government

Russian for a president in Cyprus, really?

Cyprus Mail is a lot of fun today.

CHIEF Returning Officer Demetris Demetriou yesterday confirmed that a Russian businessman had shown an interest in running for February’s presidential elections.

“Yes, an interest has been shown, but we can’t release any details as the application for candidacy has not yet been made officially,” Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail.

He said the businessman’s lawyer contacted his department to enquire about how to apply. It was reported on Tuesday that the Russian in question had acquired Cypriot citizenship. Only Cypriot citizens over 35 years of age can stand in the presidential elections.

… because Russians are doing so well in Russia now, that they should be running for presidents all over the world. WORLD DOMINATION!!! Mua-ha-ha-ha.

What are they thinking?

Cyprus Mail reports that Cyprus Airways expands its operations in Greece:

“After the positive response from the Athens-Thessalonica-Athens route, the airline decided to start new regular flights to the country’s most important airports,” CY announced yesterday.

Starting on October 28, there will be twice-daily flights between Athens and Heraklion, one from Athens to Rhodes and back; one a day between Heraklion and Thessalonica and another between Rhodes and Thessalonica three times a week.

My first reaction after reading this is – what are they thinking? Cyprus Airways has been in a lot of financial troubles lately, getting lots of help from the Cyprus government, including the kick out of the competition – Ryanair (here and here). But at least Ryanair was working with Cyprus, bringing lots of people in and out. What does Cyprus Airways do? Yeah, right, instead of trying to help the Cyprus tourism a bit, they go to Greece. Which, given Greece’s troubles, is questionable as well. What’s the point of having Cyprus Airways in Cyprus at all then? And why does the government spend the money on them. Let them go to the other side of the world, if they want to, and help Australia’s tourism, or something…

Cyprus public transport is in trouble

It’s been only a couple of years since I blogged about Limassol joining the rest of the world with a rebirth of its public transportation system. And now Cyprus Mail reports that it’s on the edge of being dead and over. Again.

PUBLIC transport is faced with collapse, a top MP has said, as lawmakers discussed a bill to inject an additional €21 million into the system to keep the upgrade programme going.

The House Finance Committee heard that bus companies were losing between €200,000 and €300,000 a month while banks were no longer willing to provide more breathing space.

Oh, well. At least they tried.

When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: ‘People Staring at Computers’

This is a rather lengthy story, but it touches on many different topics – art, privacy, Apple, law, government, and more. And even though it is long, it is very well written and is absolutely worth the time.

Later that year I worked with interactive artist Theo Watson on an extension of “Important Things,” called “Happy Things,” which took a screenshot every time you smiled, and uploaded it to the web. We got pictures from all around the world, with people smiling at everything, from cat memes to the Wikipedia article for Nicholas Cage.

Sometimes this kind of work is associated with “human-computer interaction,” but this term makes it sound like we’re interacting with computers, when in fact, most of the time, we’re interacting with each other. I like to think of it as “computer-mediated interaction.”

In mid-May, 2011, I took a timelapse using my laptop’s webcam to get a feeling for how I looked at the computer. After a few days of recording, I watched the video.

I was completely stunned.

There was no expression on my face. Even though I spend most of my day talking to and collaborating with other people online, from my face you can see no trace of this.

Is parliamentary immunity obsolete?

While reading this article in Cyprus Mail, I had to ask myself if parliamentary immunity is any good. Why do members of parliament need this privilege. Wikipedia suggests:

Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which members of the parliament or legislature are granted partial immunity from prosecution. Before prosecuting, it is necessary that the immunity be removed, usually by a superior court of justice or by the parliament itself. This reduces the possibility of pressing a member of the parliament to change his vote by fear of prosecution.

I think this doesn’t work anymore in the modern society. Those who do need to press MPs usually will find ways to do so, parliamentary immunity or not. Giving MPs such an immunity relies on their good nature. And we all know how good-natured an average politician is. The example was given in the above-mentioned Cyprus Mail article.

Update: another article in the same newspaper covers the story, and, among other things, suggests an interesting approach to the problem – a “name and shame” policy.

As we cannot expect our deputies to behave like law-abiding citizens with regard to traffic fines, the relevant article of the constitution, which allows them to flout the law, would have to be changed. Of course for the article to be changed, a two-thirds majority would be needed in the legislature, and we doubt there would be 38 deputies willing to vote for surrendering their privilege not to pay traffic fines.

There is an alternative. The police and municipalities could make public, once a month, the names of deputies who had refused to pay their parking and speeding tickets. A name and shame policy would be the ideal solution so that voters are aware which Representatives are so cheap they abuse their privilege in order not to pay a small fine.