This quote from the Our Wee Country Northern Ireland football fans forum on the controversy over footballers born in Northern Ireland playing for the Republic without qualification via residency or parents/grandparents.

These "Others" from a differnt [sic] part of the island occasionally popping up and stealing players from our part.
I've watched Lost too much.
potatoe57

The media were quick to point out this morning that Gerry Adams has "apologised" to the family of a 12-year old boy his comrades blew to pieces 14 years ago. In reality it was more a series of excuses than an apology and the fact that the media report it in the way that they have is just one example of their will to happily stoop to scary levels to promote the current DUP/IRA administration here.

Anyway, in an attempt to explain away why his buddies saw fit to blow the shit out of people, Gerry came off with a few doozies. I especially liked this MOPE.

"nationalists and republicans ... were denied basic human and civil rights, including the right to vote"
Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein President, Canary Wharf, 2007

We're all used to Sinn Fein playing it a bit fast and loose with the "truth", but this is blatant over-simplification to the point where I'm content it constitutes a lie.

One man one vote operated for all elections in Northern Ireland to Stormont and Westminster. The property franchise (basically one ratepayer one vote) used in local council elections was not a demonic plot hatched by evil unionists to stop nationalists voting. It was a system in use for and inherited from British local elections and was changed to one man one vote in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s - a piffling 23 years before the IRA felt so oppressed they had to go blow some people up at Canary Wharf.

Go on Gerry, pull the other one.

The fact that Adams still, in a time of so-called peace and co-operation, has to perpetuate these myths to demonise unionists and unionism and use lies to retrospectively justify a murder campaign waged against Northern Ireland (and Great Britain) for thirty years belies the fact that there was no justification for the damage Gerry and his friends have done to this country and its people.

I feel compelled to once again direct readers to John Whyte's excellent How much discrimination was there under the unionist regime, 1921-68

A woman who uses a mobility scooter to get around informed a meeting last night that two secondary school pupils had lit a banger and thrown it at the basket of her scooter as she was driving it through the park, with the aim of having it explode in the basket: inches away from her.

This really makes me sick, but what's the answer? The police can't be everywhere at once and I'm not convinced the City Council's campaign to take back the parks will be successful.

I have a better idea though: people power. Whenever a couple of pathetic little kids are getting their kicks from terrorising a defenceless lady people should not be penalised (if anything they should be rewarded) if they walk up and punch the little bastards in the face.

Even if it doesn't teach them anything at least they'll spend a couple of hours off the streets in casualty.

It's been in the pipeline for what seems like years, but 03 numbers have finally launched. "So what?" I can already hear you say.

It might not seem that important, but 0844/0845 "local rate", 0870 "national rate" and more expensive 0871 numbers have been getting my goat for some time now. You've all seen them, practically all big companies use them. So why are they so bad? Because 0845/0870 numbers haven't been "local rate" or "national rate" for years now.

Just another consumer rip-off

Officially charges for 0845 and 0870 numbers are pegged to BT's standard rate, but BT's "standard" tariff was abolished in 2004. Since then, the de facto standard BT rate for local/national calls was 6p for up to an hour in the evenings and at weekends and 3p/min during weekdays. 0870 numbers on the other hand, which companies have continued to misleadingly advertise as "national rate", cost 6p/min during the day including at weekends, 1.5p/min in the evenings). Compare this with an 01/02 number which you can call for 3p/call (any length) at any time of day using services like 1899.

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It looks like FIFA have ruled in the favour of the IFA [also here] in the ongoing poaching row, establishing a rare victory for common sense, following a complaint from the Irish FA.

The FAI, organisers of football in the Republic of Ireland, have been trying to abuse the Good Friday Agreement to justify a policy of poaching players born in Northern Ireland, who have no parental/grand-parental connections to the Republic, for the Republic's national squad.

FIFA have just said they will not act retrospectively, which is being taken as an indication that the FAI will be allowed to keep Darron Gibson, one of the players at the centre of the row, but will be prevented from picking Northern Ireland-born players in future.

Contrary to what the FAI and compulsive meddler Dermot f**king Ahern would have you believe, this is not contrary to the Good Friday Agreement. In fact it's completely in line with it. Under the agreement a person in Northern Ireland may "identify themselves and be accepted as" British, Irish or both. With the application of this principle in the Republic's nationality law extending Irish passports to those born in Northern Ireland who want one, the real effect of the Good Friday Agreement seems to be that, in the same way as a British passport is not in itself enough to prove eligibility of a player for any single British national side, an Irish passport alone will no longer be evidence of eligibility for either Irish side.

...a majority of people in the EU's five biggest countries, including Britain, would like to have a say, although they are unlikely to get it.

BBC News on the European Constitution Treaty

That just about sums up the EU and its attitude towards citizens of its member states to me.

It's past time the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was abolished. It was a waste of time and money when it was set up and it's a waste of time and money now.

The Human Rights Commissioner Monica McWilliams helpfully demonstrated this point for me when she asked the Northern Ireland Office of the government to go over the heads of our oh so wonderful democratically [sic] elected executive and assembly at Stormont and implement legislation on the Irish [sic] language on the spurious basis of a little-known piece of decidedly dodgy European Union bureaucracy called the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

Assuming we accept that Irish constitutes a "national minority" in Northern Ireland (or, more likely, the United Kingdom) they (we) are not disadvantaged by not having our car tax forms available in Gaelic which none of us speak as a first language anyway. We are not denied access to public services because we all speak and understand English as a first language (despite the efforts of some to create language barriers). We would all, I am certain, be much better at defending ourselves against police charges in court using English than broken Gaelic.

Ms McWilliams is not doing Gaelic any favours by trying to have it imposed on the people of Northern Ireland. She was a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement and that means supporting whatever form of "democracy" it is that we have because of it, not running to central government every time they do something she doesn't like. By couhcing support for the language in terms of "rights" she's making the same mistake* of Sinn Fein and some other language "enthusiasts" in Northern Ireland.

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Approximately 30 supporters from Bohemians, a Dublin football team, launched a sectarian attack on the Tavern; the last Protestant-owned city-centre bar in Londonderry west of the Foyle on Tuesday evening before a match with Derry City [BBC video report]. The mob of "about 30 males" attacked the bar when it was populated only by a handful of people, including two Canadian tourists. Current reports suggest the attack may have been planned in advance using the internet.

Happily, 4 of those involved have been arrested, charged and convicted already (it's just a shame there's no word on the other 26).

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Is it time crusty students got over the Che Guevara obsession?

Well it's the time of year again when fresh-faced first-year students arrive for their first taste of freedom and a diet of fast food. One feature present each and every year amongst the great unwashed masses that constitute the student population (besides hordes upon hordes of culchies) is an enormous number of armchair socialists clad in T-shirts featuring that iconic image of Che Guevara and this year seems to be no exception.

Really now, this has got to stop; mainly because most of those clad in the T-shirts are idiots who probably know less about Che Guevara than I do.

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Belfast City Council has effectively voted down two existing proposals to build a national sports stadium at Ormeau Park. The plans by two private developers would have seen the corner of Ormeau Park that currently houses the O-zone leisure complex and tennis courts converted into a 25,000 seater multi-sport stadium.

Instead, the Council have voted to develop a "business plan" for the concept of a stadium in the city without a preference to any one set of plans or location.

It makes you wonder if the council aren't actually serious about a city-stadium. They're certainly making it look like they're just throwing rate-payers money away in an effort to make themselves look like they're trying to do something good for Belfast as well as for sport in Northern Ireland (it could cost them a lot of votes if they didn't make an effort after all), but at least a business case for a city-stadium will give the council something backers of the Maze are yet to see, and at a tenth of the cost!

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