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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

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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.

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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Starmer?s Grooming Gangs Inquiry in Crisis as Chairman Candidate Quits Tue Oct 21, 2025 14:46 | Will Jones
Keir Starmer's?grooming gangs?inquiry has been plunged into fresh turmoil after one of the candidates to lead it withdrew from the process, a day after two gang victims quit the liaison panel amid worries of a cover-up.
The post Starmer’s Grooming Gangs Inquiry in Crisis as Chairman Candidate Quits appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Oxford Union President-Elect Ousted After Celebrating Charlie Kirk?s Shooting Tue Oct 21, 2025 10:50 | Will Jones
George Abaraonye, the?President-Elect of the Oxford Union,?has been ousted following outrage over his celebration of Charlie Kirk's shooting after 70% of members voted to remove him.
The post Oxford Union President-Elect Ousted After Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Shooting appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Why is Starmer So Determined That Israeli Football Fans Descend on an Area That?s Now 70% Muslim? Tue Oct 21, 2025 09:00 | Laurie Wastell
Starmer is perversely determined that Israeli football fans will attend their team's match in Birmingham, even though the area is now 70% Muslim and mini-Israel-Gaza violence is a serious danger, says Laurie Wastell.
The post Why is Starmer So Determined That Israeli Football Fans Descend on an Area That’s Now 70% Muslim? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Windless Week Leaves Britain Totally Dependent on Imported Electricity Tue Oct 21, 2025 07:00 | Paul Homewood
A windless week exposes that the UK is now totally dependent on importing electricity at times of stress. This is hardly the 'energy security' that Ed Miliband continually warbles on about, says Paul Homewood.
The post Windless Week Leaves Britain Totally Dependent on Imported Electricity appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Tue Oct 21, 2025 01:23 | 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.

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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 >>

for God! "my" Patria! & the coca growers!

category international | history and heritage | news report author Tuesday July 25, 2006 20:19author by iosaf Report this post to the editors

Today those elected to the Peruvian government earlier this year to serve till 2011 must each swear an oath of allegiance. Its part of a series of constitutional rituals which will lead up to the presidential inauguration this coming Friday which is also Peru's national day.

The formula for the oath is very simple - (they often are) - each deputy takes his place in turn & recorded by stenographers and pictured on live TV recites the formula of loyalty. But already some deputies oaths have been rejected :-

The options are . por Díos! = for God! or "for Patria!" or )and this is curious) the names of the founders of the Peruvian democratic political parties. That curiousity arose from a previous all party agreement between party whips who realise many people don't believe in the same God anymore or like to put an ethnic twist in their Patria. But what has now become an issue of certain resonance is "who founds an independent deputy's party"?

Whatever one calls the Peruvian equivalent of "ceann comhairle" or "speaker of the house" has insisted that several deputies have not sworn a proper oath and thus recalled them or else they won't be allowed take their seats. This abstentionist fate also faces one deputy who thought to skip the whole ritual. Martha Acosta Zárate was elected as a nationalist (some say ultra-nationalist) candidate for one of the indiginous regions. {quite conceivably her God and her Patria are different}. But unlike the Northern Ireland assembly, if the Peruvian deputies don't sit because of some divine or national indentity problem - they won't get paid or any office space. "crunch time for the stationery".

One other deputy Cajahuanca Rosales is now causing polemic having sworn (the second time) "por Dios, la Patria, los cocaleros, agricultoras y en contra de quienes traicionan los intereses del pueblo".
Which translates as "for God, Patria, the coca farmers, and agricultural workers and against those who betray the interests of the people".

At the moment this "oath of allegiance" business in teh young Andean democracy doesn't look like sparking a civil war such as it did in the Irish Free State's time. On the contrary most young Peruvians (who tipped me off about this real time story) think its all a bit funny.

& why?

Simply because oaths are undervalued. How many times have people sworn allegiance? sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? to defend liberty?

polemic in Peru:
http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/EdicionOnline/Html/200....html

author by iosafpublication date Tue Jul 25, 2006 20:48author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Those deputies (and there are many) who were elected outside of the main parties are arguing that they have every right to swear an oath based on their election manifesto or slogan.

One of those deputies was elected on a platform which owed much to his current state of disability - he lost his hands in an industrial accident. He has just sworn allegiance thus " for God, for Patria, and that no-one break my hands". Peruvian youth is globally stuck to the telly screen.

To a European medieval jurist that would seem perfectly apt up to a point - in factr there were many arguments in medieval Europe as to the true validity of swearing an oath on a lost leg, eye, or arm.
But they were generally allowed - for only the mundane physical part of the body part was thougt to be gone - all would be resurrected whole "later on" "mutat quadratarotundis" This might seem unfair to people with perfectly working hands who think they'd have more to lose swearing an oath on them. Other less theological types will just wonder will this new deputy fight to the best of his abilities for all workers in poor conditions and stretch it from losing limbs to simpler ailments like tendonitis?

author by ipsiphipublication date Sat Apr 28, 2007 19:31author address author phone Report this post to the editors

It's a package which falls short of the classical "enabling act" and about 700 pages short of the "patriot act". But I don't like it nonetheless.

I don't have time (never been able to manage time me) to tell you all about how Garcia was elected all over again - nor how he is now below 50% approval rating. I'll just remind you I told you about Bolivia and the "coca leaf on the shield thing" last week just before Ireland, UK and USA kindly keeping on track recorded big busties. Have your attention lads. Now before we enter into explaining which members of parliament walked out or what a "caudillo" is and whether there are good or bad types (read the BBC report) let's just get something straight. I'm not a coke magnate or cocaine trafficker. I'm doing all this for the little man.

& so are you.

if you can't protest Peru immediately - you could always borrow some dirty nappies and dress up as a cryptosporidium. Act global Think local.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6602551.stm

author by ipsipublication date Fri Dec 14, 2007 01:08author address author phone Report this post to the editors

An important update to this thread sees Garcia use his decree powers (currently only 2 of the major coca producing economies are ruled by presidents granted decree powers) mentioned in the last comment. Thus the hopes of a regularisation of alternative coca products (not crack crystals) are stunted in Peru.
http://peru.indymedia.org/news/2007/11/37096.php
interview with a member of APEHCOCA ( in spanish) discussing alternative products which would have had brought so many benefits to cultivators and consumers alike.
http://peru.indymedia.org/news/2007/11/37113.php
here is an explanation of the alternative products in development
http://peru.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/26675.php
here is a pdf (spanish language) from Peru's university on the same subject
http://peru.indymedia.org/uploads/2007/11/trabajo_monog...e.pdf

good blog link "against narco traffic decriminalise the leaf".
http://lacocalocacompany.blogcindario.com/

 
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