While the ongoing global shutdown of business is highly damaging to the economy and jobs, most world leaders have made the calculation that stopping the coronavirus is worth the economic turmoil and disruption to daily life. The risk of letting covid-19 spread through the population is simply too great, and they seem to be taking […]
In fairness, there’s not a lot the international community can do about this. The Moon, as we all know, is sovereign American territory, boldly claimed by the late Neal Armstrong, who planted the American flag in it. It’s theirs, by right of conquest. And now, finally, an American President is going to make some money […]
One of the things that frustrates me most about the Irish media is the way that a lot of the time, they’ll cheerfully and unthinkingly report the most obviously nonsensical nonsense from the Government without stopping to ask a single obvious question. There’s a new line out this morning in relation to the leaving cert […]
The president of the European Union’s top scientific body has resigned after just three months in the position saying he has “lost faith in the system” after being told he couldn’t set up a special programme to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Mauro Ferrari, an internationally acclaimed scientist in the field of nano-medicine, had been appointed […]
Given the spread of misinformation about Covid-19, Just Facts is providing a trove of rigorously documented facts about this disease and its impacts. These include some vital facts that have been absent or misreported in much of the media’s coverage of this issue. This research also includes a groundbreaking study to determine the lethality of Covid-19 based […]
Every now and then, and especially in distressed times such as these, it’s good to spotlight an engineer who has done the right thing, and keeps doing the right thing. Today I’m going to do that with Peter P. Tsai, who is credited with inventing the electrostatic non-woven filter used in the N95-type disposable masks […]
Some were surprised last week when the deputy Prime Minister of Japan, Taro Aso, blasted the WHO, referring to them as the “Chinese Health Organisation” for their alleged role in helping the Chinese Communist Party to cover up the coronavirus. Aso said: “People think the World Health Organization should change its name. It shouldn’t be […]
Love him or loathe him, he’s right here: “The WHO really blew it,” Mr Trump said in a Twitter post. “For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China-centric. We will be giving that a good look. “Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why […]
My colleague, Tim Jackson, has written a really phenomenal piece this morning on the belated acquittal of Australian Cardinal, George Pell. You should read it all, but one line stood out: It’s well known that many clerics across the world committed the most heinous crimes against children in the mid-to-late 20th century, but the targeting, […]
Today’s verdict however is a vindication of Pell, one that any person who cherishes the right to a fair trial should welcome.
Amid the Coronavirus pandemic, palliative care specialist Dr Kathryn Mannix urges people to talk about dying; from her experience, most ‘very sick people’ – ‘[f]rom teenagers to pensioners’ – although mostly ‘afraid that their illness and death will cast a shadow over the people they love’ find themselves ‘utterly unable to discuss this worry with […]
I’m writing this on the evening of day six of our four week “lockdown” (as if we were in prison) in New Zealand. So far we have survived pretty well, something I put down to having jobs which have so far not been too disrupted by the shutting down of the entire country, and good […]