Dé Céadaoin (Wed), Márta (Mar) 30th

Gay rapist ducks!
We had a discussion last week on Slugger, actually an old discussion (Nov '04) on rights for gay couples in Ireland which was re-opened leading to a somewhat heated discussion on homosexuality and how "unnatural" it is (according to some). Anyway today I chanced upon this relevant article in the Guardian about necrophilia among ducks. Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker actually got a Nobel prize for biology for his research in his area. Now, ducks being homosexual is nothing new (about 10% of them are) but Moelikers research shows that they engage in "attempted rape flights". The article describes Moelikers first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos, it makes for interesting reading.
I wonder what his qualification is "Masters in Raping Ducks", how does he try to explain that one? "No I don't rape ducks, the ducks rape, I just watch". Hmm, should have done Accountancy. more..
maca @ 01:48.

Canadian seal hunt underway
The worlds largest seal hunt got under way 1 day, 7 hours and 03 minutes ago (at time of writing), an estimated 25,200 seals have been killed so far. The hunt will bring in approx. €13m for the local communities (compare than to the $3 billion in seafood which the Canadians export annually to the US) which is badly needed, still ya can't help but feel sorry for the poor creatures being bludgeoned to death. more..
maca @ 01:03.

Dé Máirt (Tue), Márta (Mar) 29th

Rep. Ireland 1 - 0 China
After their brutal result against Israel Ireland (sorry, Republic of ...) bounce back with a win in a friendly over China, thanks to Clinton Morrison again. more..
maca @ 11:39.

Dé Luain (Mon), Márta (Mar) 28th

Another earthquake!
There's been another earthquake just off Indonesia, this time measuring about 8.2 in the Richter scale. Tsunami warnings have been issued but no news yet if there have been any waves. Unconfirmed reports say "dozens" have been killed on the Indonesian island of Nias.
Update 1: Magnitude 8.7. And BBC reports hundreds killed.
Update 2: More than 1000 feared dead, victims await aid.
Update 3: Why did the latest quake not cause a tsunami? more..
maca @ 11:03.

O'Connor loses medal
Cian O'Connors and Irelands only 2004 Olympic medal has been taken away. Showjumper O'Connor lost the glad medal yesterday after the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) ruling that his horse had tested positive for banned substances. We seem to be better at losing medals than winning them! more..
maca @ 01:54.

Gaeltacht signposts now only as Gaeilge
From today signposts in the Gaeltachtaí will only be as Gaeilge. No doubt there will be whingers complaining about this, highlighting the difficulty it will cause for tourists etc. (as discussed on Slugger a while back). But God only knows how these same people manage when they go to France or Spain where they can't translate the signs there into English.
As far as I know many maps already carry the Irish placenames (which are now the legal version) so I see little difficulty for anyone. Though as Irish Eagle points out it would be a good idea to leave warning signs in both language or use standard visual symbols. more..
maca @ 01:51.

Vigilante border partols
On April 1st the Minuteman Project will start in Arizona, where volunteers from across the US will spend up to one month camped out in the desert armed with night vision goggles, radios and light aircraft, their job - to watch for illegal immigrants coming across the border from Mexico. Don't be surprised if that's not all they are armed with. According to founder James Gilchrist it is "a grassroots effort to bring Americans to the defence of their homeland" which is "devoured and plundered by the menace of tens of millions of invading illegal aliens". They have about 1000 volunteers so far but god only knows what kind of racists and 'white supremacists' have signed up. More groups like Humane Borders are needed, they erect water stations in the desert to try to prevent people dying (223 last year, most from dehydration) during the 5 day trek through the desert. more..
maca @ 11:39.

Dé hAoine (Fri), Márta (Mar) 25th

New plastic bullets for the North
The Policing Board of Northern Ireland has approved a new type of plastic bullet for use by the PSNI. Plastic bullets have had extensive use in the North and resulted in quite a number of deaths over the years. The new version of this "non-lethal" weapon is supposed to be less likely to cause serious harm or fatalities. Assuming they don't get any faulty ones like they did previously. The decision to approve the new bullets is subject to conditions. One of the conditions should, in my opinion, involve live testing i.e. leading members of the main nationalist & unionist parties dropping their pants and taking one for the team. more..
maca @ 01:19.

Open Office as Gaeilge
Those of you enjoying Firefox as Gaeilge may be interested to hear that Open Office localization is ongoing. Yes, soon this great *free* office suite will be available in Irish. Check out their localization site and if you have the time why not volunteer to help out. more..
maca @ 01:04.

John Wayne specials for Northern Ireland
Via Cloudlands by John Breslin I discover (a bit late) that TG4 is now available in Northern Ireland, it just goes from bad to worse there doesn't it? This following the sale in January of Ros na Rún to WYBE Philadelphia it looks like TG4 is spreading her wings.
I haven't had much opportunity to watch it in recent years (there's a surprisingly low demand for Irish language tv here in Finland) but just checking the schedule it seems they still show crappy old movies, movie of the day next Monday is "The Waltons Crisis" (1973), says it all doesn't it? Well, at least they have Hector, Samuri Jack and Spongebob. more..
maca @ 04:36.

Slow blogging...
Blogging has been brutally slow here for weeks now, work is shaggin busy. But if you follow the wee link to Irishblogs.ie you'll get a nice collection of Irish weblogs which, unlike this site, are of a standard actually worth visiting. And don't forget Slugger, always worth a gander, and where you'll find me most days fighting my little corner. more..
maca @ 04:13.

Dé Máirt (Tue), Márta (Mar) 15th

Irish Language Commissioners first annual report
Via the Gaelport.com mailing list: Inaugural Report of An Coimisinéir Teanga.
"The State may not be getting an adequate return for the money it invests in the teaching of Irish according to the inaugural report issued by An Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin." more..
maca @ 07:58.

Church hits back at Da Vinci Code
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has broken the church's silence and spoken out about Dan Brown's best seller The Da Vinci Code branding it "shameful and unfounded". Tomorrow the Cardinal will host a seminar on the subject "Story Without History" to rebut the claims of the book. The book itself [roughtly: a story about the Church suppressing the "truth" that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene] has been a huge hit worldwide and has even spawned 10 related books and a film! more..
maca @ 05:25.

Review of Irish language teaching
The Irish Language Commissioner, Sean O'Cuirreain has reportedly called for a review of how Irish is taught in primary and secondary schools. His advice is contained in his first annual report as Commissioner.
"Reports this morning said Sean O'Cuirreain had advised that such a review was essential if the State was truly committed to promoting the Irish language."
If the state was committed to promoting the Irish language such reviews would be done 20 years ago and new systems implemented! Sean is spot on, after learning Irish for approximately 13 years few of us can speak it fluently, we should be ashamed and the government should be bloody ashamed of our poxy education system especially the way Irish [and other languages I might add] is taught.
I am constantly amazed at the fluency level Finnish people achieve in English after just a few years of school. I even know some people who never finished school (roughly our secondary school) yet have fluent English. What are they doing so right that we are doing so wrong? How is it that we learn the language for 2-3 times longer yet can't achieve close to the same level of proficiency? Is it simply students attitude to the language? Teachers attitude? Society's? Or is it attitude at all but just an education system that is failing us? Our useless shaggin government needs to get the finger out.
I have to go for a coffee to get the blood pressure down. more..
maca @ 01:08.

Cebit highlights
I was at Cebit a few years ago, very interesting experience but over the two days I was there we barely scratched the surface such is the wealth of exhibitors to see. BBC has taken a snapshot of the event and highlighted some of the more interesting products on display this year. Sony Ericsson's bluetooth rolling camera caught my eye, as did Samsungs SGH-i300 - its 3Gb of harddrive is long overdue [what use is an MP3 playing phone when you can only store 5 songs on it? *cough Nokia*]. It's well worth a visit if you are ever able to make it. more..
maca @ 12:01.

Apple wins source fight
Interesting one here, Apple has won it's legal battle to force three bloggers to reveal the source who gave them information on unreleased Apple products. The bloggers posted information about Apple's Asteroid product on the PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret and Apple have been fighting since then to find the leak in their company. With the result this week Apple can now get access to the bloggers emails records. The Electronic Frontier Foundation are quite concerned about the ruling as it could have much wider implications. more..
maca @ 11:50.

Racism, in the flesh
Via a Slugger discussion on a South African Police Chief Robert McBride [yes, there is an Irish connection] I discovered Africa's self-proclaimed 'premier hard news website' African Crisis, and within those pages attitudes which shocked and astounded me. It's worth taking a look just to see the sort of people which exist. more..
maca @ 11:27.

Dé Céadaoin (Wed), Márta (Mar) 9th

Mexican Police ordered to read
Interesting one here from Mexico where the 1,100 strong police force of the Nezahualcoyotl district of Mexico City have been ordered to read at least one book every month or lose any chance of promotion! Currently a substantial proportion of the force are semi-literate with about 20% not even educated beyond primary level. With a repuration for being lazy, incompetent and corrupt the idea is that by reading books such as Don Quixote or The Labyrinth of Solitude, for example, they will become better people and better police officers! It's certainly a novel idea (fuckit I couldn't resist), it would be interesting to see how it improves their situation. more..
maca @ 04:16.

Dé Máirt (Tue), Márta (Mar) 8th

IRA offers to shoot McCarthy's killers
Apparantly the IRA offered to shoot the killers of Robert McCarthy. Disgusting - that's the only think I can think of to say. It's astounding. more..
maca @ 10:41.

Bono World Bank Chief??
Believe it or not Bono has been suggested for the role of head of the World Bank by the LA Times and US Treasury Secretary John Snow has said he would not rule out the idea of Bono making the shortlist of potential candidates!! It's also believed that Bono might be among the nominees for a Nobel Peace Prize for international social justice efforts. 2005 could well be a good year for the bauld Bono. more..
maca @ 12:22.

I suffered racist abuse
I really didn't think this sort of thing still went on these days. A tribunal is ongoing in Reading in which a Galway woman is claiming under the Race Discrimination Act that she suffered racial abuse at work. It makes interesting reading. Sad to see this sort of thing still happens, no doubt the number of such cases are small but anyway one case is one too many. more..
maca @ 12:14.

Dé hAoine (Fri), Márta (Mar) 4th

US Casualties top 1500
The war in Iraq is certainly taking it's toll. Latest figures show 1502 US troops killed in Iraq so far, with approximatly 11,000 wounded, half of them being able to return to duty. Sustainable by military standards, how about politically?
In A poll a year ago 23% of Americans believed that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Now that figure is 47%! more..
maca @ 03:24.

Patriots or gangsters
IRA patriots, not gangsters - McLaughlin
IRA gangsters, not patriots - Maca more..
maca @ 03:18.