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"Sir Richard Attenborough has died aged 90.

The award-winning actor was best know for his roles in The Great Escape, Miracle on 34th Street and Jurassic Park."


He was a strong one. That's living a full life.  I remember him in Flight of the Phoenix. Great show and a great actor.

I've been hunting for the footage of the election TV debate between him and Bruton after the Labour/FF government collapsed, but can't seem to find it.  God he pounded Bruton into oblivion! How anybody voted for that clown afterwards I do not know.  Anybody remember it?

Any of you remember the morning the man from Magherafelt called in wanting to give away his parrot ?.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA5KZQAOj3I

Took me five minutes to stop laughing! Jesus!

RIP Albert Reynolds. Most underrated Taoiseach ever IMHO.

it's about maximising our harmonisation in a balanced, holistic environment to achieve optimisation of resources within a framework of streamlined positivity

Jesus H Christ! Is this satire?

Pretty much. They've gotten it into their heads that freedom is a product of guns, so they just repeat this mantra over and over again until they even believe it in their own minds.

[An End to Exploitation of Athletes]

I can't remember who it was, but some former inter-county player who had gone to Australia tweeted that "no other amateur players are exploited as much" when he heard about the Sky broadcasting deal. He's obviously not familiar with US college sports where student athletes live in poverty because of NCAA rules that stop them from even accepting gifts that could be interpreted as payment for their services. They're allowed a scholarship to cover tuition, free room and board, and not much else. They don't even get a penny from image rights, something that GAA players are allowed to earn.

A Californian judge has struck down the NCAA's rules preventing players from earning money from the likes of image rights. But the "it's time to pay GAA players" crowd shouldn't get too excited though. There are huge differences between the NCAA and the GAA.

An End to Exploitation of Athletes

A court ruling could spell the end of the "amateur" status of top-flight American college sports.

A federal judge in California has struck a blow against the amateur status of college athletes playing in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competitions. The ruling, if it is upheld on appeal, will pave the way for college athletes to earn money from image rights, something that GAA players have been doing for years. For the first time, a student athlete whose likeness appears in a video game will be able to earn a share of the millions of dollars generated by it.

Big time college sports have been controversial in America for quite some time, and not just because of the NCAA's amateur status. College campuses have become home to shiny, modern, opulent stadiums that would not look out of place on the professional sporting circuit. The highest paid staff in some universities are not world-renowned professors but basketball and gridiron football coaches. Indeed coaches are the highest paid public employees in some states, the highest earning $5.6 million per year, with Athletic Directors and assistant coaches earning seven figure sums. Under pressure from influential alumni who see sporting success as essential to maintaining a school's prestige, massive amounts of resources are poured into what is essentially a source of on-site entertainment for undergraduate students.

Full story...

It's a good question.

If there was a team at Notre Dame then they'd be in the running for it when that part of the country becomes eligible to host the competition again (it rotates geographically each year so that the same teams don't have to travel big distances all the time).

You have to strike a balance between building up your existing base and exploring new territory. Kinda like how FIFA alternates between hosting the World Cup in Euro/Latin American strongholds and new markets where there's potential for growth (USA, Japan, Korea, S. Africa*).  The Montana lads are really making a push to get new clubs started in their region and we have to help them build that. If we act quickly and give them the support they need then there could be a whole new nest of GAA clubs in that state in a few years, where only two years ago there was nothing.

*Qatar doesn't count, we all know why that came about.

I could have sworn the "what about all the non-Arab-Israeli conflicts and why aren't yiz kicking up a stink about them" question had been answered, but let me try to answer the whatabouters in the hope that they'll stop repeating the same damn question and a million variations thereon:

• Because on an emotional level, Irish people feel a strong sense of empathy with the Palestinians because of the similarity of their situation to Ireland's historical situation
• Because Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than Saddam Hussein's Iraq ever was and has been getting away with it for a whole lot longer
• Because Israel is a terrorist apartheid state that has managed, through the most efficient propaganda system I have ever seen, to convince large swathes of the western public that it is a civilized, modern, democratic state that is only acting in self defence against unprovoked attacks
• Because Israel has managed to wipe from the western consciousness the existence of about a million Palestinians living in refugee camps since the ethnic cleansing job of 1967
• Because Israel has managed to repeat the mantra over and over again that it has a "right to exist" (which is code for justifying the ethnic cleansing on which the state is built) and has a "right to defend itself" (which is code for slaughtering scores of innocent Palestinians as collective punishment for the actions of a small group of militants).
  
• Because Israel, the aggressor in this case, is propped up by Western governments, particularly the USA, and by isolating Israel in the west we might actually stand a chance of doing something about them

If that answers your question, please stop repeating it like a broken record.

Basically the same can be said for numerous African states.

Which ones?

About this "this is a courtesy call to tell you your house is going to be obliterated in one minute" business.  How exactly does that keep Israel safe? Just supposing everyone gets out (which is by no means certain) what good does it do to demolish a house with nobody in it?

[Second]

Second time that the Irish solution to the Irish problem of abortion has been exposed by the appalling experience of a foreigner subject to the same rules.

I'll bet it's more than the second.

I could have sworn the "what about all the non-Arab-Israeli conflicts and why aren't yiz kicking up a stink about them" question had been answered, but let me try to answer the whatabouters in the hope that they'll stop repeating the same damn question and a million variations thereon:

• Because on an emotional level, Irish people feel a strong sense of empathy with the Palestinians because of the similarity of their situation to Ireland's historical situation
• Because Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than Saddam Hussein's Iraq ever was and has been getting away with it for a whole lot longer
• Because Israel is a terrorist apartheid state that has managed, through the most efficient propaganda system I have ever seen, to convince large swathes of the western public that it is a civilized, modern, democratic state that is only acting in self defence against unprovoked attacks
• Because Israel has managed to wipe from the western consciousness the existence of about a million Palestinians living in refugee camps since the ethnic cleansing job of 1967
• Because Israel has managed to repeat the mantra over and over again that it has a "right to exist" (which is code for justifying the ethnic cleansing on which the state is built) and has a "right to defend itself" (which is code for slaughtering scores of innocent Palestinians as collective punishment for the actions of a small group of militants).
  
• Because Israel, the aggressor in this case, is propped up by Western governments, particularly the USA, and by isolating Israel in the west we might actually stand a chance of doing something about them

If that answers your question, please stop repeating it like a broken record.

Speaking of childer and FB, you know what really grinds my gears? People putting pictures of their offspring up as their own profile picture. WTF is up with that?

[2015 US College Hurling National Championships to be Held in Montana]

2015 US College Hurling National Championships to be Held in Montana

The National Collegiate Gaelic Athletic Association (NCGAA) has announced that the 2015 national collegiate hurling championship tournament will be hosted at the University of Montana.

The announcement comes three months after the hugely successful 2014 tournament that was hosted by the New York GAA at Woodlawn and Gaelic Park in May, an event that was contested by seven hurling teams and five football teams in the first appearance of Gaelic football at the now four year-old competition. Iona College made history by becoming the first national collegiate Gaelic football champions. Since all of the collegiate football clubs are still concentrated in the Northeast region, the NCGAA has opted to split the 2015 national tournament between hurling and football and host them in two separate locations on different weekends. The format of the football competition which will be hosted in the Northeast will be determined by the regional committee.

Brian Barry, spokesman for the Montana Grizzlies Hurling Club, the current NCGAA national hurling champions, welcomed the decision. "This is going to help us build even more on what we've started here," he said. "About six hundred people showed up to watch the first ever hurling match played in state history in Grizzlies Stadium earlier this year. Our story has been all over the local news and on television. We're confident that we can get thousands of people into this 25,000 capacity facility next year to witness our defense of our national championship title."

Eamonn Gormley, NCGAA Chairman, said that while other locations have their strengths, Montana is the right place to host the even in 2015. "This is new territory for the GAA in America," he said. "While it's important that we maintain our presence in existing locations, it's just as important that we break new ground. Kids in Montana have been inspired by what they have seen on the local TV news, and there are reports of children spontaneously playing hurling on the street with improvised hurleys fashioned from tennis racquets and hockey sticks. We have got to jump all over that and help the Grizzlies to get the sport established in the local area while the opportunity exists."

The Grizzlies have been getting calls from local schools asking how they can get hurling going. The local club has begun an outreach effort aimed at starting a youth program and getting startup spinoff clubs established in the region. There is no top flight professional sports franchise in the state of Montana, therefore the fortunes of the collegiate NCAA teams commands huge attention in the community.

Top level collegiate sports are a massive industry in the United States, their popularity on a par with that of professional leagues with attendances of 100,000 not unheard of and live television broadcasting rights sold for millions of dollars. The NCGAA, founded in 2009, aims to tap into the brand recognition of collegiate teams and to aid the process of getting hurling and Gaelic football further into the mainstream.

The 2015 NCGAA national hurling tournament will be hosted over the Memorial Day weekend, May 23 and 24.

See report on local TV on hearing the news that they would be hosting the event:
http://www.abcfoxmontana.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=10475894

CNN is nothing but trivia and "equal time to nutjobs" in the interests of "balance". Fareed Zakaria's show is a shining exception to that rule. The only in-depth and knowledgable bit of journalism you'll find in American 24-hour cable news outside of Al Jazeera.