Blurred Keys

Tom Raftery on why the ’shoot to kill’ policy is fundamentally flawed.

For some strange reason on Saturday the Irish Times ran a story on the front page about the minister of Education “warning” about the dangers of secondary school students going on post-exam holidays. The piece was one of many of what makes up the IT’s sick amount of coverage given to the summer schools.

Hanafin insists that she is not referring to the dangers being caught up in a terrorist attack, but the dangers of “male rape”, assault, and most likely unspeakable acts in “locations such as Ibiza”.

She goes on to suggest that instead the students should “give their time voluntarily to do something for others", in places like, err… a “South African township”, err, what’s that?… South African is safer then Ibiza? Yeah? Really?

Going into other topics at the summer school, Hanafin states "Do we really need a situation in some schools in Dublin where we are running out of car-parking spaces because the students are driving in?" Well, she could do worse then to put that question to the government of which she is a Minister; she could ask them why don’t they spend more on public transport. Why shouldn’t any students who are lawfully
allowed to drive not be allowed to do so when the government has such pro car policies?

Talking about an experience a friend once had she said "The clothes his daughter wore going into the disco were not the clothes she was wearing coming out of the disco,"… Minister, please, tell us when this happen. Was it ten years ago? More?

Finally, I’ve got around to putting up my photographs from Shanghai, and the few non-E3 images from LA.

I’m popping off to the east coast of the US next month for a wedding, so I thought it was best to get these up before a back log builds up.

Computer games related pics which have been up for a while now, are the photo albums from the Nintendo, and Sony, pre-E3 events, as well as from the E3 floor show.

Outside North America, Google’s maps are only of any great detail in the Ireland, and UK - while the satellite images where Blurred Keys lives isn’t too detailed at the moment. The city centres of Dublin, London etc are a little more detailed, but compared with places like Newport Beach in California, London and Dublin really do look a a lot glummer.

If the few city blocks level of satellite imagery on Google is so interesting to us normal people, Burred Keys would love to know if the controllers at any military satellites have ever just had a bit of fun looking around, but we guess that’s one that will continue to elude us.   

In 1995, protesters were executed by the Nigerian Government. The protesters’ high-crimes were their part in protests directed at Shell’s activities at the time causing environmental damage in Nigeria. Last week saw protesters in north Mayo jailed for blocking trucks; the protesters in this case had similar concerns – environmental and safety issues, although Shell has claimed the protesters have other motives.

Bertie Ahern has stated “It’s a decision for the courts. The Government doesn’t lock up anybody”. Bertie, since when did the courts start giving out Compulsory Purchase Orders to private companies for private projects that have nothing to do with the state? Since when did the courts totally sign away the states’ rights to any benefits of oil and gas found in the state?

Shell are currently doing preparation work in north-west Mayo for a gas refinery, and on the route of the gas pipeline which will link the refinery and the Corbid gas field offshore. The protesters claim best practice of refining the gas offshore is being ignored, and they say this cupped with the linking pipeline being of too high of presser in relation to how close houses and roads are to the pipe, raises environmental and safety concerns. Secondary issues include the mass movement of bog, and apparent safety issues arising from small roads the trucks travel on. Shell claims the pipeline is perfectly safe and the pipe will not run at full pressure. But can Shell be trusted?…

In March, The Observer published pictures that appeared to show sub-contractors installing the world’s most expensive pipeline were causing waste from the project to slide into freshwater salmon spawning grounds, putting the island’s fishing industry at risk. Shell was earlier forced to change the route of a pipeline to ensure the survival of a rare breed of whales. >>>

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has now frozen Shell’s loan for a pipeline of the east coast of Russia for the actions of their subcontractors.

Shell escaped criminal charges in the US today after a federal prosecutor decided that bringing the Anglo-Dutch oil giant to court over last year’s reserves scandal would not be in the public interest.

US lawyer David Kelley said yesterday that the world’s third-largest publicly traded oil company had cooperated with an investigation after admitting to an overstatement of its proven oil and natural gas reserves by 4.47bn barrels, or about 23%, from 1997 to 2002.

The prosecutor also cited Shell’s payment of a $120m (£66.9m) fine imposed by the securities and exchange commission (SEC), the US financial watchdog, for accounting fraud.

Under the SEC settlement, Shell also agreed to spend $5m on an internal compliance program. Any further penalties "would likely have a severe and unintended disproportionate economic impact upon thousands of innocent Shell employees," Mr Kelley said. >>>

Over estimating their reserves by ‘about 23%’, paying the SEC $120m for accounting fraud, is this a company you would trust?

In the past the company was heavily criticized for their link to human rights abuses in Nigeria…

The corporation was now implicated in a human rights outrage, was shown to have tried to suppress the Ogoni movement for environmental justice and had admitted causing pollution. There were worldwide vigils, boycotts and parliamentary questions. A hundred years of brand-building was in jeopardy….

Since Nigeria, it has spent many millions wooing environmentalists and human rights groups, has invested hundreds of millions in renewable energy and has picked partners carefully. >>>

…The latter paragraph is what is now known as ‘green washing’. And last year activists said they think that’s just what it is…

Shell’s battered reputation took another pounding yesterday when Friends of the Earth and activists from around the world accused the Anglo-Dutch energy group of polluting communities, damaging wildlife and endangering human health. Tony Juniper, FoE’s executive director, said Shell - a self-styled pioneer in sustainable development - had exaggerated its social and environmental performance in the same way as it had overstated its oil and gas reserves. >>>

Can they be trusted?