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.
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 >>
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.
Top Scientists Confirm Covid Shots Cause Heart Attacks in Children Sun Oct 05, 2025 20:31 | imc
Fraud and mismanagement at University College Cork Thu Aug 28, 2025 18:30 | Calli Morganite
Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5 Sun Aug 17, 2025 08:04 | Mind Agent
AI Reach: Gemini Reasoning Question of God Sat Aug 02, 2025 20:00 | Mind Agent
Israeli Human Rights Group B'Tselem finally Admits It is Genocide releasing Our Genocide report Fri Aug 01, 2025 23:54 | 1 of indy Human Rights in Ireland >>
How the Free Speech Union Turned the Tide on Non-Crime Hate Incidents Wed Oct 22, 2025 13:10 | Will Jones As the Metropolitan Police announce the demise of non-crime hate incidents, the Telegraph has run a feature on the Free Speech Union, crediting its years of campaigning against NCHIs and support for cancel culture victims.
The post How the Free Speech Union Turned the Tide on Non-Crime Hate Incidents appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Protesters Attack Irish Police Outside Migrant Hotel Wed Oct 22, 2025 11:08 | Will Jones Irish police were attacked with bricks, glass bottles and fireworks during a violent protest outside a migrant hotel in?Dublin following reports that a 10 year-old girl had been sexually assaulted by an asylum seeker.
The post Protesters Attack Irish Police Outside Migrant Hotel appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Climate Tipping Points ?May Already Have Arrived? Claims New Report ? Just in Time for COP30 Wed Oct 22, 2025 09:00 | Chris Morrison Climate tipping points "may already have arrived", a new report has claimed ? just in time for COP30. It's the usual tendentious modelled guff, says Chris Morrison. No wonder much of the world has stopped?listening.
The post Climate Tipping Points “May Already Have Arrived” Claims New Report ? Just in Time for COP30 appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Who is Farrukh? Wed Oct 22, 2025 07:00 | Charlotte Gill Farrukh ? full name Farrukh Younus ? is one of the most prolific accounts on X. With 115k followers, he will frequently be found pushing radical Left-wing talking points. But who is he? Charlotte Gill investigates.
The post Who is Farrukh? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
News Round-Up Wed Oct 22, 2025 01:01 | 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. Lockdown Skeptics >>
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Cocaine culture, legalization?
national |
crime and justice |
opinion/analysis
Monday January 14, 2008 11:33 by Geoffrey Cooling - none

We need real and workable measures to deal with our drug problems, mandatory prison time for users is at least one option, while legalization is another. Let us at least start the debate. It never fails to amaze me, every time an incident of savagery takes place we are treated to the same politicians uttering almost the same trite words. Hand wringing is performed, lip service is paid to voters, and a solution is never far off. A young girl was shot in the front room of a house in Coolock by gate crashers who were refused entry. It was a milestone, or at least that was what our political leaders and news media told us. It would finally bring the impetus to make real changes to the law and our society.
It was soon forgotten, the girl was soon forgotten by all but for her family, friends and neighbours. It was not the milestone that was heralded, not much changed. Perhaps if there had been changes it would have given some solace to the bereaved. Although a beautiful life had been extinguished, her death would have played a large part in making the country a safer place for her descendants. But unfortunately that was not the case, the government huffed and puffed but real changes have not taken place.
Then we were treated to savagery perhaps beyond the conception of most people. Two young children burnt in the rear seat of their mother’s car. A young lad became aggrieved and decided to teach their mother a lesson. There was at the time a huge outpouring of communal anger and grief. Our politicians again told us that enough was enough. Many people would have marched to Limerick to hang the two young hoods themselves. I know people who would have dragged themselves across broken glass to get a hand on those young lads.
But months later, it is all but forgotten and there have been no changes. Not far from where the children were so savagely attacked a young boy of five was recently shot, admittedly caught in the crossfire as it were. But still wounded during the day as he stood beside his mother and a group of women. Wounded by people who don’t care, they don’t care who they hurt, they don’t care what they have to do, and they sure as hell don’t care about a couple of politicians who pay lip service to the community and utter empty promises.
Then public anger was again stoked by the despicable murder of a young plumber, executed to facilitate the execution of a major criminal. And the young man’s terrible sin? Trying to earn a few quid, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But even then I saw that anger receding, as it has before in so many cases and so we have gone on and on until we have arrived here. We seem to suffer with collective apathy. It was not always like this, in the eighties and early nineties, communities all around Dublin came together and fought the scourge of drugs in their areas. They did so without any assistance from the state because they believed that they must defend their communities.
In these modern times that sense of community seems to have evaporated. With our new found affluence we appear to have become insular, self-centered even. Our sense of collective responsibility has diminished; I have argued before that it appears that the sense of responsibility for self has almost completely diminished as by extension has parental responsibility. The Irish have lost their way, community ties have been broken and it appears that they are almost not repairable.
Cocaine is available in every town in Ireland; it has crossed social divides like no other drug. It is also the most profitable drug to distribute; the profits are measured in millions. The modern drug gangs are heavily involved in the distribution of this drug and jealously guard their profits. Unfortunately they also tend to use an awful lot of their product, which leads to a propensity of semi psychotic well armed rich criminals. The problem is that most affluent middle class users of cocaine do not seem to be able to see the link between their use and the mayhem on our streets. Well friends I have news for you, your 900,000 pound house in your middle class area is not going to protect you, because the scum will soon be able to afford two, with the assistance of your middle class accountant neighbour to wash his money.
We have all conspired in our downfall by our apathy and inactivity. However the buck does not stop just there, I do not often agree with McDowell, and I’m sure he does not really care if I do, but when he said the famous do a line of coke, be responsible for a murder line, I have to tell you, I nearly ran out and swore the oath of allegiance to our former glorious leader in waiting. But weeks later when he had not established legislation to hand out stiffer sentences to users, I came to my senses. The legislation that has been given to us is a standing joke, mandatory ten year sentences for possession to supply, are you having a laugh or what? The crime situation in Ireland, the viciousness, the murders, the assaults can be directly laid at the door of successive governments since the early to mid eighties.
The fact that most of the politicians we have in power today were also involved back then has to be telling about us as a race. The drug problem in Ireland was never taken seriously by any government up until the time Guerin was killed. All of a sudden it was a priority, we’ll get them off the street, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Some high profile targets were taken out and some continue to be taken out through the sterling work of the drugs units everywhere. But they then continue to run their businesses from within prison, who are we kidding here, we put such and such away, he used to bring in 25 kilos a week but now he is bringing in 40. And this is progress?
To move forward on this issue we need real action and enacted legislation. We need to debate seriously where we go from here. There are two schools of thought on this issue, basically legalize or penalize. Legalize, control and regulate, or penalize with stiffer sentences for suppliers and end users. The debate needs to occur, if you legalize and regulate you remove the large profits from the business and overnight put the drug gangs out of business. There is an argument against, however much of it tends to be emotive rather than logical. Alcohol is a hard drug that causes misery in all our communities; it costs a huge amount in lost productivity and has a huge impact on the budgets of our health services. It actively destroys families all over Ireland and is a large contributor to violent assault occurrences.
Yet knowing all of the aforementioned it is a regulated drug quite legal to supply and imbibe. Why should other hard drugs be any different? Does it make more sense to legalize and regulate, therefore controlling the substances and taking the large profit margin away. In one fell swoop, destroying the drug gang’s raison de etre overnight. Or alternatively we can continue along the failed route of penalization. If we decide on this course of action we must come up with strategies that work.
Heavy penalties for users are one option, if your average middle class user is made aware that he or she will go to prison for six months for possession of cocaine, there would be a rather rapid drop in cocaine use. While criminals would laugh at six months your average Dublin 4 resident would positively pale at the thought.
Legislation is useless without the will and courage to use it, as I have mentioned we have mandatory ten year sentences, however they are hardly ever given out to transgressors. If penalization is the route decided we need further legislation not just to reduce supply but also reduce demand. The legislation needs to be passed quickly and it needs to be rigorously enforced by our judicial system. Attacking the drugs problem from both ends is the only way to prevent a further decline towards the seeming chaos that lies before us.
Geoffrey Cooling
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