Stephen Baxter has written a novel for the long haul – we humans are notorious for believing that our brief existence is of pressing importance, so any novel that spans 600 million years can reasonably be described as taking “the long view”

Two Stephen Baxter sites:

• http://www.themanifold.co.uk/
• http://www.baxterium.org.uk/

Evolution:

• Basic introduction to the reasoning of biological evolution
• Main Wikipedia page on evolution
• Other useful site on evolution

Popular science:

• Richard Dawkins’s Wikipedia page
• Evolutionary Psychology on Wikipedia
• Richard Lewontin: well known critic of sociobiology
• Grapic depection of hominoid evolution
• Brief account of moden humans from an archeological perspective

A portent of all that was to follow on the discovery of gas off the Mayo coast must surely have been that all of the local SIPTU and other workers who had been involved in the exploration were immediately dropped. Foreign workers from the Phillippines and elsewhere were flown in and out from that point onwards - without ever touching Irish soil. Clearly, there was a determination to keep matters out of Irish hands from before the find - itself only a confirmation of what had long been known/suspected about our resrouces off the west coast (despite propaganda to the contrary that had been circulating in the years preceding the find).

At the Maxwell lecture theatre, Hamilton Building, Trinity College on February the 9th, Eamon Dunphy together with Micheal O Sheigin of the Rossport Five was addressing an audience in advance of the Five's expected appearance in court today. Dunphy said he believed that what Charles Haughey and Ray Burke had done in relation to this issue amounted to treason. Against all the rules of public administration, they had met in secret, (i.e. without any other government representative present), with oil company representatives and had concluded a deal the details of which are still not known to this day. What is known is that the Irish people have no rights whatever to their own natural resources as a result of that deal. What is also certain is that on the very same day in January 1993 that subsequent legislation governing the issuing of exploration licences came into force, Enterprise Ireland applied for a license for the exploration of the Corrib field. Statoil, also on the same day, applied for four exploration licences. What amazing foresight they must have had - or perhaps they knew something the rest of us did not?

Joanne Delaney - Dunnes' Union Nemesis?

At a meeting in Crumlin Village Tuesday evening (Feb 7th 2006), about 60 local activists and residents agreed to form a support group for Joanne Delaney, sacked by Dunnes Stores for wearing a trade union pin, last October. They also agreed to place a weekly picket on Dunnes Stores in the Ashleaf Centre starting next Saturday at 12 noon.

An image of Joanne Delaney was one of the last pictures on the top of the newswire of this site before the layout changed. She was a Mandate worker representative in Dunnes in Ashleaf in Crumlin last October when she was fired for wearing her union pin. An Irish owned retailer, Dunnes was famously involved in a pay off in 1997 to a Taoiseach (Haughey) and a minister (Lowry) leading to the wonder of Tribunal land. It achieved international notoriety in the 1980's as 11 workers stood firm for nearly three years over a Mandate member who was suspended for refusing to handle South African fruit during apartheid. It is heavily involved in both retailing and land deals around Dublin 12, both in the Ashleaf centre where Joanne worked and in the Crumlin and other shopping centres in the area.

Joan Collins and Pat Dunne with Joanne 0.33 Mb Brendan Archibald talking to the crowd 0.71 Mb Joanne wearing her union badge 0.32 Mb

Waiting for Democracy

The Dublin City campaign organises to protect the bin service

The Indymedia newswire has seen reports from anti-bin tax actions in Drimnagh, Finglas and Ringsend and next Monday evening the first city wide protest of 2006 has been called at City Hall. The councillors will be voting on an emergency motion regarding the non-collection of bins, announced by the city manager three weeks ago, against the vote of the council. Across the city as the council starts to leave rubbish behind, groups are being organised to clear this up in the cold January weather. GAA and Labour clubs, pubs and even the cold streets are seeing meetings taking place as lists of bin collections are drawn up and the Dublin City Anti Bin tax campaign starts to act.

At the end of this year the Grassroots Gatherings will have been on going for half a decade. These are left-libertarian get-togethers involving anything between 100 and 250 people, they take place usually three times a year, with the location and organising team switching location each time, to avoid Dublin-centrism. Grassroots Gatherings have taken place in the west on three occasions (Limerick, Galway, and Mayo), in Dublin three times , and in Belfast and Cork twice.

Related Links: The Old Grassroots Gathering Website | Report from the Tenth Grassroots Gathering | Grassroots Gathering Five: A step forward for the movement | Photo Report of Sixth Grassroots Gathering | Grassroots Gathering Eight | The First Grassroots Gathering | The Second Grassroots Gathering | Robert Allen Interview with Laurence Cox on the Origins of the Grassroots Gatherings