An Englishman in New England

The Reverend Tony Blair must be on his knees and thanking his lucky stars after an investigation panel cleared him of any involvement in the suicide of that british weapons expert who said there were no WMD's in Iraq. Close one, eh Tony?

Having been so removed from the British perspective of this whole mess, I've found it difficult to keep up with political goings-on on the green and pleasant land. It's also served to remind me how insular media coverage is over here - a dog that sniffs out a half ounce of weed, which oops! turns out to be steak herbs in Ohio will nine times out of ten make headlines over the nuclear massacre of thousands in "one of them loser countries". Okay so I exaggerate, I apologise, but do you see my point?

It makes me wonder why the US bothers dealing with the rest of the world. It has the resources, industry and willpower to function happily without need of other nations' help or interference, when you really think about it.

Perhaps they do it for the company. To paraphrase the brilliant comic strip PLIF (Which you should immediately check out at www.plif.com), they don't want to become Planet Americana, waging war against ghosts to feel less alone. . .