A political scandal riveting Northern Ireland has a certain cinematic feel: an affair by 58-year-old woman named Mrs. Robinson with a 19-year-old male lover.
Five separate Facebook groups with hundreds of followers have sprung up, lampooning the affair and comparing it to the 1967 film, "The Graduate."
But there is a serious side to the story of Iris Robinson, who also happens to be a member of Parliament and the wife of Peter Robinson — Northern Ireland's government leader.
The BBC reported that Iris Robinson allegedly solicited 50,000 pounds ($80,000) from businessmen so her young lover could open a restaurant — without disclosing the fact to lawmakers.
She's wayyyyyyyy too old for me (I'm in my 20s), but not bad looking given her age. If I had to guess I would have assumed she was about 45, not 60.
Time hasn't been as kind to other women her age. For example, Kathleen Sebelius is about the same age as Iris Robinson, and if that 19 year old slept with her he might as well be doin' granny:
(Sorry, hope I didn't make any freepers lose their lunch at the thought of Kathleen Sebelius in heat)
On a related note, I don't get why all these liberals start screaming "hypocrite!!" whenever an anti-gay marriage politician turns out to be a horny heterosexual female. Do they understand what the word "hypocrite" means? Catch the anti-gay marriage politician secretly getting hitched to someone of the same gender and you can scream hypocrite all you want. Until then, Iris Robinson and Carrie Prejean are as "hypocritical" as a vegan activist is if they're caught not recycling.
And yeah, Northern Ireland political parties suck. Absolutely no place for conservative Catholics. Either join a bunch of monarchy-loving, anti-Catholic WASPs if you want a conservative platform, or join some socialist wackjobs if you don't want Catholics to be 2nd class citizens and dislike the useless monarchy running Ireland. At least here in the USA we have Ron Paulites for voters that happen to hold the odd combination of hard-core conservative domestic policy combined with Dennis Kucinish type foreign policy views. You think they could come up with some kind of political group for Conservative Catholics in northern Ireland. They're quite prominent in the rest of the UK.
Hmmm. Interesting. I got the same results, although in all honesty I didn't understand about 4 or 5 of the questions (I had to look who Charles Haughey was, and even after reading about his four terms in office I still had "no opinion" whether I liked him or not... sounded a bit RINOs and power hungry to me) Looks like the party names in Ireland mean the opposite of what they mean here. Too bad the "Progressive Democrats" are defunct. Probably "conservative Republicans" in the Republic of Ireland are IRA-loving socialist scum. ;-)
My #1 is Progressive Democrats
My #2 is: Fianna Fail
My #3 is: Fine Gael
My #4 is: Sinn Fein (Peter King's buddies!)
My #5 is: Green Party
My #6 is: Labour
According to wikipedia (unreliable and slated, I know), there are three basic types of parties in Northern Ireland: Unionist Parties that support the UK, Republican/Nationalist that support Irish Independence, and Cross-community parties that don't have an official position but exist to support some kind of special interest not addressed by the major parties -- for example the Green Party or the Ross Perot type "Alliance Party". In northern Ireland, whether you're a unionist or nationalist depends almost entirely on religious affliation. 69% of protestants are unionist, less than 1% are nationalist, whereas 54% of Catholics are nationalist, and only 3% are unionist. Catholics are a much larger minority in northern Ireland than they used to be, and now are about 40% of the population in Northern Ireland.
With that in mind, if I could start my own party in Northern Ireland, it would probably be similar to what PAN was originally intended to be in Mexico before they turned into RINO-type bleeding heart nationalists. I'd create a political party heavily focused on traditional Catholic values, but with no official religious affialtion and open to all Irish votes who share the party's beliefs. Probably something like "Conservative Christian Citizens" Party.
Basic platform:
1) The CCC supports the eventual goal of the reunification of Ireland and abolishing the monarchy in Ireland. The CCC believes in achieving this through legislative means, and abhors all uses of violence and terrorism to achieve these goals. The CCC denounces the tactics of the socialist IRA and its supporters, in Ireland and abroad.
2) The CCC believes in the sanity of life and the value of family, and therefore opposes abortion on demand, taxpayer funding of abortion, liberal divorce laws, marriage licenses being granted to alternative lifestyles, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia. The CCC condemns allegedly "Catholic" and other "traditional Christian" parties in Ireland which promote socially liberal ideals, and does not believe they represent the values of the people they claim to stand for.
3) The CCC supports Religious Freedom in Ireland. The CCC opposes religious tests for government and offices of trust and profit, and calls for the abolition of membership in the house of Lords on the basis of membership in the Church of England. The CCC strongly condemns the rule barring Catholics from ascending to the throne and other British honors as discriminatory and antiquated.
4) In the spirit of Pope Leo XIII's QUOD APOSTOLICI MUNERIS (On the Evils of Socialism), the CCC opposes all government takeover of private industry and socialized medicine. The CCC believes in the power of the free market and in private industry and enterpenuership. As such, the CCC pledges to fight all attempts of Sinn Fein to turn Northern Ireland into a single-state united Socialist Irish Republic.
5) The CCC believes in the preservation of traditional Irish culture and rich historical hertiage, and will promote Celtic culture to visitors worldwide and seek to keep the Irish language alive through school programs (However, the CCC believes English must remain as a unifying national language due to Ireland's centuries of assimilation inside the United Kingdom). Furthermore, the CCC believes in keeping Irish Jobs in the hands of Irish citizens. As such, the CCC vigorously opposes all efforts to import uncontrolled amounts of foreign labor workers that have not been assimilated into Irish culture.
6) The CCC supports the rights of the people of Ireland to enjoy the great outdoor traditions like camping, boating, fishing, and hunting, and thus opposes red tape measures that prohibit these activities or penalize the users. The CCC supports the private ownership of firearms by law-abiding citizens and personal firearms kept for the purpose of self-protection.
7) The CCC supports a peaceful and civilized nation, and thus supports harsh penalties for murder, rape, arson, terrorism, and other violent crimes. The CCC supports natural life sentences for crimes such as murder and opposes early release programs and allowing violent crimes to have nice prison conditions and furlough access to public places.
8) The CCC supports a strong national defense and active state militias throughout Northern Ireland's counties, but opposes ceding Ireland's sovereignty to the UK, the EU, the UN, or any other world authority that wants to control Ireland's internal affairs. Therefore the CCC calls for a national currency for Ireland and opposes adaptation of the Euro, and opposes placement of Irish troops under UN or EU peacekeeping forces. The CCC believes Northern Ireland should be free to determine its own course for military engagements regardless of what position the UK takes.
How's that for starters? Perhaps a bit too Americanized to fit the tastes of Northern Ireland voters, but it certainly offers them a vast difference from the current choices they get on the ballot.