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

25 years after giving up Greek, ANDREW CALCUTT explains why he is now a Latin lover

Social vampire and art critic Waldemar Januszak can now fondly remember the conflict in Ireland – but only because it’s over, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

Nationialism was the politics of empowerment in the nineteenth century – but it’s now 2010, says ANDREW GALLAGHER

Allow commercial whaling, says DAVID JACKMANSON

OWEN POLLEY says we’re gearing-up to blame the SDLP and UUP for failure but they are the very people who can fix the assembly by challenging its authoritarian, centralising nature

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

The UK government’s science policy isn’t just contradictory, it’s used a stand-in for politics, says science journalist TIMANDRA HARKNESS

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

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

They may offend liberal opinion but tabloid newspapers are the first line of defence for a free press, says JASON WALSH

Why politics would be lost without the ‘lower orders’

It’s the same as the old one, says STEPHEN MCGLENNON

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

Sargent getting his marching orders is more of the same un-politics, says JASON WALSH

Responses to the recent London conference on Irish unity suggest a united Ireland is a mere managerial process. Nothing could be further from the truth

ANNA MORVERN says the alleged Mossad assassination should not be allowed to force biometric identity documents on us

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

Official censorship pales in comparison to unofficial censureship, says BRENDAN O’NEILL

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

YAEL MAURER says her country’s foreign assassination antics would be funny – if they weren’t so serious

forth reader MICHAEL GILLESPIE gives his view on the proposed bill of rights for the North

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

A report from last night’s Belfast Salon debate: A house divided

The political class has attacked George Lee as an arriviste but they are the ones who abdicated responsibility to outside forces

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

The authorities have given over authority to children, argues DENNIS HAYES, and it is tantamount to child abuse.

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

It doesn’t want anything, says Australian IT professional JONATHAN WALSH. It’s what we want that matters

Gliberals whinging about labour conditions in the third world are helping to keep the poor in chains, says JASON WALSH

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

JACQUI RUSSELL argues for more development – and transparency – in Uganda as a way of guaranteeing rights

In the first of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate OWEN POLLEY argues for a modern Britishness against ‘Ulster’ identity

No, not the Ulster Unionists, it was the public

Sun, sea and… no sex or politics. According to reports Australia has gone censorship crazy, at home and away (on the internet). DAVID JACKMANSON brave the battle of the (bantam) breasts to find out what’s really going on

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

IT journalism is crap, says JASON WALSH

Three forth contributors give their thoughts on the future of Ireland’s Green Party after the next election

Young, educated Protestants are leaving the North – but the problem is economic, not cultural, says JASON WALSH

The crime story that ‘gripped Ireland’ tells us a lot about ourselves, but not quite what the press is claiming

The Republic of Ireland has a lower population than major cities – the only reason anyone cares about Ireland is because of the conflict

Today’s proliferation of rights is having the effect of making us less free

JASON WALSH wouldn’t vote for a unionist party if his life depended on it but says the Orangemen have one thing right – the Parades Commission is undemocratic

The state’s Irish policies have failed. Any genuine revival of the language will come from elsewhere, says JASON WALSH

OWEN POLLEY argues against the North’s proposed undemocratic Bill of Rights

forth editor JASON WALSH reporting on the ‘Irish-speaking elite’ in the CS Monitor

The shine has come off the Conservatives’ alliance with unionists as sectarian politics reasserts itself in Northern Ireland, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in the Guardian

Political discourse? It’s an oxymoron, says STEPHEN RAINEY

Martin Cullen is being torn to pieces (not literally) in the press for using a metaphor. Both his critics and Cullen should grow up, says JASON WALSH

Just because we don’t like them doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to understand dissident republicans – and what they tell us about Sinn Féin

Moral dilemma: what will replace the church as our compass? forth editor JASON WALSH and LENNY ANTONELLI in conversation with scientists and philosophers in the Irish Times

The goal of proportional representation isn’t to enhance democracy, it’s to frustrate it, says JASON WALSH

Why personal communication should be personal, in Global Comment

Frequent forth contributor DR STEPHEN GINN addresses a critic on the issue of government-issued ID cards

Since when were software upgrades worth partying about, asks JASON WALSH

PAULINE HADAWAY asks if the cost of the Northern Assembly is distracting from creating a real and vibrant democracy?

As the Ukrainian presidential election goes to round two, candidates’ “pro-Western” or “anti-Western” leanings are not what actually matters, says NATALIA ANTONOVA reporting from Ukraine

The abuse allegations are damaging to Sinn Féin but it’s the never-ending peace process that’s really hurting the party, says JASON WALSH

Some commentators say Haiti would be better off if had never overthrown its French colonial masters. They’re wrong, says JASON WALSH

England’s politicians and pundits are thrilled to see the skeletons in Northern Ireland’s closets, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

Comparisons are unfair and unhelpful but we do need to get our act together, says JASON WALSH

Both climate changers and their opponents should stop blowing hot air over cold weather, says PATRICK WEST

China-bashing has a long and ugly history, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in Global Comment

Despite sounding like a German discount retailer, Rod Liddle is the Waitrose of boring, right-wing ‘controversialists’, says PADDY HOEY

Attacks on Yemen for being a ‘hotbed of terrorism’ are just the latest in a series of unjust insults slung at the Middle Eastern country, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

The Irish Film Board is badly run, supports lousy movies and costs the taxpayer money. Of course we need it, says NIALL KITSON

Underfunded, unloved and with just enough power to make our lives a misery, it’s time for the councils to go, says JASON WALSH

The Robinson and Adams scandals don’t matter – because nothing in the North of Ireland matters

forth editor JASON WALSH says the emphasis on victimhood is tedious and beside the point, writing in Global Comment

The Northern Assembly is too important for grandstanding – unless it’s officially sanctioned grandstanding, says JASON WALSH

DANIEL JEWESBURY tells the improbable and engaging story of Iris Robinson, the woman with three jobs and the beast with two backs

He has achieved much, but it’s time for Gerry Adams to go, says TOMMY MCKEARNEY

DAVID JACKMANSON reports on the Sea Shepherd whaling fiasco

Some members want the British Labour party to organise in the North of Ireland. But who would vote for it?

JAMES HEARTFIELD traces the Ballardian history of middle class panics, from societal breakdown to the population bomb and global cooling, in a special illustrated essay for forth

Iris Robison’s feet of clay are not important and even the politics will turn out to be hollow

With the situations in Iraq, and Afghanistan regularly described as ‘states of anarchy’, JASON WALSH asks exactly what is a state anyway?

The Adams family crisis and Mrs Robinson scandal are masking the real political meltdown: financial double-dealing and a collapse of political legitimacy, says JASON WALSH

The first minister’s marriage is the least of the Northern Assembly’s problems – how about the fact that the entire Mickey Mouse outfit is incapable of functioning, says JASON WALSH

Political consultant ROBERT CASSIDY considers Brian Lenihan’s contradictory insider-outsider status in politics and notes his response to the TV3 debacle fits a pattern of both Lenihan’s behaviour and pubic perception of him as a man

Marian Keyes’s announcement that she is struggling with depression is unfortunate but let’s not generalise from it, says JASON WALSH

We know airport security is a problem when European governments are planting plastic explosives on travellers, says JASON WALSH

Read forth editor JASON WALSH writing about Ireland’s sex panic in Global Comment magazine

Public life is still dominated by the idea that the Irish are unique – uniquely stupid – but there is nothing unique about Ireland. Isn’t it about time we admitted that, asks JASON WALSH

China’s execution of British man Akmal Shaikh was a disgrace but it had nothing to do with Copenhagen, despite the green conspiracy theories, says JASON WALSH

ROB LYONS laments the latest attack on freedom in the name of airport security

Islamic militants are more like angsty goths than traditional third world liberationists, says JASON WALSH. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab is just the latest in a long line of alienated rich boys playing soldier