Monthly Archives: April 2013

skyWE don’t wish to make light of a senseless tragedy.

But.

Jdawg writes:

Sky News has been showing a clip of an interview with this witness called Rusty Shaklefore about the Boston Bombings. Anyway, I’m a bit of a King of the Hill fan and Rusty Shakleford was an alias used by Dale Gribble the conspiracy nut.I don’t think anybody has copped on to it at Sky News. It’s been on a loop since 6am.

-3Reading that?

Cara (left) and Oscar, Killeen’s bar/confectionary, Shannonbridge, Co Offaly, this evening.

Sneaky human fingers photobomb is sneaky.

Thanks Corina Slattery

Update:

-1Oscar as he appears on a poster on the wall of Killeen’s. Younger then, Oscar sought out the company of older men, with predictably disastrous results. These two didn’t speak for years.

quinnz

On April 1, David Quinn, of the Iona Institute, above, blogged about the institute’s stance on same-sex marriages, citing a paper from US-based organisation Child Trends to support its view.

He wrote:

“That paper, called ‘Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About It, is a summary of studies which show that children tend to fare best when raised by their own biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. This same paper goes on to say: “There is thus value in promoting strong, stable marriage between biological parents. This is our position. Take this away, and it is very hard to find any reason to give marriage special status.

The Iona Institute used this paper as part of its submission against the legalisation of same-sex marriage to the Constitutional Convention.

But Dr Peter Stafford has taken a look at the Child Trends report and finds the Iona Institute may have misled the convention

He writes:

“The authors of the Child Trends report adopted best practice regarding transparency and had anticipated that their report might be used to reach such an incorrect conclusion. The following appears on the front page of their report.

“This Child Trends brief summarizes research conducted in 2002, when neither same-sex parents nor adoptive parents were identified in large national surveys. Therefore, no conclusions can be drawn from this research about the wellbeing of children raised by same-sex parents or adoptive parents.”

Does the Child Trend report conclude that marriage between a man and a woman is best for children? No. Why? The timing of the report meant that the data doesn’t support such a conclusion. Does the Child Care report conclude that the definition of marriage should be maintained? No. Why? That conclusion is beyond the scope of the data. The Iona Institute seem to have wilfully ignored the authors’ own acknowledgement of the limitations of their research and presented this study as evidence to support their assertion. By adopting very poor standards of research, the Iona Institute allowed the Constitutional Convention to believe that the Child Trend report concluded something which it very clearly did not claim to do so, and which the data would not allow it to do.”

 

On the uses of research in debates about marriage (David Quinn, Iona Institute)

Evidence-based research: Rarely pure and never simple (Dr Peter Stafford)

(Hadyn West/Photocall Ireland)

90133503Sam Stephenson‘s soon-to-be-vacated Central Bank on Dame Street.

Of course it really should be razed to allow light flood in to Temple Bar.

Alternatively…

The Bank dameA centre for ants!?

No,

David Lawless writes:

I recently proposed a change in use to the now infamous Central Bank on Dame street. The project seeks to install a varied program on each of the banks seven floors which correlate with the seven deadly sins.
The project was entered in an architectural ideas competition and went on to win the student prize (and featured in the Irish Times and Morning Ireland). A lot of people have been asking after the project and want to know more. I feel a piece and feedback  in a ‘social affairs column‘ [our inverted commas] would be of fun and interest.  At least it’s something new on the topic of young Irish architecture away from poor job prospects and food parcels Many thanks and much appreciated.

 (James Horan/Photocall Ireland)