Sharon

Sharon has actually already checked out, but, it looks like the docs won't admit it until they try to take him off the machines. His body might still be functioning (sort of) but *he* is gone. When I said I wanted him out office, this wasn't what I had in mind, but at the age of 77, and with a full life behind him, I'm ok with it. I actually liked the guy. Once, in the Knesset cafeteria he mispronounced Kiryat Shmonah, and I corrected him. I correct everyone who says it wrong. He laughed and told me "good for you, keep it up" Other people I've corrected have been less nice about it. Yup, Sharon was a nice guy, his politics not withstanding.
Sharon did so many good things for the country that I can almost forgive his last two years and write them off as some form of Old Age Dementia He served the country his whole life.
The reaction in Gaza is disgusting, only Gaza, mind you, the West Bankers seem to have a bit more sense. The Gazans are having kids walk around with misspelled signs saying Deat To Sharon and other such slogans. Odd that they were all together for the news crews. Don't they realize how things like that look to outsiders? When Ara'fart' croaked there was none of that here even though many of us were happily rejoicing, but not for the press or foreign consumption. Abu Mazzen has completely lost control and has no way to stop them from giving the so called Palestinians a public relations black eye. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to start shooting kassams again.They seem to be a bit nervous about how we might react.It's interesting that just about every country in the world, including the Arab ones have new crews camped out at the hospital.
The Lebanese guy who spoke for his government almost seemed to be warning the various katyusha shooters to lay low. We'll know soon enough if he got the message across or not. It would be a very bad idea to escalate things up here.
I am hopeful that the new party Sharon started with all those corrupt politicos will self destruct. For now Ehud Olmart is acting P.M. and he's capable enough. The amusing thing is that he and others are going on and on about continuing "Sharon's Path". Ok, which one? For every stated position of his in the last two years, he has at least two, and sometimes three others, diametrically opposed to each other. He said one thing and did another too many times to count. I'm not sure Olmart is strong enough to carry the election. I certainly hope not.