murf

Passing the Buck through Prayer

May 9, 2017 No Comments

The recent Dail vote to require members to stand for the daily prayer has got me to thinking again about, well, praying. I’ve often wondered if a strong belief in God and the power of prayer conveys a certain level of immunity from being responsible for ones’ actions. I’d often heard, and still do from […]

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Environment Health Transport

The ‘poisonous cabin’

April 24, 2017 No Comments

Unsurprisingly enough, and as previously indicated from small scale tests, sitting in a car or other vehicle is the most air-polluted place to be according to new research reported in the Times (“Motorists in ‘poisonous cabin’ alert”). “If you are stopped in congested traffic with your windows closed, as at traffic lights, then these toxins […]

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Bits & Bobs Humour Internets Just for Laughs

Waking up in 2017 be like:

March 28, 2017 No Comments

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Life People Sounds

Chuck Berry, Dead at 90

March 20, 2017 No Comments

The father of Rock’n’Roll is no more. Chuck Berry passed away peacefully at his home yesterday. Charles Edward Anderson Berry, better known as Chuck Berry, was born into a middle-class African-American family in St Louis, Missouri. He first rose to fame in the 1950s with songs such as “Maybellene” and “Rock and Roll Music”. In […]

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Brexit Government

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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Who?

Passing the Buck through Prayer

The ‘poisonous cabin’

Waking up in 2017 be like:

Chuck Berry, Dead at 90

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

Author: murf