Just listened to a Pat Kenny rerun  about "rogue" pregnancy agencies: i.e., those that advertise themselves as "full range of services", and then ambush potential clients with lurid anti-abortion propaganda.  As horriffic as these sound -- and they certainly do, and I wouldn't want to diminish that -- I couldn't help but think this is really the ( Read more... )

It's a bad day Tom McSweeney's on the RTE News: he has the most dreary voice, he's a rubbish reporter, and he's not above throwing in his own "this is what they're saying down the yacht club bar" opinions into what's supposed to be journalism.  Tonight, we got two such "reports" in the one broadcast.  What really got me was his pronunciation of the ( Read more... )

I see the British Museum's been wheeling out all sorts of talking heads about why it's Perfectly Cromulent to keep hold of the Earl of Elgin's swag.  I won't pick them apart in detail, let's just say that "ad hoc sophistry" seems to be the word of the watch.

But... one academic (not a BM employee, but very much toeing their line) popped up on C4 ( Read more... )

Much to my surprise, Newsnight Review's discussion of Star Trek wasn't the most annoying item on yesterday's show.  It should really be a rule that if they're going to review something, there ought to be at least one participant who has an ounce of sympathy for the medium or genre in question -- and when I say "rule", I don't preclude the ( Read more... )

That's twice now I've heard a (Fianna Fail) government minister describe opposition pronouncements (once FG, once Labour) as "populist".  Good to know that the dominant force in Irish politics has been maintaining a hair-shirt regimen of strict political ethics and tight monetary discipline all this while, then, as against the Berlusconiesque ( Read more... )