We concentrate on the obvious places where dictators thrive and warfare kills thousands, but tend not to note the stress experienced by the people of Greenland, who are struggling to cope with global warming, which is totally altering their way of life. More than 90% of Greenlanders accept that the climate is changing, while 76% are …
Letter from James Marriott, published in The Times, London, 17 August 2019 “I don’t own a home, and like many people in their 20s I suspect I never will. The proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds who own a house has collapsed over the past 20 years, from 55% to 34%. Getting on the property ladder …
On August 10th I did a posting on the effect of suncream on reefs and marine life….. From the New Scientist: In the past five months, the US body that regulates sunscreens as over-the-counter drugs, has declared that 12 active ingredients used in these products might not be safe. Four of these ingredients enter the bloodstream …
Indian-administered Kashmir remains under an unprecedented lockdown, subject to a curfew and without phone and internet links. It followed the announcement that India’s only Muslim-majority state would lose its autonomous status. Article 370 of India’s constitution, in force since 1949, guaranteed Jammu and Kashmir the right to make its own laws in all internal matters, …
“Anyone who has witnessed the steady rise of Trump, with the thumbs-up, thumbs-down swagger of an omnipotent Roman emperor,” knew this day was coming. Attorney General William Barr has just announced the end of the Justice Department’s unofficial, 16-year-long moratorium on executing federal prisoners. The department plans to put five inmates to death in December …
My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If immortality unveils A third event to me. So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell, Parting is all we know of heaven And all we know of hell.
Letter to The Sun: Vicious seagulls are taking over our country. The decline of the fishing industry has left less food for these feathered menaces to scavenge from the docks, so tens of thousands of them have taken up residence in inland towns and cities. And they aren’t just poking through rubbish bins. These “flying …
Continue reading ‘It’s time to stand up to “flying rats” a.k.a Seagulls’ »
The Queen, who by tradition does not comment on politics, is quoted as saying that the political class is incapable of governing. Amen to that. Robert Unger, a philosopher at Harvard, says that European politicians don’t know how to do anything apart from splitting the difference, and are incapable of facing up to fundamental problems. This …
Continue reading ‘The British political system is bankrupt (and in good company)’ »
From The Guardian: Scientists have opened up a new front in the war against cancer, aimed not so much at curing the disease as disarming it, so that it becomes a “manageable” condition. Just as bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, cancers can mutate to become resistant to the drugs used to treat them, which …
Continue reading ‘Good news, we hope: a new approach to cancer’ »
Well-intentioned policies can have unintended consequences. For example, while the rate of new opioid prescriptions has fallen in recent years, a large number of physicians have stopped initiating opioids altogether. While that may sound like a good thing, it’s not clear whether this does more good or harm to patients in severe pain. This isn’t …
Continue reading ‘Drug deaths in the US and some unintended consequences. No. 2’ »
For the first time since 1990, the number of annual drug overdose deaths in the US has declined. The 5 per cent fall reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is almost entirely due to a drop in deaths from prescription opioid painkillers. Does this mean the opioid crisis has peaked? The …
Toxic for reefs As of January next year, visitors to Palau, an island country in the western Pacific, will be prohibited from buying or using a range of sunscreens. The country has classified products containing any of 10 commonly used sun filters and preservatives as “reef-toxic”, as they are thought to harm coral reefs. Other …
The Guardian, on 7 August, ran an interesting article on the “border” between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The hard border is not currently there because of the terms of the Good Friday agreement, underpinned by the fact that both the UK and Ireland are EU states. If Britain leaves the EU with no …
You will recall that when Notre Dame cathedral caught fire there was a huge outpouring of horror and concern. One of the few things about it that warmed the heart was the rapidity with which people offered money for the re-building , which President Macron pledged would be within five years. Most notable were the …
The townspeople of Eskilstuna in Sweden live in one of the most environment-friendly towns in the world, transformed from a grimy steel-producing place to a town with buses and cars powered by biogas and electricity, low carbon combined heat and power plants and effective recycling. But it is best known for a shopping mall devoted …
To lose one country is a misfortune. To lose both simultaneously looks like carelessness. I apologise for paying so much attention to the UK, when the system has become so dysfunctional in the US. But the US is not in danger of actually breaking up, and the UK is. The following from the highly respected …
There are so many simple, clear steps that lawmakers can take to reduce the epidemic of gun violence in America. The following policies are actually supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans and even many gun owners: Universal background checks. Closing the gun show loophole. Banning assault weapons such as AR-15s. Banning bump stocks. Addressing …
Continue reading ‘The endless US gun murders – an Epicurean view’ »
Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories: no fan of the new PM From The Independent, The New Statesman, The Times, Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian and The Week: Boris Johnson professes to love the United Kingdom, said The Independent. He extols “the awesome foursome” and speaks of the UK as “the most successful economic …
From the Harvard Gazette: We are all too ready to judge the world though anecdotes, images and distorted reporting designed to sell news, rather than quietly studying the actual facts. Some examples: – Trump refers to American “carnage” in an era in which violent crime rates are close to historical lows. Bush created …
Continue reading ‘Collectively we are all guilty of perpetuating misleading “facts”.’ »
The migrants on the Southern border are treated as an army of feckless invaders. Families are being broken up , children are kept in hot, fetid disease-ridden camps, and no one in the government seems to know how many are in detention, where they are or which children belong to which parents. Common decency, and Epicurean …
