Sim-O

Mark Steel:

To reinforce his image, his response to the thrown shoes was to suggest that Mr al-Zaidi was “just trying to draw attention to himself.” Yes that’s it. He might say it was a protest about the war and occupation, but really he’s an exhibitionist who was turned down for Iraq’s Got Talent so he threw the shoes as a desperate attempt to get on the telly.

BBC:

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has sparked controversy by saying a Palestinian state would provide “a national solution” for Israel’s Arabs.

Politicians from the minority Arab community have demanded she clarify if it means that Arabs citizens will face loss of rights in Israel or expulsion.

Israeli politicians have long grappled with the issue of a growing proportion of ethnic Arabs in the Jewish state.
[…]
In remarks to school children broadcast on Israeli radio, Ms Livni’s said her solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel was “to have two distinct national entities”.

“Among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel… and tell them: ‘Your national aspirations lie elsewhere.'”

Translation: Fuck Off

Whatever way you look at it, it is a clear message to the Arab-Israelis that they are not wanted.
We think we’ve got problems with [anti-]immigration minister Woolas. At least he only wants to stop people coming in. All the top Israeli politicians want to get rid of a large swathe of existing members of the country. And nearly all of those can claim to be more native than the Israelis wanting to get rid of them.

CommonDreams.org:

Governments from around the world today began signing an international convention banning the production of cluster bombs…There will, however, be a number of notable absentees, including the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan as well as Israel, which fired many cluster bombs during the 2006 Lebanon war

It’s a start…

Via

BBC:

The jury at the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes will not be able to consider a verdict of unlawful killing, the coroner has said.

Sir Michael Wright said that having heard all the evidence, a verdict of unlawful killing was “not justified”.

The title is obviously based on what Henry Ford told his customers with regard to the colour they could have their Model T painted.
The jury in the inquest have been told a similar thing, any verdict as long as it isn’t the polices fault.
The jury can return an open or narrative verdict or one of lawful killing. Oh, the narrative must not blame the police. It wasn’t their fault you see. They weren’t there. Hadn’t been to Stockwell for a couple of days actually. Ask Dave. He’ll tell you. The police were with him. All day.

The jury must place the fault at the feet of either Jean Charles de Menezes, the victim, or on absolutley no one at all because Cressida Dick, and that is a Disney villian name if ever I heard one, the police chief bore “no personal culpability” at the trial of the Met that found them guilty of, an understated charge, of Endangering the Public under Health and Safety. Where or not Cressida is personally responsible or not, I don’t know, but the police as a body are.

Lets look at the facts:
The rozzers have been found guilty of endangering the public but the inquest cannot find that a man was killed by that transgression (is that the proper use of that word?). If the inquest did find that de Menezes was killed by the police breaking H & S law, then that would mean the police were guilty of unlawfully killing someone.

1. A jury cannot return a verdict of unlawful killing of a man the police shot dead after wrongly identifying him
2. the police were found guilty of ‘endangering the public’, under H&S law
3. as a direct result of the police ‘endangering the public’ a man has died.
4. if a man is wrongly jailed, due to mistaken identity, would he be lawfully imprisoned? No, of course not.

According to my logic, items 2 & 3 points to police being responsible for Jean Charles death and item shows he was unlawfully killed.
This means that the jury are being told to return a false verdict.
Jean Charles de Menezes didn’t die from misadventure.
Or by an accident.
Or by suicide.
Or from natural causes.
Or because he was on a wanted list.

Or from a long rambling story that doesn’t involve the words ‘identity’, ‘mistaken’, ‘shoot’, ‘police’ or ‘sniper’.

Boston Standard:

Treo, a black Labrador, and his handler Cpl David Heyhoe, 39, of New York, have been stationed in Afghanistan for the last six months.

The duo are responsible for sniffing out hidden explosives to protect the other troops, as part of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.

Now, through The Sun newspaper’s Military Awards, or the Millies, you can recognise their efforts.

Nothing wrong with a paper nominating anyone for a comedy medal that the armed forces don’t seem too keen on, then you’ve at least got to say what the nominee has done more than just their job.

And surely there’s someone more deserving that needs a mention than a fucking dog.

Clarkson in The Sun talking about The Millies:

I’M startled nobody has thought of doing this before.

It is like someone turning round and saying “God, I’ve just invented the plug for the electricity” and people saying “We’ve had electricity, but we’ve never had a plug.”

Oh, come on Jezza. You’re likening the armed forces and these tin-foil awards to electricity and plugs? A plug is an intergral part of an electrical appliance. The armed forces will work fine without these fake gongs.

It’s such a good idea.
Until now there has only been a very formal structure for awarding military medals and this is a great way of getting a wider audience.

A good idea for who, I wonder? What wider audience?

The truth is the military are very good at fighting wars, but very bad at telling people how they did it.

Maybe they’re not bad at telling how they fight wars, just they don’t want to tell how they do it.

This gives The Sun an opportunity to tell people what happened in a more exciting way.

Bingo! There’s the money shot. So that’s why it’s a good idea. It gives The Sun, not the forces, not the MOD, but The Sun an opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of the armed forces.

Its a pity that they don’t see it that way.

More on The Millies from The Sun Lies.

[[image:shanacar460.jpg:Fadel Shanas’ car:left:0]]It was never going to be anything else, was it?

The Guardian:

Reuters has said it is “deeply disturbed” that the Israeli military has decided the tank crew that killed one of the news agency’s cameramen and eight young bystanders in the Gaza Strip four months ago will not face legal action.

Israel’s senior military advocate-general told the London-based news agency in a letter sent on Tuesday that the official report into the incident concluded that troops could not see whether Reuters’ Fadal Shana, 24, was operating a camera or a weapon.
…
In the letter to Reuters, Brigadier General Avihai Mendelblit, the IDF’s advocate-general, wrote: “The tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar or a television camera.”…and the fact that Shana and his soundman were wearing body armour, “common to Palestinian terrorists”, as reasons for the tank crew being suspicious of his activities.

Some other things “common to Palestinian terrorists”: driving cars, travelling around in groups of 2 or more, wearing clothes, carrying things, eating and breathing.

Zionist cunts.

Lenins’ Tomb:

The ubiquitous “analysts” are also agreed that this crisis has checked NATO’s eastward expansion for the time being. However, this doesn’t mean the crisis is over. The longer term effect of this war will be to sharpen the struggle for energy resources and to increase America’s determination to somehow rein in the local power. Russia will almost certainly throw its weight around a lot more in the Caucasus and Central Asia, probably arming and subsidising local proxies. America and those who support it globally will flood regional allies with weapons and money, build up the ‘lily-pads’, support any potentially secessionist current within Russia, anything that might be destabilising and drain resources, try to lure the country into a war it can’t win, and so on. In short, as I’ve said, we’ve just watched the world become more dangerous. Those who thought it would improve stability if US power was ‘balanced’ by two, three, many imperialisms were mistaken. Watch the arms race resume, see that new generation of nuclear weapons proliferate, observe as the mini-conflicts and conflagrations sponsored by different players leave thousands dead, and witness the deadly escalation in global tensions… and then you’ll see what I mean.

[[image:06-08-2008_21-13-06.jpg:20-08-08 StWC:center:0]]
Stop the War Coalition:

It is a disgrace that New Labour is still supporting these [Iraq & Afghanistan] wars. Gordon Brown has promised to schedule getting the troops out of Iraq, but there are still thousands there and the government has increased its war budget this year. The billions being spent on war could be used to invest in housing, pensions and services.

For all these reasons Stop the War is calling for the widest possible support for the demonstration at Labour’s conference on September 20th. Please tell your friends and workmates about the demonstration.

Look at the pictures.

[[image:karadzic_1995.jpg:Karadzic circa 1995:left:0]][[image:karadzic.jpg:karadzic before and after a shave circa 2008:inline:0]]

The first is Karadzic circa 1995 (original from here) and the second are before and after his shave this year.

How much persuasion had to happen to get him to have a shave and look like the eviiil bastard pictured in ’95 again?
I’m not entirely sure. You’d have thought (well I do anyway) that after having grown and nurtured a beaut of a beard like that for so long that matey would’ve been a bit reluctant to lose it and end up looking like Mr Murder again.

Perhaps that’s where Saddam went wrong…?