Brexit & Royal Assent

As most of the world is aware by now, the United Kingdom voted in June to exit from the European Union.

While the vote is guidance for Parliament, the actual act of exiting the European Union (by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty) formally has not started by the House of Commons.

I wonder if Parliament passes a bill "activating" Article 50 by petitioning the European Council, what measures could be taken inside the UK to prevent the formal exit request?

In 1707, Queen Anne was the last British monarch to refuse royal assent to a bill of Parliament. Accordingly, the monarch has the constitutional authority to refuse royal assent (veto). By this way, could Queen Elizabeth II save her nation from potentially losing Scotland and Northern Ireland?

There be kings here!

Who knew that a king's final resting place could be under a parking lot?

It would seem that fate was true for English King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet family to rule, who died in battle over 500 years ago.

This only proves that in the end we are nothing but bones wedged under someone else's dirt. It's still terribly interesting!

Mitt the Twit

I couldn't have said it better myself than the English. I guess Mitt Romney wants to take credit for the London Olympics, even though he proclaimed them a singular failure. Mitt probably started the initial planning of the current games during the 2002 Winter Olympics, which were held in fabulous Salt Lake City, Utah, and the single-handed mastercraft of Mitt Romney.

Mitt stay classy!

The Iron Lady

I recently watched the movie, The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I was very taken with the movie. Partly, because of Streep's wonderful performance and how well her make-up was done to show an aged Thatcher. The movie portrays a modern Margaret Thatcher as her memories flash back to earlier episodes of her life, through her battle with dementia.

For me, the most poignant part of the movie is the very beginning. It shows Thatcher, who has escaped from her home under the nose of her personal bodyguards, to buy a pint of milk. Dressed in an overcoat and headscarf, her celebrity goes unnoticed by the other customers and Indian cashier, as she is asked to fork over an outrageous 49p for the milk. She looks overwhelmed by her surroundings as she walks down the sidewalk carrying her blue plastic grocery bag.

Sure, there are probably lots of liberties taken in the creation of this movie; however, I think it makes a very important statement about a world leader who was instrumental in many world events! Of course, Meryl Streep helps. :)

Michelle Obama violates the Queen's Majesty

British media is reporting that First Lady Michelle Obama broke protocol when she came in direct contact with the Queen's person. It would seem that the Queen has magical powers that demand the average person not touch her.

This is the 21st century. Let's get over it. There is no egregious sin committed by putting your hand on someone's back.

Olympics

Over the hundred-plus years the modern Olympic Games have been in existence, it has been a symbol of many things, including oppression.

The 2008 Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing, are no exception to this tradition. Already we have seen the Olympic torch bearers accosted on the streets of London, U.K., as they symbolically take the flame of peace and fraternity across the globe, before it arrives at its final destination, Beijing. The protesters, who tried to steal the flame away and extinguish it with a fire extinguisher, are showing support for the cause in Tibet. Tibet has been a shining symbol of oppressive government interference in the past decades, because of China's harsh treatment of its quasi-province, located in the Himalayan Mountains.

I have often wondered what Olympic organizers were thinking when they selected Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. China has been a hot-bed of human rights violations. How can the Olympic Games, which are the very essence of peace and equal rights, be seen as anything except an affront? Of course, China has spent billions of dollars to prepare for the Olympics Games, by building gigantic, unconventional complexes--I admire the architecture--to host the various sporting events, such as the National Stadium, which has an exoskeleton quality, and the National Aquatics Center, with its uncanny resemblance to water bubbles suspended in mid-air.

The Olympics always seem to bring out the worst in everyone involved. People are always willing to use the international platform to rant about their personal gripes, which is ironic, considering they were/are designed to bring out the best in all of us.

Hail Mary, full of grace, Tony Blair is with you

In order to create a Christmas-like atmosphere, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, orchestrated a real-life conversion from being a heretic Protestant by returning to the one, true Church, through communion of the saints.

(That's the official account of the conversion, at least.)

In other news, the Blair conversion caused his name to be crossed off of Bush's Good Old-Fashioned Crawford Ranch Christmas Soiree list, which is slated for Christmas Eve. Condi Rice stated, "President Bush cannot be expected to partake in holiday 'cheer' with non-evangelical Christians."

There you have it!

My Teddy Bear, Mohammed

It is wholly ironic that people would take to the streets in violent demonstration over a teacher who allowed her students to name a teddy bear, Mohammed.

We know, of course, that this incident is possible, considering a teacher was imprisoned after being found guilty of "insulting religion," and thrown into a Sudanese slammer for fifteen days. Gillian Gibbons, who is a teacher from the United Kingdom, was in Sudan teaching when the incident arose. Since her conviction, people have taken to the streets in protest, even calling for her execution as an infidel.

It seems as if these people need to take a "chill pill" and relax. I do not believe Christians would get upset over a teddy bear named Jesus. This unfortunate incident goes to the heart of a bigger issue, I believe. In any faith, it should be seen as excessive to protect the image of a mere mortal. People have gotten away with much worse crimes when it comes to insulting a religion other than naming a harmless toy after a religious figure.

Moreover, shouldn't the children in the teacher's classroom be punished as well, since they are the ones who named the teddy bear? Perhaps, I shouldn't say that, because they might find themselves being punished much more harshly since they are "practicing" Muslims.

In the spirit of religious tolerance, I am going to name my teddy bear, "Mohammed." But don't get worked up over it. He is a harmless, non-practicing Jew.

McCanns 'Flee' Portugal

Days after being named possible suspects in the May disappearance of their now-four year old daughter, Madeleine, Gerry and Kate McCann, have returned to their home in the United Kingdom.

The parents claim that their daughter, who was sleeping in the family's apartment, disappeared while they were out eating. The family also has two-year-old twins, who were in the apartment at the time, but they did not go missing.

The McCanns vowed to stay in Portugal to find their daughter, but seemingly changed their minds after the Portuguese authorities began to treat them as official suspects in their daughter's disappearance.

Gadhafi's kin knows how to party

Mohammed al-Sanussi, who is the nephew of Libyan de facto military ruler, Lt. Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, was charged with attacking two London-area call girls, in November 2006.

The two women allege that they were attacked at Sanussi's home. After a formal inquiry, by the Libyan government, the cases seem to have been resolved, outside of court. The British government stated that it had no impact on the direction of the case.

Furthermore, the two women stated that they seemingly feared for their lives. Perhaps, they believed, they were being followed. In the spirit of self-preservation, they have opted to not participate in the case, which caused it to be terminated.

I'd be getting back to Libya, just to be sure of the situation.

George & Gordon are friends, at last

In what may turn out to be a futile attempt at maintaining the support of the United Kingdom, George W. Bush hosted British prime minister, Gordon Brown, at Camp David over the weekend.

Since Tony Blair's departure, Bush may be alone in the world when it comes to his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, considering the UK was the United States' greatest ally and supporter in Bush's quest to bring "democracy" to the uncivilized world.

Considering Blair's resignation as prime minister was instigated--in part--by the unyielding war in Iraq, it will be advantageous for Brown to move in a different direction when it comes to his country's foreign policy, for his own sake, at least.

Britain, wazzup?

In the past two weeks, I have found myself thanking my lucky stars that I am not going to the United Kingdom for my summer holiday.

Why?

Well, it all started with the terrorist doctors. I mean, let's look at the facts. I go to the doctor (I love mine, and he's Lebanese), and it turns out the whole time he's just been using you as a front to plot terror against your country.

At what point do co-workers become oblivious to the professionals with whom they work?

Another tip-off to patients might be when your doctor wants to be paid for services with 25-kilogram bags of ammonium nitrate...hmmmm....not unrealistic. Everyone wants a nice, healthy garden, after all.

Then, on CNN, with my good friend, Christiane Amanpour, reporting, I see this Muslim extremist saying that some day Britain will submit to Shir'a (شريعة) law. Of course, I find this argument ludicrous, considering many of the Muslims they interviewed, on the street, had no clue what Shir'a law even was.

I guess that Muslim cleric is lucky he isn't in the United States, considering George W. Bush would have been all over him with a cattle prod, while simultaneously shipping him off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with a black back over his head, for an extended tropical holiday.

Of course, I do not support these actions.

Now there's the problem with the barbaric practice of female circumcision that has pitched up in Britain (yeah, my boyfriend is British, so I pick up a few of his sayings). According to sources, the practice is usually limited to first generation immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, though.

Don't get me wrong, I love the British. Most of my family came from there.

The bottom line is: every country has its problems.

Do we still need capital punishment?

We have come a long way from the capital punishment we have all seen in Westerns. Instead of tying ropes around the necks of the condemned and stringing them up from the nearest tree, we stick them with needles full of poison and electrocute them to death, while the rest of the civilized world looks on in horror.

Modern, civilized nations, like those of western Europe (France, United Kingdom, etc.), do not execute prisoners anymore. It is odd, I believe, that a country like the United States, which toots its own horn as being the most modern, democratic, humane country in the world, still practices a most barbaric ritual, state-sanctioned murder.

How many people must die, guilty or innocent, before we understand murder is simply murder? Just because twelve ill-informed peers, including a person in a black robe, sanction it, doesn't make it right.

We say that our methods of execution are not cruel or unusual. I am not sure any of those people who have been executed would not agree with this assessment. When it takes an hour for someone to die a slow, agonizing death as they lay strapped to a gurney, with onlookers standing behind a glass, it is hard to accept that death, in this fashion, is humane.

More and more states have adopted lethal injection as their preferred method of execution. We learn more about it from each instance it is used. What we have learned is it may be most cruel of all methods of execution used in this country in the past fifty years. It sounds nice (well, as nice as death can be): you are strapped down to a hospital gurney, someone with as little medical knowledge and experience as possible attempts to connect IVs to your arm, then they feed a cocktail of death directly into your veins. First, they want to put you into a deep sleep so you are oblivious to what his going on, then they want to inject a little drug into you that paralyzes your diaphragm, so you stop breathing, then they finish you off with an injection that stops your heart from beating.

Poof, you're gone; dead as a box full of door nails, or so they hope.

Many times, you're not as lucky, if you're the condemned. The person administering the cocktail is inexperienced with medical procedures. Your executioner may be a high school drop out, lucky you! Other times, the drugs they use are not enough to do the job adequately, considering the prescribed dosage fails to do the job as anticipated. Your prognosis: a slow, painful death.

Families of the condemned are left behind to pick up the pieces. They are the last hope for a truly humane way of dying. Perhaps, they are even the last hope for having capital punishment, in the United States, banned altogether.

Some people, like the mother of Joseph Clark, a man who was executed in Ohio by lethal injection, in 2006, are calling into question the practice of lethal injection, by suing the Ohio state prisons.

Clark was forced to endure over ninety minutes of confusion, pain, and cruel torture as his executioners muddled their way through the botched procedure. You know it is pretty bad when the condemned individual is fully awake and assisting in his own execution. He even asked, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"

In America, we must ask ourselves if it is really worth the effort to execute prisoners. Is it worth the price of killing men and women for crimes they may or may not have committed? How high must the the price finally be before we say it is too high?

Terrorism in the United Kingdom

Since Friday, I have been keeping up with the events surrounding two vehicles, in London, which were loaded with explosives and shrapnel. Luckily, those car bombs did not detonate, because the police were alerted to their presence. Then, yesterday, we had the car bombing at the airport in Glasgow, Scotland.

Several people have been arrested in the Scotland attack, but we are still not certain for whom these individuals work. Some say it is al Qaeda, but the link is not quite certain.

UK scraps Blair

At the end of June, British Prime Minister Tony Blair will step down as the leader of the Labour Party, and effectively as prime minister.

What does this mean for the people of Great Britain?

Like many people in the United States, they are outraged at the war in Iraq, even though their part is much smaller than the United States' position, it is still key. The main concern is will the British withdraw their troops from Iraq. I suppose it depends on whether the Labour Party can maintain its superior position in Parliament. Certainly, there are many elements in the government that would bring the British troops home.

Tit-for-Tat

Last week, after the Iranian government decided to free the British naval servicemen, who they had captured inside of Iraqi waters, now want the British government to show its appreciation by giving something equally valuable to the Iranian people.

As a result of their unfettered kindness, Iran called the release of the hostages "a gift to the British people." What kind of action do they anticipate be shown for their affection toward the people of England? Do they want appeasement for their nuclear program? (Probably.) Do they want the the United Kingdom to pressure the United States over its policies in the Middle East? (Definitely.)

What will the British give the Iranians in return? Absolutely nothing.

It is certain that the government of Iran will be looking for new bargaining chips in the future. Perhaps, they will get lucky and seize another British patrol (or dare I say an American one). This time it is safe, however, to bet these sailors will not be treated as kindly as their predecessors.

Iran is working diligently to turn world attention away from its nuclear ambitions. It is confident to assume they believed the alleged trespassing of British soldiers in sovereign Iranian waters, and their subsequent release to their home country, would bolster their image with other countries in the Middle East region, and the world, in general.

It may prove harder for Iran to garner that kind of favor, though. They may learn that it takes more than a ship full of European sailors--even with letters of apology written under duress, a visit from the president, and a quick exit home--to appear all cuddly and trustworthy.

Iran Protests at the British Embassy

It would seem the tensions between the United Kingdom and Iran have escalated. Iranians have mounted a violent protest outside the British embassy in Tehran. Reports indicate that rocks and firecrackers were the protesters' weapons of choice. The protesters demanded an apology from the British government over their claim that British naval vessels violated Iranian waters over a week ago, which resulted in the capture of British naval officers.

Pinochet Saga Ends

Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet, the one time dictator of Chile, has died today, in Santiago. I hope this puts an end to the whirlwind of attempted prosecution of this old man. The United Kingdom began it all by arresting him almost ten years ago and holding him based on an arrest warrant issued by a Spanish judge.

The British found he could not be extradited from England and he was released from house arrest, when he then returned to Chile. He was then held on various charges ranging from murder to extortion to money laundering. Basically, the last ten years of his life have been spent under house arrest.

The lesson? Be careful what enemies you make and be sure you have enough friends to keep you out of trouble once you're no longer in office!

Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa

I love this lady. She is the president of the 61st United Nations General Assembly. She has more power suits than Hillary Clinton (but I guess I would, too, if my great-grandfather had been a king and my cousin was the current king). While addressing the General Assembly, she moves easily from English to Arabic in mid-sentence and then back again (I think just to have fun with the translators).

Who is this lady? She is the second female lawyer in her country, the tiny kingdom of Bahrain off of the coast of Saudi Arabia. She is also the first Bahraini female to become an ambassador.

Overall, she is the epitome of social change in the Middle East. Imagine twenty-five years ago, a Muslim woman would never have become an ambassador, much less, president of the UN General Assembly.

It's a big deal on many levels.

Bush Toppled in the United Kingdom

I woke up this morning to the news coming out of London. I hadn't even given thought to the possibility of an attack taking place during the G8 summit, but it makes perfect sense.

As we know, Great Britian is George Bush's lap dog in Iraq. There has been strong opposition to Blair's support of Washington. I believe, like in Madrid, this may put the final nails into Bush's metaphorical coffin, regarding his London support.

And we were all led to believe that since the fall of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, we could rest easy knowing we had destroyed international terrorism. Wasn't that they reason for invading Iraq????? Or was it???

Hmmmm......