The Priceless Irish

Our Glorious Leaders

Child Abuse in Ireland

It's been a couple of weeks since the Ryan Report into Child Abuse by the Catholic church in Ireland has been released and I'm still not sure what to say about it.

I mean, clearly the religious orders are evil and perverted, but I don't need to repeat what thousands of others have said, albeit, with a little more tact.

But clearly something is deeply rotten in Irish society, how else could "we" have let the religious torture and rape children for over 50 years without anyone cruing "halt!"? It absolutely beggers belief. I've heard this described as "Ireland's Holocaust" meaning Irish people should feel the deep sense of shame and embarrassment that many German's still feel over the actual Holocaust. I think we certainly should. Trouble is, I don't really see that happening. Instead a vague uneasyness and a shirking of responsibility has set in. It was the religious. It was (a lot) of bad apples. It was in the past. Let's give the victims money and hope they shut up.

For me this had been a disastrous couple of weeks for Ireland. Not only did this happen, but the churches where full at the weekend.

link via jkeyes

Catholic Church in Ireland

View more OpenOffice presentations from damienmulley.

GAH! Blasphemy to become crime in Ireland

Just when you thought this country couldn't get any nuttier - now they want to make blasphemy a crime;

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.”

“Blasphemous matter” is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”

Rather than just 'fix' the constitution they would rather ban free speech!!!

Goddamn these fuckers!

A Lisbon 'yes' group

Good god! I never heard of them before reading this but now I imagine the girls all wear bright pink, the boys sport huge quiff's and everyone says "super dooper" and "Gee willikers"

Some of the girls wore pink T-shirts with the legend “I only kiss boys who say yes” while other campaign members refused to wear the ‘chauvinistic’ shirts.

Who in their right mind though this was a good idea?

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They Giveth with one hand ...

... and take back with two others;

The local lootocrats often say that no one goes in to politics for the money - HA!

FIVE junior ministers will be sacked tomorrow and walk away with a "golden parachute" payment worth up to €53,000 each.

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Vote YES to Lisbon II - otherwise it's more of the same

One of our most loathsome elected representatives Dick Roche (two disagreeable words in one name there) has said;

Irish voters had a "death wish" when it comes to major decisions like the Lisbon Treaty

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Dick has been kicking up a fuss since the treaty was rejected and has basically been acting like an annoying yapping dog since, but he is a good example of why I'll spoil my vote next time out (rather than vote no again). Basically he's an idiot. But he's not alone, he is a fair example of the "quality" of our political masters.

So if I could give some advice to the anti-democracy 'Yes' side it would be to run the campaign along the lines of :

You keep voting for idiots like Roche, Haughey, Ahern, Burke, et al and look where that got you. Do the sensible thing and take power away from these people. It's the only thing that will save us.

I predict a landslide ...

How Did It Come To This?

Ireland's answer to Jabba The Hut, Brian Cowen (pictured earlier) is the third best paid leader in the world. As any economist will tell you that means he's the third best leader in the world. I'm kinda surprised George Bush is ranked as fourth best seeing as he trashed the world and all, but you can't argue with the list. Then again, "a change is as good as a rest" they say and nothing changes a place faster than war, disaster and bankruptcy.

I am a little concerned going forward as Jabba Brian may be taking a 10% pay cut this year. This would move him down to fourth, which is still pretty good, but there are no medals for fourth. If anything he should demand a pay rise! The country is in such a state that third best world leader might not be enough - we need the absolute top guys (or gals).

Obviously he should refuse to step off the podium down to fourth, after all the 10% is pure tokenism. Or maybe Brian could award himself a whole slew of medals to make up for this draconian pay cut. He'd look real spiffy (even more spiffy than normal) dressed up in all those medals. They might even distract the plebes from the state of the country.

- Singapore: Lee Hsien Loong $3.8m (€1.9m)

- Hong Kong: Donald Tsang $775,000 (€390,000)

- Ireland: Brian Cowen $624,000 (€314,000)

- US: George Bush $597,000 (€301,000)

- Japan: Taro Aso $530,000 (€267,000)

- France: Nicolas Sarkozy $483,000 (€243,000)

- Germany: Angela Merkel $475,000 (€239,000)

- United Kingdom: Gordon Brown $421,000 (€212,000)

- Canada: Stephen Harper $340,000 (€171,000)

- Australia: Kevin Rudd $330,000 (€166,000)

- New Zealand: John Key $325,000 (€163,000)

- US Vice-President: Dick Cheney $310,000 (€156,000)

- Russia: Vladimir Putin $120,000 (€60,000)

Sometimes I get so chocked up with pride I feel like getting sick.

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Eircom will disconnect Internet users after three unsubstantiated copyright claims

More dispatches from the Banana Republic:

from BoingBoing

Eircom, a major Irish ISP, will now disconnect its users from the Internet if they receive three unsubstantiated copyright infringement claims from the record labels. The record labels are vowing to hold other ISPs to the same deal, wh‎ich is part of a court settlement in a lawsuit against Eircom. The UK has just rejected this measure, and initiatives to spread this across the EU and the US have died as well.

Irish Times.

So much for "innocent until proven guilty".