See the opposite side of this debate, with Tim Jackson, at this link. To understand the reason why Israel does not tend to listen to Irish criticism of its approach to security, we should go back twenty years or so. In the year 2002, 239 Israelis were killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. Between 2002 and […]
Every time we report one of these polls, the comments on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms are the same: “fake poll”, or “they didn’t poll me”, or words to that effect. And that is understandable, nobody likes to be in the minority, or feel the country is against them. Least of all, […]
In fairness, every other left wing hobby horse lobby group in Ireland already gets taxpayer funding, so why should the prostitutes, of all people, be left out? Well, they’re left out no longer. The full, ahem, ins and outs of how the money was channelled from your pockets into the pockets of the campaign to […]
What effect did Covid-19 have on the number of weddings that took place in Ireland last year compared with 2019? As you can imagine, a very big effect. In fact, the figure halved, but the reduction in the amount of Catholic weddings was bigger than in the number of civil weddings. Why might that have […]
Journalist, Eoghan Harris, is the most recent high profile personality to be punished for posting offensive comments on social media, on twitter to be precise. His offence was greatly exacerbated by his use of an anonymous handle. ‘Barbara J. Pym’ was a flag of convenience that allowed Harris to post the kind of comments in […]
On April 28, 2021, the daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Daily, introduced to its readers the recently published book “Questions and Answers on the Study of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想学习问答), published by the Central Propaganda Department of the CCP. It is yet another book whose study will be […]
I had recently noticed an ad on social media for a local market, and so last weekend we popped down to a lot in Glasnevin to get out of the house and have a poke around. Products and wares included baked and preserved goods, candles, soaps, and fishing tackle. The accents and features behind the […]
While the Climate Change Bill attracted most of the political attention this week – with just 12 TDs voting to oppose the legislation at second stage – of equal significance was a vote also taken on Wednesday evening on a motion regarding Project 2040 comprising of the National Development Plan and Framework. The private members […]
The sheer amount of data held by the HSE on Irish citizens is not something that we think about, most of the time. The information, after all, is held for good reason, and most of us trust our doctors and hospitals. Nonetheless, it is worth considering just how much information hackers can potentially access, if […]
How times change. A week ago, the US Government’s official advice was that children would have to wear masks this summer while engaging in outdoor activities, like playing soccer. There was something of a backlash to that, and now the messaging has changed. And changed quite dramatically, too: Just a few hours ago, the Centers […]
In case you missed it, yesterday morning Ireland was graced with a rather remarkable interview between the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, and Newstalk’s veteran presenter, Pat Kenny, about Antigen testing. Remarkable, for a couple of reasons. Remarkable firstly, because it is the first time in quite a while that an Irish broadcaster has seriously […]
A group of MIT researchers have published their findings on how the science on the effectiveness of masks is analysed by mask-critics, and they found that mask-critics were well informed and engaged deeply with the published data. They reported that: “Far from ignoring scientific evidence to argue for individual freedom, anti-maskers often engage deeply with […]