[blogfocus saturday] across the pond

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like the Brits or anything but we're … well, we're family and all that and I'm always blogging about us. So I thought it was about time we crossed the pond and presented a few of our cousins.

Just what is it with the North Americans? They'd have to be the raciest bloggers on the block and sometimes even a tad difficult to follow but they generally blog with passion and that's the type of blogging I like. Hope you do too:


1 Sisu is one of those bloggers who's right at you on her slick looking site and from the photos above, you'd have to expect the unexpected:

If you build a viaduct over old stomping grounds, the animals will come. Above, elk crossing at the turnoff from Banff to the #1 highway to Calgary, with thanks to local animal watcher Judie Dyer. The elkway called to mind the totally awesome Saudi Arabian (we think) camelway we blogged here nearly three years back. "I like camels," wrote camelblogger Almamedi, The Religious Policeman [who has subsequently quit blogging to write a book] back then. "They have a look that says 'I was here before you, and I'll be here when you're gone.'" Alhamedi's words from July of 2004 resonate now more than ever.

2 Keith Demko, of Reel Fanatic, is one of my favourite bloggers, though sadly, I don't get over to him enough. This would have to be one of his most entertaining and if you love film, his would have to be a must-see every time:

With a little dose of "Being There" you could have our hero become president. Through a series of accidental encounters, he could get us in the middle of a bloody civil war in Iraq. I think even a hack like me could write some of this dialogue:

Cheney: Mr. President, 27 people died today in suicide bombings in Iraq.

President Gump: Well, like my momma always said: Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.

That's actually a little too close to reality for me. I think I'll just stop now before I get thoroughly depressed. Because, like Forrest says, "stupid is as stupid does," whatever the hell that means.

3 You have to smile at Bonnie Wren's blog. When you leave a comment, she hits you with this preview: Is this what you want to say? I mean, I have to ask. That's my JOB. I'm a PREVIEWER. Duh! If all's in order, she invites you to: Make it so, No. 1. Bonnie is sometimes a bit hard to fathom out but I did notice a passing reference to yours truly so the girl obviously has nothing to do. Actually, she's as busy as can be, thanks to the drug store:

Thanks to the excellent pharmaceuticals available over the counter I barely remember writing anything in February. In fact, in looking back at all the entries made in February I can only wonder who is the woman who figured out my password and why the heck she thinks she can tell tourists where to go in La Jolla. Well, that usurper can just move on out because I’m BACK. I can breathe. I still sound like a Klingon but hey! That just adds a little mystery to my marital relationship.

Eight more bloggers here.

[destruction of the lords] the road to autocracy

The Political Umpire is getting into the vital Lords question but sadly, he's gone astray. He starts well:

When Blair wanted the Hunting Act (HA) passed … [the] Lords forced him to face up to that by holding him to his original draft. One in the eye for the opportunist Blair. Another example was the disgusting lie put about by Gordon Brown concerning the Oxford applicant Laura Spence, an attempt at a bit of old-fashioned class war. The Commons was too busy point-scoring to expose Brown's lies for what they were. But the Lords came down on him like an executioner's axe including old-Labourite Roy Jenkins…

Rousing stuff, Political Umpire, so how on earth did that lead to this?

Hereditary peers have no justification. Appointments by PM patronage or some super-quango commission are a better option than hereditary peers but not much more than that.

PU, it is precisely the way the Lords was originally constituted which led to it being an effective House of Review. Elect them or even stack them from outside and the patronage system and the whip will turn the PM into a virtual dictator. And through this, the EU will become your master and mine.

I posted on the latest destruction bill here, on Martine Martin's take here and my proposals for the Lords are here.

[poll closed] next poll up

This Poll is closed: Regarding Seven Seven, did Tony Blair:

Know beforehand 83%
Not know beforehand 13%
Have a fair idea 4%

24 votes total

A new poll is up - whom do you think is more of a madman? Please take the poll in the right sidebar.

[george and hugo] thick skin needed in politics

Mussolini had nothing on this boy

This has to be some kind of classic rant from the monomaniacal madman himself:

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, leading 20,000 supporters in an anti-American rally, shouted "Gringo go home!" on Friday night to raucous applause in a crowded football stadium in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Alluding to Bush's waning years in office, Chavez said: "The US president today is a true political cadaver and now he does not even smell of sulphur anymore. What the little gentleman from the North now exudes is the smell of political death and in a very short time he will be converted into cosmic dust and disappear from the stage."

Chavez added that he did not come to "sabotage" Bush's visit, saying the timing was a coincidence, even as Bush landed in neighbouring Uruguay for a 36-hour visit.

Politics is sweet, n'est ce pas?

[expats] you can never come home

Do you remember the 2004 San Diego Acura Women’s Tennis Classic? Neither did I until I read a piece on some very bitchy comments which are now burnt into the psyche.

In a nutshell, there was a bit of stick between the Russian women players. Yelena Dementyeva said fellow countrywoman Maria Sharapova was "not really Russian."

Then French Open champion, Anastasia Myskina, joined the debate with: "Maria lives in the United States and she's more comfortable speaking English than she is speaking Russian," Myskina said. "I doubt she's been back to Russia since the age of seven."

It was Sharapova's reply which got me: "I don't feel American at all. I feel this is part of my job. Even though I train in America, I'm still Russian. I came to the United States because of my tennis. I moved here because of my tennis, not for anything else."

Now I don't know how you feel about it but to me this is a little, well, ungrateful and ungracious. That country has given her succour and helped her reach and win two major championship titles - doesn't she feel the least bit American?

I'm more than grateful that Russia, for all its internal flaws, tolerates me and so far appears to value my contribution. It doesn't make me Russian but I can tell you I'd never go to war against this country. Nor against Britain, America, Australia or Canada.

It's possibly best to feel this way about your adoptive country as research shows almost a third of repatriates end up abroad again, illustrating that coming home from an overseas assignment is often harder than leaving in the first place.

When expats return, there's a tendency to expect that life will continue just the way it was, that they can pick up from where they left off but their friends may have moved on and new co-workers and others get tired of hearing stories about life abroad.

Repats are often placed in specially constructed, temporary jobs and those in regular employment often feel threatened by returnees who might have advised prime ministers or worked for NASA, say.

They're rarely appreciated and often go back overseas, greatly disappointed. That's when the reality of their ghostly existence comes home to them.

Unwanted at home, never really accepted by their hosts, they live in a twilight world where their status is that of the eternal guest. Welcome guest, maybe but guest nonetheless.

It's not unlike a group of humans on an orbiting space station, discovering that the earth has been obliterated. There's a certain adjustment each crew member must personally make.

Somerset Maugham's The Lotus Eater springs to mind here. Would that that situation never arises.

Sharapova in Nationality Feud, Monday, Reuters, August 2, 2004;

Repatriation, Leslie Gross Klaff, Looksmart [U.S.A.], July, 2002.

[science] birds stressed out to see what happens

In a study of European black grouse, the researchers first put captive birds under stress to measure the levels of stress hormone corticosterone that emerged in their faeces.

The scientists then took that knowledge and used it to measure the stress hormone levels in animals in the south-western Swiss Alps. What they found was that native birds in outdoor recreation areas are suffering higher stress levels than birds in undisturbed habitats.

So, first the "correct" conclusion that off piste skiing is disturbing native wildlife in alpine regions and that indeed is a terrible thing. However, the bit which got me was: " researchers first put captive birds under stress to measure …" Could you, yourself, put some birds in your care under stress, immune to their cries of anguish, convinced that by torturing them, you were saving the planet?

Call me weak but I couldn't and certainly not if all it was going to prove was that off piste skiing can disturb wildlife. There appears to be a disconnection here between what the scientific community deems acceptable and humane and what is achieved by this.