Monthly Archive: July 2009
Jul 14
Cracked
‘It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.’ A few days I suggested, somewhat provocatively, a cracker of an idea to protest I …
Jul 10
Crackers
This week, watching as the Dáil debates on the Criminal Justice and Defamation bills were guillotined, I found myself considering what to do. Writing to my TDs didn’t help. Only one of them replied, and he voted for the bill anyway. So how should I protest? A year ago, a student in Florida received death …
Jul 07
Eircom’s Net Loss
By all accounts, Eircom has been hacked. The telco has confirmed that there was a domain name server (DNS) outage on its website last night. Internet users throughout Ireland complained they were being redirected to bogus sites. Eircom customers have noticed slowdowns since the beginning of the month, and noticeably since this weekend, due to …
Jul 06
Any Other Business
It’s going to be an interesting week in Dáil Éireann. Desperate not to cut back on their holiday time,the government has opted instead to cut debating time, and plans to guillotine several bills into law by Friday. Among the highlights: The blasphemy clause in the Defamation bill, making it illegal to say naughty things if …
Jul 02
Snip
Thanks to a confidential source, 200 words is in a position to reveal several exclusive fund raising ideas from that An Bord Snip Nua report: Demand a few billion from the EU Commissioners to do an Ahmadinejad on the second Lisbon referendum. After the success of the Ganley Wheelie Bin Gambit during the Ireland Northwest …
Jul 01
Muddying the Waters: John Waters and Wikipedia
John Waters complained on RTÉ today that he was libelled on Wikipedia, and told by a lawyer there was no point suing on the interwebs. The trouble with Wikipedia, of course, is its revision history. Even after an entry is deleted or updated, it’s possible to see what once was written. On 30 September 2007, …