by Conor Scannell Out of all the shocking things taking place on the planet today ( i.e North Korea’s recent nuclear test) the horse meat scandal is by far the least important. Allow me to tell you a story. When I was a young bright-eyed child, and not the jaded wreck that I am today, I was fond of an Australian brand of chocolate bar called “Three Wished”. They were taken off the European and North American markets in 2002 because it was found that they contained human skin. I, upon hearing the news, was never so distraught in my entire life. I firmly believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt you and the ulcer in my stomach lining will prove that I am right. I’ll bet that everyone who ate the horse burgers was rather pleased with them and wasn’t able to tell the difference between horse and beef. The main reason that people are so upset about this is because horses are considered to be beautiful and elegant creatures who beautifully and elegantly portray some beautiful and elegant human characteristics in their beauty and elegance … among other lies, while cows are ugly, smelly disgusting, vile animals and the only productive thing they’ll do in their lives is get killed and be eaten. It’s a simple business arrangement – I’m hungry and he’s made of beef. When you sit down to eat your dinner would you rather have a fat repulsive animal festering on your plate or a beautiful and elegant animal lying on the plate beautifully and elegantly? The Aintree racecourse in the U.K. has a contract with a licensed slaughterhouse in Yorkshire to deal with the remains of dead Grand National racehorses. This could prove to be a...

Mega Man X Review By Michael Soderlund I had planned to review the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but then I never got it, so I decided to review a much older game where you shoot things. Mega Man X was released on the Super Nintendo in 1993 by Capcom. It’s known as Rockman X in Japan, and it is considered to be one of the best games of the time. But enough introductions. LET’S REVIEW IT! GRAPHICS – For the time, this game looked amazing, and while it’s not HD or 3D, it still looks good. You can tell what everything is, there’s plenty of color in the levels. The characters animate nicely, for example, some of the bosses who have taunting animations before they fight you. SOUND – The music in this game is amazing. Every single tune will stay in your head for years after you first play it. The SNES instruments might sound a bit off if you don’t like old game music, but the songs are extremely well composed. My personal favorites are Spark Mandrill’s stage and Boomer Kuwanger’s stage. The game’s sound effects are standard for a Super Nintendo game, there’s not much to say there. GAMEPLAY – This is where Mega Man X shines most. The game has a ton of stages. First you play an intro stage which introduces the basic gameplay to you. After this stage you get a choice of 8 levels. You have to beat them all, but you can do it in any order. At the end of each level is a Maverick. The bosses. Each one is weak to another Maverick’s weapon, which you obtain after beating one of them. For example, Chill Penguin is weak to Flame Mammoth’s...

Legal matters Actus reus is loosely defined as the physical act of a crime including its consequences. A simple example would be the act of hitting another in the face and the results of said action such as blood flowing from the nose. The actus reus can further be divided into “result” offences and “conduct” offences. The former, to be proved, require a demonstration of the results of an act, say a dead body as a result of a gunshot wound; the latter requires proof only of the conduct rather than the immediate result. Perjury for instance needs no demonstration of a result since the act of perjury alone is proof of the crime. (From Irish Criminal Law by Conor Hanly) Seeds and eggs Insect eggs come in all shapes and sizes. They are as varied as the insects they promise to become and the places they are deposited. The egg of the Julia helioconian butterfly is generally spherical, almost. However, its outer surface is comprised of concave patches vaguely squarish in shape, all of them separated by white spines. (National Geographic, September 2010) Il Duce Mussolini’s office in the Mappa Mundi was so big that visitors were required to run to reach his desk. He was involved in the murder of Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. He was said to have had “extravagant longings” and portrayed himself as a kind of infallible genius with a streak of the devine, capable of performing miracles such as saving towns from volcanoes . Cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist and award-winning author, argues that cancer is such a concern today because it wasn’t taken seriously enough in the past. The National Cancer Institute was set up in America in 1937 but the war with Nazism and the Japanese...

The Tom Crean Diary of Polar Exploration Dear Thelma Things have gone from worse to bad and then to okay, on to fine, then not too bad, back to fine and straight down to worse, skipping okay and bad on the way. It’s really really cold now. There’s never enough socks. Palmer wore all his out and tried to trade his pet hamster Arnold for a new pair but Scott said hamsters only break your heart and he’d been through enough already. Cooper hates hamsters and all kinds of small, hairy animals with the exception of Browny who got mould on his knees from not bending them enough. Scott gets more irascible by the day. Everything with him is a big deal. Yesterday, Tawny Owl used the last of the toilet paper to make a papier mache shoulder of bacon for Bloom’s birthday and from Scott’s reaction you’d swear he’d eaten all the rations. Then he ate all the rations and Scott had to be prostrated in the reserve tent for several hours until he stopped frothing at the mouth. Me, I’m struggling along, still trying to get to grips with my French linguaphone course. Cooper’s aunt says it’s a waste of time since we’re not going to meet any French speakers on the expedition. I said, “All art is useless,” because I’d heard Cooper say it and I thought it sounded intelligent. Cooper’s aunt countered with, “You’re the useless one,” so naturally I said back to her, “You’re useless!” and she said “You are,” and I said, “No, you,” and then I said back to her, “You,” and she said “It’s you,” and then…hold on. Wait. Uh-oh, Scott’s giving out again. I’d better go. I have to dig some latrines and I just...

Getting Ireland Back to Work by Ben Aherne Getting the people of Ireland back to work requires a combination of positive and negative incentives, and a re-evaluation of how we define “work”. First of all let’s raise the incentives: A negative incentive is one which punishes people for not working. Of course this negatively impacts on people who are genuinely looking for employment but it also forces those who sit idly on their dole reserves until the end of the recession is announced to look for a job because the benefits of their laziness no longer outweigh what little extra money they would earn on minimum wage. There are, in my opinion, two such incentives: A reduction in the value of social welfare to, at the very least, a point where a person on minimum wage minus his transport costs is not likely to earn more on welfare, and a decrease in pensions for persons under the age of 70. A positive incentive, on the other hand, is one which encourages people to work without negatively affecting their lives. Campaigns, local employment-seekers groups and an increase in job-seekers allowance for people who are shown to be obviously and vigorously seeking employment are examples of these incentives. This would introduce a new system where job-seekers are issued a special booklet and employers a special stamp. If a person attends an interview, regardless of whether he’s successful or not in it, he will present his booklet for the interviewer to stamp – provided he feels this person was genuinely applying for a job and not attempting to abuse the system – to be evaluated at the end of each month by a trained public servant. If a person makes a serious attempt for at least one...