Focus on your own damn family

Crashing like waves upon the sand

The death toll from the Java tsunami is now up to 80 according to the BBC (over a 100 according to the NOS), with more feared dead. Though, of course, still pale in comparison to the 2004 Christmas tsunami.

Dutch news agencies are reporting it's not known yet if any Dutch nationals died. Does that matter? Is a European life really so much more valuable than that of an Indonesian person? I understand relatives here would want to know if anything happened, but the Foreign Office always sets up special phone lines at embassies for that purpose. Should the rest of us have to be made aware of the grieving of fellow nationals? (NOS, BBC)

posted by Foeke @ 11:10 PM 41 comments links to this post

Are you suggesting Marilyn Musgrave has a brain?

• The office of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in England is going to be prosecuted for

  "failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare"

  after they shot an innocent man in the head 7 times on July 22nd last year. Did they seriously need an investigation to determine that blowing someone's brains out is bad for their health, safety and welfare? (BBC)
• The US House of Representatives is once again going to vote on a Federal Marriage Amendment, after a similar measure was defeated earlier this year. The amendment was introduced by homo-obsessed Marilyn Musgrave from Colorado. (Washington Blade)
  
• While Europeans and Americans are getting the hell out of Lebanon, the Lebanese are fleeing to the Syrian border in an attempt to escape the Israeli attacks. A proposed UN peace force would stop Hezbollah from firing any further missiles into northern Israel and thus give the Israelis no reason to continue their attacks on Beirut. Meanwhile, fighting also continues in the Gaza strip. (NOS)
• A tsunami has struck the coastline of the Indonesian island of Java, and although it has taken 5 lives so far, fortunately it is by far less strong than the devastating wave that hit coasts all across the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Strangely, Christmas Island - home to a tsunami warning system - did not record any unusual activity. (NOS)
  

posted by Foeke @ 4:35 PM 0 comments links to this post

Fortune vomits down our eiderdown once more

• The UN's Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and the British PM Tony Blair want an international peace keeping force to be sent to Lebanon to defuse and monitor the situation. While I welcome anything that might stop the current situation from growing even worse and more civilians getting caught in the crossfire, peace keeping missions haven't always been succesful. (BBC)
  
• A judge in Belgium - which allows practically full equality under the law for same-sex couples - has not been deemed a "disgrace to his office" after he said that gays

  "must not alleviate the abnormal to normality"

  and called two married men asking for a loan

  "in violation of public order and proper values."

  What a judge has to do c.q. say in Belgium contrary to the law he was appointed to uphold in order for him to receive a warning or penalty is quite beyond me. (Gay News)
• At the Yugoslavia Tribunal in the Hague, prosecutor Carla del Ponte was forced to cease her opening speech and sit down, because her words were deemed fit for the formal opening statements - which do not take place until August 21st. I'm not sure exactly why they opened the trial of these 7 men accused of genocide and war crimes if the prosecutor can't talk. (CNN)
  

posted by Foeke @ 10:07 AM 0 comments links to this post

This peace is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late peace.

I just heard on the BBC news that a senior Israeli military officer has said that the Hezbollah arms are being supplied by Iran, although the Iranian Foreign Office denies those allegations.

What does Israel want to do? Bomb Lebanon, Syria AND Iran? They're being so fucking self-righteous it's infuriating. Why did the oppressed become an oppressor? These actions are planting the seeds for generations more of hatred towards Israel and Judaism - and it's the children of the people living now that're going to reap the bitter fruits of this feud.

Why couldn't the Promised Land be an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? It's a cruel God, if there is one. (BBC)

posted by Foeke @ 11:14 PM 0 comments links to this post

Common sense is the least common of the senses.

• French president Jacques Chirac warns that "Africans will flood the world" if more is not done to alleviate the continent from poverty and hunger. Thousands of Africans make the dangerous and extremely expensive journey from the Sub-Saharah regions to the African west coast to sail to the Canary Islands and from there gain entrance to Europe - all in a desperate attempt to have some sort of life. Meanwhile, the EU and US protect their own farmers with subsidies Third World farmers cannot compete with. (BBC)
  
• Bantz Craddock, currently the general overseeing Guantánamo Bay, has been chosen as the new military leader of the NATO, although the US senate still has to confirm his appointment. Do we really want someone who defends an extra-judicial camp like Guantánamo against all criticism heading this organisation? (BBC)
• The University of Louisville in Kentucky has adopted a measure allowing for same-sex domestic partners to receive health care benefits. Subsequently, state senator Dick (!) Roeding calls the plan
  
  

  "repulsive"

  
  and contemplates introducting legislation reversing the university's decision. (Washington Blade)
• Good As You's Jeremy Hooper has parodied the infamous American "baptists" of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. Whereas those insane, frothing inbreeds keep telling the other 5,999,999,880 people they're going to hell - Hooper instead tells everyone they're damned to go to Montana...
  
  
  

posted by Foeke @ 7:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

Flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate...

Today dans le monde...

• This Wednesday, the Dutch Lesbian & Gay Federation, the Persian Gay & Lesbian Organisation and the International Federation of Iranian Refugees are organising a meeting at the Gay Memorial in Amsterdam to commemmorate the 1st anniversary of the deaths of Mahmoud Asgari en Ayaz Marhoni, two youths who were hanged July 19th last year in Iran - allegedly on account of their sexuality. Earlier this year, our lovely minister Rita Verdonk wanted to send gay Iranian asylum seekers back, because they're safe "as long as they stay in the closet". (COC)
  
• So far, at least a 100 Lebanese and eight Israeli civilians have died in the rapidly escalating conflict in the Middle-East. Martial law has now been invoked throughout northern Israel, replacing the regular system of law and justice. Apparantly, fifteen Lebanese refugees asked to be given asylum in a UN base and were refused - and subsequently killed. Most European embassies are now evacuating their citizens to Cyprus. (Amnesty)
  
• After earlier setbacks in New York and Georgia, courts in Nebraska and Tennessee have ruled respectively that denying marriage equality does not violate the equal protection clause of the US constitution and that Tennessee citizens can vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (Washington Blade)
  
• The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a measure calling on all UN member states not to sell arms or warfare technology to North Korea. The measure comes after totalitarian dictator Kim Jong-il tested long-range missiles that could reach the United States. The resolution was toned down under pressure from China, including the removal of a reference to article 7 of the UN constitution which allows for military intervention to enforce resolutions. (NOS)
  

posted by Foeke @ 12:43 PM 0 comments links to this post