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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

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Lockdown Skeptics

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offsite link Doctors Who Change Gender Are Allowed to Scrub Past Wrongdoing from Public Record Thu Feb 20, 2025 18:31 | Will Jones
New public records for medics who change gender are wiped of previous suspensions and formal warnings, it has emerged, after the General Medical Council confirmed that this is its policy.
The post Doctors Who Change Gender Are Allowed to Scrub Past Wrongdoing from Public Record appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Mark Zuckerberg?s Charity Sacks Diversity Team as the Great Unwokening Gains Pace Thu Feb 20, 2025 16:06 | Will Jones
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ? Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar charity ??has scrapped its diversity team and cancelled funding for projects promoting inclusivity as the Great Unwokening gains pace.
The post Mark Zuckerberg’s Charity Sacks Diversity Team as the Great Unwokening Gains Pace appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Yale Scientists Link Covid Vaccines to Alarming New Syndrome Causing Immune System Damage and Chroni... Thu Feb 20, 2025 13:38 | Will Jones
Scientists from Yale have discovered a syndrome linked to?the mRNA Covid vaccines that damages the immune system and causes chronic fatigue with spike protein persisting in the blood for up to two years.
The post Yale Scientists Link Covid Vaccines to Alarming New Syndrome Causing Immune System Damage and Chronic Fatigue appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Amanda Holden ?Took 28 Flights? for BBC Show Despite Net Zero Pledge Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:54 | Will Jones
Amanda Holden has said that she took 28?flights?to Spain during filming for a BBC DIY show, despite the corporation?s Net Zero pledge.
The post Amanda Holden “Took 28 Flights” for BBC Show Despite Net Zero Pledge appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Conservative Academics Are Still Self-Censoring, Says New Report Thu Feb 20, 2025 09:00 | Noah Carl
A new survey has found that conservative academics are still much more likely to self-censor. More than half said they "hide their political beliefs from other faculty in an attempt to keep their jobs".
The post Conservative Academics Are Still Self-Censoring, Says New Report appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
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offsite link Putin's triumph after 18 years: Munich Security Conference embraces multipolarit... Thu Feb 20, 2025 13:25 | en

offsite link Westerners and the conflict in Ukraine, by Thierry Meyssan Tue Feb 18, 2025 06:56 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?120 Fri Feb 14, 2025 13:14 | en

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Pat O'Donnell's 100 days in jail

category mayo | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Thursday May 20, 2010 13:14author by Ed Report this post to the editors

Gulf Spill highlights context of Pat's protest

The current 'Gulf Spill' is only one of scores of such disasters in recent decades. The same pattern of reckless failures; drip release of information; cover-up and collusion between operators and statutory agencies is evident throughout. Protesters are invariably vilified or criminalized so that attention may be directed away from the really criminal irresponsibility. Read the following quotes from highly credible sources and remember Pat's 100 days in jail today.

“big spills are a thing of the past”
April 22, 2010 New York Times
Search Ends for Missing Oil Workers
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
…. The accident may also serve as a disturbing reminder to states like Florida that offshore drilling holds environmental risks, even though the industry has long claimed that big spills are a thing of the past and that improved technologies have lowered the chances of spillage.

"more than 500 fires on platforms in the gulf since 2006"
April 22, 2010 New York Times
Accidents Don’t Slow Gulf of Mexico Drilling
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
……… The federal Minerals Management Service has recorded more than 500 fires on platforms in the gulf since 2006. At least two people have died in gulf platform fires over the last four years, and about 12 more were seriously injured before the accident on the Deepwater Horizon.

“the company seemed to lose its focus on maintenance and safety”
April 29, 2010 New York Times
Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
……. But the company seemed to lose its focus on maintenance and safety, BP executives later acknowledged. The 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas City, Tex., killed 15 workers and injured hundreds more. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP a record $87 million for neglecting to correct safety violations. Only a year later, a leaky BP oil pipeline in Alaska forced the shutdown of one of the nation’s biggest oil fields. BP was fined $20 million in criminal penalties after prosecutors said the company had neglected corroding pipelines.
Last year, when the federal Minerals Management Service proposed a rule that would have required companies to have their safety and environmental management programs audited once every three years, BP and other companies objected.

“Officials initially seemed to underestimate the threat of a leak”
April 30, 2010 New York Times
BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and ERIC LIPTON
………… Officials initially seemed to underestimate the threat of a leak, just as BP did last year when it told the government such an event was highly unlikely. …. The day after, officials said that it appeared the well’s blowout preventer had kicked in and that there did not seem to be any oil leaking from the well, though they cautioned it was not a guarantee.
…BP officials, even after the oil leak was confirmed by using remote-controlled robots, expressed confidence that the leak was slow enough, and steps taken out in the Gulf of Mexico aggressive enough, that the oil would never reach the coast.
Officials from BP and the federal government have repeatedly said they had prepared for the worst, even though a plan filed last year with the government said it was highly unlikely that a spill or leak would ever result from the Deep Horizon rig.
“There are not much additional available resources in the world to fight this thing offshore,” said Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, in an interview. “We’ve basically thrown everything we have at it.”

“no one got to the control panel to close the BOP”
10 May 2010 The Irish Times TONY ALLWRIGHT
Coverage of oil slick catastrophe fails to address its cause
……… Fuelled by uncontrolled gas and oil, the conflagration raged for 36 hours until the rig sank. In the immediate chaos, no one got to the control panel to close the BOP. The riser and control lines broke free of the rig and fell haphazardly onto the seabed where the riser continues to spew the oil that is causing such environmental alarm.

“They have horribly underestimated the likelihood of a spill”
May 10, 2010 New York Times
New Ways to Drill, Old Methods for Cleanup
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and LESLIE KAUFMAN
….. For years, major oil companies, as well as the Minerals Management Service, played down the possibility of an uncontrolled blowout on the sea floor, arguing that safeguards like blowout preventers were practically foolproof. … even though a consultant hired by government regulators in 2003 had warned that they were unreliable. ……….. Jerome J. Schubert, an engineer at Texas A&M who has written extensively about undersea drilling, found in a 2005 study that “blowouts will always happen no matter how far technology and training advance” and that there were no foolproof safeguards to stop them.

“the well failed several pressure tests on the day of the explosion”
May 12 2010 The Financial Times
Panel reveals litany of failures on oil spill
By Anna Fifield in Washington
A litany of failures led to the catastrophic spill from BP’s Gulf of Mexico well, … “The safety of its entire operations rested on the performance of a leaking and apparently defective blow-out preventer,” Mr Stupak said. The documents also revealed that the well failed several pressure tests on the day of the explosion, but that at 8pm – two hours before the disaster – BP decided operations could resume, with Transocean apparently disagreeing.

“a decades-old relationship between industry and government”
May 11, 2010 New York Times
U.S. to Split Up Agency Policing the Oil Industry
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed breaking up the agency responsible for both policing the oil industry and acting as its partner in drilling activities, seeking to end a decades-old relationship between industry and government that has proved highly profitable — and some say too cozy — for both.

"Managers at the agency have routinely overruled staff scientists"
May 13, 2010 New York Times
U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits
By IAN URBINA
Managers at the agency have routinely overruled staff scientists whose findings highlight the environmental risks of drilling, according to a half-dozen current or former agency scientists. ……. The scientists, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals by the agency or by those in the industry, said they had repeatedly had their scientific findings changed to indicate no environmental impact or had their calculations of spill risks downgraded.

“refusing to use well-known scientific techniques”
May 13, 2010 New York Times
Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say
By JUSTIN GILLIS
... But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure. ………BP has repeatedly said that its highest priority is stopping the leak, not measuring it. “There’s just no way to measure it,” Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said in a recent briefing. Yet for decades, specialists have used a technique that is almost tailor-made for the problem.

author by Maura Harrington - S2S; Davitt Leaguepublication date Thu May 20, 2010 14:41author address author phone Report this post to the editors


Today marks the 100th day of the Chief's (Pat O'Donnell) political imprisonment (Day 30 for Niall Harnett).

While Pat is held in Shell's state prison the wilted Greens, Ryan and Gormley are stupidly, cravenly and negligently handing out rubber stamp 'consents' to Shell for their continued destruction of Broadhaven Bay and Sruwaddacon estuary.

There is something putrid in the State of Ireland ...

author by Justin Morahanpublication date Thu May 20, 2010 20:13author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Pat and Niall, you should not be in there. The prisons are overflowing, yet a Judge apologises twice to Niall for jailing him. Aginbite of inwit, Joyce would say.

The jailing of these two citizens, in my opinion, is one of the greatest scandals this State has perpetrated on the people it is supposed to protect. Is no-one with clout shouting STOP?

author by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite partypublication date Tue May 25, 2010 11:40author address author phone Report this post to the editors

For a recent update on the current global state of the Great Game get your local library to stock a copy of Peter Maass's 'Crude World, The Violent Twilight of Oil',published by Penguin,2009.Keep one eye on the big picture.

 
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