taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Great! Patricia McKenna just called around, canvassing our area — and just got a serious telling off from the wife ;)

Catherine — unsurprisingly, given that she’s a zoology Ph.D — was fantastic, hitting every key point of the issue: that we’re both long-time Green voters who’ve been forced to not vote Green this time around, due to this MMR issue and the anti-science/pro-hokum angle it represents.

Interestingly, she claimed that her stance on MMR was always her own point of view, and that it wasn’t party policy — and that it was mentioned on the party website was a rumour put about by the PDs.

While it turns out that Dr. Ruairi Hanley, the author of this letter to the Indo is indeed a PD (didn’t realise that!), Treasa at Winds and Breezes also noted it appearing on the Green Party site, as follows:

Questioning the Benefits of Immunisation

There are significant question marks about the effectiveness of mass immunisation programs. We would launch a major study of the benefits of these programs looking at all aspects of health

So Treasa — are you a stealth PD rumour-monger? ;)

Worth noting that at no time did McKenna reassure C that her policy would not become government policy if the Greens were elected… as an elected representative, surely her own policies would influence the government’s thinking?

Tags: dublin, dublin-north-central, election, election2007, green-party, ireland, irish-politics, mmr, patricia-mckenna, voting

We’re in the run-up to a general election here in Ireland, and I live in Bertie’s constituency. For the past year or so, things have been pretty quiet, but in the last week there’s been a sudden flurry of activity and direct postal mail from Bertie’s office — and from many departments of local government, too:

Mon Apr 23:

• Fianna Fail: “Fianna Fail delivers on education in Dublin Central”, tabloid newspaper.

• direct from the office of Bertie: a photocopied letter from the Environmental Health Officers of Dublin City Council about the standards of rented houses “in my area”.

Tues Apr 24:

• HSE: “Parents Who Listen, Protect” leaflet, a full-colour glossy handbook “on building good communication in families and communities” “as part of a national initiative on child protection”.

• Dept of Environment: a leaflet on the “National Climate Change Strategy, 2007-2012, Main Points”. Printed on recycled paper, naturally ;)

Fri Apr 27:

• Fianna Fail Senator Cyprian Brady: “dear resident, please vote for me” — one-page full-colour glossy.

• Spring 2007 “Central News”, “Official Voice of Fianna Fail in Dublin Central”, a 16-page tabloid newspaper, featuring stories like “Smithfield: the Temple Bar of the Northside” (like Temple Bar, but with more winos and Children’s Court, and less stuff!)

Mon Apr 30:

• HSE: “Need a doctor urgently? Call D-DOC out-of-hours GP service”, full-colour glossy leaflet.

• from Bertie: Evening of Election Letter. “Good evening constituents” etc.

It’s a veritable flood of full-colour glossies! Could be worse, I suppose — I hear the PDs have been blanketing selected Dublin constituencies in free books. However I suspect grimy Dublin 7 is a little off their list (see “winos”, above).

It’s worth noting that a good half of this flood (which I’ve coined Bertiespam to describe) isn’t from Bertie’s constituency office — it’s from government departments like the HSE and the Department of Environment. It’s funny that we hadn’t heard a peep from them all year, then once an election looms — “here come the voters! look busy!” ;)

What bertiespam have you been getting?

Tags: bertie-ahern, bertiespam, dublin, election, election2007, ireland, irishelection