Web Roundup Day 19 – Debate, Shmebate

Hijacking the press release spot is Twenty Major with an extraordinarily prescient summary of the debate we watched (unfortunately) this evening. Damien had enough time to get his response up. That bad.

Broadband is one of the major issues of concern to anyone worried about our economy in the forthcoming century. Takeup and rollout have been awful for years. Damien has taken a look at the goverment parties broadband strategy. Far from being peripheral this is a central plank (as far as I see) to economic policy, job creation and development of a society in the 21st century. The FF manifesto, despite ten years in government, is weakest of all. That is excluding a PD party that doesn’t give a shite.

Squid continues to rapidly become the Limerick region’s public service blogger by outlining and profiling the independent candidates standing in Limerick East. Loving Denis Riordan.

The inimitable Swearing Lady publishes her thoughts on the election. She might pick some of the same headings as Mr. Tayto but since she is more intelligent and a better writer, I think we should instead be voting Swearing Lady #1 for the best immigration policy this election has seen so far, “’tis fucking emigration we need, for Jaysus sake… and yes, Dan and Becs, I’m looking at you.” She isn’t the only one. SK, a noted “reasonable man” has a number of reasonable policies that swing voters might want to consider putting to local candidates.

John Carroll has a pretty good rule to add to the great work being done over at the Cedar Lounge by Canvasser. Thats not the only good work over there, Word by Storm outlines his own issues with the partisans infiltrating over at Politics.ie in a piece that could reflect election discourse generally.

Great post over at Mark Hennessy‘s blog on the deteriorating relations with Fianna Fail and the press pack. It seems that they have got the siege mentality in Treasury Building with the typically robust FF handlers getting a bit miffed by the product of media. Mark’s core point should be forgotten by no one. All they want are stories. They dont fight battles, nor defend parties. Perhaps the ol’ phrase about a workman and his tools.

Noel Dempsey is fighting for Navan hospital. AJ reckons he is a muppet (check the youtube).

Karole outlines his own response to last night’s debate. Verdict? A tie between McDowell and Rabbitte at 6.5/10. Interesting point raised about the attempts by Rabbitte to underline the compatability of Labour and the Greens in government.

Finally, we pay a visit to a very mirthful Eric Byrne, there is hardly a correlation between the volume and tenor of posts today and being tipped in this afternoon’s Phoenix election special to take a seat? Three posts today, interestingly he reckons that the PD campaign which was part-launched yesterday is actually a boon to Labour (raising awareness about what they stand for), Eric is also on a topic close to his heart in supporting the EU moves to protect immigrant workers rights. Most concern to us in the fluffiest of fluffy media though is news of Labour’s sense of humour.