2017 – Page 2 – Postcards

Borders & Bad Old Days

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017 No Comments

Interesting article over on the New European ( “Don’t send Ireland back to division” ), exploring the implications for Ireland, particularly highlighting the impact it will have on the Good Friday agreement. The UK Government is giving all the appearances of wilfully ignoring the issues. There’s a lot of idealism amongst the ‘Brexiteers’, it seems to […]

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Environment Think of the Children! Transport

Ban cars near schools?

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 No Comments

A bit radical but why not? How much air pollution should it be ok for children (and adults) to breath in every day just for a little apparent convenience? Perhaps this is something Dublin should look at too. “You can’t play politics with people’s lives and people’s health,” said Mr Khan. “Every day action is […]

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Freedoms Government Trumperica

Yonatan Zunger – What things going wrong can look like

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 No Comments

In Trumpistan, Yonatan Zunger had a guess at how things might play out (https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/what-things-going-wrong-can-look-like-400f84a0cc3a#.yyni3tha1): On a recent post I made about how President Trump marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, one of my readers asked a good, but hard, question: Why did this regime single out some particular groups (e.g., Muslims, Latinos, Black, and Trans people) as […]

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Human Rights Society the peasants are revolting Trumperica

Surviving Autocracy

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 No Comments

Marsha Gessen wrote a set of six rules for surviving an autocracy back in November 2016 ( http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/ ). Well worth a revisit in light of recent events, they’ve stood the test of the last few months anyway. Sample: I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about […]

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Big Business Environment Transport

1,200 people in Europe will die prematurely due to Volkswagen

March 3, 2017 No Comments

The stark reality of the ‘cheating’ on emissions by Volkswagen: “The researchers estimate that 1,200 people in Europe will die early, each losing as much as a decade of their life, as a result of excess emissions generated,” said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which took part in the study. [..] The European Environment Agency […]

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Government Health The Inter-Department Co-Ordination Board

Actual Planning with Data

February 24, 2017 No Comments

A sensible statement about health planning for once. Imagine using actual data to plan capacity: Ireland needs to use demographic information for the provision of long-term health strategies in the same as the country plans for education, Minister for Health Simon Harris has said. Mr Harris accepted he had to deal with day to day […]

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Fuck the patriarchy

Suppression of anger

February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 No Comments

Helen Blackman on how ‘policed’ the simple need to sound off every now and then can be. Well worth a read: Sometimes I get annoyed. I get angry. I rant. I do things that would be normal in a man. In a woman? Oh no. That’s undignified. It’s shrewish. It’s strident. It’s outspoken. It’s hysterical […]

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Internets Oh Lol Trumperica You Couldn't Make It Up

“Mod Drama” in the Alt-Right

February 7, 2017 No Comments

This is a fascinating and delightful article by Katie Notopoulos, with its detail on classic Mod Dramas: Things have gotten bumpy for the alt-right online movement since the election. It’s facing an identity crisis (what does it mean to be the “alt” if you’re getting what you want?) and grappling with certain fundamental questions like […]

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Freedoms Government Politics Society

Autocracy Or Kleptocracy – Trump’s America

February 6, 2017 No Comments

David Frum expounds on the possible outcomes of Trump’s Presidency in the Atlantic. Fascinating and though-provoking, it’s a long but worhtwhile read. He covers something I’ve noted before: In an 1888 lecture, James Russell Lowell, a founder of this magazine, challenged the happy assumption that the Constitution was a “machine that would go of itself.” […]

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Bits & Bobs Freedoms Mood

“There is no justice, there’s just us”

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 No Comments

Rules, justice, the system, none of this works by itself. Terry Pratchett once wrote “There is no justice, there’s just us”. It’s true. People make justice, it doesn’t exist on it’s own. Without people standing up for the system, it collapses. It doesn’t work on it’s own. Laws, norms of government, all can be bypassed, […]

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Who?

Murf

Borders & Bad Old Days

Ban cars near schools?

Yonatan Zunger – What things going wrong can look like

Surviving Autocracy

1,200 people in Europe will die prematurely due to Volkswagen

Actual Planning with Data

Suppression of anger

“Mod Drama” in the Alt-Right

Autocracy Or Kleptocracy – Trump’s America

“There is no justice, there’s just us”

Year: 2017