Mid-week miscellaneous: Buses, Food, Iran

The 973 and 974 buses were full yet again today, so people seem to be sticking with public transport. Bouquets to Birkenhead Transport for stepping up with enough buses to make sure everyone gets on one sooner rather than later.

It rained every 15 minutes in Albany, all day long.....I swear. I bought an umbrella.

Went to Valentines near Wairau Valley for dinner with the family. Fourth time in my life I've ever been to a Valentines, and never the same one twice. As it happened, it was "Curry night" and I'm a sucker for chicken korma, butter chicken, chicken tika masala....etc....etc. Keep'em coming. Today I eat. Tomorrow I....don't.

Read in the news that US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, has gone all warm and fuzzy toward Iran. She has even given Iran two more weeks to stop enriching uranium or they will face the consequences. As an incentive to comply within the two weeks, Rice promised Iran would not face any MORE sanctions if they do.

This struck me as weirdly aligned with domestic bullies who promise not to beat their victims any harder or more often than usual if they do as they are told.

Rice's offer seems guaranteed to fail and that appears to be the US's intention. They tried for a whole week to be nice to the Iranians....even promising not to punish them any more than they already are (for things no one has proven they did).....and they got nowhere. What a bunch of charlies. So the US is now back to the previously scheduled build-up to war. The whole 'play nice' thing was apparently nothing more than a stunt, a rush PR job to declare diplomacy a failure.

Let's not forget that the US has never presented any proof at all that Iran actually has a nuclear weapons program.

The US's apparent timetable, commented on by me in several posts in recent months, for some sort of conflict (US or Israel, or both) with Iran in August or shortly after, appears to be back on track. Just in time to get in the way of the US elections.

Oh yeah...and Happy Birthday to me.