This morning.

The first swab at a drive-thru rona test centre opened earlier at Dubln Airport and operated by private healthcare company Rocdoc, which offers the service to people who have not been referred by a GP.

A walk-in test centre will open next week, and they will allow Dublin Airport to process up to 12,000 tests per day in the run up to Christmas.

You give them money.

They stick a thing up your nose.

Win/win.

Sam Boal/RollingNews

All three teacher unions have expressed concern around the ability of schools to keep classrooms both well ventilated and warm over the coming months

This morning.

Representatives from four trade unions representing teachers and other school workers are due before the Joint Committee on Education to discuss the safe running of schools under rona restrictions…

Via RTÉ:

…the Teachers’ Union of Ireland will tell politicians that many second level school buildings are not fit for purpose. The union says air quality metres should be installed in every classroom, to ensure that students and teachers are not forced to teach and learn in freezing cold classrooms.

The Association of Secondary Teachers has echoed that call. It says its research shows that 84% of schools where it has members do not have a dedicated ventilation system.

Primary teachers’ union, the Irish National Teachers Organisation, has also expressed concern that a grant given to schools last week, to allow for minor works to be carried out, will not be sufficient to allow them to install air-monitoring systems.

The trade union representing Special Needs Assistants, Fórsa,will tell politicians it remains concerned at the lack of clarity regarding the provision of PPE to schools staff, and specifically to SNA’s and Bus Escorts who accompany children with disabilities on public transport.

Union concerns at ability to keep classrooms both ventilated and warm (RTÉ)

RollingNews

From top: The US Election as called by Associated Press and other news outlets; Deadlines for election counts in disputed states.

This morning.

A state by state guide and deadlines for the final counts in the US Presidential Election.

Via Reuters:

Arizona:

The case: The Arizona Republican Party is trying to block the certification of the election results in the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, until the court rules on the party’s lawsuit asking for a new hand count of a sampling of ballots. An audit already completed by the county found no discrepancies, officials said.
What happened: The judge has not issued a decision. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.

Georgia:

The case: A high-profile conservative attorney, L. Lin Wood Jr., has sued in an attempt to block the certification of election results in Georgia. Wood alleges Georgia illegally changed the process for handling absentee ballots. Georgia’s deputy secretary of state has called Wood’s case a “silly, baseless claim.”
What happened: A judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider a request for a temporary restraining order to halt certification.

Michigan:

The case: Trump’s campaign is trying to block the certification of election results in the state, alleging that election officials “allowed fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election.” Trump’s legal team alleges that their observers were prevented from being able to properly watch the vote counting, that ineligible ballots were counted and that Republican challenges to ballots were ignored. Another lawsuit filed this week on behalf of two poll challengers asks a court to halt the certification of election results until an independent audit is completed to “ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election.”
What happened: There have been no decisions in either case. Judges have already swatted down several other Republican efforts to block certification in the Detroit area. Wayne County, which is home to Detroit, unanimously certified its election results on Tuesday, hours after Republicans first blocked formal approval of voters’ intentions – although they appear now to be rowing back on that.

Nevada:

The case: Trump’s campaign is asking a judge to nullify Nevada’s election results or set them aside and declare him the winner, arguing that illegal or improper votes were cast and the use of optical scanning to process signatures on mail-in ballots violated state law. The Trump lawsuit, filed Tuesday, rehashes arguments that judges in Nevada and elsewhere have already rejected. It claims that votes were cast on behalf of dead people, that election observers weren’t allowed to witness “key points” of processing and that people on American Indian territories were illegally given incentives to vote. In a separate court filing this week, a voting watchdog group led by a conservative former state lawmaker wants a judge to block statewide certification of the election.
What happened: There have been no rulings in either case.

Pennysylvania:

The case: A Trump campaign case aims to stop the state from certifying the election, alleging Philadelphia and six counties wrongly allowed voters to correct problems with mail-in ballots that were otherwise going to be disqualified for a technicality, like lacking a secrecy envelope or a signature. The total number of affected ballots was not expected to come anywhere close to Biden’s margin of more than 80,000 votes.
What happened: Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, signed onto the case this week after others abruptly withdrew, and the former New York City mayor argued in court on Tuesday for the first time since the 1990s. Giuliani made wild, unsupported allegations of a nationwide conspiracy by Democrats to steal the election. The judge did not immediately issue a ruling and canceled a hearing that was set for Thursday but set out a schedule for both sides to make new filings this week.

Wisconsin:

The case: Trump’s campaign on Wednesday filed for a recount in the counties that cover Milwaukee and Madison, both Democratic strongholds. It alleged — again without evidence — that absentee ballots were illegally altered or issued and that government officials violated state law.
What happened: Biden leads Trump by 20,000 votes statewide. The recount requested by Trump will begin Friday and has to be complete by 1 December, the deadline for the vote to be certified at the state level. State and local elections officials reiterated that there was no evidence to back up the claims Trump was making.

Trump rails against election defeat as US Covid deaths top 250,000 – live updates (The Guardian)

Meanwhile…

Oh.

FIGHT!

“Drop and Roll” — How The 2020 Election Was Stolen From President Donald Trump (Gateway Pundit)

Um.

Meanwhile…

Gulp.

Herrenvolk?

Star clusters are impressive things on their own. But why have one when you can have a pair? Behold: open clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884. To wit:

Also known as “h and chi Persei”, this unusual double cluster, shown above, is bright enough to be seen from a dark location without even binoculars. Although their discovery surely predates recorded history, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus notably cataloged the double cluster. The clusters are over 7,000 light years distant toward the constellation of Perseus, but are separated by only hundreds of light years. In addition to being physically close together, the clusters’ ages based on their individual stars are similar – evidence that both clusters were likely a product of the same star-forming region.

(Image: Greg Polanski)

apod

He’s still in the hood.

Last night.

Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

From top: Tereza Mytakou (left) from Greece and Merve Ataman from Turkey, both Phd students in TCD; health care workers Sinead Lynch (left) and Caoimhe Clark; Alison Smithers (left) with Ella, Peaches and Michelle Flaherty; Zdenek Raiser and Martina Melikova and their daughter Anna.

The new normal.

RollingNews

Yesterday: No Quarter Given

Dan Boyle

Politics to me has never been about getting one over, or doing down, perceived opponents. I accept that for many people, maybe even most people, it tends to be. The worst motivation is always assumed. The worst possible construction is placed on any issue. Our politics are ill served by being almost entirely reactive and rarely proactive.

Movement, even in an agreed direction, is invariably criticised as being too late and/or too slow. Sequencing is particularly viewed poorly. Do it all and do it now, is the expectation that never be met. Part of that expectation is that legislation should be delivered in a ready to go fashion, as if there should be no role in a parliamentary process that scruitinises and amends.

The sclerosis that reactive politics creates is a culture where nothing clear gets stated, lest the words get misconstrued with the actual context lost.  Analysis and real accountability disappear when we rely on memes and tropes, repeated endlessly, to establish narratives that help explain nothing.

To govern is to fail. To seek to do things differently is an admission of failure. This helps create a politics that is not only risk adverse but is also change repellent.

Because of this change happens far more slowly than it needs to. Despite all this change does manage to occur, even if we often fail to acknowledge such change.

How we measure change exacerbates this problem. Gains are there to be won not shared. Wins need to be gained in order to create certain losers so that they appear real. Battle lines have to be absolute. There is government and there is opposition. The idea of shifting coalitions that are issue dependent is seen to be heretical.

Considering government as an amorphous whole is a particular conceit. Shared government means just that, an ability to achieve but only partially. It doesn’t mean absorption. It shouldn’t mean loss of identity. The lines of attack seem to indicate otherwise.

In a mature political society it should be possible to pursue agreed approaches while stressing distinctiveness. These are unnatural divides that exist within political parties and within government as much as they exist within politics itself. While acknowledging these divides we don’t have accept them as being the only way we operate.

We need to stop behaving as if the holding of political beliefs are akin to being part of a religious cult. We can and should be able to disagree without having to reduce to invective. Views can and should change. Being persuaded by others’ arguments is not a weakness.

Since coming back to local government I’ve tried to turn my back on the point scoring, name calling, character assassinating aspects of Irish politics. I can’t see the point of it. I’ve certainly come to believe that it achieves little. I’ve learned that it’s best to concentrate on trying to achieve things. So much energy is wasted on the circus element of politics.

The most pointless aspect of our politics is that of the kneejerk response. Because it has been determined that adversarial politics are the only type we can practise, we are similarly expected to have pre-determined responses to any given situation.

Proof of this is how I expect many will respond to what I am saying here. I am expecting some pejorative comments about me and my party attributing many of the ills of the World to our existence. I’m expecting some amount of whataboutery, where unconnected or very tenuous facts will be presented to undermine the context I seek to make with these observations.

Once I would have reacted and would have done so badly. Now I have to interpret what is real and what is contrived. Because so much of our politics has been reduced to background noise, perhaps we have to learn to listen less in order to be able to listen better.

Then, perhaps, we can learn to respond better instead of trying to react more.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

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