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The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
UCC has paid huge sums to a criminal professor
This story is not for republication. I bear responsibility for the things I write. I have read the guidelines and understand that I must not write anything untrue, and I won't.
This is a public interest story about a complete failure of governance and management at UCC.

offsite link Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!

This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".

According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why ?design choice? starts looking like ?deliberate flaw?.

People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.

offsite link AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Evaluating Semantic Reasoning Capability of AI Chatbot on Ontologically Deep Abstract (bias neutral) Thought
I have been evaluating AI Chatbot agents for their epistemic limits over the past two months, and have tested all major AI Agents, ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, for their epistemic limits and their negative impact as information gate-keepers.... Today I decided to test for how AI could be the boon for humanity in other positive areas, such as in completely abstract realms, such as metaphysical thought. Meaning, I wanted to test the LLMs for Positives beyond what most researchers benchmark these for, or have expressed in the approx. 2500 Turing tests in Humanity?s Last Exam.. And I chose as my first candidate, Google DeepMind's Gemini as I had not evaluated it before on anything.

offsite link Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy
We have all known it for over 2 years that it is a genocide in Gaza
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has finally admitted what everyone else outside Israel has known for two years is that the Israeli state is carrying out a genocide in Gaza

Western governments like the USA are complicit in it as they have been supplying the huge bombs and missiles used by Israel and dropped on innocent civilians in Gaza. One phone call from the USA regime could have ended it at any point. However many other countries are complicity with their tacit approval and neighboring Arab countries have been pretty spinless too in their support

With the release of this report titled: Our Genocide -there is a good chance this will make it okay for more people within Israel itself to speak out and do something about it despite the fact that many there are actually in support of the Gaza

offsite link China?s CITY WIDE CASH SEIZURES Begin ? ATMs Frozen, Digital Yuan FORCED Overnight Wed Jul 30, 2025 21:40 | 1 of indy
This story is unverified but it is very instructive of what will happen when cash is removed
THIS STORY IS UNVERIFIED BUT PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT AS IT GIVES AN VERY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT A CASHLESS SOCIETY WILL LOOK LIKE. And it ain't pretty

A single video report has come out of China claiming China's biggest cities are now cashless, not by choice, but by force. The report goes on to claim ATMs have gone dark, vaults are being emptied. And overnight (July 20 into 21), the digital yuan is the only currency allowed.

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Tue Sep 30, 2025 00:41 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Could Lithium Batteries Be Programmed to Explode? Mon Sep 29, 2025 19:05 | Dr R P
Israel's pager attack on Hezbollah highlights a frightening possibility: that lithium batteries could be programmed to explode. Yet another reason to avoid Chinese EVs, says the Daily Sceptic's robotics expert.
The post Could Lithium Batteries Be Programmed to Explode? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Sadiq Khan?s Plan to Spend ?66 Million on Wokery in Crime-Plagued London Mon Sep 29, 2025 17:10 | Will Jones
Crime is soaring in London, but Mayor Sadiq Khan is planning to spend ?66m on woke projects over three years ? and has just awarded himself a pay rise to ?170,282, making him the highest paid politician in the land.
The post Sadiq Khan’s Plan to Spend ?66 Million on Wokery in Crime-Plagued London appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Ryder Cup Parable: What Europe Gets Right and the EU and USA Get Wrong Mon Sep 29, 2025 15:31 | Clive Pinder
Europe's Ryder Cup victory shows that, unlike the DEI-obsessed EU, the nations of Europe win when they respect merit, says Clive Pinder. And unlike the USA big shots, they know how to work as a team.
The post The Ryder Cup Parable: What Europe Gets Right and the EU and USA Get Wrong appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link J.K. Rowling: Emma Watson Poured Petrol on Trans Attacks Against Me and is ?Ignorant of How Ignorant... Mon Sep 29, 2025 13:12 | Will Jones
J.K. Rowling?has accused Emma Watson of "pouring more petrol on the flames" of an attempt to cancel her by trans activists and said the Harry Potter actress is "ignorant of how ignorant she is".
The post J.K. Rowling: Emma Watson Poured Petrol on Trans Attacks Against Me and is “Ignorant of How Ignorant She Is” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Ireland’s ‘False Climate Solution’ Faces European Court Of Justice

category national | environment | press release author Monday March 04, 2019 21:52author by foie - Friends of the Irish Environment Report this post to the editors

Press Release - Friends of the Irish Environment -4th Mar 2019

FOREST BIOMASS CHALLENGE TO CO-FIRED PEAT PLANTS

The inclusion of forest biomass as a renewable fuel fatally undermines the goals of the new European Renewable Energy Directive [RED II], according to Plaintiffs from six different countries in an action filed today in the European General Court in Luxembourg. Each has suffered, in diverse and particular ways, from the consequences of the Directive’s biomass energy policy.

Tony Lowes of Ireland’s environmental NGO Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] is one of the Plaintiffs in the legal challenge, citing the co-firing with biomass of Ireland’s peat powered electric plants.

The lawsuit seeks to remove forest biomass from the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive recently approved by the European Union. The Directive raises the overall EU target for Renewable Energy Sources (RES) consumption by 2030 from 20% to 32%.

However, the Plaintiffs contend that RED II ‘ignores the science on forest bioenergy and promotes false climate solutions’. According to Dr. Mary S. Booth, director of the USA Partnership for Policy Integrity and lead science advisor on the case, ‘Burning wood for energy emit more CO2 per unit of energy generated than coal but RED II counts these emissions as zero. RED II also fails to properly account for the lifecycle carbon emissions from harvesting, producing, transporting, and burning woody biomass fuels, including the loss of carbon sequestration potential after the vast increase in industrial logging destroys the very forest systems that have until now absorbed carbon from the atmosphere.’

‘Ireland’s cofiring of peat powered plants with biomass is an example of a “false climate solution,’” said Ireland’s Mr. Lowes. He cites the Irish Climate Change Advisory Council’s 2018 Report’s conclusion that ‘The bio-mass subsidy for peat power plants is an environmentally harmful subsidy resulting in substantially higher emissions of greenhouse gases at significant direct cost to the nation.

‘According to the EPA ‘Ireland’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections 2017-2035’, this demand is increasing the price of biomass, resulting in “energy demand in heating being met by more fossil fuels because of the biomass subsidy of peat powered plants”.’

Mr. Lowes’ points out that ‘the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s forecast that the annual supply gap in wood production for biomass could be up to 1.88 million cubic metres by 2020 and more than twice that by 2025 – all of which must be sourced outside Ireland.

The case is coordinated by the US-based Partnership for Policy Integrity and testimonials from experts and organisations include Program Director Adam Colette of the Dogwood Alliance.

The Dogwood Alliance was one of more than 30 conservation and environmental justice organizations in the Southern United States who wrote in August 2018 to the Irish government, the Electricity Supply Board [ESB] and Bord na Móna pointing out that the wood pellets the company plans to import come from their region, the North Atlantic Coastal Plain. They say their coastal hardwood forests are at the heart of the world’s 36th biodiversity hotspot and are being felled with no legal obligation to replant. ‘The forests in the region need to, instead, be left standing to protect communities, fight climate change, and provide habitat for plants and animals’, the groups argue.

Wood pellets from forests and pine plantations in the Southern US are the most likely biomass source for any industrial scale co-firing and future power station conversions in Ireland, according to Bord na Mona’s 2016 Annual Report.

Aside from a US landowner impacted by clearcutting of the once biologically-rich bottomland hardwood forests in North Caroline, plaintiffs come from Estonia, the world’s third-largest wood pellet producer; Romania, especially in the Carpathian Mountains where logging is felling some of the last remaining primeval forests; Slovakia – where logging is taking place in protected national parks, reserves, and even a UNESCO World Heritage Site; and a resident whose health is being harmed by emissions from cofiring a coal plant with biomass in Gardonne, France.

If the Court agrees to hear the case, it would be the first time that an NGO will have been granted standing before the court to challenge an EU law or regulation. Thus the case in itself is precedent-setting. The case will be posted online as soon as it is filed.

CASE WEBSITE www.eubiomasscase.org
Telebriefing March 4 11am Irish Time: http://www.pfpi.net/media-briefings-for-eu-biomass-case

CONTACTS
FERN www.fern.org
Partnership for Policy Integrity www.pfpi.net
EU Contact: MARK OLDEN. MARK@FERN.ORG +44 797 388 4718
Ireland: Tony Lowes 353 (0)27 74771 / 353 (0)87 2176316
Daithí Ó hÉalaithe (Irish language) +353 (0)87 6178852

Copyright © 2019 Friends of the Irish Environment, All rights reserved.
Press Release

Our mailing address is:
Friends of the Irish Environment
Kilcatherine
Eyeries, Cork P75 CX53
Ireland

Related Link: https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/17628-ireland-s-false-climate-solution-faces-european-court-of-justice
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