues not on European. To suggest that the rest of Europe has given then a mandate to approve these measures is naive. Some how though I don’t think the EU has the balls to ask the people what they want. They will tack in a few Irish solutions and we will vote again.  Paddy Power are offering 5-2 definitely worth a fiver. 

All the other problems with the referndum are Messers Cowen, Kenny and Gilmores.