Dé Luain (Mon), Eanáir (Jan) 31st

Ireland tsunami risk?
The government has appointed a team to access the risks [registration cheat] of a tsunami hitting Ireland. They are even looking into the feasibility of setting up an early warning system. The move seems to have been prompted by a British Minister telling Gay Mitchell that Ireland and GB had been hit by a tsunami in the early 18th century following the Lisbon earthquake. more..
maca @ 12:22.

Good day for Iraq
It's been a very good day for the people of Iraq who have voted in their first multi-party election for 50 odd years. As opposed as I am to the war I have to admit that perhaps something good has come from it. The Iraqi people themselves relished the chance to vote and despite attacks which calimed the lives of 36 people (which could have been a lot worse) over 60% of those eligible to vote turned out today. Maybe i'm asking for too much but I hope today was a first step to creating a stable and peaceful Iraq. more..
maca @ 12:13.

Dé Luain (Mon), Eanáir (Jan) 24th

Sin-bin rule to be modified...
The criticism must be getting to them because the GAA are going to modify the experimental sin-bin rule. Sean Kelly is expected to announce today that players who get sent to the sin-bin can be replaced by a substitute whereas before no substitute was allowed and the teams had to play on without the sin-binned player. I dunno, personally I think they did it right first time and perhaps a better compromise might have been to reduce the sin-bin time to 5 minutes instead of 10.
Update: Sin-bin rule scrapped. more..
maca @ 11:32.

New Irish language therapists
Eamon O’Cuiv has approved the hiring of three Irish-speaking language therapists for the Gaeltacht regions. One of the serious problems for the Irish language community is lack of support services in Irish, so this small step should be welcome news. more..
maca @ 11:24.

Robot soldiers head for Iraq
The military geek in me can't help but say "coooooool!" The US military are deploying 18 "robots" in Iraq. The robots are basically the same as the type of tracked robot used for bomb disposal but armed with machine guns! The robot, equipped with four cameras, night-vision and zoom lenses, is currently guided by a computer and joystick but they have plans to ue a gameboy type controller with a VR hemlet. Cool! more..
maca @ 11:17.

Firefix making ground...
Good report from WebSideStory via CNET on the growing market share of Firefox. "From the beginning of December through mid-January, 4.78 percent of Internet surfers ... used the Mozilla Foundation's FireFox browser, a gain of 0.88 percentage points. At the same time, IE usage declined 0.7 percent to 92.7 percent..." more..
maca @ 02:05.

Déardaoin (Thu), Eanáir (Jan) 13th

WMDs - where's my dirtybombs?
Been in the news since yesterday. The White House has confirmed that its search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had ended without finding anything. They searched for two years at a cost of millions and still came up empty handed. Shit lads, all you had to do was ask anyone and they'd have told you you'd find nothing. Gobshites. more..
maca @ 12:07.

Dé Céadaoin (Wed), Eanáir (Jan) 12th

Indonesia maing life difficult
Jeez, you'd think they'd be glad of the help but the feckin Indonesian Government is trying to make life difficult for people helping with the aid efforts in the tsunami hit region. Not only must aid workers register to travel outside of the towns (supposedly for safety) but now they have set a deadline for foreign troops to leave the country. more..
maca @ 01:29.

"Basher" to testify at Jackson trial
British TV reporter Martin Bashir is to testify for the prosecution at the Jackson trial. You may know Bashir from the documentary he made about Jackson a year or two back. I don't think much of Jackson at all but felt sorry for him when I saw the documentary. New York based Bashir (Britains own Michael Moore) made the documentary to take down Jackson, he had no intention of reporting the facts, he clearly had made up his mind about Jackson beforehand and presented little more than his own conclusions, in my own humble opinion. That said, Jackson is away with the fairies... more..
maca @ 01:21.

Dé Máirt (Tue), Eanáir (Jan) 11th

Hullu Koira Adair
According to the Indo (I don't know why I read it either) Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair is on the run [registration cheat] from his UDA buddies. The Finnish will know the man as "Hullu Koira" (mad dog) because he visited Finland not so long ago. During one of his excursions abroad a couple of years ago while running from the UDA he snook into Finland only to have his face plastered over the Finnish papers. (the feckers said he was a Catholic terrorist). I wonder will he come back for a spot of skiing or run to warmer climes... more..
maca @ 05:18.

'My testicle was the size of a lemon'
The title caught my attention on this one, a humorous look at a very serious subject. Nathan Abrams discovered he had testicular cancer and decided to write a diary recording his thoughts during his ordeal. Well worth a read. more..
maca @ 06:18.

Dé Luain (Mon), Eanáir (Jan) 10th

EXCLUSIVE: IRA Decommissioned Arms Photos
The IRA have released photos of decommissioned arms.... more..
maca @ 07:07.

Best of CES, Las Vegas
The Consumer Electronics Show was just on in Las Vegas. Jo Twist of the BBC takes a look at some of the best items on show this year. I like the look if the Creative Zen Micro, and I gotta get me a Seagate pocket hard drive. more..
maca @ 06:31.

Thinking outside the box..
...is how the mother of one entrepreneur described her son's idea to sell advertising space on his forehead! Andrew Fisher from Omaha, who is running his offer on E-Bay said he would have a non-permanent logo or brand name tattooed on his head for 30 days. Bids are currently at $322.77! more..
maca @ 06:22.

Dé Máirt (Tue), Eanáir (Jan) 4th

Irish tsunami victim found
The body of a young Dublin girl was found in Thailand today and becomes Irelands first confirmed victim of the tsunami. Three others are said to be missing presumed dead while a further 17 are "medium risk". more..
maca @ 05:45.

Irish Troops for South East Asia?
The government has been asked to send troops to SE-Asia to assist with the humanitarian operations. It's not clear here who this request is coming from as the request has not come from the UN or the countries involved. It would be a good contribution as the Irish Army have lots of experience with logistics with the UN. A deployment would likely put us over the UN limit on percentage of troops serving abroad but who cares really. If we can help we should. more..
maca @ 10:14.

Outnumbered and outgunned
Well perhaps not outgunned but according to the Iraq head of intelligence there are up to 200,000 fighters and active supporters in Iraq, which outnumbers the coalition forces. I wonder how long the US can really hold out there, the future looks bleak. more..
maca @ 04:57.

Search for missing Swede stopped
They have now called off the search for the missing 22 yr old Swede who went trekking in the MacGillicuddy Reeks a week ago. It seems they put in a lot of effort "We had about 180 [people], the coastguard helicopters, search dogs from Northern Ireland, from Wales, most rescue teams from Ireland attended and, of course, all the locals," but since his family has just arrived from Sweden you'd think they'd run the search for another few days. more..
maca @ 02:51.

Paul Darragh RIP
I notice that the great Paul Darragh has died suddenly at his home in Meath, aged only 51. Anyone with a passing interest in show jumping will remember the legend that was Paul Darragh. He was part of that famous team with won the Aga Khan 3 years in a row from '77 to '79. more..
maca @ 02:46.