Festival of Nausea. Again, when I travel I am forced to consume US TV "news" media, which are far more unintelligent than the print media. I saw that all networks went into live coverage of Bush's speech on Avian Flu. This guy can barely speak coherently or intelligibly on political issues, and the media are really interested on hearing him pontificate on medical issues? What is next? Tune in for Bush's speech on microeconometrics? And today was Rafiq Hariri's birthday, and the Lebanese media (all of them) amount to a festival of nausea. Every politician and journalist had to write his thoughts, in the style of elementary school compositions but with less thoughtfulness and less eloquence, about this birthday. You have to say this about Hariri: he really harmed Lebanon and Syria when he was alive, and he really harms Lebanon and Syria (the countries, as I don't care about the regimes) while dead. Saw some of the footage of the UN Security Council meeting. Next time you see that, look at Annan. Look how pathetic he looks always looking in the direction of the US representative waiting for clues and instructions. And the exchange between Straw and Shar` was just unbelievable. Straw was deliberately demagogic deciding to invoke the memory of the innocent victims of Sep. 11, Madrid, and London bombings, as if this is related to the Hariri assassination. Shar`, who in the Syrian foreign service is only noted for his arrogance and conceit, was so weak and so on the defensive, and typical of Syrian "diplomacy" wants to have it both ways about the mehlis report. I wonder what bush thinks about allergies and hay fever? Will he soon give a speech on that now that he has educated himself on medical issues. And what happened to the spy scandal involving AIPAC officials? has any members of Congress spoken out on that? Anyone? I doubt that. And the Time magazine article on the Madinah bank in Beirut mention but does not name Ilyas Murr. Murr has struck a deal with the Hariri Inc and this explains why the Mehlis team initially lifted banking secrecy on his account, but then changed its mind, and apologized. This explains why his name was not mentioned in the report although he and his father were mere tools for more than a decade of Kan`an and then Ghazalah. I was told that Ghazalah used to enjoy making Michel Al-Murr wait on the street before he lets him into his office in Beirut. What a bunch: the old and the new. You look around and you do not see anybody in Lebanon darling to defy, daring to challenge. Oh, and what are "new potatoes"? Are they different from old potatoes. They taste the same to me.