I am watching the reading of the names of 9/11 victims at Ground Zero, on television. (I'm in a place with a television, which today I'm grateful for.) As the names rolled by, as did the images of the loved ones down in the footprints of the missing buildings laying flowers, I was deeply struck by what all these people looked like... (read more)
"The British people are the sort of partners you want when serious work needs doing. The men and women of this kingdom are kind and steadfast and generous and brave, and America is fortunate to call this country our closest friend in the world." - George W. Bush, yesterday's Whitehall address... (read more)
Happy 228th birthday, United States of America (from an American abroad). As previously noted, America - the only nation-state ever founded on the basis of a philosophy - is not a place nor a people, but a set of principles and ideals.... (read more)
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.... (read more)
These are my slippies. I bought them at Wal-Mart. For US$7.50. Verily, America is the land where you can buy anything, anywhere, at any time, for nothing.... (read more)
Shortly after posting my recent piece on the spectacularly and amusingly unsuccessful attacks in London and Glasgow, I realised I'd mislabelled the perpetrators in calling them "losers". Much more apt would have been the lovely, amusing, and oh-so-useful British epithet of "muppets". These guys truly are muppets of the first rank, and they're running a Muppet Jihad.... (read more)
The full story of what happened on three of those four terrible flights will never be known. But we do know something about the final moments of United Airlines Flight 93, the decisive event of the day.... (read more)
The following excerpted piece appears in full in Shots, The Crime and Thriller E-Zine. - When I wrote my first novel, I knew I wanted to include an awful lot of gunplay... (read more)
As winter yields to spring and the Earth renews itself and you and I walk peacefully through the lengthening days, others remain toiling in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. They are American and British (and Australian and Polish) men and women, and they are working and sweating and fighting and dying on my behalf, and on yours - and on behalf of millions of people they'd never before met, but who now have a chance of freedom and self-determination and prosperity and peace, after decades of knowing only tyranny and war.... (read more)
Everyone likes Joe Lieberman. Well, some people, like Erin, are disappointed in Joe Lieberman. But everyone likes (and respects) him. He's like your favourite, goofy, Jewish uncle. Uncle Joe.... (read more)
Well, the Large Hadron Collider had gone online. And we were still there. That was a nice start to the day - not having been sucked into a small black hole, nor woken up to find that stranglets had devoured the entire planet, leaving only an inert hyperdense sphere 100 meters across.... (read more)
"On the current course, nuclear terrorism is inevitable. Indeed, if the United States and other governments keep doing what they are doing today, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is more likely than not in the decade ahead. With a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon stolen from the former Soviet arsenal and delivered to an American city in a cargo container, Al Qaeda can make 9/11 a footnote."... (read more)
A few days from now, Fourth of July celebrations will be held in small towns and big cities all across America. At the same time, halfway around the world, 170,000 brave young men and women will demonstrate their patriotism in another way: by putting their lives at risk to defend everything America stands for.... (read more)
There's a pretty important and powerful line of argument against the nationalisation of health care. I figured right-wing nut-job columnist Mark Steyn would have done the best job articulating this.... (read more)
"I happen to like Iraqis. They're different from us, but in their own way they're very special. They're worth everything we can do for them."... (read more)
Proud to be an American again today. A federal judge has ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment's rights to equal protection and due process of law.... (read more)
1) You could get separated from your partner at f*&^ing passport control, because one of you holds a U.S. passport and one doesn't, and because there's no queue for "mixed couples".... (read more)
"Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, / Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, / The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, / The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.... (read more)
Sometimes it takes a friend to remind you of who you really are.... (read more)
This is a threat kept from the Look At This F*&%ing Hipster VERSUS People of Walmart Best Of Smack-Down, when I ran out of hipsters before people of Walmart. Dispatch from the Razor's Edge: trawling the depths of horrifying sites for the good stuff, so you don't have to! Enjoy! [sic] ... (read more)
Spend just a few minutes watching these delightfully entertaining two-minute videos introducing you to your real, thrilling alternative to Dipshit (Romney) and Spendthrift (Obama).... (read more)
