North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?
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?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?
US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty
Anti-Empire >>
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 >>
Fury After Woke NHS Supports First-Cousin Marriages Despite Risk of Birth Defects ? and Oppression A... Sun Sep 28, 2025 17:00 | Richard Eldred
The NHS is under fire for defending cousin marriage as a cultural "benefit" despite the serious health risks, claiming it brings "stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages".
The post Fury After Woke NHS Supports First-Cousin Marriages Despite Risk of Birth Defects ? and Oppression Against Women appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Is the Tech Giant Who Gave Blair ?257 Million in Line for Huge ID Card Contract? Sun Sep 28, 2025 15:00 | Richard Eldred
A cronyism row has hit the Government after it emerged Tony Blair secretly lobbied for his tech billionaire backer, who gave him ?257 million and could rake in millions from Labour's digital ID cards.
The post Is the Tech Giant Who Gave Blair ?257 Million in Line for Huge ID Card Contract? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Sir Keir Starmer Under Pressure to Scrap Angela Rayner?s Plan to Roll Out Official Definition of Isl... Sun Sep 28, 2025 13:00 | Richard Eldred
Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary, has made it clear he?s unsympathetic to his predecessor's plan to roll out an official definition of Islamophobia, telling newspapers he'll block it if it stifles free speech.
The post Sir Keir Starmer Under Pressure to Scrap Angela Rayner?s Plan to Roll Out Official Definition of Islamophobia appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Questions for Keir Starmer Over Avoiding Inheritance Tax Sun Sep 28, 2025 11:00 | Richard Eldred
Keir Starmer put a ?295,000 Surrey field in a trust for his parents, so it wasn't part of their estate ? even though he has said "those in charge of taxation can't also be seeking to avoid it."
The post Questions for Keir Starmer Over Avoiding Inheritance Tax appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Digital ID: What is it Good For? Sun Sep 28, 2025 09:00 | Anonymous IT Reporter
Digital ID hasn't even been launched and it has already achieved its goal. You see, everyone was talking about fiscal black holes, small boats and Andy Burnham. Now all they're talking about is Brit Card.
The post Digital ID: What is it Good For? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Lockdown Skeptics >>
Voltaire, international edition
Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en
Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en
Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en
The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en
Voltaire Network >>
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rights, freedoms and repression |
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Saturday March 29, 2008 22:04
by Paula Geraghty
mspgeraghty at yahoo dot ie
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Comments (19 of 19)
Jump To Comment: 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Private companies are not more efficient either.
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/ppps-they-j...work/
""One section of the Dublin to Galway motorway was built by the state. Another section of it was built under Public Private Partnership. Cost of the state built section worked out at 8.1 million Euros per kilometre. Cost of the PPP built section worked out at 14.1 millioon Euros per kilometre. The PPP section, by the way, will have a toll on it for almost three decades, up to 2035 so the taxpayer gets to pay again, and again, and again.""
""The building of schools under PPP in the South was estimated by the Department to cost 6% less than under normal procurement. The C&AG’s report in 2004, found they will cost between 8% and 15% MORE than under normal procurement.""
The alternative should not be confined between the limits of either a privately controlled health service or a government controlled service, but of a people controlled service with democratic structures throughout.
Michael McDowells wife is on the board of the HSE along with two bankers and probably other capitalistic idiots on there too, driving the public health service into the ground. They should be effed off and restructuring of the governing board of the HSE be made, with people who dont think in Euro's in their place.
That's the whole problem.
Governments spend hard earned taxpayers money like drunken sailors in return for inefficiency and incompetance.
What do they always see as the solution? Throw more money at it that's what!
The Health Service is a money pit.
I'm not against public services of course - obviously police, courts, prisons, hospitals, schools, roads etc. can only be provided by an organised state.
But don't expect efficiency and value for tax payers money.
They seem to have reasonably good health services in some places though.
Scandanavian countries and France spring to mind. I
'm no expert but I don't think it should be beyond us at this stage in human development to provide a reasonable health service for everyone in return for their taxes.
Privatisation of medical services only benefits the rich and wealthy who can afford the most specialised treatments.
Private hospitals, drug companies etc will only provide for customer demand in the most lucrative section of the market.
A doctor can make more money doing boob jobs than correcting a curved spine.
Government health services provide a standardised service for all - but due to political interference (better levels of care provided in a minister's constituency to hoover up votes) and insane levels of bureaucracy (consultants with their face in the pig trough gobbling up vital funds while patients linger on trolleys) and enormous managerial incompetance (wards and beds without nurses or doctors to operate them).
In either system the level of service will always be abysmal.
As a rule if you are able to afford it you will get good health care.
If you can't afford it you will get poor health care.
No amount of tinkering with the system will change that.
The poor always get the crap deal.
Louanne, has medical bills for her condition of crohn's disease. She can't afford health insurance and the wealthiest country in the world's solution- a lottery.
Check the BBC link for the fuller picture:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7321500.stm
Here ae some pictures of our campaign during yesterdays March.
.
Fair play to all groups , organisations, And to all the trade councils hard work In preparing for over a month to have the march run smoothly and peacefully.
Save Our Lady's Hospital Campaign
Save Our Lady's Hospital Campaign
My final selection of photos. I didn't get all of the speakers, but here's the few I caught.
Some more from me.
More from me.
I was there with my comrades from the Dublin branches of the Workers' Solidarity movement, so the vantage from which I took my photos will necessarily be biased. However, there was a good turn-out from (nearly) all organisations which claim a socialist outlook and agenda. Unfortunately the turnout, while not minuscule, should be at least ten times larger given the scale and urgency of the issue. Now, this isn't meant as a criticism of the efforts that went into organising and publicising the march but rather as an indication of how powerless ordinary people feel in the face of the aggressive promotion of the privatisation/two-tier agenda that even the churches won't challenge. I wonder did anyone listen closely to Dublin archbishop Diarmuid Martin on RTE radio this afternoon - while not openly defending private medicine, he accepted its continuing existence within the Irish health system. The HSE spokesperson that followed him distracted with the now-customary 'blame the patients, blame the workers' spin about bed-blockers, 'out-dated' practices, etc. Among all the privileged sectors of Irish society there is a self-interested consensus around the future of the health system; such differences that arise between these parties are differences of opinion, not of outlook. Some may argue for a 'kinder, gentler' two-tier system, but I for one will not buy into this either as a goal or a tactic. There is either equity in the health service or there is not. All forms of private healthcare provision are an affront to social equity.
There are a lot of links that can be made to other struggles for democracy and social justice in Ireland - for instance the presence yesterday of the Mayo Shell to Sea campaigners is a reminder that current and previous governments serve the interests of their corporate backers first and solely. This is as true in the wards of our hospitals as it is off our shores and in NW Mayo. I hope this could be the beginning of a fightback that can snatch back our future as a society from the ravenous jaws of the double-headed beast of the government/business lobby. And it won't be before time either!
.
Copyright Michael Gallagher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf969_2EKLI
From my interesting vantage point the entire of o'connell st was filled to parnell sq and on.
End the 2 tier health system
Save Our Public Services! Vote No to Lisbon!
photo's
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Yep.
images (c)
Images (c)