Penal reform

Writes Vince Stankay of Florida in response to news of increased penalties for drunk drivers in Slovakia: People must be taught that they will pay the penalty for not being responsible for their actions. That seems to me a worthwhile principle, although I am not sure how it would be applied.

Municipal doping

Usually when the Olympics come to town there’s a big clean-up, during which junkies with little muscles get kicked out to make way for junkies with big muscles. That’s what happened in Barcelona in 92, but from this op-ed piece by Costas Iordanidis in Kathimerini it sounds like the Greek government is not having it…

Fishing talk

A new study, Fish intake during pregnancy in relation to offspring’s early cognitive development, shows that women who ate fish regularly during pregnancy had children with better language and communication skills by the age of 18 months. Interesting, then, that fishermen seem to be such silent ghits: communicative fisherman 0 uncommunicative fisherman 0 talkative fisherman…

Red carpets for Bush

The cultural naivety of Irish political atavism is evident in this placard. NO RED CARPET FOR KILLER BUSH, it says. Smart opponents would have tried to change the meaning of the red from whatever it originally was to reflect the blood which they would have us believe Bush is spilling needlessly.