Prices for a vote included

• One Year’s Tuition
• an iPod Touch
• A lift to college

Some polled even offered to give their right to vote entirely in exchange for $1M (fools, should have asked for €1M).

Oddly enough, whilst happy to sell their votes, most of the students asked were quite clear on the importance of voting.

In a country where a few thousand votes can swing the course of world history (literally, I mean look at the last 7 years) I have to admit, it’s a disturbing study.

I wonder how transferable these results would be? Would your average UCD or TCD head be willing to change their vote for an iPod? Or a full grant?

Mum sends stripper to teenage son’s school

By Lester Haines

Published Thursday 8th November 2007 15:32 GMT

A Nottinghamshire lad had a “birthday to remember” after a stripper turned up at his school, burst into his drama class and proceeded to flaunt herself like a two-buck hussy as shocked teacher and students looked on.

According to the Telegraph, the clothes-shedding strumpet was dispatched to Nottingham’s Arnold Hill School and Technology College at the behest of the boy’s mum, who also asked his teacher to film the event.

The stripper entered the classroom halfway through the lesson, and then, as a fellow pupil recounted to the Daily Mail: “She asked the lad to stand up, which he did, and told him he had been a very naughty boy because he hadn’t been doing his homework. Then she put on some Britney Spears music and got out a collar and lead from her bag and told him to put them on.

“No one could believe it. Next she ordered him to get on all fours, led him around the classroom and hit him 16 times – once for each year – on the bottom with her whip. Then she took off some clothes until she was down to her bra and pants, pulled out some cream, put it on her buttocks and told him to rub it in.

“To be fair to the teacher, you could tell she was just stunned – and when the cream came out she told the stripper ‘That’s it. That’s enough’.”

It apparently was enough for the honoured guest of this show, since he “ran out of the classroom while the stripper calmly packed her bag and left”.

A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire County Council said no one had been suspended and the police were not involved. She added: “We and the school are investigating into the situation.”

And in case you’re wondering what kind of parent would subject their offspring to this kind of humiliation, the mother in question told the school she’d actually ordered a gorilla “through an agency”, but got the cream-loving dog-handler instead. ®

So it’s official, Pat Rabbitte has stood down as leader of the Labour Party. Whilst not unexpected, it is, as one person I know put it, “Weird”. I like to think I’m quite informed on the politics front, but I didn’t really get into it until college (Damn you Layne Aston ). As such, I can’t really picture the Labour Party without Deputy Rabbitte at the helm.

Personally, I can’t see anyone else who can fill his shoes. Love him or hate him, he’s one of the more intelligent and articulate TD’s and I’ll certainly miss seeing him rant at that gombsheen Taoiseach of ours.

So, the race for Leader is now on. Who wins, you (don’t) decide**.

*Did Joe Higgins resign as Socialist “Party” Leader? 

**Unless you’re a Labour member

RFID tagged Credit cards? I thought the idea was to reduce credit card fraud, not make it easier?

Gobshites.