I was in Washington DC this time four years ago — a week before the 2016 election. The mood was eerie, not in the least because of all the morbid Halloween decorations. With skeletons hanging from trees, carved pumpkins on porches and fake gravestones littering front yards, the suburban vistas felt strangely like a scene […]
Perhaps no country in the world has been the subject of more debate and scrutiny during the Coronavirus pandemic than Sweden. In the eyes of those who oppose the lockdown approach adopted by almost every other western country, Sweden is the example of a country that has successfully battled the virus without imposing draconian restrictions […]
Update: Wow. Jeremy Corbyn MP has been suspended by the Labour Party. — Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 29, 2020 __________________________________________________________________ The leader of the UK Labour Party and the British Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, has said that the publication of a report into anti-semitism in the party is “a day of shame for the Labour […]
Intolerable and hopeless (meaning without prospect of improvement) suffering is an eligibility criterion for euthanasia/assisted suicide in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada. Despite having been used as such a criterion for decades (at least in the Netherlands; shorter periods in other countries), it is still widely debated as to its meaning and applicability as an […]
PODCAST: Listen to John Aidan Byrne, Irish commentator based in New York, interview Dr. Savneet Singh as he analyzes Trump’s Tweets in real time. He is an expert on social media and technology. After masterminding a social media campaign for Enda Kenny’s 2011 Ireland election victory, Dr. Ravneet Singh breaks his silence & also unveils […]
Give a lot of credit to the University of Southern California: It’s not often you see a major public polling outfit release a lengthy analysis of why its opinion polls might be wrong, but they’ve just done exactly that. For background, USC has been doing a daily tracking poll of the American Presidential Election. So […]
The entire basis of most of the western approach to Coronavirus has been to use lockdowns and protective measures to pin the disease in place until such time as an effective vaccine can be developed that will render the virus harmless. Unfortunately, it is increasingly looking as if Coronavirus will have the last laugh. From […]
Tens of thousands of Polish women defying lockdown rules in the streets. Cathedrals invaded by chanting crowds. Handmaids walking down church aisles. Banners with slogans like: “You Have Blood on Your Hands” and “You are Building Women’s Hell.” Ever since Poland’s highest court ruled last Thursday that abortion due to foetal defects is unconstitutional, the […]
Who’s going to win the American election? With a week to go, the polling and the data all point in one direction, and yet the lessons of 2016, alongside the enthusiasm for President Trump’s campaign, all point in another. Losing campaigns, of course, always point to polling errors and massive enthusiasm for their side right […]
Since Canada’s law on euthanasia and assisted suicide came into effect four years ago, health-care costs have dropped millions of dollars, according to a Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) report. The report on assisted dying calculates that since becoming legal on June 17, 2016, Canada’s health-care costs have dropped C$86.9 million. “The total net reduction in costs […]
The original rationale for COVID lockdowns and strict social distancing was to “flatten the curve” so as not to overwhelm hospitals with too many acutely ill patients. We have accomplished that: though things came close in New York City, demand for ventilators in the US has not exceeded our hospitals’ surge capacity. But in many […]
This week’s New Yorker carried an article by Andrew Marantz whose main thrust was that Facebook is not doing a good job of moderating its content. The result is that all sorts of people and groups that, in the view of many experts the reporter interviewed, should not be able to use the electronic megaphone of Facebook, are allowed […]