Do we need imigration controls?

Society is increasingly interested in treating everyone fairly. As our sense of fairness has evolved, we have had campaigns against racism, sexism, agism etc. However, most countries operate an immigration policy which is highly unfair without any public outcry.

All countries have some form of rules about who is allowed to live in the country. Occasionally the rules will include some criterion which might be considered fair e.g. your criminal record, your professional qualifications , etc. - but the most important factor in most countries decision is the totally arbitrary fact of where you and/or your parents were born. Surely the location of where you were born has very little bearing on whether or not you will be an valued member of society.

I appreciate that there are circumstances where the number of people wanting to live in a certain area is above what can be catered for. For example, in Ireland there was until recently a problem where too many people wanted to live in the greater Dublin area and this put strain on the infrastructure. However, when the migration is happening within the country the proposed government response is normally a positive one (e.g. improving job prospects in the relatively under populated west) - imagine the outcry which would result if the government proposed that only people born in Dublin could live in Dublin and put immigration controls on the main roads leading to Dublin.

When too many people from Eastern Europe are migrating to the more developed countries in the West, why does everyone assume that the solution is to put unfair restrictions in place on immigration. Why not instead focus on making living and working conditions more attractive in Eastern Europe? I do realise that there are concerns about the potential for people to abuse social welfare systems, but we could put reasonable restrictions on who is allowed to qualify for social welfare payments without the need to maintain complex immigration controls.

If we abolished immigration controls, the only real losers are the people who have the boring job of checking passports in our airports. If too many job seekers came to Ireland looking for work, they would soon realise that they were in an overcrowded job market and naturally choose of their own accord to move somewhere where they had better employment prospects.

Galway is lovely in the sunshine

Claddagh Galway swans
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

I know the weather is terrible in Ireland and even worse in the west of Ireland. However, when the sun does occasionally come out it is the best place in the world.

This morning I woke up to bright sunshine and went for a run along the sea shore in Galway. I saw these swans in the Claddagh waiting for a few tourists to turn up and feed them.

View Galway Run in a larger map

Pirate party gains support in Sweden

I was pleased to read here that the pirate party has gained a seat in the European parliament. They gained 7.1% of the vote and are now the third largest party in Sweden. According to press reports the party wants to reduce government surveillance, deregulate copyright and abolish the patent system. Support for the party grew recently after the prosecution of the people involved in running the popular PirateBay web site.

Galway Bay is a Smart Bay

I am just back from spending a very enjoyable weekend in Galway enjoying the rare sunny weather and the festivities associated with the Volvo Ocean Race stop-over in Galway.

Therefore I was especially interested to read that IBM has teamed up with the Marine Institute to turn Galway Bay into a Smart Bay with several monitoring stations connected to an interesting series of web portals.

It is great to see technology being used to help the environment rather than harm it. In addition the fact that the view from one of the live webcams seems to be partly obscured by a flag placed in front of the camera proves how real life can interfere with even the most elegant technology :-).

I don't want to have to update my status several times

I have accounts on several different social networking sites (mainly just to try them out). As a result it is a major pain for me to keep an up to date status message on each of them. What I would really like is to be able to update my status on one site and have that updated status automatically propagate to all of the various sites which provide a status tracking service.

I haven't (yet) found an ideal solution, but I have at least found two different ways to update my Facebook status without ever having to directly launch Facebook.

1. I installed the Twitter application on Facebook, by following these instructions. Now each time I update my twitter status I can have the status update automatically propogate to Facebook by simply appending #fc at the end of the status message
2. I linked my Plaxo account to my Facebook account by logging into Plaxo and clicking on "edit my profile", selecting "websites" tab and then clicking on the Facebook icon and entering my credentials. Now any time I update my Plaxo status it automatically generates a Facebook status update with the same text and visa-versa.
   

Am I the only person who thinks it is a major pain to keep updating my status on all these sites? Does anyone know of a cool solution that they can point me to?

[Update 26/May] - It turns out that the Plaxo/Facebook connection is bi-directional and not one way as I originally stated (the Facebook to Plaxo update just happened very slowly so I thought it wasn't working)

[Update 4.June] - Robi Brummer pointed me to ping.fm which is a great site for updating several sites at once. The list of services that work with ping.fm is truly amazing

Another epic voyage for Dixie Chick

Now that I am fairly comfortable with the trip from Shannon Harbour to Banagher and back again, I decided to try a slightly more adventurous trip to Shannon Bridge last weekend. The trip up was pretty smooth although it took me slightly longer than anticipated (1 hour and 33 minutes).

My SatNav said that we averages 7.1 km per hour which is probably fairly accurate (although it aslo said that my max speed was 22 km/hour which is probably a measurement glitch).


View Trip from Shannon Harbour to Shannon Bridge in a larger map

After stopping to refuel the crew, we decided to head back again at about 6pm. I was slightly worried that we might be leaving it a little late and the rain was coming down quite seriously. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we made better time on the return journey (56 minutes) mainly due to going with the flow of the river - although also partly helped by the fact that we decided to leave her outside the lock gate and so saved the time that would have been required to traverse the lock.

My average speed on the return leg was 11.4 km/hour which is an impressive speed for a boat like Dixie Chick.


View Return journey from Shannon Bridge to Shannon Harbour in a larger map

I don't think that St Brendan the navigator would be impressed by my boating skills, but I am quite proud of my progress so far and gradually gaining in confidence.

Nature within the City Limits

Swans protecting their Signets along the Royal Canal
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

I sometimes cycle along the tow path of the Royal Canal on my way into town. It does not qualify as a short cut into town because it is a slightly longer journey, but it certainly is a much more pleasant environment to cycle through. It is amazing how rural and full of nature this environment is considering that it is only a few metres away from busy roads chocked with traffic.

Today as I was cycling along, I came across this pair of swans protecting their signets. They did not mind me getting close enough to take this picture because they were much more worried about a heron that was circling around.

I don't think they were concerned about the tailback of traffic on the N3.!!

A new sport - Bike Polo

Bike polo
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

While I was travelling through the Phoenix Park last weekend I saw a sign announcing the international bike polo competition. I went along to have a look and it looks like an interesting sport - basically horse polo played on a bike.

The crowd was not exactly huge for an international tournament. The supporters were outnumbered by the players. But I suppose every sport must start out small.

Dixie Chick goes on her first trip of 2009

Dixie Chick at rest in her "Winter Residence" at Shannon Harbour
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

The weather in Ireland was lovely this weekend so I decided to bring Dixie Chick on her first trip of the year.

I did not take her out of the water this winter and so I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was not too badly shaken by the experience. The engine started after about 3 attempts and then we took her for a short trip down to Banagher and back.

I tried out the Sports Tracker application on my Nokia phone. It seemed to work a treat and I was able to produce the little map below showing where exactly we went.


View Dixie Chick's Maiden Voyage of 2009 in a larger map

There is a slight mis-match between the Google Map and the coordinated from my GPS which make it seem that we travelled across dry land for a while, but overall I think you can get the idea. I must use this feature more often.

Phoenix Park Race last week

Coming over the finish line
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

I just got confirmation of my finishing time in the Phoenix Park 10km race. This year I finished in 54 minutes and 21 seconds which is an improvement on my time from last year of 57 minutes and 3 seconds.

Overall my race position was #3,144 which is not bad considering that there were over 11,000 competitors in total. What makes it sound even better was that I was in position #142 for my age group (although I don't know exactly how wide they make the age group or how many people in my age group competed).