Verbal Diary

Check me out. Over a week with no posting. No particular reason, just wasn't really interested enough by anything to write about it.
I did use the time to read other people's blogs, all the ones on my list and many others, and was quite surprised at how many reasons I saw there are for actually blogging - some do it to vent, some do it for money, some do it in a genuine desire to inform, some are on an ego trip, some are just keeping a journal.
Personally, I do it because a drinking buddy told me I was one of his Pepys.

And now, on to stuff that's been annoying me.
Guest (n.) - One who is a recipient of hospitality at the home or table of another.

Why do we still refer to the Palestinians in Lebanon as guests? Why do they have more weapons and autonomy inside our country than we do? Why do we accept that they be used as another way for Syria to terrorize and intimidate us?
If in any other country foreign guests decided to take potshots at officers of the law in the course of carrying out their duties, those guests' feet wouldn't touch the ground as they were rapidly and very forcefully dealt with, with incarcerations and deportations and other good stuff all round. A spokesman for the Palestinian group said that, apparently, the officers had provoked the gunman - of course they did, they were bill-collecting.
A strong response from the Lebanese government is required.

How can we be expected to have a 'normal' relationship with Syria, as suggested by Saud Prince Saud al-Faisal? Until the truth comes out about the killings and disappearances there can't be any real reconciliation. Draw as many border lines as you like, exchange diplomatic representations and words until you are blue in the face but the underlying problem is still there.
Commissions for Truth and Reconciliation under various names have been put to work in countries from South Africa to Fiji and maybe something along those lines is needed here.

Then I think about it a bit longer and laugh at the thought of any of the main protagonists being honest about anything.

Also, happy thoughts what with the Iranian government pursuing nuclear capabilities. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that a stable, democratic regime run by rational, progressive, liberal technocrats are developing the ability to blow the Middle East back to the Middle Ages.
Although some of you naysayers might say that it would only take a very small explosion to push us back there (and in some aspects you are correct) this does have major repercussions for the rest of the world. If Pakistan, being West-friendly, got busted for disseminating nuclear technology throughout the Islamic world for money, can you imagine what could happen if Iran decided to pass on their know-how or even worse, the finished product, to their allies and protégés?

Gordon Brown thinks we should have a day to celebrate "Britishness". All I really want to say on the matter is this - before being British, I'm English. Can we sort that out first?
I am not spitting on the Union flag, quite the opposite, but there's no way I'm going to celebrate yet another attempt to make England and all that she stands for, irrelevant. While we're on the subject, one of the always brilliant gifts I got from my mam for Christmas was a leather passport cover from Smythson. In black leather, it has embossed on the top front "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". The wonderfully cheeky part was the 3 lions covering the rest of it.

Oh crap, there's that warm, fuzzy feeling again. Have a good weekend.