STEPHEN RAINEY suggests shrugging-off problems and getting on with living

You know that anti-Israeli protests have reached their nadir when gay pride becomes involved, says JASON WALSH

CHRIS GRAY concludes his series on the Roman empire by analysing the reasons for its survival in the east

Blackrock Park’s commitment to Irish is second to all

The North is about to pay a very high price for its isolation from both the British and Irish polities

Slashing government spending doesn’t sound like Keynesian economics but it is when it’s done to prop-up failing businesses, says JASON WALSH

Mock outrage over Ivor Callely’s expense claims is a distraction from real politics, says JASON WALSH

Greece will suffer due to the EU intervention, it’s French and German banks that are getting bailed-out, says JASON WALSH

With public spending ‘out of control’ the government wants to avoid being seen as ’the next Greece’ by imposing round after round of tax hikes, public sector pay restraint and swingeing cuts to public service provision—but has it worked, asks JASON WALSH

Get Irish off life support and into real life, says JASON WALSH

CONNAL PARR looks at the spectre of dissident republicanism

Recessions are better for the right, says DOUG HENWOOD

forth has an interest in independent publications (for obvious reasons) and so is publishing an interview with Lobster editor Robin Ramsay

Irish public anger at bank bailouts boils over but there is still an absence of political meaning, says JASON WALSH

What does the pharmaceutical industry have in common with the Bilderberg Group? Nothing, says JASON WALSH, who really wants conspiracy theorists to shut up

The trouble in Greece underlines two important lessons: austerity packages don’t have to accepted and that frustrated violent actions achieve nothing, says JASON WALSH

forth’s electoral musings

DOMHNALL Ó COBHTAIGH asks, why has a hedge fund has been allowed to trump democracy in Greece?

Newspaper designer and editor of the web-mag, The ColdType Reader TONY SUTTON on the future of news in the digital era

Dr STEPHEN RAINEY was not impressed by the lastest Northern Irish leaders’ debate

Tomorrow sees Britain and the North go to the polls but whoever wins there will be winter of austerity, says JASON WALSH

JASON WALSH responds to SpinWatch

Is Apple saving us from the tyranny of Adobe or enslaving us in a Huxleyite passive future – and why will no-one admit computers are broken, asks JASON WALSH

Ireland’s bourgeoisie already had its (failed) revolution and today’s grumbling mistakes the ‘middle class’ for a meaningful political category, says JASON WALSH

Gordon ‘send-‘em-home’ Brown should watch who he’s calling a bigot, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Calls to start a left alliance amount to political necrophilia, says JASON WALSH

Are attacks on the ‘One True Church’ assaults on truth itself, asks JASON WALSH

We’re supporting Labour. And the Liberal Democrats. But only because Zac Goldsmith is standing as a Tory.

Media coverage of the British leaders’ debates is all about who won the debate – this isn’t politics, say JASON WALSH and T. UÍ FINNTHIGHEIRN

Leaders’ debate or no leaders’ debate, British politics has been emptied of eccentrics and it’s poorer for it, says JASON WALSH

Conservative pseudo-liberals are already celebrating the ‘end’ of flight due to the eruption in Iceland but sedentary lifestyles are nothing to celebrate, says JASON WALSH

Calls to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain are not only mind-bogglingly stupid, they also threaten national sovereignty and follow in the footsteps of the wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, says atheist JASON WALSH

Just because you cannot programme a computer does not mean you cannot create, says JASON WALSH

The shotgun marriage between the Tories and Ulster Unionists won’t see the dawning of a bright blue future, JASON WALSH

Quinn’s diversification and attempt at vertical integration was its ultimate insurance against tough times – it’s a pity the authorities in the border counties didn’t think similarly, says JASON WALSH

It’s no surprise that Marx’s zombie bones won’t stay interred at Highgate Cemetery during a global recession but why is it always the worst parts of Marxism that stalk us today, asks TP D’INVILLIERS

One British political party wants to not only stop immigration but introduce what amounts to an internal passport system – but it’s not the BNP. It’s the Greens.

Vincent Browne wants to know why the public isn’t angry – it’s because they don’t exist, says JASON WALSH

Calls to ban head shops are illiberal and silly but so are pro-drug voices who complain about alcohol and tobacco, says JASON WALSH

The inclusion of gay women in a Holocaust memorial despite an absence of persecution shows how victim culture has captured the political elite

The British government is about to call a general election but the stakes have never been lower, says JASON WALSH

James Lovelock’s authoritarian complaints about humanity are not only undemocratic, they’re wrong

‘What do we want? Not much. When do we want it? Er…’

Adding green to the red, white and blue doesn’t make forced deportations, colonisation or militarisation acceptable, says JASON WALSH

Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie, today announced the commissioning of new public art, the ‘Bax of Fegs’, for Fountain Street in Belfast City Centre

Nationalisation is not public ownership, says JASON WALSH

A disastrous ‘bad bank’ and worse policy, the National Assets Management Agency has one thing going for it: at least people are talking

A note from the editor’s desk

The spectres of Brendan Hughes and Jean McConville are stalking Gerry Adams, but there is more to this story than meets the eye and the IRA isn’t the only party that comes out of it covered in dirt, says JASON WALSH

Links between a orangeman and the BNP aren’t scandalous or surprising – nor are they illegal, says JASON WALSH

The decision to open pubs on Good Friday is the right one but it’s being done for the wrong reasons, says JASON WALSH

As an avalanche of fresh allegations of cover-ups of child abuse emerge one senior Irish clergyman says he was not party to oaths of secrecy, despite media reports to the contrary – but there is strong evidence of a culture of silence as more cases emerge, forth editor JASON WALSH reports

Conservative opposition to universal healthcare, in Ireland as in the United States, misses the real problem: the redefinition of medicine as ‘wellness promotion’

Taking anything the pope says seriously means agreeing that canon law is meaningful, says JASON WALSH

Meaningless apologies help no-one in the case of the Irish clerical abuse scandal, says JASON WALSH

An ode to David Beckham’s foot is no more stupid than the office of poet laureate demands

Google is a business and that’s why it acts the way it does – so why single it out for critique?

From Google, through the banks, to the arts, everyone is arguing for their own private communist society to protect them from the ravages of the market, says JASON WALSH

Typical of internet sensations, the fuss surrounding print-on-demand ‘newspapers’ from the Newspaper Club misses the essential ingredient of a newspaper – news, says JASON WALSH

Transcript of forth editor JASON WALSH‘s contribution to the Global Uncertainties debate ‘What makes a terrorist?’ held at Queens School in Bushey, Hertforshire on March 17, 2010 as part of a UK Research Councils/Debating Matters event.

Forget St Patrick’s Day, it’s St Tina’s Day in Ireland, says JASON WALSH

The ‘promise’ of jobs at Dublin airport is an empty one

With the Lisbon treaty out of the headlines and in the statute books Europe is less coherent than ever, says JASON WALSH

Why is modern Ireland home to some of the most conservative politics in Europe, asks JASON WALSH

Google is not the newsmonster – nor is it omniscient, says JASON WALSH

Why is the Green Party following in the truculent footsteps of the pre-agreement DUP?

JASON WALSH loathes toffs as much as the next pleb but he doesn’t want to see fox hunting banned

Never mind grade inflation, expecting education to solve the country’s economic problems is a joke, says JASON WALSH

Michael Foot wasn’t a hero of the left, he was the last in a long line of Labour losers, says JASON WALSH

Is Britain headed for a hung parliament, asks JASON WALSH – and does it matter?

Ireland’s desperate political elite is now begging the public for ideas – in a bizarre PR-driven competition

Mad, bad and dangerous to know, the Tea Parties are the flip side of Obamamania and both contain positive aspects

Hillary Clinton’s unsolicited offer to mediate between Britain and Argentina should remind us that you don’t need a history degree to know the Falklands don’t belong to Britain. All you need is a map

As Ian Paisley prepares to step down from his role as MP forth traces his transformation from sectarian demagogue to living saint

A new Brand of environmentalism seeks to distance itself from its technophobic past but Stewart Brand’s paean to poverty is anything but progressive. JASON WALSH trawls through history, from the classical period to the age of Marxism to show why.

The earthquake that struck Chile was stronger than the one that struck Haiti in January but the death toll is literally a thousand times lower

Updated: 19.30 UTC

Aesthetic experience matters in all other aspects of life so why do software developers treat it like a frivolous luxury?

Precious pieties never solved anything, says JASON WALSH

forth editor JASON WALSH gives his personal view on why nothing matters in Ireland today – and suggests how we might change that

Tiger Woods’s apology was an ugly, forced pantomime and his private life is none of our business, says JASON WALSH

Complaining about ‘civil war politics’ isn’t enough – it’s time to reinvigorate our moribund political system, says JASON WALSH

JASON WALSH visits the hackers

Whatever about the ‘necessity’ of austerity packages, anti-Greek sentiment is inflated by prejudice and unmasks EU bully-boy tactics

Defence minister Willie O’Dea is an alleged perjurer and fights dirty – but the forces circling him aren’t democratic, this is the backstabbing of court politics

As the Greek economy continues to tank many are wondering if joining the Euro was the right idea. JASON WALSH says it doesn’t matter which currency you have, what matters is how much of it you have in your pocket

JASON WALSH explains what’s behind the sudden outbreak of principles in Irish politics

Forget the fading messianic effect, Obama’s energising of politics still matters and we could still do with some of that enthusiasm here at home

There’s plenty to dislike about fake ‘amateur’ sports but let’s focus on the skill and beauty of the games, says JASON WALSH

George Lee’s resignation from politics is more than just a ‘hissy fit’, it’s poisonous to politics

An interview published today lays the blame for the IRA split of 1969 at the feet of one man: Seamus Costello. If true, what does this mean for our understanding of recent Irish history, asks JASON WALSH

The British electorate is capable of kicking-out the alleged expense fiddlers, it’s not a job for the courts

In the second of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate, JASON WALSH argues the only way forward for the North is to think about Ireland nationally

JASON WALSH, outside the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum

No, not the Ulster Unionists, it was the public

IRA veteran, former Sinn Féin president, Official IRA leader and leading Irish communist dead

The endless and farcical devolution talks at Stormont should remind us of the need to replace the exhausted institutions, both north and south, writes forth editor JASON WALSH in Spiked

Anything Sinn Féin and the DUP can agree on isn’t worth the paper it’s written on

The anti-clerical ‘Count Me Out’ inflates the importance of Ireland’s rotting Catholic Church, says JASON WALSH

The new lowered speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour is not about traffic management or road safety, it’s an assault on mobility – and the statistics prove it, says JASON WALSH