Irish Government "Losing your job" Website

A sign of the times: http://www.losingyourjob.ie/ .The last item in the menu is a useful guide to "Leaving Ireland". I'm always impressed by the usefulness of the Irish Government sites, but this one if a bit depressing.

It''s interesting that if you view the page about leaving Ireland in Irish (as Gaeilge) then you see nothing (http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories-ga/ag-bogadh-tire/imeacht-thar-lear/eire-a-fhagail) but if you switch over to English then you see all the info. I guess they don't want the Irish speakers leaving :-) Or maybe the person whose job it is to translate the page to Irish lost their job and left the country.

The US is not quite at the point where the government would have a page about unemployment which includes tips on "Leaving America".

A collection jar for the IRA

Today's Boston Globe shows a photo of a money collection jar labeled "IRA". It's ironic that it's shown in a paper representing an area which historically collected a lot of money for the IRA, and that the photo has nothing to do with the actual IRA at all:

http://www.boston.com/business/taxes/gallery/yearendtaxtips?pg=4

Martha Coakley's weird accent

I guess I'm not the only person who thinks that Martha Coakley has a weird accent - a quick Twitter Search shows people remarking on her accent.

Listen yourself to this YouTube video and draw your own conclusions. With the lilting and the off-sounding vowels she sounds to me like she's from Fargo via West Cork. Certainly not Massachusetts though.