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Bit of an embarrassing hit piece in the Irish Times the other day from the comically misinformed Orla Muldoon claiming that the association doesn't treat its female players very well. She's going to feel stupid when she realizes the GAA doesn't have any female players.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/orla-muldoon-the-gaa-is-institutionally-misogynistic-1.4444783

The rebuttals have been flowing into the letters page:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/the-gaa-and-women-1.4447609

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/misogyny-in-the-gaa-1.4448109

[Op-Ed: U.S. leaders knew we didn't have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway]

There's an op-ed in today's LA Times that confirms what I've known for a while: Japan had been trying their damndest to surrender all summer and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a completely unnecessary war crime.

Op-Ed: U.S. leaders knew we didn't have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway

By GAR ALPEROVITZ AND MARTIN J. SHERWIN
AUG. 5, 20203:05 AM

At a time when Americans are reassessing so many painful aspects of our nation's past, it is an opportune moment to have an honest national conversation about our use of nuclear weapons on Japanese cities in August 1945. The fateful decision to inaugurate the nuclear age fundamentally changed the course of modern history, and it continues to threaten our survival. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock warns us, the world is now closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since 1947.

The accepted wisdom in the United States for the last 75 years has been that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later was the only way to end the World War II without an invasion that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American and perhaps millions of Japanese lives. Not only did the bombs end the war, the logic goes, they did so in the most humane way possible.

However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.

The allied demand for unconditional surrender led the Japanese to fear that the emperor, who many considered a deity, would be tried as a war criminal and executed. A study by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Command compared the emperor's execution to "the crucifixion of Christ to us."


"Unconditional Surrender is the only obstacle to peace," Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired Ambassador Naotake Sato, who was in Moscow on July 12, 1945, trying to enlist the Soviet Union to mediate acceptable surrender terms on Japan's behalf.

But the Soviet Union's entry into the war on Aug. 8 changed everything for Japan's leaders, who privately acknowledged the need to surrender promptly.

Allied intelligence had been reporting for months that Soviet entry would force the Japanese to capitulate. As early as April 11, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Intelligence Staff had predicted: "If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable."

Truman knew that the Japanese were searching for a way to end the war; he had referred to Togo's intercepted July 12 cable as the "telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace."

Truman also knew that the Soviet invasion would knock Japan out of the war. At the summit in Potsdam, Germany, on July 17, following Stalin's assurance that the Soviets were coming in on schedule, Truman wrote in his diary, "He'll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about." The next day, he assured his wife, "We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"

The Soviets invaded Japanese-held Manchuria at midnight on Aug. 8 and quickly destroyed the vaunted Kwantung Army. As predicted, the attack traumatized Japan's leaders. They could not fight a two-front war, and the threat of a communist takeover of Japanese territory was their worst nightmare.

Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki explained on Aug. 13 that Japan had to surrender quickly because "the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido. This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war when we can deal with the United States."

While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: "The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria ... changed their minds." But online the wording has been modified to put the atomic bombings in a more positive light — once again showing how myths can overwhelm historical evidence.

Seven of the United States' eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy's vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry "Hap" Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.

No one was more impassioned in his condemnation than Leahy, Truman's chief of staff. He wrote in his memoir "that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender .... In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

MacArthur thought the use of atomic bombs was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Hoover that if Truman had followed Hoover's "wise and statesmanlike" advice to modify its surrender terms and tell the Japanese they could keep their emperor, "the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt."

Before the bombings, Eisenhower had urged at Potsdam, "the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

The evidence shows he was right, and the advancing Doomsday Clock is a reminder that the violent inauguration of the nuclear age has yet to be confined to the past.

Gar Alperovitz, author of "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," is a principal of the Democracy Collaborative and a former fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Martin J. Sherwin is a professor of history at George Mason University and author of the forthcoming "Gambling With Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette From Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis." Historians Kai Bird and Peter Kuznick contributed to this article.

Dear god I hope this was an accident. So far the death toll is at least 78 but I'll be surprised if it's not in the hundreds. They say it was a couple of hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrate going up. I remember the damage that a 1.5 tonne fertilizer bomb would do during the Troubles and thinking that was big.

We'll probably never see his like again. A towering figure in Irish politics who left a better legacy for all of us.

(I think it's noteworthy enough for a thread of its own, but feel free to lock up if you think the Death Notices thread is fine.)

"Normalcy" instead of normality.

Andy Hampsten on the Gavia, Giro d'Italia 1988.


Good article about that episode here:

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2013/05/10/andy-hampsten-1988-giro-ditalia

Jarlath Burns and Larry McCarthy the frontrunners, I hear. McCarthy would be a strong candidate. Hugely qualified, and would have a global perspective.

Distressing news this evening:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/bodies-of-three-children-found-at-house-in-dublin-1.4150644

It doesn't get much more awful than this. God help them.

Anyone getting phone calls from tech support scammers lately? I got one yesterday. I usually don't answer to obvious fake numbers, but it was a slow day at work so I thought I'd play along. He was an Indian lad working from a busy office by the sounds of it. Claimed to be working for AT&T. Talked me through some PC stuff (I have a Mac, so I had to do some googling as he talked to see what I was supposed to be seeing on my screen). After we got as far as the event viewer I couldn't think of a way of stringing him along any longer, so I just asked "Look, do you just want to skip to the part where I give you my social security number and credit card information?"
Him: "Did I ask you to do that?"
Me: "No, but you're going to eventually, aren't you?"
Him: "I'm calling from AT&T, not some random XYZ company..."
Me: "Yeah, right."
Him: "Look, motherf***er, if you don't want to take part in this call, you're free to hang up any time."
Me: "Why are you doing this? Can you not get a real job? There are plenty of honest jobs out there, you don't have to earn a living by robbing people."
Him: "... and don't you dare waste my time. I don't need advice from you, so stick your advice up your a$$hole..."
Me: "I think you need to calm down, go home and re-think your life." - click -

Funny how quickly they become abusive once they realise you're on to them. I got one a few days ago from an Indian lady.
Her: "Hi, I'm calling about your vehicle's warranty which is expiring soon and would like to offer you a chance to renew it."
Me: "Which vehicle?"
Her "Uhhh, your Ford."
Me: "Which Ford?"
Her: "uuuuuh, Escape."
Me: "Oh, okay." (We have a VW Jetta, but she doesn't need to know that.)
Her: "So would you like to renew your warranty?"
Me: "What about the warranty on our other cars?"
Her: "Uh ... uh ... uh ..."
Me: "Are they expiring soon too?"
Her: "Uh ..."
Me: "Come on, tell me about my other cars, since you seem to know so much about them"
Her: "Uh ..."
Me: "What other cars have I got? You must have all that information in front of you"
Her (screaming): "You keep repeating yourself as if I can't hear you!" - click -

Can we please try to be civil?

I've been scrolling back through some older threads that I missed the first time around and I can't believe how quick lads are to get into a ding-dong. Someone posts a comment that's either missing a bit of detail or someone misunderstands or disagrees with, and before you know it you're wading through three pages of back-and-forth abuse. Knock it off! Learn how to disagree like adults.

If someone says something you know to be incorrect, all you have to do is post the relevant article that refutes it. Instead of saying "you're talking shite," try "I'm not sure if that's true" or "are you sure?" Leave the man a bit of wiggle room to change his mind without losing face.

And if someone does contradict you and you know they're right, there's no need to dig in and defend the fort. This isn't the Oxford Union or the Dail. It's okay to change your mind and say "point taken" or just "oh, I didn't know that."

Would any of you mind helping me out by completing a survey for a bit of research I'm doing for a college project? It takes a minute or two and it's to do with electric cars.

https://sjsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_barpBX4rdkvrbOR

Many thanks!

New thread for fans of the excellent BBC Spotlight documentary.

Kudos to all the people protesting today. Governments need to get off their holes and do something.

What's all the hullabaloo about the ABC council not providing municipal pitches for Gaelic games? According to the shinners the SDLP are being west Brits by going along with the decision to provide facilities for Rugby and Soccer but no GAA, and claiming that the GAA was not consulted.

According to the SDLP this has been a 3-year process in which all councilors, including SF, were involved. The GAA was consulted, the Armagh county board is fine with the plan, the GAA Ulster council is fine with the plan, the North Armagh clubs are fine with the plan, St Ronan's College is fine with the plan, and SF was fine with the plan all along. Only now are SF raising objections.

Is this a bit of a cheap shot by SF or what?

And while we're at it, Gaelic football needs an oval ball to make high fielding easier. The posts should be moved two feet closer together in hurling, we need to bring back lateral point posts, the opening clash should be above head height like in Shinty, pitch invasions at Croke Park should be reintroduced, we should go back to making a goal outweigh any number of points, the club championship should have a different format every year, and each provincial council should run their championships on a different format.

Mormon temples aren't open to non-Mormons - except for yesterday when the Oakland temple was opened for tours by the public. I went with some family and friends (some of them former Mormons) just out of curiosity because it's an impressive looking building from the outside.

Well inside it's just and endless labyrinth of corridors, smallish rooms, more corridors, cramped staircases, more corridors, and strikingly dull decor. It's like a cheap and tacky middle eastern hotel inside. I was expecting to see a big cathedral-like worship space, but all I got was some bland looking auditoriums roughly the size of a college lecture theatre. There was a cool looking baptismal font, something the size of a hot tub, supported by big statues of bulls, but that was about the most impressive thing about it. Everything else was just dull or outright weird.

These include:

• Tons of changing cubicles with multiple clothing storage lockers in each one
• Storage for white robes that people are supposed to wear during certain ceremonies like baptism (they go for the full immersion version, hence the hot tub)
• Small and dull rooms where they perform "marriages" (they don't call them weddings for some reason) and there's a small altar at the middle of the room where the couple kneels opposite each other
• Code violations left right and centre. There's no emergency exit signs despite it being confusing where is the way out, I saw no signs of any sprinkler systems, no emergency lights, and stairs are non standard dimensions
• All the decor such as carpet is custom-made in a specific pattern, but it still looks like something out of a hotel
• There's one auditorium with a curtain behind the stage. They didn't tell us what that's for, but my former Mormon friend told me it's where you reach through to the people hiding behind the curtain and they give you the Freemason-style secret handshake which you're supposed to use when you get to heaven

What I found most striking is that it's high on a hill with a stunning view over Oakland, the bay, and San Francisco looking out through the Golden Gate - and there's not one single window in the whole damn building. They have these rooms where you're supposed to go and supposedly meditate or something, contemplating the grandeur of God's creation, but you can't look out a window at one of the best views ever.

An interesting day out, but weird.

Old fellas on ancient black bikes cycling around the country.

Adolph1 is now on ignore.

That is all.

Getting into the shower and then turning on the water without testing the temperature with their finger first.

Driving for long periods without looking at the road without crashing.

Hanging up the phone without so much as a goodbye.

Dolph1 is a sock puppet who raised his ugly head as soon as Foxkkkommander was banned. His sole purpose is to wind people up with extremist alt-right talking points. Ban him.