Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis - An Irish Wake?

tonys wrote:

coc wrote:

Yeah, who does that Gurdgiev nobody think he is anyway? FFS.

I'm sure he knows who he is, if he doesn't, someone in RTE could tell him, he's on there often enough.

He knows who he is, but like all bloggers, he thinks his opinion is of such note that, in the national, if not international interest, everyone needs to read it.

Some bloggers do need to be read, whether they think so or not. Ecogeek is one

And he can be proud pr1ck but Karl Denninger is also worth listening to perhaps.

I'm sure there are plenty of Irish ones too.

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys wrote:

coc wrote:

Yeah, who does that Gurdgiev nobody think he is anyway? FFS.

I'm sure he knows who he is, if he doesn't, someone in RTE could tell him, he's on there often enough.

He knows who he is, but like all bloggers, he thinks his opinion is of such note that, in the national, if not international interest, everyone needs to read it.

Some bloggers do need to be read,

That is very much a matter of opinion, but for the amount of shite you have to wade through to find a gem, for me, it's just not worth it.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys wrote:

coc wrote:

Yeah, who does that Gurdgiev nobody think he is anyway? FFS.

I'm sure he knows who he is, if he doesn't, someone in RTE could tell him, he's on there often enough.

He knows who he is, but like all bloggers, he thinks his opinion is of such note that, in the national, if not international interest, everyone needs to read it.

Some bloggers do need to be read,

That is very much a matter of opinion, but for the amount of shite you have to wade through to find a gem, for me, it's just not worth it.

I couldn't disagree with you there but there are plenty of bloggers worth reading - if you come across any please put them on our best bloggers thread.

What about politicians blogging - do you read any of those ? Don't FF have politicians who blog ?

Joe O'Toole has a blog which is apparently good - I've heard him read out his roundup of the week on ClareFm of a Friday. For me blogs have to be about something definite and concrete along a single theme (I believe there are some excellent financial bloggers) or very funny. I think the forum format is a lot prefereable - you get to see bloggers potentially going head to head.

tonys wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Lets face it, an organisation that gives us Pat Kenny every week has nothing to learn about wooden.

They were obviously told to gather round, look at the camera and say nothing, this they did, to excess.
If there's blame here it should be awarded to whatever plank from RTE was in charge.

Does it say something about the conference that this is all we want to talk about ?

It says it went quite well and there's damn all negatives for webites to talk about.

Maybe take a look at Constantin's blog.

Heard Enough ? Part II

Ah! Bloggers.
If only the Irish Times could employ them all, they would get the status they think they deserve (delusional or wha!) and we would get back all that wasted space they currently take up.

Admittedly there is a majority of blogs full of opinions by joe soaps with more or less clue than myself for example.
Gurdgiev otoh, does not fall into this category imo, because he has a very strong academic record in economics.
But feel free to lump him in there with all the other crazies, if that helps your argument.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

tonys wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Lets face it, an organisation that gives us Pat Kenny every week has nothing to learn about wooden.

They were obviously told to gather round, look at the camera and say nothing, this they did, to excess.
If there's blame here it should be awarded to whatever plank from RTE was in charge.

Does it say something about the conference that this is all we want to talk about ?

It says it went quite well and there's damn all negatives for webites to talk about.

Maybe take a look at Constantin's blog.

Heard Enough ? Part II

Ah! Bloggers.
If only the Irish Times could employ them all, they would get the status they think they deserve (delusional or wha!) and we would get back all that wasted space they currently take up.

Admittedly there is a majority of blogs full of opinions by joe soaps with more or less clue than myself for example.
Gurdgiev otoh, does not fall into this category imo, because he has a very strong academic record in economics.
But feel free to lump him in there with all the other crazies, if that helps your argument.

He has indeed a background in economics, but it would be his need to blurt his opinion to the rest of us I would wonder about. At the end of the day his opinion on national governance has about as much weight as yours or mine, in other words, very little.

What does "otoh" mean?

otoh = on the other hand.

Personally, I give his opinion on these matters more weight than my own, because he has proven, by completing a PhD on the subject, that he understands these things more than I.

I also welcome him blurting his opinion, as I welcome anyone who blurts their opinion. Nobody should have any reason to fear the opinion of others.

Unless they are trying to protect some specific opinion ..

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

otoh = on the other hand.

Personally, I give his opinion on these matters more weight than my own, because he has proven, by completing a PhD on the subject, that he understands these things more than I.

I also welcome him blurting his opinion, as I welcome anyone who blurts their opinion. Nobody should have any reason to fear the opinion of others.

Unless they are trying to protect some specific opinion ..

It's not the opinion I object to, they're ten a penny, it's the blurting I have a problem with, he might have the manners to wait until he was asked.
He who shouts loudest is a pain in the hole, don't you agree?

tonys wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Lets face it, an organisation that gives us Pat Kenny every week has nothing to learn about wooden.

They were obviously told to gather round, look at the camera and say nothing, this they did, to excess.
If there's blame here it should be awarded to whatever plank from RTE was in charge.

Does it say something about the conference that this is all we want to talk about ?

It says it went quite well and there's damn all negatives for webites to talk about.

Maybe take a look at Constantin's blog.

Heard Enough ? Part II

Ah! Bloggers.
If only the Irish Times could employ them all, they would get the status they think they deserve (delusional or wha!) and we would get back all that wasted space they currently take up.

Quite right tonys. Stick to reading the fora.

btw, can anyone explain that extraordinary announcement by Mary Coughlan that Enterprise Ireland was going to provide advice to the banks ?

Cowen's chops to be grilled on Website ...



IT'S a state of the nation address, but not as we know it.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen is gearing up to post a video on Fianna Fail's new party website on March 12, in which he promises to answer "as many questions as I can" on the challenges Ireland faces as the global economic downturn continues.

Clearly anxious to engage with Fianna Fail supporters on their concerns, Mr Cowen emailed the party's membership last Thursday, issuing an invitation to them to submit their questions to him.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/cowen-to-face-online-grilling-on-ff-website-1657589.html

jmcc wrote:

Papal_knight Two wrote:

Actually, if you knew anything you would know that the camera is set in place to get a wide shot of the stage and set and DDP can only stand in one place to be in shot. You cannot dismantle the camera and move it to the new location in the three minutes between the end of the coverage of the speech and the start of the 9 O'clock speech to get away from a couple of neanderthal Fianna Fáilers.

I think that you are just a waffler of a Bertian magnitude. One camera on a main political party Ard Fheis? Perhaps you are more credible on political matters but I don't think that you have a clue about technology.

Regards...jmcc

They use one main camera directly facing the podium for the news broadcasts. I know that from experience. I have been attending ard fheiseanna for FF, FG, and party conferences for Labour and the PDs since the 1980s. They use a range of cameras placed around the hall for the speech broadcast, together with the central camera that is aimed facing the speaker straight on, and on camera that can get panoramic shots.For conferences in the RDS they sometimes used a separate news camera located on the balcony, with the speech filmed from a camera set two-thirds down the hall. Otherwise if they used a balcony camera they would be looking down on the leader, and Haughey in particular wouldn't tolerate that as it would draw attention to how small he was and that his hair was thinning. (The guy was incredibly vain!) City West (God I hate that place!) doesn't have the space of the RDS and so RTE can on occasion use the one camera for both the speech and the news bulletin. They use a central camera because they can get a full shot of the set, the backdrop and the slogan behind DDP to give visual context.

Well, not being one to curse the darkness when I can switch on a light, I asked someone who was there and in the picture.

There was one camera, fixed for that ptc.

And the boys were just there, there was no great plan to create a stunning tableau and rte didn't ask them to move or tell them in advance they were coming to that camera to do anything and scoot off.

Kate P wrote:

Well, not being one to curse the darkness when I can switch on a light, I asked someone who was there and in the picture.

There was one camera, fixed for that ptc.

And the boys were just there, there was no great plan to create a stunning tableau and rte didn't ask them to move or tell them in advance they were coming to that camera to do anything and scoot off.

Could they not have thought for themselves and moved off under their own initiative, or did they stay there to get face-time valuable for improving voter recognition in advance of the next elections?

Actually, one guy said he didn't actually know they were recording and that it's the kind of thing that happens all the time.

In fact, if you saw footage of Enda Kenny at the YFG conference in Athlone two weeks ago, you'd see that he was also surrounded by groupies, nodding their serious little heads in approbation as he decided not to explain why FG weren't capitalising on FF's dire performance.

Denis Naughten and Nicky McFadden are two faces that come to mind immediately.

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Lets face it, an organisation that gives us Pat Kenny every week has nothing to learn about wooden.

They were obviously told to gather round, look at the camera and say nothing, this they did, to excess.
If there's blame here it should be awarded to whatever plank from RTE was in charge.

Keep digging!

Obviously the fact that you cannot admit that it was either a FF press office decision or the decision of a few gobshites who wanted to get their mugs on tele, and are trying to blame RTÉ for it, shows that even you are admitting how utterly stupid it looked.

If you think an RTE floor manager can go around rounding up FFers to pose around DDP you know little about media coverage of ard fheiseanna. Far from wanting people around the pol corr they want people to keep away and not to block the shot.

It has all the appearances of a group who decided to stand around, and were told 'well if you are going to stand around, at least don't make noise' and ended up looking like extras from Michael Jackson's Thriller. The odds are that the floor manager and producer were told afterwards in RTÉ "why didn't you just tell them all to fuck off!" Or maybe for the craic the producer decided that if FFers wanted to stand around making ejjits of themselves, he'd let them. Because it exactly what they looked like, a shower of ejjits, which is why FFers like Tony are so desparate to blame someone else but party members for it.