The conviction that we can deliver a happy childhood to those to whom we give birth is linked to two other unquestioned certainties: That every child is entitled to a happy childhood.

Action should be taken on this because, unless someone is watching child pornography or snuff videos..., it’s nobody’s business what any of us watch on our computers, least of all a massive entertainment multinational which can make commercial gains from the information.

A FRIEND spent the weekend in Prague and came across open-air stalls in the side streets where they sell old Soviet memorabilia.

Because of climate change, sea levels are set to rise.

IT’S CERTAINLY without precedent. Indeed, it’s hard to believe. But it’s a fact. As far as American media is concerned, the valedictory tour of Europe by President George W Bush is of little or no interest compared with Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

She made herself sound like someone going for a middle management post in a manufacturing plant, rather than the aspirant leader of the United States of America.

IT HAS its competitors, but the single most overused word in the lexicon at the moment is “passion”.

COME ON, as Hillary would say, let’s get real here. Nobody was surprised the Taoiseach knew that word and could use it.

In my time, I’ve been asked by one politician to deliver messages to other politicians as varied as ‘Your deodorant, assuming you’ve encountered the concept, isn’t working’ and ‘If you think nobody has spotted you playing offside with yer wan, you’re mistaken.’

WE now have a three-tier ministerial system. At the bottom are the soon-to -be-announced ministers of state. At the top are finance, health, education, justice and transport. In the middle are the others, widely interpreted, since Brian Cowen announced his cabinet, as of minor importance, offering damn-all potential advancement to their holders, and awarded either as punishments or consolation prizes.