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*** SPECIAL COMMENT ***. To make matters worse, FF want the damn thing held in secret - behind closed doors! To many, this comes as no surprise - as its already been shown that many members of FF have their dirty hands buried in the whole mess and are up to their necks involved. RTE's "Primetime" a number of weeks ago showed this alone. Some of those from Fianna Fail involved include Councillor Sean McCarthy, Senator Francie O'Brien, Senator Don Lydon, Charlie McCreevy and even Bertie Ahern's then other half! Follow-up example newspaper story HERE Fianna Fail before they get their asses kicked in the next election, are having one final big laugh and once again treating the public with the same disregarding contempt that they now are renowned for. Its a state organised cover-up - and we deserve it, for we are letting them get away with it. Those that sit around the top table of FF know broadly who is involved. What have they come up with? Probably an inquiry that will limit the range of areas that can be looked into, who can be looked into and areas that are off limits. Convenient eh? Cowen to escape grilling - story: HERE Example report of secret inquiry - story: HERE and HERE P.S. Don't forget, YOU as a tax payer will be paying for this waste of an inquiry. It will be your tax money that is going to be uselessly thrown away. Two of the involved bankers have already or this in this week, doing a runner to countries that have little or no extradition treaties! (one has moved to Marbella and another one has moved to Africa!) Flight of the developers - story HERE Welcome to the Irish way of doing things - or should I say Fianna Fails way of doing things? The opposition should stand up in the Dail and publicly state for for the record that "after the next election if the current oncoming inquiry and its FULL scope is not held in public and ALL those involved not brought to account under a totally independent inquiry, the current opposition will pick up where a previous inquiry stopped or failed to go". Anything less is aiding and abetting a cover-up. Further
more, history will be our judge yet again and some of us will be found guilty of incompetence, failure to do our full duty
and guilty of lack of action. Admin. Unitedpeople.ie Ryanair
Gets Told Off - Again! 04 Jan 2009 Britians Office of Fair Trading (OFT) today has given out yet again over Ryanair and its method of charging. They hit out at the company charging people for paying by card, the only method Ryanair allows, and for that basic ability they slap on an additional fee that you can't escape from. Your charged for paying for your previous charges! There was a "free" Electron card option at one stage but when people started to go to the bother of taking that route, Ryanair quickly scrapped that method and replaced it with a "MasterCard Pre-pay" option. The automatic insertion of insurance to flights was another area brought up and legality questioned. While the British OFT is currently reviewing the situation and laws, the Irish government again is currently doing nothing still to clear-up and define the present laws and legality of charge fees that can be applied. While they do nothing, it's a situation Ryanair is only too happy to see exist and possibly use to their best monetary advantage. American Victim Group Makes Request To Brian Cowen For Revealing Movement Details 29th Dec' 2009 An American victim group that has been chronicling the current US clergy sexual abuse scandal has released the names of 60 to 70 accused priests it says were born in Ireland or are of Irish descent who came to the United States and were re-offenders. The group who's website www.bishopaccountability.org has listed upon their site a well documented database of 3,000 names of accused priests and roughly a third are linked to Ireland, which is reeling from revelations of a decades-long coverup of abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. They called on Brian Cowen to recognize his country’s responsibility to inform the American public of all child-molesting clergy from Irish dioceses and religious orders who have immigrated to US dioceses. The Roman Catholic Church which has been found previously to me moving many, many of their brotherhood around the world to avoid questioning and possible charges have come under further pressure for more honesty and transparency. The
request comes as the Church in Ireland is currently resisting the calls for further investigation of the remaining diocese's within Ireland, Mr Cowen and Fianna Fail has allowed itself to be
seen as they too not wanting any further checking, for the matter go quietly away undocumented. Irish victim groups has repeatedly
called for further investigations for the rest of the country despite the stalling possibly going on. At a press release conference yesterday, Helen L. McGonigle, a Connecticut lawyer, held up a a picture of herself at age 6. McGonigle said she was 6 when she was abused by a priest named Brendan Smyth, who left a trail of abuse in Britain and Ireland before he came to work in East Greenwich, R.I. Smyth died in an Irish prison in 1997, shortly after pleading guilty to 74 counts of sexually abusing 20 Irish boys and girls between 1958-1993. “We know it was problem in the Diocese of Providence having this Irish priest who was a known pedophile,’’ said McGonigle, now 48. “This is a classic example of an organization that doesn’t give a hoot about protecting children,’’ she said. Jeffrey Thomas stated that he also had been abused by Smyth. Thomas filed suit in Providence Superior Court against the Diocese of Providence and others, alleging that he had been abused by Smyth at an East Greenwich, R.I., parish school. “I am a survivor of clergy abuse,’’ he said outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. “The bigger crime to me is that [Smyth’s] superiors knew about his appetite and his sexual desires and still put him in populations with small children to re-offend.’’ Also named on the website list are the Rev. Joseph Maguire, who served in Waltham and died in prison in 2005 while serving a 44-year sentence for abusing three boys. British Royals Upseting The Public Again! 27th Dec'2009 In a effort to gain back some privacy, the British royal family has instead upset a lot of their public. The latest example was withnessed at a mass the royals attended in Norfork, England over Christmas. It now appears that a British senior police over stepped his legal boundries and demanded that the watching public hand over all their cameras, confiscating them. This was done following a request from the royals that they get less cameras pointed at them in future! Tables were even set-up for the collection of public cameras giving the notion that this questionable legal move was well planned in advance of the Royals attending mass there. The reaction from the pubic on the day was anger and outrage. The same reaction is being felt by a lot of Englands public in general as news filtered through the media to the rest of the nation. This latest abuse of police powers comes as the Royals demand that they have a right to tighter privacy. The British queen days earlier moaned to the English media that she was unhappy with the present situation and demanded that the media photographers back off. For many, this is seen as a highhandness contradiction as the royals ask at other times that certain events and their people, be captured on film when and if its only convenient to them. An arrogance and disregard its been seen as, for the people that is putting money into their royal pockets and bank accounts. Chinese Disedent gets 11 Years
For Asking For Reforms! Sat Dec' 26th 2009 The longest charges ever handed down by a chinese court against someone asking for reorms, has been handed out. The sentencing of Liu Xiaobo, took place after he called for political reforms and an end to Communist Party dominance. The outcry at the harsh sentence which drew diplomatic criticism, came from many European countries and with the United States saying it went against international norms. The vague charge of 'inciting to subvert state power' is routinely used to jail dissidents. Liu could have been sentenced for up to 15 years in prison under the charge. The state-run Xinhua news agency only reported the news in English -- a sign the government does not want its people to know about Liu's case. Instead, the top Xinhua headline in Chinese declared 2009 a year of "citizens' rights." "We are deeply concerned by the sentence of 11 years in prison," said Gregory May, first secretary with the US Embassy. May was one of a dozen diplomats stopped by authorities from attending the trial and sentencing. "Persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally recognised norms of human rights," May said. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called it a sentence that was a setback for Chinese activists. "Cases such as that of Liu Xiaobo risk not just halting, but seriously reversing that momentum" toward increasing democratic freedoms in China, she said. Enter content here  |
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Miep Gieps RIP A Simple Tribute To A Brave Lady. 13th January 2010  Ms Gies died from a neck injury sustained in a fall at her home shortly before Christmas, Anne Frank Museum spokeswoman Annemarie Bekker said. Ms Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War Two. After the apartment was raided by the German police, Ms Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942, until August 1, 1944. Anne died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Ms Gies gave the diary to Anne's father, Otto, the only survivor, who then published it in 1947. After the diary was published, Ms Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved -- as if, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews of occupied Holland. "This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she was quoted as saying just days before her 100th birthday last February. For her courage, Ms Gies was bestowed with the 'Righteous Gentile' title by
the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She was also honoured by the German government, Dutch monarchy and educational
institutions. 'The Diary of Anne Frank' was the first popular book about the Holocaust, and has been read by millions
of children and adults around the world in 70 languages. A remarkable lady indeed. RIP. Iran Stamps Down On Memorials For Cleric Sat Dec' 26th 2009 In an effort to stamp out any vocal opposition of any kind at any place, Irans dictatorship leaders have banned memorial gatherings for a leading dissident cleric, with the exception of those in his birthplace and the holy city of Qom. News of clashes from Isfahan has managed to reach the outside world despite once again Iran attemps to stifle any news getting out. UPDATE: As the people's struggle for basic rights take place, the Iranian government is trying hard to close down more forms of communication and posting of news which shows discrepencies in what they are saying on their official media stations. The Iran government has blocked BBC broadcasts, banned world reporters, cut further internet access to the rest of the world including "Youtube", as well as cutting mobile communication in cities and troublesome spots. However news is still leaking out of the government actions and their treatment of their own people. An example of this is the following news clip which shows a protester being run over by a state police car on the 27th of December. . WATCH CLIP BELOW AT OWN DISCRETION
(Further clips found HERE)
Al-Qaeda Tortured Secretly in Lithuania 26th Dec' 2009 Unnamed sources leaked that a secret CIA prison was built in 2004 which was used for over a year to torture a minimum of eight Afghani terrorists. The prison could be accessed from underground. Originally it had no windows, according to the locals. The two story prison is now a training facility for the Lithuanian security service. Public officials continue to deny that such a prison has ever existed, but Lithuanian President Grybauskaite insists that a proper investigation be made into the allegations Uganda Outlaws Female Circumcision 21 Dec' 2009 The African country of Uganda has outlawed female genital mutilation after parliament unanimously voted in favour of the legislation. The bill gives anyone who performs the procedure 10 years in prison. Anyone who uses force to make a woman undergo the procedure faces a sentence of life in prison. Uganda's shadow health minister said: "This operation is so painful, so cruel, and these so-called surgeons are paid to do it." He added that while he's on the opposition party, "I supported the bill with all my strength and heart." According to the United Nations, 100-140 million women worldwide have been victims of the procedure. New American Waiting Airline Changes 22nd Dec' 2009 The Obama administration is ordering airlines to change company policies, now forcing them to allow passengers who have been waiting for three hours on the ground due to delays to depart their planes. Consumer advocates call it a "Christmas miracle." The industry says the stricter rules Obama is imposing will result in even more more canceled flights and inconvenience for passengers. But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said having to sit on a plane for 5-7 hours without explanation is worse.The government claims that about 114,000 passengers per year are delayed more than three hours while on an airplane. In August, Mesaba Airlines kept 47 passengers on a plane overnight, for which it was slapped with an unprecedented government fine. Iran Attack Sould Be used As Last Resort 21 Dec' 2009 U.S. military officer Mike Mullen is getting more apprehensive as the deadline on Iran's nuclear face-off draws ever nearer. Iran was given an approximate time to relate their decisions, the final time being set for the end of this year. His main concern is Iran’s lack of response, saying that "the clock [is] now running" on the amount of time that Obama will keep up his concerted effort toward a compromise of some sort with Iran. Even though Iran still claims the stations in question are to produce electrical energy for household consumers and the public sector, many doubt their intent. Mullen said that any military attack on Iran through Israel or the U.S. should be a last option Star Trek - Illegally Downloaded Most 27th Dec' 2009 According to TorrentFreak a blog site, the most illegally downloaded film this year was Star Trek at an estimate of around 10 Million times by internet users. Amid the rest of the other top films downloaded was Transformers, 2012 and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. TorrentFreak also noted that what the box office stated as the most popular were not necessarily mirrored in results on the site. All the data was collected from the largest of the BitTorrent trackers. Enter content here |
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Coming Soon
- NEW REVIEW SECTION - First up: "Borderlands" from Gearbox The game that installing for a PC can be hell just to do!  The Vodafone Fault Fiasco! (...And the ongoing search for any non rip-off Irish decent broadband) 2nd July 2010 ...Or how to keep a customer ringing up every few days about a problem for a month,
hours upon hours on hold listening to the same song over and over again and with a multitute of excuses given WHEN you
get through - and are not cut off in mid conversation - only so that you have to ring up again, go through the whole phone
menu system again and listen to the same song again while you wait for hours to speak to someone, yet again to hear more excuses
and further promises of tomorrow, tomorrow... And thats the short version!
Here is the long version: I have been with BT for over 5 years when they managed to do broadband services in Ireland - then the switchover took place and withing 24 hours the problems started. I was paying for a 8 meg service. What I got fron BT was around 6 actually which I could have (and did) live with. As soon as the switchover took place BB (BroadBand) was being cut off, speeds dropped to 2 meg or 2.5 meg on a good day and I was still being charged for 8 meg. I have now rang Vodafone over 20 times now since the beginning of June. I have been ringing them for over a month now - in some cases multiple times daily and at least every few days while "we have to check out something - but we will ring you back" (See Note 1). I have spoken to many service reps' including Chris, Kieran, Brian, Pete and a Peter to name a few - and to each in some cases, multiple times. I have been told at least 14 times "I'm going to esculate your problem and you should hear back from us within... etc" with no result and/or response. Just some of the excuses I have had are: * "Its your modem" - was working fine under BT! * "Its the LLU line" - again all was working fine for years till 24 hours after switchover! * "O' they are upgrading the exchange possibly" - great I thought, I should be getting a better service soon (See note 2 below) * "We see you are only on our system for 3 meg and I can't change it!" * "Eircom is telling us your line can't handle anything over 3 meg" - but got a constant 5/6 meg for the last 5 years under BT! * "You have faulty connections" - they were tested MANY, many times - NOPE! ...and working fine for 5 years with BT but not even 24 hours with Vodafone! * "It could possibly be your filter!" - Changed it - NOPE! Note 1. Although I have been now told at least 16 times "we will call you right back" - only ONE call did I get and that was in the last 24 hours. That call told me "your line was not good enough for over 3 meg - there is nothing we can do" - But it was fine with BT for years and years but not good enough for 24 hours with Vodafone! Note 2. They told me the exchange was being upgraded and would be done by the 15th of June. Rang on the 16th when no change (line dropped/cut off repeatedly) and was told "O' it will be done by the 20th" ...Guess what? NOPE! Rang back. "O' it will be done by the 30th" ...Guess what? NOPE! Its now the 9th of July and still NOPE - no change. * So so far I have spent literally about a week in actual phone time through to their 1907 customer service. * I have listened for hours to the same repeated female solo singer singing the same repeated song while "on hold" for hours. * Even when I get though their phone system ("Press 2, then press 6, then press 2... etc...") while talking to the many reps - I GET CUT OFF REPEATEDLY!!! ...So I have to ring them back again ...go through the phone system again, wait/hold/cue same female singer, same song music... for 20 to 35 minutes to actually speak to someone and then be told (many, many times) "can you please wait while I go and check something, I'm going to put you on hold" - SURPRISE!!! O' good, that female singer again!  Well the farce is still on going as of todays date the 9th of July. If anything changes - which I doubt, you will hear about it here. Please return and stay posted. UPDATE: Got this response to an email I sent explaing the situation. Thank you for contacting us with your query. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your query. Upon review of your account I can see that you have been in contact with one of our technical support agents regarding this issue and that they have escalated the issue for investigation.Please accept our apologies for the delay in resolving your issue. If you have any further queries, please call us on FreeFone 1907 and we will be happy to assist you. Yours sincerely Mark O’Brien - Customer Service Vodafone ...So according to him I'm back to just dialing 1907 ...more days, weeks, months(?) of getting nowhere! VODAFONE - An absolutely useless service. UPDATE: 18.20. Friday 16th July. I have now decided to gfo with another provider who will be here on Monday I have been informed, between 2 and 5pm. The system that is being put in is questionable in equal reliability but a person can only try. If this new system is either good or bad - you can be sure that I will inform readers here and who is the culprits responsible or I hope, who deserves praise! P.S. Its Moving - The North Pole! 29th Dec 2009 Earth's north magnetic pole is moving fairly rapidly -- nearly 40 miles a year -- in the direction of Russia, according to new research, and data points to a region of rapidly shifting magnetic activity on the surface of the Earth's core. That in turn may be caused by a strange magnetic "plume" originating from deeper inside the core, scientists say. The magnetic north pole is being dragged by these changes from its long-time home in northern Canada. Magnetic north is the place compass needles actually point to, and is near the geographic North Pole but not quite in the same spot. Though GPS has largely replaced magnetic compasses for navigation, many people still find them useful. National Geographic website: HERE
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