Sim-O

I’m not going to go into detail about the resignation letters to Mr Blurgh and the story behind it, as it’s all over the place and I’m just glad that at least Our Tone will be going sooner rather than later (but still not soon enough) but he did make an announcement about his resignation yesterday from Quintin Kynaston School in north London.

As someone who hasn’t much experience of this sort of thing, Lenins’ report, here, from the wrong side of the fence makes interesting reading, especially the part about teachers trying to intimidate pupils into going away and snatching banners and placards.

Labels: Blair

Gaza: Four killed and 27 injured in two extra-judicial executions in two hours

Labels: Palestine

Watch out General, you’ll be next on the hit list if this is true!

Oh, wait, just remind me who this Osama chap is again?
“Occupation? Unknown” – What? Come on, you’re the FBI!!

Doesn’t matter, you safe from George W., it’s just countries without WMD he invades, so these are safe(ish).

Labels: War On Terror

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said some people were trying to misrepresent ministers’ views as privatisation of public services…
Mr Blair’s spokesman insisted that while ministers certainly intended to change public services, there were no privatisation plans…

Then, from Corporate Watch, this, and in the news yesterday DHL struck a deal with the NHS that is

“effectively a privatisation of part of NHS Logistics as well as a part of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency”

for

“More than £22bn of orders over 10 years will be affected. The company says it will save the NHS £1bn in that period.”

If the NHS can save more than £1bn over ten years, by using a profit-making company, shouldn’t the NHS be able to save even more by doing it itself and cutting out the middleman as whatever profit DHL are making, could be more savings.
The NHS doesn’t need privatising, it needs someones arse kicking to do their job better.

But there is also a little victory.

Labels: Capitalism

The people who need to read it, probably couldn’t.

Labels: War On Terror

Link
Buy British

Pick it, pack it, fire it up, come along
and take hits from the bong
Put the blunt down just for a second
Don’t get me wrong it’s not a new method
Inhale, Exhale – just got a ounce in the mail
I like a blunt or a big fat coal
But my double barrel bong is gettin me stoned
I’m skill it, There’s water inside don’t spill it
It smells like shit on the carpet
Still it, goes down smooth when I get a clean hit
Of the skunky funky smelly green shit
Sing my song, puff all night long
As I take Hits from the bong…
Cypress Hill

Labels: Drugs

Link

“Despite having a heavy hand in negotiations, the United States says it will not sign a global treaty codifying the rights of people with disabilities”

Full Article

The fact that this is about people with disabilities is besides the point. You could change the last part of the quote to anything and it would sound true to the US’s attitude to the world at the moment.
The US is negotiating a treaty that it is not going to participate in. Why would somebody do such a thing?
To free them from reponsibility when it suits and to lock others into a certain behaviour that favours themselves, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ to quote a cliche.

Later in the article it does mention that the USA has federal, local & state level laws that to assist citizens with disabilities.
If so, shouldn’t be a problem signing then.
None of us want to lose our sovereignty, but sometimes, you need to put your money where your mouth is.

Labels: Politix

While the world is looking the other way, it’s attention on Lebanon, let’s not forget what is happening in Gaza. Israel hasn’t forgotten the Palestinians, and neither should we.

With the UN-sponsored ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah going into effect, Palestinians are apprehensive that might embark on a fresh rampage in Gaza in order to boost the morale of a conspicuously dispirited Israeli public.

In fact, the Israeli army never stopped murdering Palestinians and destroying their homes for even a single day during the war on Lebanon. Palestinian medical sources revealed this week that more than 187 Palestinians were killed, mostly in the Gaza Strip, since the beginning of July.

more

Labels: Palestine

No, you’re right. I didn’t write the following, it was Noam Chomsky.

Though there are many interacting factors, the immediate issue that lies behind the latest US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon remains, I believe, what it was in the four preceding invasions: the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the most important case, the devastating US-backed 1982 Israeli invasion was openly described in Israel as a war for the West Bank, undertaken to put an end to annoying PLO calls for a diplomatic settlement (with the secondary goal of imposing a client regime in Lebanon). There are numerous other illustrations. Despite the many differences in circumstances, the July 2006 invasion falls generally into the same pattern. Among mainstream American critics of Bush administration policies, the favored version is that “We had always approached [conflict between Israel and its neighbors] in a balanced way, assuming that we could be the catalyst for an agreement,” but Bush II regrettably abandoned that neutral stance, causing great problems for the United States (Middle East specialist and former diplomat Edward Walker, a leading moderate). The actual record is quite different: For over 30 years, Washington has unilaterally barred a peaceful political settlement, with only slight and brief deviations.

The consistent rejectionism can be traced back to the February 1971 Egyptian offer of a full peace treaty with Israel, in the terms of official US policy, offering nothing for the Palestinians. Israel understood that this peace offer would put an end to any security threat, but the government decided to reject security in favor of expansion, then mostly into northeastern Sinai. Washington supported Israel’s stand, adhering to Kissinger’s principle of “stalemate”: force, not diplomacy. It was only 8 years later, after a terrible war and great suffering, that Washington agreed to Egypt’s demand for withdrawal from its territory.

Meanwhile the Palestinian issue had entered the international agenda, and a broad international consensus had crystallized in favor of a two-state settlement on the pre-June 1967 border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments. In December 1975, the UN Security Council agreed to consider a resolution proposed by the Arab “confrontation states” with these provisions, also incorporating the basic wording of UN 242. The US vetoed the resolution. Israel’s reaction was to bomb Lebanon, killing over 50 people in Nabatiye, calling the attack “preventive” – presumably to “prevent” the UN session, which Israel boycotted.

The rest is here

Labels: Israel, Lebanon, War On Terror

“The same media people that claim violence on TV doesn’t influence people, are perfectly willing to sell you advertising time.” ~Author Unknown

Television. What a wonderful invention. We’ve all had our parents tell us it’ll turn our brains to mush and make our eyes turn square. Well, this morning, I realised that it does.

My three year old daughter and I were having breakfast with BBC news on the telly and I realised that my daughter was motionless, spoon halfway back to her bowl of cereal after depositing its load of rice snaps in her mouth, which were now melting rather than being chewed.
She normally needs a little reminder to carry on when she is watching her programs, Peppa Pig and Ballamory and such like, because I presumed she understood vaguely what was going on. After all, they are aimed at her age group.
But this was the news, about Lebanon and floods and exam results and that dumpy feller who goes on about the stock market (at 7 in the morning? Surely it couldn’t be much different from when it closed yesterday at 5?)
We’ve all done it, though. Sat in front of the telly all evening watching stuff that doesn’t interest you, looking at the TV listings, repeating the mantra “There’s sod all on telly again tonight”, whilst flicking channels in the hope that the schedule’s been changed without any previous mention on the channel at all.
Sitting in a pub, there’s a telly on in the background, usually a portable on a hanger in the corner somewhere and your attention keeps getting caught by it, even though you don’t like the program, even though you can’t here what is being said, your eyes keep getting dragged back to it.
Why is that? Why can’t we not watch TV?

“Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know.” – Marvin Minsky

Got the title quote from here somewhere

Labels: Odds and Sods