Yearly Archives: 2019

Behold: NGC 3242 – the cast off shroud of a dying sun-like star known as The Ghost Of Jupiter Nebula. To wit:

…this deep and wide telescopic view also finds the seldom seen outer halo of the beautiful planetary nebula at the upper left, toward Milky Way stars and background galaxies in the serpentine constellation Hydra. Intense and otherwise invisible ultraviolet radiation from the nebula’s central white dwarf star powers its illusive glow in visible light. In fact, planets of NGC 3242’s evolved white dwarf star may have contributed to the nebula’s symmetric features and shape. Activity beginning in the star’s red giant phase, long before it produced a planetary nebula, is likely the cause of the fainter more extensive halo. About a light-year across NGC 3242 is some 4,500 light-years away. The tenuous clouds of glowing material at the right could well be interstellar gas, by chance close enough to the NGC 3242’s white dwarf to be energized by its ultraviolet radiation.

(Image: CHART32 Team, Johannes Schedler / Volker Wendel)

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 Irvin Muchnik with Maureen Sullivan TD at Leinster House this morning

This morning.

Leinster House, Dublin 2

Dogged, relentless American sportswriter and investigative journalist Irvin Muchnik is in Dublin until Sunday to meet people involved in efforts to bring fugitive swimming coach George Gibney to justice, including Maurren O’Sullivan TD and Dr Gary O’Toole.

Irvin writes:

My message is simple: If the goal is to nail, at long last, this disgraced Irish Olympic swim coach who has been hiding in plain sight in my country for a quarter of a century, then all the tools are in place.

Previously we’ve noted that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic must push for direct and formal information-sharing between Ireland’s Garda and U.S. law enforcement — both the federal Justice Department and the office of the state attorney of Hillsborough County, Florida. (Tampa is where Gibney’s known sex crime on American soil occurred, during an Irish swim team training trip in 1991.)

Last year Maurren O’Sullivan met in Washington, D.C., with Congresswoman Jackie Speier, the American politician who is associated with the #MeToo movement and is the unofficial House Democratic majority monitor of youth sports coach abuse issues.

In the current, and evidently culminating, circumstance of a wider investigation of abuses throughout Olympic sports programs, we need a renewed initiative with specific tactics. And Speier and other sympathetic legislators have to heed it and act on it.

Though not directly related, some wind under the sails of the Gibney extradition campaign has emerged in the form of breaking news of the arrest of another accused serial sex abuser, Jeffrey Epstein.

The fresh reporting in my new edition of the  George Gibney Chronicles ebook adds a road map for federal investigators of the final furlong of this marathon: important questions surrounding his role in a Colorado church group’s children’s eye clinic mission in Peru around 20 years ago.

To the Emerald Isle For the Gibney Project (ConcussionInc)

Tuesday: Irv In Ireland



From top: breast cancer survivor Jill Murphy (centre) with Sonia O’Sullivan and her daughter Sophie O’Sullivan, Alfie, a 2-year-old Maltese; Sonia and Sophie

This afternoon.

The launch of the 9th Great Pink Run with Glanbia and Avonmore which will take place in the Phoenix Park, Dublin on Saturday, October 19, Kilkenny Castle Park, Kilkenny on Sunday, October 20 and also at Diversey Harbor, Chicago, USA on October 5.

The events are open to men, women and children for both the 10K challenge and the 5K fun run all in support of Breast Cancer Ireland‘s research and awareness programmes.

Register here

Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

This afternoon.

Via Tilray:

The Tilray products successfully imported will be made available to qualified patients through the Access Programme once distribution approvals are provided by local regulators.

This will allow patients in Ireland access to a locally maintained supply of GMP-certified products, which they can receive in a reasonable time-frame.

Authorised patients are expected to be able to access Tilray medical cannabis products through the Irish community pharmacy network in the second half of the year.

Catherine Jacobson, Tilray’s Vice President of Medical and Regulatory Affairs, said:

“This development in Ireland represents an exciting turning point for patients. We’re proud to have the opportunity to provide patients in Ireland with access to Tilray’s standardized GMP-certified medical cannabis products, and we’re thrilled to see an increasing number of countries improve access to medical cannabis.”

Tilray® Imports GMP-Certified Standardized Medical Cannabis Oil into Ireland (Tilray)

Thanks Fweed

Dublin City Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick (representing the Lord Mayor) and An Post CEO David McRedmond.

This afternoon.

Blessington Street Park, The Basin, Dublin 7

The unveiling of a plaque and a special postage stamp to honour Dame Iris Murdoch by Dublin City Council and An Post marking the birthday of the late author and philosopher close to her birth place.

Born at 59 Blessington Street, Iris moved with her parents to London while still an infant, but the family often holidayed by the sea in Dun Laoghaire and Ireland features prominently in a number of her works.

Pic: Maxwells

Mick Flannery – Come Find Me

The new single from the prolific Cork singer/songwriter is a punchy dance remix by ESCQ (Eric Straube and Chris Qualls) of a song from Mick’s recent self-titled album.

The video swoops through modern cities and ancient forests but Mick’s gritty voice is still the star of the show.

You can catch him live at Limerick Dolan’s Warehouse on July 19.

Nick says: An offer I can’t refuse.

Available here

Director Jo Roy’s animated video for Meg Myers’ cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ (in which a green-screened Myers was motion-captured into the form of a metamorphosing moth).

The footage was printed off in the form of 3,200+ black and white frames which were then coloured in by  2,100 elementary schoolchildren before being reassembled.

colossal