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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.
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.
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.
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
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. The Saker >>
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony
Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony
Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony
RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony
Waiting for SIPO Anthony Public Inquiry >>
Parse failure for http://humanrights.ie/feed/. Last Retry Friday October 03, 2025 11:34
Kemi?s Pledge to Repeal the Climate Change Act Must Be Just the Start Fri Oct 03, 2025 09:00 | Ben Pile Kemi Badenoch's pledge to repeal the Climate Change Act ? which commits the UK to Net Zero ? must be just the start of the dismantling of the Westminster Uniparty consensus on climate catastrophism, says Ben Pile.
The post Kemi’s Pledge to Repeal the Climate Change Act Must Be Just the Start appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The Sceptic | Episode 53: Starmer?s Bizarre Bid to Brand Reform Racist, the Real Danger Posed by Lab... Fri Oct 03, 2025 07:00 | Richard Eldred In Episode 53 of the Sceptic: Tom Jones on Keir Starmer's bizarre bid to brand Reform racist, Andrew Orlowski on the real danger posed by Labour's digital ID and Kathryn Porter on the colossal cost of Net Zero.
The post The Sceptic | Episode 53: Starmer?s Bizarre Bid to Brand Reform Racist, the Real Danger Posed by Labour?s Digital ID and the True Cost of Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
News Round-Up Fri Oct 03, 2025 01:58 | 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.
The WHO Pandemic Accords Consolidate the Power of the Covid Clerisy on a Global Scale Thu Oct 02, 2025 19:07 | Ramesh Thakur The WHO Pandemic Accords, the first part of which came into effect last month, consolidate the power of the Covid clerisy on a global scale, warns Professor Ramesh Thakur. Expect more of the same.
The post The WHO Pandemic Accords Consolidate the Power of the Covid Clerisy on a Global Scale appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Teaching Assistant Sacked for ?Manhandling? Pupil to Stop Him Running into Road Thu Oct 02, 2025 17:27 | Will Jones A teaching assistant was fired after grabbing a special needs pupil to stop him from running out of school and into a busy road.
The post Teaching Assistant Sacked for “Manhandling” Pupil to Stop Him Running into Road appeared first on The Daily Sceptic. Lockdown Skeptics >>
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Boris Johnson's political demise offers a lesson for US Republicans
international |
politics / elections |
opinion/analysis
Tuesday July 26, 2022 16:10 by Boris Johnson's political demise offers a lesson for US Republicans

For millions of Americans watching last week's political drama in London, the spectacle was welcome entertainment, a respite from the bitter divisions racking the United States and a reassuring reminder that other countries also endure convoluted political theater. But it was also a wistful reminder that even if the US doesn't have a monopoly on edge-of-your-seat political machinations, other democracies seem to handle theirs more successfully. For millions of Americans watching last week's political drama in London, the spectacle was welcome entertainment, a respite from the bitter divisions racking the United States and a reassuring reminder that other countries also endure convoluted political theater. But it was also a wistful reminder that even if the US doesn't have a monopoly on edge-of-your-seat political machinations, other democracies seem to handle theirs more successfully.
The cascade of resignations by British officials urging that the ethically-challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson step down ultimately produced the desired result. After an endless series of scandals, and following stubborn vows that he would not give up, Johnson at last announced his resignation on Thursday.
It looks like democracy prevailed in the United Kingdom. It was a bit of a shambolic circus, to be sure, consistent with Johnson's premiership and much of his life (not to mention his hair). But, in the end, the process worked, and Britain stepped back from the brink.
The man that former President Donald Trump claimed people called "Britain Trump," ultimately resigned in disgrace for lying, for breaking the rules and for trying to get away with it one more time.
It's true that Johnson and Trump had more in common than their chaotic coifs. Johnson's misdeeds had a familiar ring to American ears, but they weren't in the same league as inciting a violent insurrection (which Trump has denied responsibility for) and trying to overturn his country's democracy.
Viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, the British mayhem was simultaneously satisfying and unsettling. Americans, whose democracy barely survived four years of Trump, reflexively drew a comparison between the transgressions that led to Britain's Conservative Party and much of the UK turning its back on Johnson and the far more damning and dangerous actions of the former US president, who remains to this day the most powerful figure in the Republican Party and looks all but certain to seek the presidency again.
Both Johnson and Trump assumed power with lengthy records of rule-breaking, dishonesty and deceit. Their supporters knew who they were choosing. Their lifelong patterns continued in office.
By Trumpian standards, however, Johnson's lies and misdeeds while prime minister hardly qualify for the evening news.
It is a tribute to British democracy that Tory leaders decided "enough is enough," after Johnson was caught lying. The unlikely final straw, the one that fractured the spine of the proverbially overloaded camel, landed after he appointed Chris Pincher to a leadership position after he had been accused of sexual misconduct. (In a resignation letter to Johnson, Pincher did not admit the allegations directly, writing, "last night I drank far too much" and "embarrassed myself and other people.")
Other allegations of Pincher's past conduct then reemerged in light of his resignation. For some baffling reason, Johnson kept changing his story about why he appointed Pincher. Instead of admitting a mistake and moving on, he claimed he hadn't known about specific allegations.
Imagine this under Trump. It would barely rank in the top 1,000 scandals.
For Johnson, it piled on top of other high-profile controversies. Most prominently, there was "Partygate," the months' long series of prevarications about Johnson's multiple parties at Downing Street while the country was under strict Covid-19 lockdown. The lies were undone by photographs of the prime minister and his festive houseguests, booze in hand, even after Johnson had feigned innocence, claiming he "believed implicitly that this was a work event."
He became the first British prime minister fined for breaking the law and apologized to parliament "unreservedly." But he stayed in office and kept toying with the truth.
Johnson's behavior and his disregard for the truth -- which helped him get to office -- were shocking by normal standards. By the standards of Trump, who was clocked uttering a mind-boggling 30,573 lies and misleading claims while president, and has not stopped since leaving office, it was a feeble effort.
In the end, Johnson was, is, an entitled, charismatic politician, who has felt the rules were made for others, and had no compunction about fabricating stories to get his way. He got away with it almost every time. But he wasn't a darkly malignant figure of the caliber that threatened US democracy. He was more of the small-bore variety, the kind that gradually erodes norms and values -- a long-term threat more than an immediate menace.
When he resigned as party leader, a starkly uncontrite Johnson blamed not himself but the "herd instinct." If that was herd instinct, it was a most welcome one, a revival of respect for decency; a belated recognition that leaders with hollow ethical cores are dangerous to democracies.
It wasn't just Americans who automatically thought about Trump when they heard Johnson was finally being held to account. Across Europe, many drew the analogy. Guy Verhofstadt, a longtime prime minister of Belgium and now prominent member of the European Parliament, tweeted, "Boris Johnson's reign ends in disgrace, just like his friend Donald Trump. The end of an era of transatlantic populism? Let's hope so."
But Americans aren't so sure Trump's reign has definitively ended. https://scamion.com/jose-luis-roberts-b1 The majority wish Trump would go away. But he won't. Not after two impeachments, not after allegedly leading a failed attempted coup, not after an election he lost decisively but still insists he won.
Although it wasn't easy and they waited too long, British Conservative leaders faced an easier time turning on their boss than American Republicans would. In Britain, they stood by him and mostly tolerated Johnson's transgressions. In the US, countless elected Republicans have done far more than tolerate Trump's lies. They have embraced them, amplified them, cast their lot with the lies and the liar.
Still, last week's events in London reveal an opening, allowing a glimmer of hope that those who have promoted, defended or quietly tolerated Trump will one day decide they, too, have reached their limit. And that enough of them will say it aloud so they can force that most undemocratic of players off the stage and move on to healing a divided and exhausted country -- and its much-battered democracy.
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