Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Public Services Card: Some still forced to comply
Catholic Church: Dark influence still active Anthony
Tom Parlon launches new career in comedy Anthony
Presumption of innocence does not universally apply in Ireland Anthony
The poor standard of Irish political journalism Anthony Public Inquiry >>
A bird's eye view of the vineyard
Macron?s ?Uberization? pension model: odd-jobbing can?t provide a salary, how can it provide a pensi... Sun Dec 15, 2019 23:58 | The Saker By Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily
The Baltic states are horrified of losing the Russian transit Sun Dec 15, 2019 19:42 | Scott by Ruslan Ostashko Translated by Nikolai Subtitled by Scott Source The Balts with their typical sluggish thinking have started figuring out the consequences of losing the Russian transit. The horror
Special Report: Putin Links Up With Xi, Give Permission to Open Gas Flow On New Pipeline! Sat Dec 14, 2019 18:42 | amarynth
United Kingdom: from the Brexit vote on June 23 (2016) to the general election on December 12 (2019) Fri Dec 13, 2019 23:14 | The Saker By Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog In June 2016, Brexit was accepted by 51.9% against 48.1%. This was a political sensation and a huge blow against the arrogance
Turkey Boosts Military Presence In Northeast Fri Dec 13, 2019 16:23 | Scott Syrian War Report ? December 13, 2019: Turkey Boosts Military Presence In Northeast Members of al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham repelled a Syrian Army attack on the area of al-Katibat al-Mahjura The Saker >>
A Blog About Human Rights
Latest Updates Thu Nov 21, 2019 20:32 | Human Rights
US Holds China To Account For Human Rights Violations Sun Oct 13, 2019 19:12 | Human Rights
UN Human Rights Council Should Address Human Rights Crisis in Cambodia Sat Aug 31, 2019 13:41 | Human Rights
Fijian women still face Human Rights violations Mon Aug 26, 2019 18:49 | Human Rights
Saudi Human Rights Violation Fri Aug 09, 2019 20:41 | Human Rights Human Rights in Ireland >>
For lefties too stubborn to quit
An offer they can?t accept? 08:45 Mon Dec 16, 2019 | WorldbyStorm
Left Archive: The Coffee Circle Papers ? Beyond the Parish Pump: Internationalism Today, Democratic ... 06:04 Mon Dec 16, 2019 | leftarchivist
From Independent Left 12:36 Sun Dec 15, 2019 | guestposter
Sunday and other Media Stupid Statements from this week? 09:35 Sun Dec 15, 2019 | guestposter
Anti-racism rally outside LH 14:25 Sat Dec 14, 2019 | WorldbyStorm Cedar Lounge >>
|
An earlier version of this article was written but unpublished back in 2008 and it has now been revised and published to take account of various changes since then.
The case is made for the provision of free public transport in every major town and city worldwide for a multitude of reasons. It has always been a good idea and should have been done a long time ago, but now with three major issues of our time; resource depletion, including oil, pollution and the climate crisis; they make it imperative that we move to such a system, both to conserve dwindling supplies of cheap energy, to reduce the use of vast mineral resources to make hundreds of millions of cars and to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions because climate change is happening faster than expected.
Are buses the future instead of the electric car? Heresy?
The Earth's climate has turned out to be more sensitive and complex than anticipated as evidenced by the recent dramatic record breaking summer ice melts in the Arcticc1 in 2007, 2008, 2012 and basically every year since then. With such a large change in the albedo or reflectivity over a huge area of the Arctic, this signifies the jump into positive feedback of the climate system, although it is not the only positive feedback. Combined with preliminary reports that frozen methane is beginning to be released from the Arctic sea floor and tundra and given that methane is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas, it is clear we are probably at the point of things running out of control. Emissions need to be cut drastically, starting about 20 years ago.
Maybe global warming is happening after all .... Arctic sea ice, going going,..gone?
Moving to free and well-designed public transport allows society to deal with these problems in the least disruptive manner and to do so in the most equitable way and it would increase the shared sense of everyone working together to cope with what are essentially going to be permanent problems. Free public transport is not the full solution but is definitely an important first step. Switching to public transport has the potential to achieve large scale reductions in fuel use and it can be done immediately without further research or perfection of any technology. The current status quo plan to replace all the petrol and diesel fuelled cars with electric ones still leaves us with the problem of massive resource usage, a replacement of oil wars for lithium wars, traffic congestion, deaths from air pollution , high accident rates and actually high energy use. It does not matter if the heavily promoted so called solution of producing millions of electric cars is run on renewable energy because it would require vastly more wind farms, solar farms and whatever else compared to a transport solution based on highly efficient, globally deployed free public transport system which would only require a fraction of energy and resources of a car based one.
These local elections on Fri 24th May are more important than ever. The reason is that up and down
the country Fine Gael with help from Fianna Fail have allowed corporate vulture funds through various government breaks to them
to buy up valuable tracts of land and to buy up thousands and thousands of apartments and homes. And the result is they are
screwing people for rent. In this feature a case study for South Dublin of how they corporate takeover has occurred and driven prices sky high and priced out ordinary people from ever buying a house or apartment. Found out what is happening in your council area and how FG and FF councillors encourage this madness because it is happening in towns and cities all over
the country.
national / eu Wednesday May 22, 2019 00:13 by 1 of indy
The European elections are this Friday on May 24th and there are good reasons to consider your vote very carefully because it does make a difference because practically every bit of law passed in the EU has to be adopted by Ireland at some point. It is a great way for politicans here to say the "EU forced us to..."
They said that one about the attempt to privatise water during that campaign.
It can be safely assumed that most people are for internet freedom, protection of the environment and in particular to live in places with unpolluted water, clean air and safe from exposure to toxic chemicals. These are all no brainers. In the area of military we have seen how years of bringing democracy to the Middle East by bombing them has resulted in devastation and huge waves of human refugees and immigration and time and time again the nefarious activities of the intellegence agencies of the big powers like USA, UK, France and NATO show them to be heavily linked to the various terrorist groups, via training, funding and weapons supply through third party countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to disrupt and overthrown regimes they don't like. So do people really want Ireland to drop it's neutrality and get aboard these very costly military adventures and volunteer it's soldiers for basically ordained mass murder? At a guess, the answer is probably no. So what have the present MEPs done in their last term in the European Parliament?
Well for one the Fine Gael MEPs are consistently backed the corporate, pro-military, anti environment and internet censorship agenda whilst all the Left leaning and Sinn Fein MEPs have consistently been against corporate control, anti-military, pro-environment and for internet freedom. The only FF MEP managed to be absent for most of the votes mentioned here and it would seem, has been playing the line of being non-committal until the party gains more strength and can then openly go back to supporting the status quo. And least anyone is in doubt, the status quo is anti democractic and pro corporate domination of society. The sections below will give some examples but it should be clear that it by voting for FG you are voting against your own interests. The only reason anyone has ever voted for them or will is because the election marketing machine is so effective and marketing works extremely well. Just think of all the junk people constantly buy that they do not actually need.
Yet again the United States is brazenly pushing for the overthrow of an elected president -in an election which former US president Jimmy Carter said was extremely fair -to be replaced by an unaccountable, un-elected business man who is clearly the pawn of the 1% of Venezuela and the elite and intelligence apparatus of US capital. And regrettably most of the leaders of the EU and our own lackeys have no minds of their own, and acting as the true vassels they are, following the US line. So it is in this vein, that the press release from the workers party brings focus to this completely undemocratic move by the US and Irish government ostensibly for democratic motives!
The Workers’ Party have accused Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney of prioritising Donald Trump’s foreign policy ahead of Irish neutrality. Cllr. Éilis Ryan, the Workers’ Party candidate in May’s European Parliament elections, said:
“Simon Coveney has, for the first time in our history, given formal backing to United States overseas aggression. Successive governments under Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Green Party have facilitated US overseas aggression by allowing the use of Shannon Airport, but this move marks a new departure, leaving behind even the facade of neutrality.
“It flies in the face of the values of anti-colonialism and sovereignty which Irish people are so rightly proud of.”
Related Links:
Can Venezuela and its neighbours survive the coming war? |
Former world bank employee Peter Koenig gives his perspective on Venezuela situation |
Medialink analysis of biased Venezuela coverage by BBC, Guardian and others |
the making of Guaido - Max Blumenthal interview |
Why must Venezuela be destroyed? |
What the Press Hides From You About Venezuela — A Case of News-Suppression |
The Saker interviews Jorge Valero, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela |
Trump’s Venezuela gamble is turning out to be a beaten docket by Finian Cunningham
End Capitalism: Save The Planet. A Series Of Day Schools Nationwide Wed Aug 14, 2019
Judge Halts Puerto Rico Bankruptcy for 4 Months Wed Jul 24, 2019
A generation faced with stress & anxiety Thu Jun 27, 2019
The country will be back to normal in 2053 Thu Feb 21, 2019
Eat the Rich? Wealth Inequality Explodes Thu Jan 31, 2019
|
N11 Improvement Scheme ‘undermines Climate Action Plan 2019’ Sun Dec 15, 2019
Ongoing weekly fine of €100,005 by EU Court highlights ‘a matter of indisputable seriousne... Tue Nov 12, 2019
Leading Environment Groups Oppose €7m Dursey Island Mass Tourism Project Tue Nov 05, 2019
Bird Study shows 30% decline in protected choughs as tourism project opposed Mon Oct 21, 2019
Year of the Salmon -Workshop Galway - Sat 19th Oct Wed Oct 16, 2019
|
Heroes of Our Time Thu Nov 07, 2019
Kingsbay Plowshares Seven Found Guilty on All Counts Fri Oct 25, 2019
Kings Bay Seven Day 3 of Trial Fri Oct 25, 2019
Day 2 of the Kings Bay 7 Plowshares Trial Thu Oct 24, 2019
Kingsbay Plowshares Seven Trial Wed Oct 23, 2019
|
Debate On Housing Solutions Should Receive As Much Media Attention As No Confidence Drama Sat Dec 07, 2019
5 Reasons To March Against Homelessness On 5 December Thu Nov 21, 2019
O’Devaney Gardens- Sell Out On Public Land by FF, Greens and Labour Thu Nov 07, 2019
Minister Murphy’s failures are normalising homelessness - Eoin Ó Broin TD Thu Oct 31, 2019
IFI Documentary Festival: PUSH -Documentary on the Global Housing Crisis by Fredrik Gertte... Thu Sep 19, 2019
|
Religious: Senate Pass Transparency Legislation Thu Dec 12, 2019
IMF Warns of Unstable Financial System Wed Oct 16, 2019
IMF Reports Dismal, "Uncertain" Economic Outlook Wed Oct 16, 2019
Kristalina Georgieva Takes IMF Helm Thu Sep 26, 2019
The Voices of 1968 Around the World Thu Sep 12, 2019
|
Become backward or take society forward. Sat Dec 14, 2019
Vigil For Julian Assange Thu Dec 05, 2019
Save Cork's Cobh right of Way from land grab by Port of Cork Company Fri Nov 29, 2019
Govt plan to restrict citzens role in planning process. Justice must be ‘free, full, and s... Fri Nov 29, 2019
Doctors demand “urgent” medical intervention to save Julian Assange’s life Mon Nov 25, 2019
|
|
|