July 22, 1946: The Zionist militant group Irgun bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British Mandate Secretariat in Palestine. A total of 91 people were killed. The Irgun were led by Menachem Begin, who was subsequently Prime Minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983.

"I made it clear to the Congress that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line. I felt like crossing this line would be a mistake, and once crossed, we would find it almost impossible to turn back."

- George W Bush, 19.7.06, speaking out against the innocent killing of human life. Not the people of Lebanon, but embryonic stem cells.

As I've said many times before there's nothing magical about the "blog", and certainly nothing exalted about the "blogger", but yesterday (July 21) was the second birthday of now.rickeyre.com in a blog format.

It started briefly on the Mambo CMS (now Joomla) before I turned to Wordpress. (Messages dated before July 2004 on this blog have been re-posted retrospectively, having been written elsewhere.)

A protracted colonial war:

Tariq Ali's excellent op-ed in today's Guardian on the Israel v The Rest conflict.

"Yo Blair!"
- George W Bush, G8 summit, St Petersburg, 17.7.06

(Source: Adam Boulton, Sky News UK)

Human Rights Watch has today released a Q&A paper which attempts to outline the rules of international law that apply in the current conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah. They make no attempt to assess the legitimacy of either side's move to resort to war. The stated purpose of the document is to "provide analytic guidance for those who are examining the fighting as well as for the parties to the conflict and those with the capacity to influence them."

Pray for peace in the Middle East.

Pray for an end to the hostilities between the Israeli Defence Forces and the Hezbollah militants, and between the Israeli Defence Forces and the militants of the Palestinian Territories.

And before we go this evening, a late football result:

The full-time score from next round's Serie B match in Turin:

Juventus 0 Lazio 1.

In the week in which Percy Sonn has ascended to the presidency of the ICC, comes the news that Northern Territory member of parliament Len Kiely has resigned from all his official posts following an action-packed day in the territory government's corporate box on the opening day of the