Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

News in Ireland:

Ireland to Americans: Please, please visit us!

“Hotels here are to slash prices for Americans in a desperate attempt to entice high-spending tourists. The Irish Independent has learned that hotels in the West — who have been particularly hard hit by the weak dollar — are to offer rooms on an ‘euro-for-dollar’ rate.” Wow — a suite will be about €10 a night by the end of the summer. Not that anybody can ever undercut the B.B. B&B’s low, low, prices. They’d have to be crazy to be as cheap as the Bugle! With every stay, you get a free onion!

Arctic Charr, the next exotic fish on yer menu

You heard it here first. By the way, Chilean Sea Bass is sooo pre-War-on-Terror.

Mahon Tribunal vs. Bertie Ahern, government’s leader

Okay, so this is a bit of a mess. Here’s what we know: (1) It’s been going on for years, and (2) Everyone involved earns contempt, but not outrage, from the public at large. The Bugle has two staff members devoted, full-time, to figuring out the historical references, people, banks, and legal processes involved. Here’s a sample vocabulary list: dig-out, sterling lodgement, building society account, PAYE. And if you don’t know the terms “Taoiseach” and “Teachta Dála” and how to pronounce them, you’re going to find Irish radio news very confusing. (Fortunately, ministers are simply called “ministers”.)

As I recall, there’s a lazy, insipid way to report on matters that one is too intellectually challenged to understand. I believe it’s called American journalism, i.e. “Reprint both sides’ press releases and let the consumer sort it out.” So here you go.

• This is a really big deal because this guy is totally corrupt. And worse, nobody can beat his party in an election.
• Ah sure, it’ll be grand. Stop wastin’ yer time and taxes, and make a bunch of money like the rest of us, already.

Oops, too late. One of the two staff just filed for an extended leave for mental health reasons. Dammit. We’ll keep looking for a “Mahon Tribunal for Dummies” — anybody want to do freelance work for the Bugle?

Minister for Education under criticism on several topics

When it comes to news regarding the lesser ministers in the Republic’s government, there appear to be two possibilities:

• All the basements of the major newspapers are connected by tunnels to a Control Room. In that room, there is wheel resembling the big wheel on The Price Is Right, labeled with the names of each minor minister. Twice a year, the editors-in-chief of those newspapers meet in the Control Room, spin the big wheel, and then launch a simultaneous attack on the name that comes up. They start covering the press releases of the applicable political entities rather than throwing them away, publish weekly “special investigations,” and encourage their cousins to write scathing letters to the editor.
• The government is shot through with corruption and incompetence.

Please note the words “appear to be” above. As you can see, the Bugle takes an open-minded approach to Irish politics. We commit to you, our readers, that we will never jump to a negative assessment of a political system that we do not fully understand. Also, our own editor-in-chief has a conflict of interest on this issue, given the Irish union’s involvement. So that’s all for now.

The Save Tara Campaign

Ireland, as a young and island nation, is always wary of dependence on foreign markets and institutions. So it fosters its own natural resources, including the all-important hippie-leftie-greenie crop. The Save Tara campaign currently brings together factions devoted to the environment, sustainability, anarchism, historical reenactment, or opposition to corporate power. Now that the campaign has become the subject of a celebrity squabble involving Bono, Americans might hear about it, once.

Columnist for Irish Independent publicises embarassing US lawmakers

Seriously, you people are making it hard to live abroad.

The Next Big Issue: The Queen’s Visit

Many organisations, including the British government, have been sending up test balloons on this one.