Tagged "politics"

If only we had such sense here in Ireland, we can’t meet our commitments and it will hurt the economy in the long run not to go nuclear. The ESB has said “sometime in the 2030’s we will need to look at it” - why not look at it now? These projects take 10-15 years at least to implement properly.

Some really informative stuff on Slashdot regarding nuclear power:

by david.given (6740)
France generates pretty much all of its electricity from nuclear, with reprocessing, using pressurised water reactors. Not only do they have a number of handy engineering benefits such as isolating the water loop through the reactor from the water loop through the turbines, but they also have a particularly useful safety feature in that they’re self-regulating — temperature goes up, power output goes down. France has an excellent safety record; I can find only one major incident, which was a coolant spill in 2008. They even do their own waste reprocessing into plutonium, which is then reused to generate more power. Unaccountably, terrorists don’t seem to have stolen any of it.

After reading about Tom Cruise being banned from filming at certain German military sites because of his belief in Scientology, I was a bit outraged at first, despite my abhorrence of their beliefs, which I think are crazy and nonsensical.

Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. Cruise, also one of the film’s producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognise as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

This is the text of an email I sent to RTE. In America, CNN Television network is allowing the copying, remixing and free use of presidential debates as long as they are given credit, I believe RTE should follow its lead and extend to other programs:

First of all, sorry this isn’t to the right department, I couldn’t find the right one. The technical department which runs the website would make likely be able to deal with and respond to this issue.

This Ladies and Gents, needs no introduction, for you all know George W. “Dubya” Bush. What you may not know is the Daily Show, which is a popular news satire show in the US. If you have time I recommend you have a look on YouTube for more videos…

I am writing this because, I regret to say, the stupidity of humanity. People nowadays define their own law on the Web and the Internet (don’t know the difference, you should), while disregarding real life. Maybe its a lack of understanding about technology or law, I don’t know. One things for sure, common sense can go a long way. Take for example this website on the Commitments, which prohibits linking from unauthorised sites! You see? I just broke the law right there, amazing dontcha think? The person who designed or put the statement up, is a total complete and utter idiot, and I don’t care if thats considered slander! Imagine if every site was to do this? Search engines would be just another litagation filled business, like so many other. With Lawyers reviewing every site to go into the database, Google would have a handful, maybe a 100 sites, instead of the usual billions it indexes.

This is my letter to U.S. Dept. of Commerce, stating what I believe should happen to the Internet. Fell free to email your opinions to them directly: ** [email protected]**. As a net citizen, get your voice heard on the most important public debate of our times! Dear Sir/Madam, I, as a citizen of Ireland and the EU, think with respect, the Internet should have a world governing body, fairly appointed by each country who has more than 30% of their respective populations online. For those under 30% they should get to have a sub-committee, to prioritise and promote the Internet in their countries. I think while although ICANN has generally not been a bad governing body, vast improvements can be made, such as not allowing pressure from companies to increase domain prices, when the cost of providing them has come down dramatically over the past few years. I do recognise, that the Internet was partially created with the help of U.S. government funding, but this comes from the people of America, who would want the Internet to be a force for change, like for example, the way it is helping Chinese dissidents.Also, as with all US government generated ideas, it is free from patent and copyright which applies worldwide, such as NASA images, for example. This should be true of the Internet also, as it is with GPS (which I use regularly, Thanks for that!). I am not a whole believer in the U.N. however, I think the Internet governing body should be free form all Government and International organisational pressures (but not those that seek to limit abuse, such as child pornography, obviously). I thank you for offering a public debate on this issue and I sincerely hope the outcome will be of benefit to everyone living on earth.

I recently found a great documentary, about 9/11, entitled Loose Change 9/11][]. It is easily the most powerful about the event, much more so than Fahrenheit 9/11. In fact I would even argue, that if this documentary had of aired during the U.S. presedential election, I would have bet on a different result. Backed up by trusted resources such as the BBC which confirmed at least 8 of the 19 highjackers are alive and well. Filled with outrageous facts, it sets the scene for either a highly competent Bush regime that new what it was doing, or the worst domestic tragedy that happend under maladministration. Either way the American people have serious questions to ask, which I hope in time will get the aired in time. Maybe George W. is taking a leaf out of Charlie Haugheys book? That is that corruption can be a force for the good of the public, and my rich friends?

In Ireland we, like the rest of the world, have though questions to answer. Ireland being an island economy, is especially reliant on oil, none of which we produce. I was surprised earlier this week to hear one of George W. Bush’s top aides, saying that the U.S. needs to lose dependence on foreign oil and research alternatives. I was never more shocked, to hear Bush’s change of heart, from using improved technology, to one of his aides saying they need to use less oil. Part of me was angry, as he defiantly rejected Kyoto agreement, when the United States produces 25+% of all greenhouse gases.

As tech savvy readers will be aware, dot EU is the latest domain to go into public use. What is a domain? A domain is the name used for internet site like “dueyfinster.eu”. It has already sold over 1.25 million names already, this entering the third day of the public sale. Their have been bitter critics of how it has dealt out, with heated arguments over some domains such as Polo.eu, which was claimed by no less than 3 entities: Volkswagen, Ralph Lauren and Nestle. Volkswagen won out eventually, all because they got their application in first.

Well I can’t believe I only had one post in February! A lot has happened since then, with Danish cartoons, Dublin Riots and a few policy changes to the site. First of all the cartoons, I mean, whats all the fuss? Christianity is banned in Saudi Arabia and Muslims in the middle east just don’t get the idea of ‘free press’. No one should be allowed to immigrate to the western world, if they do not hold the core values which we hold, such as human rights, free of expression/press and other values. Should we worry about the middle east? Not at all, they’re behind the times, their loss. Why is it that movies which parody Christianity are so popular with Christians (like Monty Python)? We have evolved and can tolerate jokes and laugh at ourselves, many, but not all Muslims have not learned to do this, but they will, its called evolution, and sooner or later, it will hit the middle east. I am not defending the Cartoons, and I know Muslims do not produce images of Muhammad, and offense to this, I can understand. But they need to relax, maybe try some of the many drugs they like to export to us?

Well another year has passed, so I thought I’d make a short recap of it, and tell you what I am looking forward to in 2006. The year was firmly in the hands of mother nature as we saw in both Pakistan, New Orleans/Gulf of Mexico and the Tsunami’s after effects. International consensus was reached at the G8 as London was being bombed - not by the IRA, but by their new enemies in the middle east. Iran esculated its pressure on the world by resuming its nuclear activities. George W. Bush took office in January, much to the distaste of the Daily Mirror in the UK, who scored their most famous headline, “How Could 59,054,087 People, Be So Dumb?”.

The British Press annoys me so much, they way they constantly get it wrong across the board about the EU. I am a fond supporter of the EU for all its faults and cracks. But I love freedom of the press and like organisations who uphold basic journalistic standards, such as the BBC. This leads me onto the evil man behind it all, Rupert Murdoch owner of The Sun, BSkyB Television, The Times and other media outlets. It seems all he pushes is his agenda, whether it be the Bush Right-Christian agenda on Fox in the US or Eurosceptic view in his British interests.