Cyber Bullying In Alex's

I've written before on the topic of online libel, so my interest was piqued by word of mass suspensions from private girls' school Alexandra College for online bullying. There are two stories on the topic in today's Independent (registration required, but bugmenot may be able to help you out in that regard). The bullying took the form of comments on the hateboard site, and the sheer venom has to be seen to be believed. Have teenage girls become more evil since I was in school? They've certainly become less literate, having swapped standard English for a bizarre hybrid of Valley Girl, txt Slang and Ross O'Carroll-Kelly speak.

The matter was brought to the attention of the principal and the suspensions seem to be the result of an owning-up by some of the guilty parties, so legal issues are unlikely to arise. In principle though, the site has the same status as ratemyteacher.com. Crude abuse is not defamatory, which covers much though not all of what I've seen on hateboard. However, there are also plenty of untrue allegations "of a type to lower a person in the the eyes of right-thinking persons", and some of them mention the targets by name. If someone felt like suing (and given the demographic profile of Alexandra College, that's not beyond the bounds of possibility) they might have a case. The culprits can be traced via their ISP's, which can be done either voluntarily by the hosts of hateboard, or on foot of a court order. Of course, this is unlikely to happen, firstly because the school have dealt with the issue in a way that seems likely to satisfy aggrieved parties, and secondly because, to be cynical for a moment, there's no money in suing schoolgirls.

A Word In Our Shell-Likes

The Freedom Institute have never met a large commercial organisation they didn't like. But sometimes they seem to have a particular affinity for one- so much so that they can almost predict what it is going to do next.

Shell Ireland E & P Ltd had a touch of bother with their planned gas pipeline through Rossport earlier in the year. I refer you to A. L. Waller on tuppenceworth.ie for a roundup of the issues.

However, one uncharacteristically lucid post on the FI caught my eye at the height of the controversy.

Shell eventually asked the court to withdraw their injunction and free the men from prison. But before that happened they announced that they wanted the men to take part in discussions and would defer work on the pipeline to allow a breathing space for those talks. In return for this breathing space they hoped that the 5 jailed men would accept not to breach the terms of the injunction Shell had sought and received from the court.

Anyone with eyes to see could tell that this had the same chance of success as a fried snowball.

The FI Fie Foe Fum interest in this matter arises from that long and jargon-filled post of Donal Fitzgibbon, a Gemini working in the Environment according to his profile. Here, a week before Shell acted, he laid out a plan for them. Specifically, it is a plan for restoring some semblance of credibility to the Rossport project by opening up talks in the locality. These talks would be aimed at appointing an independent person, (who might be a Gemini, who knows?) to reassure the natives that talk of exploding pipes is a

'subjective' risk assessment, one in which emotions, rather than a deep scientific and technical understanding of the potential risk determines what risk the development poses and what suitable risk management procedures are necessary.

If only we knew somebody working in the field of the Environment who could help us out of this morass of irrationality!

These talks would also involve state agencies, binding the government tighter to Shell, at a time when the Minister was starting to feel the heat of standing too close to them already.

But of equal importance, multi-stakeholder dialogue also facilitates communication between relevant regulatory agencies, such as the Health and Safety Authority, government departments or local authority planning offices and interested parties such as those same local residents. Communications allows the relevance and role of each agency in the planning process for the project to be made clear from the outset. It also provide an opportunity for the relevant government agencies to show that it is representing the best interests of the public most likely to be affected by the development and that it is exercising the rule of law in ensuring human health and the environment is protected.

For some reason the state didn't jump at that idea. But it did like the idea of talks happening without it- the Minister also offered to appoint an intermediary.

But in the end a Gemini just can't get a break. It turned out that Shell would eventually find their offer of talks (or 'multi-stakeholder dialogue', if you prefer) explaining and justifying the decisions already taken was not enticing enough to lure the 5 men from jail, and would instead ask the President of the High Court to withdraw the order he had previously granted them. Nobody, not even someone who worked in Enviroment, was appointed as an intermediary.

But, loyal as ever, the FI haven't given up on their gassy friends.

What's Happening in Rossport?

New tuppenceworth.ie contributor A.L. Waller gives us a detailed roundup of where the parties stand in the Rossport five case. Shell, the five jailed men and the Minister for Communications Marine and Natural Resources are all dancing around each other in Mayo and the courts. At stake is an entire gas field and, some of the parties fear, local's lives.

If you haven't been following the story so far, this article (Energise!) is a good place to start. This one deals with the safety issues (Safety First?) and this one ( Les choses sont contre nous?) with the problems for Shell following their technical breach of the minister's consents. Don't worry, that last one isn't all in French. The title means "Things are against us".

test

test

Four Courts Doors: Waiting for Term's End

A message went out this week to members of the Law Library (barristers to the likes of you and I) for them to collect their security cards, as the Courts Service was intending to implement their grand plan of access restriction for the Four Courts buildings.

Then the next day another message was passed on from the Courts Service not to come and get the cards after all.

I'm guessing somebody realised that it would be much easier, and there would be far less resistance, if the security plan were to be given a soft introduction during the summer months, when courts are generally not sitting. The Court Term ends on Tuesday.

It will be back again in October. Then we'll see what kind of problems the system will throw up.

S.I. No. 27 1995 Banning Unfair Contract Terms

Of great value when having a row with a huge organisation which claims it can do anything it likes because you signed up to an agreement with it.

S.I. No. 27/1995: EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (UNFAIR TERMS IN CONSUMER CONTRACTS) REGULATIONS, 1995

to give it its full name, has a handy easy-to-read guide at the back in Schedule 3, telling you the kind of contract term which a consumer isn't bound by if they agreed something with a business, acting in the course of its business.

It transcribes into Irish law the European Directive (No. 93/13/EEC, fact fans) protecting consumers from unfair contract terms. Don't say the EU never did anything for you.

You heard it here first. Probably.

Four Court Doors- Planning Legislation

Having spoken to the OPW, I've been told that they intend to consider the objections made previously under Part 9 of Statutory Instrument 600/2001.

I'll come back and report if I find anything of interest in this legislation.

Tuppenceworth.ie: Backpacker in Amsterdam

Marcus Glynn, in the first of a series of articles from around Europe gives us the backpacker's view of Amsterdam. We'll have more from him in the weeks to come, as internet cafes allow.

Corrib Gas Field: More Questions for Mr. Dempsey

Further to my post and letter of 3rd July I have now delivered a follow up letter, requesting further information from Minister Dempsey, also under Council Directive 2003/4/EC.

The full text of this second letter is available on Tuppenceworth.ie.

London

As I waited for a bus on Amiens St. this evening, I heard sirens and, a few seconds later, saw police motorcycle outriders flank a green Army Bomb Disposal Unit trunk on it's way south. My first thought was "probably just a false alarm, people are a bit jumpy after London". In the second or so before this thought sufaced though, I felt a sickening chill run through me, a feeling that something very bad had happened. Thankfully, whatever incident brought that truck onto the streets was so minor that it hasn't made the news. An unattended bag and a nervous passer-by, or some such. That first few seconds will stay with me though.

I sometimes make a mental distinction between the political and the human. I'll try to illustrate it by saying that some people would never fall out with friends over politics, and some would. I prefer the ones who wouldn't, and deeply distrust the ones who would (ironically for people of such integrity, I tend to distrust their politics too). Fundamentalists and terrorists obviously fall into this latter category, but they're not the only ones.

The same division can usually be seen in reactions to attacks like todays. Where the only decent reaction is the queasy shiver, the reflexive sense of dread, some people would rather skip over all that human suffering horseshit and get on with some rhetoric and pointscoring. The bodies weren't cold on 9-11 and people were talking about "chickens coming home to roost". When children -children, for goodness sake - were shot in Beslan, I saw blog-postings telling me how the terrorists had legitimate grievances.
Richard Delevan and George Galloway are only two examples of this tendancy, and they have more in common than one might think (Actually, I think Delevan has all the reactionary zeal of a former Trot, so who knows?). Not for them to pass up a chance to get self-righteous. They would do well to concentrate on that awful feeling in the pit of their stomachs, not the tinny buzzing in their little brains.

The people who commited today's bombings placed their beliefs above their humanity. I invite certain people to ponder that.

London Chaos

The Web is slowing down. I've only seen it do this a few times. And the most exteme time was as everyone tried to get news of what was happening in New York.

At the moment, it isn't clear what kind of bus/tube explosion/power outage London suffered. But with the Underground completely shut down for the first time ever and reports of witnesses seeing limbs lying around, it doesn't sound trivial.

Hopefully things won't be as bad as they sound when the smoke clears.

UPDATE:
6.13pm Blogger refused to put this up this morning. Since then it has become clear that the London attacks are very serious. These bombings are an obscene action. I have no more to say today, beyond sending condolances to those caught up in them.