the corner office

The attacks in London today didn't result in casualties - it seems the bombs didn't go off, and another tragedy was averted. It's still pretty damned sobering - if 2 weeks ago wasn't a once-off, just how many more attacks do these people have planned?

On another note, Vaz doesn't like the draft Iraqi bill of rights. I don't blame him. Lovely stuff - Sharia Law, a woman's duty to her family, dripping with hatred of Israel and Israelis, personal freedoms subjugate to 'moral values and public decency' blah blah. No small irony if after all the bloodshed in Iraq, the country gets 'liberated' just so that it can become another medieval hell-hole, like Iran.

(Update: having read through the document Vaz links to, the anti-Israeli stuff seems to have been removed in later drafts, and to be fair, there's a lot of nice touchy-feely stuff about equality and protection under law and all that stuff - but all with the rider that if it conflicts with Islam and Sharia law, well, sorry for you. Perhaps it is a reasonably balanced document for a conservative country very mindful of its main religion. Let's be honest, you could swap the world 'Islam' with 'Christian' and by and large it's a document that many of the Christian Right would say is eminently reasonable, nay, desirable. Having said that, the issue remains: qualifying fundamental rights with 'subject to Sharia' means they're not really being regarded as fundamental rights at all. Least of all if these qualifications end up being loopholes to allow or turn a blind eye to the kinds of abuses that happen in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. Then again, to be fair, it's not like our own South African Constitution is bullet-proof when it comes to special interests, and we've done OK so far.)