I received my first airsoft electric gun today. I went cheap for the first one to test it out so I got a Jing Gong (a Chinese good quality clone) Heckler & Koch G36C. I also got a reflect red dot sight and a USMC type single point bunch sling. First pictures below:
I’ve only had a few practice shots so far, it’s been charging all evening. Should give it a good test over the next few days.
The use of mobiles on planes flying in European airspace has been given approval by UK regulator Ofcom
Which means that UK-registered aircraft will in future offer mobile services; which in turn means that eventually such services will be rolled out across Europe.
Don’t know about you but I’ve always found travelling stressful enough, especially when it’s business travel. The only positive side was some measure of peace during the flight when you could possibly catch a few winks … which won’t be quite as easy when there’s some obnoxious bollox gesturing and waving next to you on his mobile phone and other phones buzzing throughout the cabin.
Personally I’d prefer the maintain the ban on mobiles during flight.
Via Ocean FM, a proposed revamp of the Gaeltacht could see a number of towns losing their Gaeltacht status:
Towns such as Dungloe and Burtonport in Donegal, Dingle, Belmullet in Co.Mayo and parts of Galway city would lose their Gaeltacht status if the linguisitic criteria was implemented.
I’m sure many people will object to this, especially in the affected towns, however I suspect their objections will be based on that fact that they will lose out financially. I see two positives here:
1. Money being spent supporting “Irish speaking” communities which aren’t actually speaking the language could be diverted to communities which ARE speaking the language or to other language support schemes
2. It might wake some people up in these “Gaeltacht” areas, maybe they’ll put a bit more effort into pushing the language as a community language.
As much as I hate seeing Gaeltacht areas decline I find it hard to agree with money being pumped into “Gaeltacht” communities who don’t actually use the language.
There are 51,000 people living in “‘official’ Gaeltacht areas but in which Irish has stopped existing as the community language”, why should they gain the benefits of Gaeltacht status if they are not willing to put effort into developing the language as their community language?
Of course I understand that the issue is not black and white and the recent(-ish) influx of immigrants is bound add a degree of difficulty promoting Irish as a community language in any community in Ireland but I have my doubts that communities are even trying in these areas. Prove me wrong and I’ll happily chance my stance on the matter.
The Defence Forces’ biggest logistics operation ever moved on to the next phase as a cargo ship left Dublin port today stuffed to the gills with equipment for the 372 men and women of the 97th Inf Batt and the 50 ARW personnel who have been in Chad since last month (the ARW obviously brought some equipment when they deployed to Chad in February).
The ship had been loading in Dublin Port since yesterday; it contains 16 Mowag APC’s plus an additional 60 or so support vehicles (bulldozers, ambulances etc) along with 3000 tonnes of equipment such as weapons & ammunition, beds, air conditioning, toilets, a doctor’s surgery, photocopiers, food and water etc.
Basically everything, bar fuel, the troops will need to live and operate for four months is being sent as part of the largest logistical move the Defence Forces has ever undertaken.
Next stop is the Netherlands where it will collect additional equipment for 60 Dutch Marines who will work along side our lads in Chad. The ship will then head for Cameroon where the equipment will be off loaded and begin an overland trip of approximately 2,500km to the battalion “village” at Goz Beida.
You can read more about the operations in Chad (EUFOR Chad/CAR) on the Defence Forces website.
Good to see the website getting a revamp; I always had problems with the previous site in Firefox.
In related news, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Defence Forces involvement with UN peace missions. Military enthusiasts mark the 26th June in your diary as there is a military parade planned for McKee Barracks in Dublin. Will update you further closer to the event.
Police in Italy have issued footage of a man who is suspected of hypnotising supermarket checkout staff to hand over money from their cash registers.
It probably seemed like a deadly idea at the time. Remember, with great power comes great chances to rip people off … or something like that.
Via RTÉ news …
US Democrat Hillary Clinton has admitted being wrong in her claim that a hail of sniper fire ambushed her arrival on a 1990s trip to Bosnia.
How could you possibly get that wrong?? “Oh, ya know what that was? It must have been raining heavily … like hailstones or something! Yeah, sorry, my bad.”
Just spotted via Technorati’s ‘blog reactions’, it seems that one of my posts has caught the attention, not in a good way, of some blogger by the name of Felix Quigley. You’ll know by now, if you have been with me here for a while, that I’ve always supported our Defence Forces especially in the great work they have been doing overseas.
A long time back, September 2006 actually, I expressed my delight at the news that Ireland was to head up the UN’s mission in Kosovo. Fantastic news, thought I, a great honour for a small nation such as ours and, wrote I, “a testament to the magnificent contribution our soldiers have made to peacekeeping operations since joining the United Nations in December 1955″.
Such an expression of support for our Defence Forces is apparently a “parody of jingoism” according to Mr.Quigley.
So, our soldiers putting their lives on the line keeping the peace in Kosovo, Chad or Liberia should not be supported as it would be jingoistic, is that the message? Well here’s one ‘jingoist’ who’ll happily support the peacekeeping efforts of our troops … and shame on you that don’t!
Of course his post wasn’t about my post; it was used as an example of us Irish being fond of ‘sticking our noses into the affairs of other countries’; Quigley’s summation of our work with the UN seemingly. Ireland’s support of Kosovan independence was the target of the post and how apparently we have ‘shamed ourselves’ by supporting Kosovo’s declaration.
It’s to be expected from a “rotten and venal … low rate capitalist state little better now than a colony of the US” according to one.
To be honest I’ll never understand these self-haters. If they dislike where they come from so much from why don’t they just turn in their passport and move to the greener pastures of the states guilty of war crimes and ongoing human rights abuses that they love so much?
Because they don’t have the balls is the short answer. Because at the end of the day they are all talk and nothing more. Sad really.
I never thought that I would see the day that I’d have ten thousand (10,000 – you read it right) spam mails in my spam box! But it’s happened. As of some time in the wee hours of this morning I broke through the 10,000 spam barrier.
Now, this isn’t simply a case of me not deleting my spam mails and letting them build up over a period of months. No, I use gmail, which automatically deletes spam mails older than 30 days. Therefore these ten thousand spam mails have all been received within the last 30 days … that’s 10,000 spams in one month! Savage!!
I should point out that I use gmail as a pop mail client and it pulls mails from my rarely used website email accounts but even so it’s quite a figure. I’m certainly glad I gave up on Thunderbird; imagine having to trawl through that number of mails every month checking for legitimate mails! With Gmail I don’t bother as I’ve found it very reliable at the spam catching lark plus it’s easier to search for legit mails than with Thunderbird.
I’m wondering now if I should delete them all or wait for Google to give me an award for hitting this milestone.!.
Lá Fhéile Padraig sona daoibh!! Happy St.Patricks Day to you all.
Hope you’re getting the sunshine where ever you are; it’s been a nice bright day in the north west. Hope you got in to see your local parade; it’s important to get in and support your parade (as poor as some of them may be) on our national holiday, IMO.
I went to Sligo for the parade; it was the usual mix of pipe and flute bands with RDF, boy scouts, mountain rescue, kids GAA, the odd half-assed float and unfortunately a cement mixer and other assorted commercial cars and trucks that you see in every other small/medium town in Ireland.
If it wasn’t for the bands they’d be better of cancelling the parade altogether. Thank crunchie for all those Northern bands coming down to play; it wouldn’t be much of a parade without them!
I’ll have to get down to Dublin one of these years; at least they do it properly there.
Anyway hope you enjoyed it where ever you are…
Seriously, I couldn’t let a headline like that pass without posting it! Of course there was no WMD in Iraq, Chuck Norris was in Texas.
Some other favourite Chuck facts shamelessly ripped from other sites: