Shooting Criminals - criminal?

In the news yesterday I was so pleased to hear that the Gardai had foiled the plot of an armed gang to rob a post office. Then I heard that they had shot two of the raiders. One died at the scene and one died some time later in hospital. I didn't much care. I think that I'm a fairly caring person, but when someone uses violence, they should expect to reap what they sow! I listened to the radio and heard that most people seemed to agree.

Later on the evening news the reports were questioning the Gardai's methods and local people were saying that they should have been warned. One woman said that they could have pretended like it was a gas leak or something! Cop yourself on love! Like the robbers wouldn't have got wind of people being evacuated and taken the hint! The whole point was to catch the scum bags, not to warn them!

As as to two of them losing their lives, so what? I personally don't think that life is cheap, but these robbers and others that seem to run around the country with impunity, obviously do. Well lets see how cheap they think life is now! There's always those who will start spoutg on about human rights, etc. But they never stop to think about the human rights of those who lose their lives whilst in pursuit of their law abiding jobs. I was personally robbed at knife point in a post office back in 1997 in Dublin, so I'll tell you now, if an armed Garda had been hand and had shot one or more of these scum bags, I wouldn't have lost any sleep. As it was I lost a lot of sleep knowing that they were still at large in the city.

I personally would like to shake the hands of those courageous Gardai who were involved in the sting operation and tell them to keep up the good work. They put their lives at risk each time they partake in one of these operations. They deserve a medal, not vilification.

The law seems to have lost its teeth in recent years and its good to see it getting some of them back...

Women's Health and Ovarian Cancer

Okay first I should say that I have first hand experience because my mother died of ovarian cancer in 2003. I am still really shocked at the swiftness of the illness. From diagnosis to death my mum only had 10 months. It is still very hard to think about it sometimes, but I need to get this off my chest because it is an important issue for all women.
How many of you have heard of ovarian cancer? How many of you know how it is diagnosed? How many of you think that it can be diagnosed with a smear test? I was completely ignorant about this illness when it was discovered, there is a real lack of public awareness, yet this is one of the most deadly of all cancers! Perhaps you think I'm being a scaremonger because my mum died. I hope I am, I hope I make at least one person sit up and think! My god, this is a cancer that CANNOT be diagnosed through the use of a smear test. Even though it is connected to all of those “woman's bits” it does not show up with a smear test.
In the early stages there are hardly any symptoms and those that there might be are usually put down to other things. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition and no-one sure as hell expects to get ovarian cancer. It creeps up on you and by the time it is diagnosed you are at stage 3 or 4, which means, basically, that you CANNOT be cured. Very few women who get this illness survive because so few get diagnosed early.
I CANNOT believe that in this day an age that no-one has stopped to think about additional, high profile, well publicised research into this illness. I know that research is continuing, but surely, one of the points should be that women are alerted to the dangers and that ways of checking women for this illness through, perhaps a blood test, as a standard procedure at the same time as they have their smear tests and mammograms. Cervical cancer can be cured before it is actually even cancer. Abnormalities in cells are detected and treatment is given to the woman that means that she never actually develops the cancer. Brilliant! But early detection is needed for other cancers too!
I am not decrying or belittling the research that is done by all the dedicated scientists out there, they are already doing so much good. But surely funds are desperately needed for research into the early detection of extremely deadly cancers as ovarian cancer. Its a scary thought that by the time a woman has realised that something is wrong, she's already dying!
My mother only realised that something was wrong when she was having problems breathing. She would get out of breath very easily and she realised that there was a problem. It was discovered that she had fluid on the lungs. This is a very serious symptom of any illness and cannot lead to any good news. So when I did research about fluid on the lung on the Internet, I realised that the prognosis was not good. However, I had no idea that it was due to ovarian cancer. My mum died a very painful death and I feel that everything should be done to alert women.

Driving in Ireland - death on the road

So many issues rush through my head! So I'm going to give you the main points and then expand on them below.
1. The roads are crap in Ireland. They are third world standard. They are full of pot-holes and dangerous.
2. Drivers in Ireland don't seem to think that they should have to obey ANY rules of the road.
3. The law is an ass. Can't put it any more succinctly.

ROADS - The so-called Celtic Tiger didn't do much for the road system in this country. Certain roads have been built or upgraded, but this only seems to happen around Dublin or a major city. Rural areas are rural less and less these days, the amount of traffic that these roads have to contend with is increasing immensely. Main roads to relatively important towns are actually crumbling away. One stretch of a road in Mayo, which is a main road to a very well known town is actually getting narrower and narrower as the road physically crumbles back into the bog. Yet buses and lorries travel this road every day several times a day.

DRIVERS - I am always disgusted with the attitude of most drivers in this country. They seem to think that rules should only apply to everyone else. Temporary traffic lights at road works are almost completely ignored by a large section of drivers. The majority of drivers seem to think that it is okay to speed no matter what speed limit area they are in. Basically the attitude is that – the rules don't apply to me! The worst offenders are drivers of 4x4 SUVs. I make no apology for generalising. I am a driver, with a full licence, no points or convictions, in fact I've never been pulled over or involved in anything. However, every time I see a driver of a SUV they are speeding and/or intimidating another driver, by driving far too close. They seem to want to force everyone else off the road. They have no consideration for the safety of other road users and they piss me off. Why they have to drive on top of the rear numberplate of every vehicle on the road I have no idea. Its actually ironic that most SUV's are not as safe as standard cars and are not as easy to control, contrary to what most of the moronic drivers seem to think. They are always the first to overtake on a solid white line or on a corner, etc, and while I don't give a damn if they want to kill themselves, I strongly object to them putting the rest of us in danger too.

THE LAW - The law IS an ass. My god, they can't seem to prosecute anyone for any traffic offence any more. There are more loop holes in the law than pot-holes on the roads, and that's saying something. For example, the fact that someone cannot be done for speeding unless the equipment that has clocked their speed can give them a print out or some permanent record of the speed. Oh my god. Does no one have any sense of responsibility any more? Does it not matter that we should respect laws? Does it not matter that hundreds of people are DYING on Ireland's roads every year?
Obviously not...