Moving Forward

One key bit of news should help Israel along; PM Olmert is stepping aside. He'll stay around until his Kadima party elects a replacement, who will then have to either patch together a majority government or head to new elections.

Olmert had very little personal power, as Kadima was essentially Ariel Sharon's creation and Olmert was more of a caretaker once Sharon's stroke put him out of commission. I had to check if Sharon was still living; he is, but barely, in a near-coma.

A bribery scandal has crippled Olmert, and with little personal popularity and with Labor poised to bolt the cabinet if Olmert wasn't replaced, something had to give. If Kadima was to live up to it's name, it needed to move forward.

One of the folks the BBC mentions as the frontrunner for the party boss position is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni; her name looks like a pair of bad Scrabble racks (you could get Ziti or Zip out of her first name, but would you have free space to use it in an end-game with five tiles left?) but she would give Argentina's Christina Fernandez a run for her money as best-looking head-of-government.