A quick update

Apologies for the break folks – I was busy helping Enda throw together the Fine Gael plan to put this state €11 billion further into financial oblivion. Might be a good time to provide you with an update on some of our ministers and opposition spokespersonpeople.

Mary Harney:
Over the last few months Mongo Harney has had the pleasure of seeing one of her disgusting decisions pan itself out on Living TV and Living +1 TV. The strife of Ms.Goody has shown up Harney’s decision to not allow the young fillies of Ireland to get the cervical cancer jabs for what it really is – fucking sexual genocide. I guess it must be hard for Harney to avoid Goody’s face (& fate) seeing as every time she sits down for her daily Quarter Pounder with Cheese and Chips meal in the Dail cafeteria Goody’s beaming gob is smiling back at her from every tabloid newspaper.

Mongo, as a Cabinet member, has allowed the HSE execs to award themselves another pay rise and let Fingleton fuck off to Barbados with some of my pension-levy riddled salary. This is as a result of that little blank cheque Lenihan awarded last September to the Irish b(w)ankers . Message to Harney: When your political “party” officially dies piss off home and never show your face in public again.

Richard Bruton:
He still ain’t top dog yet in the Department of Finance and probably won’t be by the end of 2009. And that will be because the German finance ministry in the guise of the IMF will be running the show. You know that old saying “The Germans are invading”…nowadays it’s the fucking money shot. Be afraid people….be very afraid. He has ditched the idea of building a giant pyramid for the next three decades on the site of Dublin airport’s Terminal 2 (as detailed in his biog below) for a more “non-lethal” proposal. FG plan to build a “smart” electricity grid, with smart meters which supposedly will aid in the development of a greener Ireland. Smart grids, even smarter meters, smart robots….you know what that is? Just watch Terminator 1 &2 (see image above) and check out what happens when we start letting “smart” shit (i.e. not Cowen) run our lives – humanity gets obliterated.

(Beday penetration is now up to 94.73% in Government Buildings – it was at 95% but Cowen got rid of his during the week after a schoolteacher painted a portrait of Il Duce relieving himself in Hanafin’s office).

Brian Lenihan:
Aw dude – shit one.

Tommy Broughan:
Tommy is still digging the head off Redser who has been slagging Ciara because Tina had given her a slap. Tina had caught Ciara eating the face off Redser outside Burger King on O’Connell Street. Tommy has also become good friends with Aisling who I saw on the Luas last week. Aisling came out with this gem, “saw fuckin’ Deirdre outside school today and told her I was scarlet for her, and she was like fuck off, so I turned around and was like you’re fat, you haven’t got a fella and your roots are shite”.

Tommy has still got his ass-grove in order on the Opposition benches although with Eamonn Gilmore now being more popular than Wispas there is a good chance he might be switching sides in the near future. (* I reckon 6 weeks might do it: Lenihan’s Emergency budget is put before the Dail + it fails because the two Indepdendents & a few FF bankbenchers jump ship in order to save their own hide + Government collapses + election = sound).

Willie O’Dea:
Willie is now best mates with the rapper T.I and will still seriously fuck you up.
(Health warning: don’t ever read his pieces in the Sunday Indo – it will produce excruciating pains in your brain, which will lead to blood clots and eventual death….note similar health warning applies to Brendan Tubby O’Connor).

Leo Varadkar:
Varadkar has kept a relatively low profile since his return from the recent Georgian-Russian conflict. In true Crimean War style all enemies of Russia were asked to join in the fight against the darned Ruskie invaders and Leo heeded the call of his Asia Minor brethren. It took him fucking ages to get out there because he went off with sword in hand, mace and shield on some pony he bought in Smithfield. About 2 months actually. Big waste of time because he missed the whole fucking show.

What made shit worse is that his stolen Irish passport didn’t clear when he was passing through the Turnu Roşu Pass of the Romanian Carpathian mountain range on his way back. Added another 3 weeks on to the return leg. Prick just made about it.

Bertie Ahern:
Bertie is off wanking down the back of the class/Dail.

Brendan Smith

No - not the bankers, the Wall street traders or the even dickhead property developers could have ruined Christmas '08 to the level that this pleb could have with one stroke of a pen. He nearly did, he nearly fucking did. If he had allowed that 'dioxin' (what a made up word) scare to go on any longer it would have been cans of Dutch Gold and some turkey for Christmas dinner. The Irish people were this close to not having any ham to mix with our parsley sauce during the festive period. Really - it was that fucking close. As close as these two blokes.

Anyway...Scrooge is actually called Brendan Smith, Minister for Agriculture who has done nothing of interest, politically, since entering the post in 2008 - except nearly managing to annihilate the agriculture industry of Ireland. Funny that, seeing as he is the Minister for said area and all. He also, in his previous role as Minister for Children, wanted to hold a referendum on children. This government won't even fork up the cash for the HSE to protect children, oh in say Roscommon, never mind spending the dosh on holding a referendum on their rights. Brendan Smith doesn't even know what children are. He thinks they are some sort of mutated garden gnome.

According to his website Smith was born in Cavan, wherever that is, and after he went to school and did other shit he became a "full time Public Representative". Impressive Brendan.

As I said Smith has done nothing really of political interest in the past few years. However, that doesn't mean he hasn't done anything of general interest while raking in loads of cash for being a full time public representative. I found out a few weeks ago that if you text the word 'DailSmith' to 56969 you can get Brendan's rendition of Take That's "Greatest Day" as a ringtone on your mobile.

(*If you text 'DailChat' to the number you can have a natter with Joan Burton. I was chatting away with Joan for fucking ages there yesterday - she is well sound. The same service offers downloadable pictures on to your phone of Brian Cowen. Four pictures a month for six euro. Sign me up I hear you say but I woudn't recommend it - I had to text 'stop' after seeing the second one).

But back to Brendan. In fairness, he is going to let one of the soon to be released prisoners of Guantanamo Bay stay in his gaff while the Department of Foreign Affairs finds them something on Daft. Michael Martin reckons that Cavan is a good halfway house between illegal incarciration and actual freedom - drip feed the prisoner back into normal life. Actually, that's who Brendan is talking to in the picture above, one of the prospective dwellers arriving from Gitmo. He spent New Years chilling in the Cuban detention centre working on his tan and apparently had a fucking sweet time. And I can see why he did from the photo above - Brendan you devilish rascal. (Randomers in the background are other people from his holiday package - I'd advise all three readers of this blog to check out the quality deal Budget Travel are doing on trips to Gitmo this summer).

Smith is also known for really long oblique references to shit and ridiculous attempts at Cockney rhyming slang. The following was apparently put together by Smith on a 'Questions and Answers' programme last month.

Brendan: "You know John - I'm really worried about all the young people who may soon find themselves on the Senator who ran as the Republican candidate for President in the 1996 US election against Bill Clinton".

Bowman: "You mean Dole?".

Smith: "Yes".

Going forward, things aren't looking too good for Brendan. As Minister for Agriculture it is important that he remembers one thing - the farmers will leave you out to fucking dry even if it appears like you have done them a favour. They have been doing that shit since the Earls booted off the Europe. A shot in the arm of €180 million for the lads after the 'dioxin' scare is not going to save Brendan's bacon (my finest moment - just right there) at the next election. The farmers still think Brussels is picking them off one by one, they are pissed and they blame Smith. I reckon he's already gone.

Richard Bruton

As we look ahead to 2009 there are two things we can be certain of. The global economy will continue to take a massive diarrhoea infused dump on Ireland Inc. Secondly, and not far off the theme of the first certainty, Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton will continue in his quest to have every lavatory in Leinster House fitted with a beday. So far he has been pretty successful – the graph in the picture above shows levels of usage on Kildare Street. (The drop in the middle part of the graph was as a result of Jackie Healy-Rae’s episode of constipation in July). So will RB be our economic knight in shining armour in 2009? Probably not, but he might be.

Managed to get my hands on a FG internal memo put together by Bruton’s economic team of ex-Palin staff. I picked this baby up under a Freedom of Information Act request. Instead of giving FG money for the FOI I bartered for it with my 1995/1996 Premiership season sticker book collection (complete with three Eric Cantona's). Its an impressive document - as is the FG memo. Below is the gist of the Bruton's plan of action.

(1.) Halt construction completely of Dublin Airport Terminal 2. On its site put an army of unemployed construction workers,engineers,IFSC trolls,nurses, more HSE admin staff into labour by building this. Bruton’s team carried out a study on ancient Egyptian policies of macroeconomics, public/private spending, dealing with downturns, slavery etc and came to the conclusion that it is financially feasible to build this giant coffin for the next four cycles of Irish economic boom and bust. The memo states that “after watching the last couple of Prime Time Investigates the wage bracket of low paid jobs in Ireland is not that far off Ancient Egypt in the period 2500 BC to 2420 BC. This can work". There are two problems forseen by Bruton's little team of nerds. Firstly, what to do when Ireland starts its fifth economic cycle somewhere mid century and secondly, that we may have to deal with the Burren being completely empty after we have fucking annihilated it for all its limestone consistently for three decades.

Construction would begin late 2009 and be complete by somewhere mid 2042.The FG analysts took into account significant loses in manpower through plague, cholera and starvation. "You know the usual problems associated with subjugating a decent majority of the population into 17 hour workdays - kind of what its currently like to work in Londis". At this stage it would be ready to hold the remains of Garrett FitzGerald. This section of the memo finishes off with the line, “how fucking slick would it be to fly into Dublin Airport and be greeted by the sight of a 150 storey tall pyramid. Bad ass doesn’t even cover it”.

Bad-ass....indeed Mr.Bruton.

(2.)The memo agrees with the current government plan to invest a bit of cash into the broad ranging field of ‘science and technology’. Seeing as ‘science and technology’ in Ireland covers everything from curing cancer to creating sweet robots which can morph their arms into sharp objects, the FG paper advises “that the area of investment become more specific, i.e. Ireland’s first nuclear weapons program”. It goes on to state that, “Ireland has lost its competitiveness due to various factors such as the devaluing of the Sterling. There is very little chance that this competitiveness will return in the medium/long term".

"Therefore, we need to show our neighbours we mean fucking business and sticking a few ICBM’s on Erins Isle will do just that. If they (I’m guessing by ‘they’ FG means everyone) don’t buy our pigs and computer chips we will just have to burn their cities to the ground and poison their land with radiation for the next 200 years. This initiative also has the added benefit of keeping numerous poindexters in Irish labs busy for the next decade”.

A rigorous analysis of Game Theory is subsequently provided and this section of the paper concludes with the statement that “if Iran can do it, so can we, look at how many concessions those lads have got out of the Yanks and the Red Coats – in fact, we would be idiots NOT to do this”.

Terrifying stuff from the Blueshirts.

(Note: All of the above is premised on Bruton's party actually fiddling around with their groin area, realising they have a pair of testicals and strolling out of Leinster house, therefore forcing an election. Followed by FG then winning said election.)

Batt O'Keeffe

Batt O’Keeffe is a political enigma, kind of like Otto Von Bismarck. Except Batt hasn’t managed to piss off France for 20 years. Yet. Batt was made Minister for Education by Cowen a little while ago and like every single one of his education predecessors he has managed to get Kidare Street clogged up by slightly angry teachers on a weekday.

The reason Batt is a political enigma is because he hasn’t been all that honest with the Cork or Irish electorate. And more importantly the American electorate. What a shit load of people don’t know is that Mr.O’Keeffe was Ralph Nader’s running mate in the recent US presidential election. And that Batt O’Keeffe isn’t actually his real name. Matt Alves Olivera Gonzalez’ exploits in the land of the free can be found at www.votenader.org. Long story short - they lost - by a lot.

I managed to get an interview last week with Batt’s assistant Jose Huerro Maria Batistuta and questioned him about the double identity of Senor Gonzalez. “Yeah its all fucking true - we got lazy with the first name and just changed the first letter but we decided to go apeshit with the surname. The people of Cork haven't got a bleedin' clue that his real name is Matt Alves Olivera Gonzalez. Matt is also half Guatemalan–half Irish. Him and Ralphie were pretty happy with the twenty-four national votes they picked up on November 4th, especially the sixteen they got in Wisconsin". However, Batistuta did admit that two of the eight votes in West Virginia where from J1 students with forged election ballots that Batt had met on holidays last year.

Which would explain the picture above. Its himself on the US presidential campaign trail. Batt, not known for his geographical prowess, had apparently wandered across the 49th parallel and into Canada (he thought the thing behind him was the state flag of Vermont). According to press reports he gave a speech to the local Inuit population of Canuck province New Brunswick on the merits of ice. Batt promised New Brunswick that if elected VP he would “Give Vermont Ice”.

I moved on to question Batistuta about the ethics of his boss, the blatant lying to the people of Cork and if there are any more secrets that have been kept under wraps for the past two decades.

Batistuta: “Actually there are a lot of thing we have had to keep secret from the electorate but I wouldn’t like to go into them. All I can give you is one word: gerbiling. Also, lets be honest here, those yokes in Cork North West would not have voted for a man who spends his weekends re-enacting ancient Mayan bridal ceremonies in Fermoy".

The shit doesn’t stop there. While running with Nader Batt/Matt did some work for the Financial Regulator on their new advertising campaign. The regulators budget was 300k, but Batt was supposedly like ‘fuck this’ – so he offered 350k. Done deal.

“See most people don’t know that Matt has a PhD in ‘Subliminal Psychology’ from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala”, noted Batistuta during the interview. “Matt knew this banking bail-out was coming,he could feel it ‘in his balls’ – as he told me. So he sorted the Financial Regulator out with their 'itsyourmoney' campaign.Making people believe that its ok to guarantee their money and savings with their own tax money – its sweet. And all we had to do was get two knobends on TV to fuck around with a touch screen monitor and look really happy at the end of the ad. Its worked a treat and not a murmur from Joe Sap Public. Why? Seven words...Matt Alves Olivera Gonzalez and his genius”.

Batt has retained his Secret Service presidential nominee detachment in Cork North West. Basically two blokes in a camper van outside his pad 24-7. There have been rumours that the paramilitary leftist wing of the INTO has reformed.

To finish off, it is largely thought that Batt made this happen.

John Gormley

There's John with a human sized elf. Is it any wonder that the State's finances are as about as healthy as Wiemar Germany when the Department of Environment has to bribe people to dress up as fictional creatures to promote a "greener Ireland". There's also too much good shit already on the interweb about this bloke. Like here, here and here.But I'll give it a lash - grows up in Limerick, becomes a TD in 1997 and goes on to make a tit of himself on RTE. Shown here...I stopped counting the number of times Gormley said the word no after 40 seconds in. Some of you Krusties out there will argue that the clip shows Gormley has conviction. My anus.

So apart from helping out with Irish-Sino relations, backtracking on Tara and standing beside elves what else does John do? John writes a blog - that's what he does. But he's been really really really busy lately so he just hasn't had time to keep it up to date. So I'm going to help him out. Here's his post for the 30th of September:

Last night I popped into bed at 10 after America's Next Top Model - I was out in a flash. Woke up to find two burly members of the Garda Siochana standing over my bed. Hope they didnt spot the manifestation below. They were causing a big hullabaloo because my phone had been on silent. Twenty four missed calls from Leno - "Jeez Louise", I exclaimed. Was on my way to Government buildings in no time - still slightly aroused - the girls had got their makeovers and were doing an underwear shoot in last night's episode of Top Model. Brian and Brian had got all this banking fuss sorted in no time and through all the dilly-dallying everywhere I managed to get a quick nap on Brian's sofa and finish myself off. Off to the Leisure Plex today.

With the above I think I helped out John with his blog, but for now I'm going to take a back seat and let John have his word. Gormley thinks he's down with the kids, like Cameron in the UK with his "I've got Radiohead on my ipod". I came across this interview with a bit of an auld google search. In my opinion the highlights are the following;

Have you been to the cinema recently, what did you see and was it any good?
I saw Once on DVD. It was OK.

Your idea of heaven?
Living in total harmony with nature.

By nature he means Fianna Fail. I would also like to point out that according to this interview John's uncle lives in a place called "Muff". I'll leave it at that so.

As for Gormley and his Greens the next few years (possbily months) are going to be a lot of rock and a hard place situations. Shit one. Story goes that Harney texted Gormley on the day before FF caved in about the over 70's medical card yoke with, "the worst day in government is always better than the best day in opposition". Trouble is you know Gormley fucking believes this 100%. The tree-huggers have spent so long trying to get into government that no amount of hypocrisy on motorways through heritage sites or shitting on our OAP's will make them break up their 'coalition of the willing' with FF.

You reckon its going to take a political debacle of epic proportions to make the Greens jump ship - like the government having to fork out my tax and every other dickhead's PAYE on bailing out a bank. My prediction, like its namesake in Iraq, this coalition is already fucked. Its only a matter of time before its bye bye to the Greens for another generation which should allow Gormley, bored out of his GM-free tree, to get back to his farcical blog.

Enda Kenny

In the fine words of Jay-Z, Enda Kenny "has 99 problems but a bitch ain't one". Yes yes, one of Enda's many problems is that he wears horrendously tight spandex pants while cycling, as evident in the photo above. Enda Kenny is the goober on the right by the way.Apparently he had just come off stabilisers that morning, which would explain the whole veering towards the side barrier.

Its getting pretty ridiculous at this stage but you have guessed it alright, yet again one of the finest politicians ever to emerge from Castlebar (out of 3, one being a JCB) started his career as a primary school teacher. He also picked up in the Dail from where his da left off. While teaching to some rugrats in 1975, he decided 'you know what, fuck it, I'm sick of bringing these shits on nature walks - Im off to Dublin 2'.And by Jaysus Enda hasn't looked back since. The Irish nation, which includes Fine Gael voters, haven't really got over that decision yet and its been 33 years....and counting. Kenny is now leader of Fine Gael. He is also, because of his 33 year stint, 'Father of the Dail' - listen I dont know even know where the fuck to start with that one.

Another one of Enda's 99 problems is that no matter how much Fianna Fail bollock up or blow election promises out their collective arse, he just can't seem to get his party elected to government. Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwae, a legend amongst all men, has spent less time in opposition. And that's fucking saying something.

Now Enda has been trying. He has appealed to a wide range of voters before elections by promising such things as free Sex and the City DVD's to those thinking of voting for Varadkar (see previous post). In 2005 he also called for the abolishment of Leaving Cert Irish as a compulsory course. What Enda didnt foresee in that promise, is that once a leaving cert student has done their Irish test the vast majority (94% in fact) couldnt care less about younger students having to or not having to sit the exam. In fact, we being Irish and wishing hardship on our fellow Paddy would want those students to go through the very same shit we went through back in the day. I can say with confidence, that is where Fine Gael lost the election of 2007. The leaving cert classes of 1988 to 2007 taking the preverbial piss.

Enda has also come up with ridiculous names for coalition governments like the 'Mullingar Accord'. Now I'll admit the 'Palensitinian/Israeli Peace Accord' has a certain ring to it - but Mullingar - it just doesn't have the same gravitas or swank.

Problem 26 of 99 - Enda just wont let some things go. He recently released an auto-biography styled on another possible leader in waiting - B to the Obama. "The Audacity of DeValera and his Irregulars to walk out of the Dail in 1922 and put the country to civil war", published in July of this year also lists extensively the wrongs of Fianna Fail. From that rapscallion Dev pissing off Churchill during and after WW2, to when FF allowed Willie O'Dea and his Toyota Yaris on an episode of MTV's 'Pimp My Ride', the book is almost forensic in its attention to detail about the fuck up's of FF. Apparently the book's publisher Penguin Classic are going to be coming out with a 'rough guide to Fine Gael'. Best-motherfucking-seller right there.

Some advice for the Blueshirts - its been long enough. With the state of the economy, health service and transport system, Stalin with an election promise of 'gulags for all' could win the next couple of elections for Fine Gael. If you (FG) get pillaged during the Local's and European's next year give Enda his P45, spandex pants and stabilisers and tell him to get on his bike back to Mayo. It will do you all a big favour.

Mary Harney

Mary Harney is frightening - just look at that picture above. No further words need be added to illustrate this image, every pixel tells its own story. Of horror.

Harney is another 'heavyweight' on the Irish political scene. Like 97% of the Dail she was a schoolteacher before entering politics. As is my way I couldn't be arsed researching her past so I'm just going to copy what wikipedia says about her early political life. "She holds the record as the youngest Senator in the Seanad, being 24 on appointment. In 1979 Harney had her first electoral success when she was elected to Dublin City Council. Two years later she was successfully elected to the Dail in the 1981 general election for Dublin South West. She has retained her seat at every election since then". Like all people who have read this fact about Mary my first thought was, "Lord Jehovah - save the people of that constituency from eternal damnation for they do not know what they do".

Harney became a founder-member of the Progressive Democrats in 1986 and has been fucking around the top of that "party" ever since. Another useful piece of information about Harney is that she is unable to start new sentences with capital letters, which has lead to our health system being ranked 25th of 26 in the EU + Switzerland, only ahead of Lithuania (again wikipedia) and her webpage looking spa-like.

Mary has fought off charges of gross incompetence, evading Luas ticket inspectors, stealing from Toymaster and the near annihilation of the PD's to remain in charge of the Irish health system since 2006. Opinions are, shall we say, slightly mixed on the type of job she has done since her appointment. However, recent statistics now show that an Irish person suffering with bubonic plague during the Black Death would have had a better chance of staying alive by going to the local apothecary, than if they were to limp into an Irish hospital with a sprained ankle tomorrow.

Now it would be easy for me to make light of Mary's 'consumption issue', which I think some of Ireland's finest political correspondents in the Irish Times and Weekly Sport go too far with, but there is another piece of information that must be divulged to the public (or this blog's 3 readers). Met Eireann has noted that the sheer density of Harney's mass is having extraordinary effects on the Irish tidal system. Irish tides, at intervals of 6 hours are literally being dragged towards her, nullifying the gravitational pull of the Moon. This phenomenon has resulted in levels of soil erosion along Ireland's east coast increasing 22 fold since 1979. Scientific fact.

In December 2001, Harney used a Government plane which was 50% funded by the European Commission to travel to Leitrim to open a friend's off-license. Harney later apologised for having abused her position in using the plane for non government business arguing that duty called because free pie was on offer in Leitrim. The aircraft has subsequently been devoted to maritime surveillance of the soil erosion effects discussed above.

So what have we learned about Mary Harney from the above? Nothing really, but the day will have to come when the people of Dublin South West say 'No' and tell Mary to go back to Ballinasloe. Either that or we wait for a black hole to be opened up in the front row of Dail Eireann because Harney's density reached critical mass.