So the Gardaí get to pick who marches? Scenes from yesterday’s ICTU ‘protest’ as guards rough up protestors.
Ming attacks Garda corruption
‘A vindictive action by, I believe, a corrupt police force’ – TD Luke Ming Flanagan gives his view of the leaking by Gardaí of TD Clare Daly’s arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence. Ming was appearing on the Tonight with Vincent Browne show on TV3, last night (Tuesday 29th Jan ’13). He went on to severely criticize the Ombudsman’s office and the system for investigating complaints against individual … Read More
More Job Losses
Another indigenous industry has been rocked by closures today. 8 men were arrested and 5,800 cannabis plants ‘recovered’ following searches in counties Louth, Mayo, Dublin, Wexford, Westmeath and Longford within the last 24 hours. Most of these entrepreneurs were operating out of industrial and commercial rental units including one in Kiltimagh, Co.Mayo where no arrest occured. Gardaí said the estimated value of the plants was over €4m and ting.
A Fistful of Bitcoins
Ed zillion takes us to the wild wild west of digital culture. The Libertarian Millennium, if you will. A place where the twin technologies Bitcoin and Tor have led to the emergence of an online community like no other with its own marketplace and its own currency. A place inhabited by a disparate collection of cyber-utopians, digital activists, scammers and their inevitable marks. A place where you can buy LSD … Read More
License To Pill…
The media leapt on the story, falling over themselves with delight at having a “new” chemical nasty to castigate – conflating MDMA and PMA in the same breath as if it was a new party sensation. This ignorant whoring for headlines has the consequence of making recreational users just go ‘meh’ to a media that cries wolf at every stage in the drugs debate. Remember the mephedrone hysteria?
Just Say Know: An Interview With The Irish Needle Exchange Forum
Definitely the media has an important role to play, some of them have been great, others not so much. It is also the individuals who make statements to the media who have a significant responsibility to ensure that their facts are right. The whole issue with the pmma was that people reporting about it didn’t really have a grasp on what it is.
[Street Art] Paint The Town.
Irish originality is an issue. Generally the work that clogs our local walls tends to over-reference past styles and overseas artists. Irish-directed stand-out work, outside of contained spaces such as the Drogheda Bridge Jam, is rarely acknowledged. This is unusual for a small country, or it would be if we had an Irish-managed version of the form to offer.
Garda corruption may have led to at least 9 deaths
An extraordinary story revealed into today’s Irish Independent has thrown the Dept. of Justice into panic mode. A whistleblowing Garda has exposed mass fraud of the penalty points system, documenting 50,000 cases which may have been deleted from the PULSE computer system. ‘Pillars of Society’ have had their points quashed include and in at least nine cases highlighted in the dossier, a motorist who had their points quashed went … Read More
Be The Holy Smoke.
Provincial papers often provide fodder for magazine sections like The Phoenix’s Bog Cuttings. Apart from the reports of Nazi saluting drunks, men watering their horses and glass bottle fights; one thing that always stuns this rabbler is the court reports around drugs in his home town. Last Sunday Jim Cusak, a Sindo journalist published an article saying the state has lost the war on drugs. This was apparently based on the … Read More
#rabbleRaker: Ireland’s Greatest Cover-Up?
What happened on the night of 8th July 1985 and is it still being covered up? At a meeting of the Oireachtas Justice Committee, convened to hear the views of Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan on all aspects of crime, TD Finian McGrath tried to raise the case of Fr.Niall Molloy. He was ruled out of order by chair David Stanton (FG TD Cork East). The committee went into closed … Read More