Upcoming Events

National | Miscellaneous

no events match your query!

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

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 >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Wed Oct 01, 2025 00:40 | 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 Climatism in Europe is Dying Tue Sep 30, 2025 19:00 | Eugyppius
Climatism in Europe is dying as its grassroots support evaporates and Left-wing activists move onto other concerns. Eurocrats are well-insulated from public opinion but they can't ignore it forever, says Eugyppius.
The post Climatism in Europe is Dying appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Blow to Miliband as Reeves Signals Support for North Sea Drilling and Union Boss Calls for Him to Be... Tue Sep 30, 2025 17:36 | Will Jones
Rachel Reeves has signalled support for drilling in the North Sea in a blow to Ed Miliband ? as the boss of the Unite union calls on Keir Starmer to sack the "disastrous" Net Zero Secretary.
The post Blow to Miliband as Reeves Signals Support for North Sea Drilling and Union Boss Calls for Him to Be Sacked appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Wes Streeting Says Nigel Farage is ?Racist? Tue Sep 30, 2025 15:30 | Will Jones
Health Secretary Wes Streeting?has said Nigel Farage is "racist", joining Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in using the insult of the Reform party and its leader.
The post Wes Streeting Says Nigel Farage is “Racist” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Is the ?Friend-Enemy Distinction? Right-Wing Critical Race Theory? Tue Sep 30, 2025 13:00 | Noah Carl
Perfectly neutral institutions will never be attainable, argues Noah Carl, but that doesn?t mean that reasonably neutral institutions aren?t worth striving for.
The post Is the ‘Friend-Enemy Distinction’ Right-Wing Critical Race Theory? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

The March That Never Happened - Action needed to build a proper campaign on class size

category national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis author Sunday September 14, 2008 19:16author by Gregor Kerr - member Irish National Teachers Organisation (writing in personal capacity) Report this post to the editors

In June of this year the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) wrote to its members in all primary schools in the Republic announcing that a National Rally on the issue of class size would take place on Saturday 4th October. Posters were included for display in schools and staff reps were urged to begin the process of building a delegation of teachers and parents to represent their school at the rally.

Last week another communication arrived in schools from INTO head office. This informed members that the 4th October rally “will not proceed… as previously indicated.” Here Gregor Kerr, a member of the Dublin City North Branch of the INTO (writing in a personal capacity) analyses why the union leadership have backed off from the rally, asks whether they really have the bottle for a fight on this issue, and urges a grassroots campaign to deliver victory on the issue.

The background
Class sizes in primary schools in Ireland are among the highest in the ‘developed world’. Figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development just last week show that

  • Irish primary schools have an average of 24.5 pupils per class – the second largest of the EU countries surveyed (with only Britain having larger classes, by an average of one pupil)
  • on average there are four more pupils in Irish classes than in other EU countries
The government’s own figures released at the end of August show that
  • just over one in ten Irish children are in regular sized classes of less than 20 pupils
  • more than 100,000 Irish primary school pupils (twenty per cent of the total) are in classes of more than 30

All educational research and best practice indicates that pupils perform best when in smaller classes. The majority of EU countries have already achieved the target of having class sizes of 20 or less. Despite the years of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, Ireland lags at the bottom of the league.

The politics and the ‘campaign’
The Programme for Government signed by Fianna Fail and the PDs after the 2002 election – 6 years ago - was unambiguous in its promise on the issue of class size:

“Over the next five years we will progressively introduce maximum class guidelines which will ensure that the average size of classes for children under 9 will be below the international best-practice guideline of 20:1”.

It goes without saying that that promise was not even worth the paper it was written on and that the government never had any intention of actually delivering on it. The INTO responded to the failure to deliver on this promise with a campaign which involved the collection of a petition signed by approximately 200,000 parents and – in the lead-up to the 2007 general election - a series of large public meetings across the country which were attended by over 18,000 parents and teachers and which demanded that the government take action on this issue.

Posters with the campaign slogan ‘Is your child being crowded out?’ adorned the corridors of practically every primary school in the country and the issue was a live one with huge numbers of people – both parents and teachers.

Unfortunately the leadership of the union seemed to lose sight of the fact that the purpose of running a campaign is not just to have a clever slick PR- friendly series of events (although that is in itself important). The reason for running any campaign is to win, but this seemingly obvious truth seemed to get lost somewhere along the way.

Thus when the then Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, came to the INTO Annual Conference at Easter 2007 – in the run-up to the general election - and promised 4,000 extra primary teachers to deal with the issue of class size, the union leadership declared victory, with general secretary John Carr going so far as to say that he would be “happy” to see her back as Minister for Education after the forthcoming general election.

Political promises
What John Carr lost sight of was that all he had managed to wrest from the Minister was a repeat of the political promise contained in the 2002 Programme for Government. A campaign that was universally described by the INTO leadership as ‘successful’ had in fact gained nothing more than a repeat of an election promise. The fact that the promise had previously been broken counted for nothing. Another election – another promise. Like fools we’ll believe it again this time! It brings to mind the old saying ‘Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me’.

So along came the 2007 Programme for Government, this time signed by Fianna Fail, the PDs and the Greens and it had the following to say on class size:

“We will increase the number of primary teachers by at least 4,000. This will enable us to reduce class sizes. The staffing schedule will be reduced from a general rule of at least one teacher for every 27 pupils in 2007/08, by one point a year, to one for every 24 children by 2010/11”

Guess what – Surprise, Surprise (well some of us weren’t at all surprised!) the ink was hardly dry on the document until Minister Hanafin was saying that it wasn’t actually going to happen. And the union leadership reacted with shock. What?? A government minister failing to deliver on a pre-election promise?? Never heard of such a thing before!

So the ‘campaign’ swung into action again. And on one level – the PR front – it has been extremely successful. The issue of class size and the government’s broken promises has been prominently covered in both national and local media over the past two weeks since schools re-opened after the summer holidays. On Monday last, 8th September, for example INTO spokespersons were interviewed on this issue on 24 different radio stations – both national and local.

More than PR needed
The case has been made, the PR battle has been won. Everyone agrees that our primary school children deserve smaller class sizes. But what about a campaign that is going to deliver a victory – that is going to force the government to act on this issue. This is where the union leadership don’t appear to have the bottle for the fight. Their decision to call off the 4th October rally on the grounds of ‘a greatly altered and rapidly changing economic and budgetary outlook’ shows that they are afraid to take on the government.

It is to be hoped that at a grassroots level teachers and parents can combine to build a campaign which will not only deliver a strong message to government that our children deserve better than the way they are being treated but that will also deliver a result. We need to begin to discuss the strategies and methodologies of a campaign which will be designed not just to win the PR battles but to win the substantive issue. The government must be taken on by a strong and united campaign of parents and teachers and told in no uncertain terms that we will not continue to tolerate this situation.

The discussion about that strategy has begun at branch and district level within the INTO. If you’re a teacher or parent who feels that you’d like to get involved in helping to build that campaign I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at kerrgregor@yahoo.co.uk.

Together let’s build a campaign which will deliver a victory on this issue.

author by class of 90publication date Sun Sep 14, 2008 23:24author address author phone Report this post to the editors

personal anecdote: the son of a friend of mine was in primary school in 2001/2002. His class size was 25 pupils, but the kids were regularly crowded in with another class, making a class size of over forty! This practice is called double classing and happens when teachers are off fo a few days at a time.

But it was happening so often that my friend complained to the headteacher. She was told that the teacher kept having to take time off because he was working (unpaid) as an election agent for a political party, and the principal didn't feel he could complain, as it was for one of the government parties!

author by pedantpublication date Mon Sep 15, 2008 12:44author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The problem of both class-size and the deplorable state of our educational infrastructure is one of resources. Ireland, in relation to its GDP, and in spending per primary pupil, is about mid-placed in terms of EU spending on primary education. However, our primary teachers are among the best paid in the EU. A primary teacher in Ireland gets a full 40% more than his or her equivalent in France - and that is before higher French taxes take a further whack off the French teachers salary. If you use all your resources to overpay the teachers there is likely to be nothing left to hire more teachers to reduce class-size or repair our crumbling schools.

Incidentally, French teachers have recently had to accept a later retirement age in compensation for their privileged pensions. No such problems for Irish teachers. Enjoy it while it lasts you lucky people. The taxpayers won't be able to afford your cushy privileges much longer.

author by activist - siptupublication date Mon Sep 15, 2008 23:34author address author phone Report this post to the editors

There is a need for real debate on way forward for trade unionists in ireland.

Re-Building Trade Union Activism: Grassroots Shop Stewards and Union Activists Conference

Saturday 20th September
Venue: UNITE Hall,
Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1.

Good timing for such a conference.

Check out: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88934

Related Link: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88934
 
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy