(Note to honored Newbies ~ like the Web-boss said [well - among Other things :], Cead Mille Failte. But please understand, once in a while you’ll have to Put up with a Post like this, not about Hurricanes, exactly, but rather re the news Wafted across the Pond by the gentle ~ or sometimes Roaring ~ winds from Erin’s green shores. Usually guestblogged by Yours Truly, Joe Loy. [But not Always ~ occasionally yer man the Hibernia nerd, Himself, gets in on the Act.] :)

So. As Scooped by the BBC yesterday, officials announced today that the Provisional Irish Republican Army has scrapped its rather considerable arsenal.

The IRA has put all of its weapons beyond use, the head of the arms decommissioning body has said. General John de Chastelain made the announcement at a news conference accompanied by the two churchmen who witnessed the process.

“We are satisfied that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA’s arsenal.”

Welcoming the move, Prime Minister Tony Blair said IRA decommissioning had been “finally accomplished”.

The general said: “We have observed and verified events to put beyond use very large quantities of arms which we believe include all the arms in the IRA’s possession.

He said they had handled every gun and made an inventory of the weapons.

The arms included a full range of ammunition, rifles, machine guns, mortars, missiles, handguns, explosives, explosive substances and other arms including all the categories described in the estimates provided by the UK and Irish security services, he said…

He described IRA decommissioning as “an important milestone towards the completion of [the decommissioning authority’s] task to achieve decommissioning by all paramilitary groups“…

The churchmen said they regarded IRA decommissioning as an “accomplished act”…

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said that it was a “landmark development” and appealed to unionists not to “underestimate the importance” of the move…

“The weapons of the IRA are gone, and are gone in a manner which has been verified and witnessed,” he said…

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams admitted the announcement would be “difficult for many republicans” but it was a “very brave and bold leap“…

Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley said there had been no transparent verification of IRA decommissioning in the announcement.

He said the church witnesses had been agreed by the IRA and as such could not be considered “independent”.

Without a photographic proof, an inventory and details on how the weapons were destroyed questions remained, said Mr Paisley.

“This afternoon the people of Northern Ireland watched a programme which illustrates more than ever the duplicity and dishonesty of the two governments and the IRA.”

However, his deputy, east Belfast MP Peter Robinson said they accepted a significant amount of IRA weapons had been “put beyond use”.

Mr Robinson said they accepted it had been “a more substantial event than the previous events put together“…

Paisley, of course, is Always the bellowing Bull of Ulster and hasn’t yer man got just the brains for to Prove it too. Note how the great Crown Loyalist is sure that London, Dublin, and the Republic of South Armagh :) are all in Cahoots for to Get him. :> Unfortunately, the cantankerous old coot holds the Plurality in the long-suspended Northern Ireland Assembly with his DUP, and so needs to be Brought Around in order for Devolved Government to resume ~ which is the whole Point of the exercise, here. / But, that’s for Another day. (Yeah, like, Tomorrow. :)

Read the whole thing.

Below are links to related informative items from the BBC (whom may God Bless, by the way :) ~

IRA arms: What’s been decommissioned / The reigning Estimate, more-or-less Endorsed by General de Chastelain, being:

IRA WEAPONRY

1,000 rifles
2 tonnes of Semtex
20-30 heavy machine guns
7 Surface-to-air missiles (unused)
7 flame throwers
1,200 detonators
11 rocket-propelled grenade launchers
90 hand guns
100+ grenades

Source: Security estimates/Jane’s Intelligence Review

Full statements by various officials

Good Analyses, here and here.

Orange terrorists to follow Green counterparts’ example? No Way, says the bold Sammy Duddy :)

(Mighty big craic, there, “political researcher” Sam me boyo. We’ll just have to See about that. Methinks the Ulster Defense Association & the Ulster Volunteer Force & all their illustrious Ilk, are going to get their bigoted butts Decommissioned too. They just don’t Know it yet. :)

Rumors of rape and murder at the Superdome and the Convention Center were apparently false. A grand total of ten bodies have been found at the two locations combined, and only one of those was the victim of a murder.

Let the conspiracy theories begin…

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

Don Adams, actor and comedian, has passed away today at the age of 82.

Adams signature role was as the bumbling but loveable Maxwell Smart aka Agent 86 from the hit TV series Get Smart. The show focused on Smart, his partner Agent 99 (played by Barbara Feldon) and a number of others as agents of the secret government agency CONTROL who battled against the enemy organization know as KAOS.

Along with signature phrases like “Missed it by that much” and “Sorry about that Chief”, Get Smart also gave birth to Max’s shoe phone, a pre-cellular portable phone hidden in, you guessed it, his shoe.

Adams might be remember by younger audiences as the voice of the equally bumbling but loveable Inspector Gadget.

Hat tip: Angrier and Angrier via comments.

According to a CNN article, one big casualty of Hurricane Rita has been livestock: “U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore said he feared between 4,000 and 5,000 cattle had died in the storm.” Oh my — will this result in a beef shortage? How much of an increase will we see in price for a quarter pounder at McDonalds, or a Big Bacon Classic at Wendy’s?

Note: According to the USDA, the output of beef fell last week by 1.5%. It might be reasonable to expect a further decline in volume, although prices seem to be holding steady.

(Is Cheap Beef a Bad Habit that we need to get over? Probably.)

Update: Choice quote from CNN:

“The big thing now is the focus on keeping the cattle alive,” said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the military task force in charge in Louisiana.

Think of the little calves. Think of what “0157:H7″ means when a cow is swimming in flood waters.

Brian (Briandot)

The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting chart showing the percent of normal oil and natural gas production before and after Katrina and Rita.

Here’s a list of useful links for information on Lake Charles and environs.

A cool story, from Andrew of all people: Weis uses play called by 10-year-old boy dying of inoperable brain tumor.

I haven’t been paying too much attention to the comment section in recent days, for obvious reasons… I’ve been far too busy, and my Internet access has been far too spotty, to read every comment on every post. But it’s come to my attention that commenters impersonating other commenters has become a problem in at least one thread, so I want to make a clear statement about this. Such behavior is completely unacceptable. Anyone impersonating another commenter with intent to deceive is subject to being immediately banned. If you see this happening, please e-mail me and point me to where it is occurring.

Beyond that, I am concerned about the devolution of the BrendanLoy.com comment section into a “stuck on stupid” mode, as General Honore would say. Watching the level of discourse asymptotically approach that of an AOL chatroom is not something I relish, as I hinted to CNET News. This isn’t about protecting a blog fiefdom from “outsiders”; it is about keeping the level of discourse at a tolerable level.

To be clear, I have absolutely no objection to the comments that the VAST MAJORITY of new readers have been making. I appreciate your readership and participation in this community. But as we all know, it only takes a few bad apples to make things worse for everyone.

I may eventually institute comment registration in an attempt to discourage trollish behavior and other unwanted crap, but that would be part and parcel of the longer-term blog migration to WordPress which has been significantly delayed by recent events. For now, there isn’t much I can do, except to ask everyone to please be at least moderately civil, and if you don’t have anything remotely intelligent to say, then don’t say anything at all. (Funny comments are OK, too, but please, don’t completely hijack serious threads with them.)

If you think I’m simply prejudiced against the “newbies,” you’re wrong. I welcome all of my new readers with open arms — all except the ones who engage in assholish behavior. Those are the ones I don’t like: the assholes. I think I can be forgiven that “prejudice.” (And yes, I have been known to upbraid some of the “regulars” in the past when they have behaved assholishly. I’ve even been known to criticize myself for the occasional instance of assholishness. So this has nothing to do with “newbies” vs. “regulars,” per se. Again, this is about the overall level of discourse.)

And if you think I’m being an insufferable censor, you are, again, wrong. I have no desire to censor anyone, which is why I have very rarely done so (and have never banned anyone, except spammers, in 3 1/2 years of blogging). But I also don’t want the comment section to become so poisonous that it loses all the people with intelligent and insightful things to say, and is populated only by trolls and morons.

One last note: this post is not an attack on anyone in particular. This is a broad concern, one which several regular commenters have brought to my attention, and I felt it needed to be addressed. If you feel personally attacked by this post, perhaps that means you perceive yourself as engaging in assholish behavior, in which case your perception is probably correct and you should probably think about modifying your behavior.

P.S. I’m thinking about adding a statement like this to the comment template:

The BrendanLoy.com comment section is a community. It is a “big tent” community; all are welcome to join. But if you wish to be a member in good standing of the community, you need to abide by certain guidelines of behavior. Be civil. Avoid profanity and vulgarity except when it’s central and necessary to your comment. Mark all links which are “not safe for work” as “NSFW.” Do not impersonate other commenters. Do not engage in pointless personal attacks as a substitute for meaningful debate. Endeavour not to “hijack” threads. Most of all, try to contribute something worthwhile to the discussion. Don’t lower the level of discourse; raise it. Help make this a community we all want to be a part of.

Comments, pro and con, and suggestions on additions or subtractions, are welcome.

Cameron, Louisiana is basically destroyed, and as many as 1,000 people may be stranded, according to CNN.

UPDATE: On a lighter note, police in Lake Charles caught a group of looters stealing DVDs from a porno store. Heh.

It just came to my attention, via Mike and Andrew, that my archives haven’t been working for the last few days. Sorry about that. I’m fixing it now, and they should be working again soon here.

Sarah’s brother Zack e-mailed me the text of his tribute to Sarah, which was read at the funeral. I’ve added it to the memorial page.

True to its word ~ at last. / And, yes: far better that Good Faith comes Late ~ than Never.

Joe Loy, guestblogging.

A report confirming that IRA decommissioning has been completed is to be given to the British and Irish governments on Monday.

General John de Chastelain, head of the body overseeing the disarmament, is then expected to give a news conference with the two independent witnesses.

The churchmen who witnessed the process were Catholic priest Father Alex Reid and ex-Methodist president Harold Good.

Note: this Cross-community Clergy Witnessing business has been part of the Plan for several Years. It was proposed in lieu of public Photography, which the Boyoes :) ~ who see themselves as an Army Undefeated from 1916 even unto the present Day ~ always rejected as Humiliating & likely to be misconstrued as documentation of Surrender. / Here, however, is a BBC prurient Peek, presumably from File Footage. :)

The IRA announced an end to its armed campaign in July.

The republican organisation said it would follow a democratic path ending more than 30 years of violence.

Statements are also expected on Monday from the IRA, both governments and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams…

Here’s the whole thing.

And ~ here is SF’s carefully-crafted advance Take:

Published: 25 September, 2005

Sinn Fein Chief Negotiator Martin McGuinness, before he left Dublin after the all-Ireland football final, said he believes that Ireland stands on the cusp of a truly historic advance.

Mr. McGuinness said: “The IRA’s decision on July 28th to formally end its armed campaign has changed the political landscape in Ireland forever. I am confident that tomorrow will bring the final chapter on the issue of IRA arms.

“Of course, this is about more than arms. It is about the reviving the peace process, it is about the future of Ireland. And this places an enormous responsibility on the British and Irish governments to finally implement the Good Friday Agreement in all its aspects on issues like equality, human rights, policing, demilitarization and northern representation. It will also place a huge responsibility on the leadership of the DUP to re-engage in the political process….”

Yes, Martin. / And may I add, most gratefully ~ both for the long-past Heroism AND for the Present-day Realism ~ what I earnestly hope may become the Parade song of the Oglaigh na hEireann Commemorative Marching Society:

May Heaven keep the men who sleep
In the ranks of the Old Brigade.

And now, some good news from Newington — great news, in fact, via Erin: NHS Class of 1999 grads Tara Boisvert and Joe Serfass are getting married!!! They got engaged this afternoon! WOOHOO!!!

Congrats, Tara & Joe!

UPDATE: I can’t find a picture of Tara and Joe… if anybody has one, please send it to me and I’ll post it! In the mean time, here’s a picture of me and Tara from 2003:

(Back story for the uninitiated: Tara is one of my best friends from high school, and I had a huge crush on her for, like, six years, starting in middle school or maybe late elementary school. :) But I’m very happy for her and Joe! Again, congrats, guys!!)

Lisa Velte moved ahead of Em Merkler in the BrendanLoy.com Notre Dame football prediction contest Saturday, thanks to the Irish’s 19-point margin of victory over Washington, which was closer to Velte’s predicted 17-point margin than Merkler’s 14-point prediction, giving Velte a two-point edge in the “point differential” tiebreaker.

Velte and Merkler are both 3-1 in their predictions so far, as are alphadog, Dmytro Aponte, Ray Wert and Josh Rubin. No one is 4-0, thanks to the Michigan game, which 19 out of 24 contestants thought Notre Dame would lose, and the Michigan State game, which 20 out of 24 contestants thought Notre Dame would win. The only person who got both of those games right was Rubin, but he predicted that the Irish would lose to Pittsburgh.

Complete standings here. (And here are the Week 3 standings, which I never got around to uploading before.)

I’m in dead last, which is what I get for predicting a loss to Washington. :)

I still haven’t made the Excel spreadsheet for the USC contest… sorry! I’ll try to get to it this week, I swear…

There was a big-ass anti-war protest in Washington, and others across the country, yesterday. The timing was rather bad, of course, with Rita largely distracting the media. And Briandot, himself an opponent of the war, was not impressed with the protesters.