Posts Tagged ‘politics+religion’
Blur resigns
Finally, Tony Blur announces his resignation … he’ll leave on June 27th – yay!
ETA: BBC report
The news sources are reporting that Saddam was executed last night – I know my mum will be glad that we were safely home before they hanged him because she was concerned of reprisals, but there wasn’t any evidence of heightened security so I don’t think there was any serious threat. (We were also on a small flight in to Canada – if it had a been a bigger flight in to the States I might have been a little concerned, but even then it was really, really unlikely.) Anyway, weren’t the US/UK meant to be seen as liberators? 
Harper avoids the AIDS conference
As expected, the Canadian Prime Minister distanced himself from the AIDS Conference yesterday – while the opening ceremony happened in Toronto, Stephen Harper was in Nunavut.
On CP24 they’re running a telephone poll asking if Harper should apologise for not attending the conference – I don’t think he should. (Huh?) One should only apologise if one is sorry, and given he had about four years’ warning of this event I very much doubt it was an accidental scheduling conflict.
The biggest problem, I think, is that his absence has a knock-on effect – diplomatic protocol (as I understand it) is not to send more senior representatives that the host country, which means national leaders can’t attend if they wanted.
Breaking news? Really?
I just got a BBC News alert saying “President Bush says much of the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war was wrong, but says the decision to oust Saddam Hussein was right.” That’s news, is it? Hasn’t the rest of the world been saying the war wasn’t justified for months years?
If I could vote…
I can’t vote in the forthcoming Canadian election (being as I’m not a Canadian citizen) but I thought I’d try out CBC’s Vote By Issue quiz to see who would get my vote, and the result was pretty inconclusive:
You agreed with Jack Layton on 9 issues, Stephen Harper on 8 issues, Paul Martin on 7 issues, and Gilles Duceppe on 6 issues;
You disagreed with Jack Layton on 3 issues, Stephen Harper on 4 issues, Paul Martin on 5 issues, and Gilles Duceppe on 6 issues.
Hmmm, so it looks like the NDP by the smallest of margins.
Meanwhile, back in Blighty, I hope the new Conservative shadow cabinet will actually provide proper opposition to Blair’s motley crew. It’s a shame there’s not been a proper leader since Mrs. Thatcher. Oh, and I agree with the idea of English-only voting on English issues; it’s not fair that the Scots, Welsh and Irish each have their own bodies where only local MPs can vote, but they all get to vote on English issues in the House of Commons. Of course suggesting there be an English-only anything is usually met with cries of racism; it’s fine to have Scottish-only etc. but somehow we’re the racists. Yeah, right.
