An investigation is underway after a garda was sent a pig’s head in the post to his home.

The Irish Independent can reveal that the well-respected officer — who is based in Clare — received the severed animal’s head via registered post at his house in recent days.

Garda colleagues and friends of the officer are said to be outraged that he was singled out by an individual in such a manner.
Independent

What’s the point of trying to do something nice nowadays, what with political correctness and that? I sent that pig’s head to the Garda, I was trying to help him out. Gardaí are being forced to retire left, right and center, and pensions have been hit hard. I thought that the man could feed his family for a few days with the head. You can do great things with a pig head. Ungrateful bastard.

I’m trying to think of some new features to do these days. I’ve decided to do a hilarious round up of the weekend’s news! I like to put my own wacky spin on the latest happenings.

I read in the Indo today that the former boss of the ESB, Padraig McManus is getting a severance package worth up to €800,000, as well as being entitled to cut-price electricity. Well to tell you the truth, when I read this story, I got an awful shock!

Also in the Indo, a truck driver sacked for pulling over on the hard shoulder to take a call from motormouth shock jock Gerry Ryan has admitted that he has since prayed to the late Gerry to get his job back! Well, he got the sack for high-jinks on the hard shoulder, but one thing is clear: he certainly got a shoulder in the end! A shoulder out the door! And it was probably a good hard shoulder! I bet he is getting the cold shoulder from his wife for losing his job. And I can’t help wondering whether Gerry Ryan will hear your man’s prayers, I don’t think the Ryan Line is open anymore! Not since he died. Or maybe Gerry will hear the prayers, but just ignore them, as he doesn’t give a truck!

Some lad called Ger Troy was stabbed to death in Limerick lately. I’m not surprised it happened in Limerick, it is called Stab City after all! As for the poor victim, it appears that he Troy-ed his best to stay living, but in the end the injuries were too severe! A man named Sean Flanagan has been in front of Limerick District Court charged with the murder. Well I hope Sean isn’t a keen baker, because if he is found guilty and put in prison, you can bet your bottom dollar he won’t be making a Flan-again any time soon!

That’s all I have read so far. You know what I haven’t eaten in a good while? A Bounty bar. I mean the normal one, not the dark chocolate version.

This child is a different child to the one that died.

Just days before Jessica Joy Rees lost her heartbreaking battle with brain tumors, her parents wrote on their blog about how they were excited for a great 2012.

They were exploring other medical treatments in Europe and out of reach of the FDA. They continued to pray and encouraged others to do the same.

Unfortunately, their prayers were answered differently than they hoped.

‘We have prayed and prayed and prayed for sweet Jessie to be healed here on earth but God’s plan was to use heaven for healing,’ they wrote on Facebook when Jessie died on Thursday.

Daily Mail

It’s not often I’m moved to tears, but this beautiful story from the Daily Mail has achieved just that, only they are tears of happiness, because that wonderful little girl is being healed in heaven as we speak. I think maybe that once she’s healed Jesus might let her back down again, I’m not sure though. It’s hard to work out God’s plan at times.

A cynical person might suggest that it’s the parents’ fault that Jesus/God took Jessica away, as they didn’t trust God enough. He obviously saw that they were looking into treatments in Europe and punished them for their lack of faith. Jesus, I implore you, strike me down if I am being too saucy by suggesting this! Praise him.

A thought that frightens me however: what if the plea for prayers actually worked against the little angel? The article says that the family asked others to pray for Jessica but the prayers were answered differently than they hoped. But what if some person who really hates kids read about Jessica’s plight and decided to pray that she would die, how do we know it wasn’t this sick beast’s turn to have his/her prayer answered? Some people are really mean.

And how long before the Daily Mail runs a dramatic story revealing that the sweets in those ‘Joy Jars’ actually accelerated cancer symptoms in all those kids? Perhaps because they were handled by an illegal immigrant, I don’t know.

It’s like a scene straight out of TV’s The Wire.

A detective armed with a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver shouts to a colleague as he forces a suspect against a wall and cuffs him.

But this was Dublin and not Baltimore. It is one of the stunning images captured by award winning photojournalist Mark Condren in a new book.

It went on sale today for €25 to raise funds for Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

The Guards — Behind The Scenes With The Men And Woman of An Garda Siochana depicts every aspect of their jobs “from the mayhem to the mundane”.

Herald

It’s not at all like anything in The Wire. It’s much worse. First of all, the aforementioned .38 went off by mistake in the Garda’s pocket, creating an effect similar to a ham hock hitting the pavement after being thrown out of a twelfth storey window by blowing his leg to pieces, putting him out of action for at least two years at a cost of €171,000 to the taxpayer. His colleague is undergoing counselling to deal with the shock and trauma arising from this incident, and has taken two year’s paid leave at a cost of €78,000 to the taxpayer. On the way to the holding cell, the suspect in custody was sexually harassed, at a cost of €200,000 to the taxpayer. The female Garda on the desk that night was also sexually harassed, at  a cost of €1m to the taxpayer. Due to an administrative mix-up, the wrong people in custody were taunted in their cells, leading to the suicides of three people not of low socio-economic status, and the continued living of several unloved heroin addicts, at a cost of €52,000 to the taxpayer. A man in his twenties was pulled over by Gardaí on suspicion of drug possession, as he had long hair. When the man went to reach for his phone to call his parents, the armed response unit shot him thirteen times in the head, at a cost of €91,000 to the taxpayer. During a tea break on the night shift, another senior Garda wrecked a squad car by crashing while attempting to force open a huge tin of Maxwell House by driving over it, at a cost of €13,000 to the taxpayer. As the Garda was being cut out of the wreckage, he remarked to his superintendent, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Finally, that night in the station, a senior Garda mistakenly spilled a flammable liquid on a stove flame, burning down the station, several surrounding buildings and killing three civilians, at a cost of €122m to the taxpayer. In a cruel twist of fate, Simon Weston was holidaying in the area and received severe burns to the face, being heard to shout at the time, “Oh for fucksake.” While this chaos was unfolding, the man in custody, since revealed to be gangland figure ‘The Pied Piper’, managed to escape and complete his planned assassination of Y-fronts John, at a cost of €60,000 to Fat Freddie Thompson, and a further cost of €22,000 to the taxpayer.

The Guards: A year behind the scenes with the pigs.

Ming hemp suit pic: broadsheet Cat pic: icanhascheezburger

I think the one on the right looks more like him, but nevertheless, I lol’d.

Daily Mail