Stochastic Geometry

Last time I checked, on October 2 I get to vote for either “Yes” or “No”.

I’m pretty sure the options will not include “Cori”,  “Libertas”, “Ganley”, “Cowen”, “Kenny”, “McKenna” or anything on those lines.

So it’d be really nice if every flipping story written on the upcoming referendum would focus on the choices available, instead of trying to convince me one way or another on the character of the lobbyists. Because unless I get to vote on them, hearing about how they love their mothers or hate kittens is just a waste of space…… Read the rest

First up: get out your wallet, I want your money!

The Story is a new Irish political blog, one which has set itself up in the Woodward and Bernstein mold, and which has so far trumped the press here on pointing out the true depth of the financial mismanagement in FAS. While the newspapers and RTE concentrated on the €600,000 spent on an advert that was never aired and on the €600,000 or so that was simply unaccounted for, The Story dug into the records and pointed out that in fact tens of millions had been misspent due to mismanagement on a level corresponding to gross incompetence. They’ve also dug into the budgets of the Houses of the Oireachtas and found not only that the budget for the Oireachtas is monumentally huge (€654 million over 5 years) but that they’ve also been growing at an alarming rate (the per-annum cost rose by 125% in that 5-year period).… Read the rest