Sim-O

You are cordially invited to a public carol service in Parliament Square at 7pm on Wednesday the 20th of December 2006.

This inclusive service will contain both Christian and secular verse, and is expected to last no more than an hour.

Candles and song sheets will be made available, with donations going to Medical Aid for Iraqi Children.

Please note that if you attend this carol service, it will classify as a spontaneous demonstration (of faith, hope, joy and/or religious tolerance) and there is a possibility that you will be cautioned or arrested under Section 132 of the Serious and Organised Crimes and Police Act (2005).

Comments

Refering to the story I posted about below.

Following a High Court of Justice ruling on Tuesday, MK Michael Eitan (Likud) warned that if the High Court of Justice continues to dismiss Knesset legislation, “the High Court will destroy Israeli democracy and the army’s defense capabilities.”
[…]
Other right-wing politicians also castigated the High Court’s decision and called for legislative reform.

National Union chairman MK Benyamin Elon said, “The High Court of Justice, which dismisses laws and doesn’t understand we are at war, is becoming on of Israel most substantial problems to Israel’s existence. The system must be changed.”

Now where have we heard that before?
Mr Elon has been listening to Blair going on about the public not understanding the terrorist threat and we need to have stuff like detention without trial, oh, I forgot, Israel already does that one doesn’t it.
Maybe Our Tone has been watching how Israel does things…

Hooray, Hugo Chavez has won a third term as President and despite fears of Manuel Rosales throwing a wobbler and shouting foul, has conceded.

Well done Hugo.

The opposition candidate in Venezuela’s presidential elections has held a huge rally in the capital, Caracas, a week before the vote.

Several hundred thousand turned out to show support for Social Democrat Manuel Rosales, currently governor of oil-rich state of Zulia.

However President Hugo Chavez is widely predicted to be heading for victory and a third term in office.
[…]
He (Rosales) said that people wanted “modernity” and not what he called the “Cubanization of Venezuela” under the left-wing President Chavez.

Mr Rosales said that the president’s policies were creating “a new rich and more poor people… an elite that runs everything”.
Link

So, the Venezualean people want to return to high levels of illiteracy, crap health care, and the states assets sold of to foreign companies then?

Somehow, the news that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned completely passed me by yesterday.
Lenin has a posted a doodle with a rather good likness.

Rumsfelds’ successor, Robert Gates an ex-DictatorDirector Of Intelligence, probably won’t be much different in substance (oh, what a cynic), but we await to see how he delivers it.

The last quote from the NYT article linked above is nice:

Mr. Bush, meanwhile, was asked at his news conference how he could have been so hopeful of Republican victory in the face of polls predicting such serious losses. His answer seemed to reflect an irritation not with Republican candidates or strategists, but the public.

“I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security,” the president said. “But the people have spoken, and now it’s time for us to move on.”

Labels: Bush, Politix, USA

The Telegraph, 24/09/06:

Israel has been accused of “blatant racism” by Arabs in the north of the country, who are being paid less compensation following the war in Lebanon than their Jewish neighbours.

The Israeli finance ministry has begun giving handouts to thousands of business owners near the border with Lebanon whose incomes were hit by the 34-day war against Hizbollah.

It has designated a “frontline” zone, up to six miles from the border, within which the owners are to be fully compensated for their losses during the hostilities.

But four villages, whose residents are Arab Israeli, have been excluded from the zone, despite their proximity to Lebanon. Samuel Dakwar, a lawyer who is acting for some of the affected Arab businesses, said: “This is racism. I tried to find other reasons, besides discrimination against Arabs, that could cause a rational being like the finance minister to make such a miserable and irrational decision. I could not find them.

Electronic Intifada, 11/10/06:

The Arab-Israeli minority rights group Adalah has submitted a legal claim on behalf of the four Arab villages, demanding the government change its stand on giving them only partial, not full, compensation.

“The Hezbollah missiles didn’t distinguish between Arabs and Jews, so there’s no reason for the compensation to do so,” said Adalah lawyer, Sawsan Zaher.