Assessing jihadist threat levels: Optimism will not stop terror attack

ONE of the many gifts sport offers is an economy of language; a battery of pithy philosophies that express truths that would, in a sane world, be more widely embraced.

Shaquille O’Neal tells us that “excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly.” A homegrown hero — our Rog — used a version of that so often it almost became his mantra: “Prepare properly or prepare to fail.”

The truth those phrases carry applies to yesterday’s Garda warning that we should not consider Ireland immune to jihadist attack.