One of the main problems we face in society today is the one posed by children. After all, how many times have you entered a restaurant only to have your dining experience ruined by the sight of a small child being in the room?

It doesn't matter if the kid is asleep or simply quiet, just knowing that they they're around is enough to set ISpy's teeth itching with irritation.

No, you take a tough line when you're dealing with children because if you don't they will ride roughshod over you and start making ridiculous demands -- meals every day, a new pair of shoes every year, that kind of thing.

So may this column be the first to congratulate 27-year-old soldier Joshua Tabor, from Florida, for refusing to bow to the politically-correct school of parenting.

Tabor was infuriated when his seven-year-old daughter refused to say her ABCs correctly.

So he water-boarded her.

The former soldier has since been arrested and faces cruelty charges.

Ironically, the child's knowledge of the alphabet hasn't improved, but during the water-boarding session, she did tell them where Osama bin Laden's been hiding.

You see -- torture does work.

Marry early. And often

Ireland, it appears, is a deeply racist country. Yup, you may have thought that, if anything, we have bent over backwards to accommodate foreigners and that, apart from a few ignorant knuckleheads who would be quite at home in the KKK, we're basically a civil, tolerant society that is afraid to impose our values on immigrants.

But you, sir, are a racist bully.

The latest example of how we mistreat our newcomers comes with the case of the Lebanese asylum seeker who is suing the State -- because they won't let him bring his second wife into the country.

The man is in a polygamous marriage, which is legal in Lebanon, but not here, and he says that this is discrimination against him.

Now, you could say that he knew the rules before he came over here and if he doesn't like them he can claim asylum in a country which does allow such practices, but that would make you worse than Nick Griffin.

According to one Irish Muslim campaigner: "The State should not be interfering in families like this."

This should set an interesting precedent -- because if he wins then we can look forward to cases like the one currently happening in Saudi Arabia, where an 80-year-old-man has just married a 12-year-old girl.

Ah, the romance of it all ...

They should be fined more ...

Television network ITV has just been fined £2,000 for animal cruelty -- after contestants on I'm A Failure, Please Boost My Career, killed and ate a rat.

The starving celebutards were so hungry that when they saw the rodent enter their camp they immediately set upon it and made a meal out of it -- presumably ratatouille (right, that's it, you're fired if you make one more pun like that -- ED).

The courts ruled that: "An animal was inflicted with unnecessary pain and distress."

A bit like the viewers, then. Can we get some money?

Oh George -- say it ain't so

Is nothing sacred in this country any more?

We can't trust the Church, for obvious reasons. We can't trust the banks, the building societies or the other lending institutions. We can't trust the liars, cheats and lunatics in the Green movement when it comes to climate change because they have repeatedly told porkies to us. And now it would appear that we can no longer trust our politicians.

I know, I know, that seems like a pathologically cynical position to take. After all, here in Ireland we are truly gifted with some of the finest political minds since America's Founding Fathers got together and decided to form their own country.

But the news that George Lee has walked off in a huff from Fine Gael because they weren't nice enough to him is a shattering blow.

After all, the country is still reeling from the news Killian Forde -- an old mate of ISpy, despite the fact that we don't agree on one single issue -- left Sinn Fein/IRA to join Labour and now we have to cope with this.

So how bad a betrayal of his voters is this announcement?

Well, to put things in perspective, this is the worst act of betrayal since John Sergent walked off the set of Strictly Come Dancing.

Yup, it's that bad.

Any odds on Forde and Lee to form their own party?

If only to see which one of them would be first to have a hissy fit and walk out...

iSpied

Bookworm

In what really is a tragic irony, Peter Benchley was haunted by the success of his book, Jaws. Realising that his novel and the subsequent movie had directly led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of sharks, he spent the rest of his life trying to rectify that and became one of the world's foremost shark conservationists.

Check out Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea for a fascinating insight into these most intriguing of animals.

DVD Time

One of the finest comedies of the 1980s, The Sure Thing perfectly showcases John Cusack's everyman character as the college student trekking all the way across America in a bid to get laid. Stuck with a tightly wound Daphne Zuniga, you know how it's going to end but its charm and set pieces make it a cut above the rest.

Sample quote: "Most people are real afraid to pick up hitchhikers. I mean you never know who you might pick up. I mean I could be some crazed slimeball. I mean, a real deranged, violent psycho. You know what I mean? I mean a guy who would rip out your heart and eat it."

- Ian O'Doherty

Irish Independent