Royal Wedding

I really don't get all this hype about the wedding. I would understand that people  would watch it, that makes some sense, as they're public figures and would probably become quite influential in the future, but it's been going on for the past 4 months. It seems nothing else is going on in the world except for this wedding.


This is mad, because some of the biggest changes in the century (short as it is for now) might be happening right now. The Middle Eastern Arab Spring is far from over. In Syria, people are being killed on a daily basis fighting for the same rights we take for granted every single day. In Libya, the rebels have managed to retake parts of a city that has been under siege for the past two months.
All I hear about, however, is this wedding. 


If you think all is but gloom and doom in the world and you think the Royal Wedding would be a distraction, why not read about Israel being the first country in the world to launch a nationwide electric grid for cars ?
Or as much as you might hate Lady Gaga, you can read about her donating $1 million to charity?

Instead you are overexcited about a wedding of people who are taking your money away if you pay taxes in Britain for an overindulged ceremony which will last several hours and not achieve anything more than spending millions of dollars for some hand-waving like the Queen.

End rant!

Goldstone Report Summary (with hindsight)

Goldstone's op-ed

Interesting read.

Points to make:
First of all; - Mr Goldstone does not retract nor regret his original report and stands by it, all he says is that some of the conclusions would have been different as explained below:
- Hamas is guilty of crimes against civilians
- Hamas has not done any proper investigations
- Goldstone had hoped that it would make Hamas more responsible and create its own investigations
- Israel is not targeting civilians as a matter of policy and any commander being found guilty of purposefully attacking civilians will be held accountable
- Goldstone also thinks that if Israel and/or Hamas had cooperated the report would have been more accurate, since it was based on facts known to him at the time (seems to always be the case, since you cannot know what you would know in the future o.O)
- Goldstone supports the application of international law in any armed conflicts (both symmetric and asymmetric warfare) and he believes that thanks to this report both the Palestinian Authority and Israel (not Hamas) have undertaken policy changes to curtail the suffering of innocent civilians.