On Tuesday last, the Dáil allotted time to statements on the European Council of Ministers meeting that had ended on October 16. At a time when the Brexit negotiations and the Covid panic were exercising most minds, those topics took up the bulk of member’s contributions. Not so, Mick Barry the reticent communist TD for […]
The author, John Hamill, is Co-Host of The Free Thought Prophet Podcast Last week, the Seanad debated the Electoral (Civil Society Freedom) (Amendment) Bill 2019, which proposed to remove several restrictions on the influence of money within our political process. Currently, the Electoral Act places limits on the value of individual donations made for political purposes. This new […]
We should be wary of spending too much time analysing daily case numbers, but since we all do it anyway, here’s an interesting observation here from HSE supremo Paul Reid: The positivity rate in testing has now come down over the past 8 days. The number of close contacts is now down to an avg. […]
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 […]
On Friday, the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said something that was, given its context, infinitely revealing. Speaking at a press conference, he addressed the use of batons and excessive force by Gardaí against lockdown protestors on Grafton Street on Thursday. He also welcomed the additional enforcement powers given to the Gardai to sanction people who […]
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 […]
Habeas Corpus [ hey-bee-uhs -kawr-puhs ] late Middle English: Latin, literally ‘you shall have the body’ – a writ requiring a person to be brought before a judge or court, especially for investigation of a restraint of the person’s liberty, used as a protection against illegal imprisonment. The official death figures for Ireland this year, so […]
The last debate of the 2020 American Presidential election took place in Nashville last night and it is difficult to see that it might have been a game changer. It was moderated by Kristen Welker who was reasonably moderate for the want of a better word, and the format allowing uninterrupted sequences of responses worked […]
Is professor John A. Lee an expert in infectious diseases? Not quite. He’s a pathologist – he studies causes of death and the effects of diseases and injuries. He’s pretty qualified, but by no means a world leading expert. Still, he was more than qualified enough, apparently, for a guest slot on Prime Time last […]
One of the derailing issues for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign was the diplomatically sensitive correspondence she sent from her personal account while Secretary of State. But there were also other emails brought to light allegedly by Russian hackers. This became an attack point for Democrats against Trump and drew the media’s focus […]