The British press has a good reputation over here. Or rather, had. It's the Guardian that's causing people to think again, unsurprisingly. The estimable Glenn Reynolds, has this comment on InstaPundit.Com: "People are always telling me that the British press recycles all sorts of crap without checking it, but this takes the cake." There's also been a useful investigation by my friend Trevor Butterworth, an Irish grad of TCD (I think), into how the British press breaks stoies which then turn out to be complete codswallop. It's on Salon, unfortunately, which I haven't touched since it went "premium", but if the link turns out to be free, I'll post it here.
Nevertheless, there's still a lot to be said for British journalism. The commentary columns are a lot better, the sports reporting is head and shoulders above the awful American sports journalism, which could never produce a Cardus or Arlott, or even an investigator like Mihir Bose. There's also a sense of humor that's sadly missing from the tedious reportage of American papers. Moreover, although the British press does recycle any old rubbish, at least it doesn't impose a uniformally leftist spin on everything. A colleague met a senior Washington Post correspondent recently, who admitted that, when new data are released, journalists view it as their responsibility to tell their readers what to think about them. There is editorializing in the British news pages, but it's labeled as such (if only by the acknowledged stance of the paper) and it comes from varying standpoints. Overall, I'll take the British press over the American, even if I do have to keep my Rubbish Detector on at all times.
Important article in the Spectator about the role of former Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Charles Guthrie, in making Tony Blair into a decent wartime leader. I'd always assumed that Blair and Clinton were exactly alike, but I'm prepared to give Blair some credit here:
Early on, Charles Guthrie took Mr Blair to Bosnia. The PM was not only convinced of the need for a UK presence; he enjoyed the company of the soldiers. Old prejudices rapidly fell away. If he had ever thought he would be dealing with the 5th Bengal Pigstickers in their mess at Poona c. 1905, he now knew better.
Clinton never went throught this conversion. Could fault be laid at the Joint Chiefs' door? Possibly, but here's another difference between Balir and Clinton. Blair really does believe he's doing things for the good of humanity, and is therefore susceptible to having his eyes opened. It happened on nuclear disarmament, on the economy and now on the role of the military. We'll make a true conservative of him yet, boys.
Anatole Kaletsky has an excellent article in today's Times of London summing up what the collapse of the Taliban means. "Dynamist" Virginia Postrel has the link at her site together with some important addenda. The "war on terrorism" is a war on states that use and support terror. However entrenched they are, however repressive their regimes, they will not be able to stand up to a fraction of the military might that the US-UK alliance will throw at them. The Taliban stand (or rather, fell) as a dreadful lesson to those rulers. If there is decent evidence linking any state to Bin Laden and his gang of thugs, then that state too shall suffer. Dictatorships shall fall until they renounce terror forever. That is the only exit strategy we need from this war.
There will continue to be terrorists without state support, but their reach will be small and the damage they do will not approach the level we saw on September 11.
And all of us, American, Afghan, Pakistani, Briton, Indian, European, Israeli, Jordanian, shall sleep safer in our beds for that.
Everyone hoped this would go away. Now it's back, in a big way. As I mention below, Turkey is an important player in the current crisis. It seems to realise that. As this AP report -- Turkish Cypriot State Has Anniversary -- makes clear, the Turks seem determined to force the issue. Threats of war between two NATO countries are not to be dismissed lightly.
What is to be done? The Turks regard both the UN and EU as in hock to the Greeks on the issue (with some justification in the EU's case). The original 1960 Treaty on Cyprus was signed by the Greeks, Turks and British, who still have some sovereign territory on the island. It may be time for Tony Blair to come out to bat. In many ways, the issue should be simpler than Northern Ireland, for example. After all, there are (as far as I'm aware) virtually no Turks in Greek Cyprus and no Greeks in Turkish Cyprus. And, although the Turks were guilty of rape, murder and aggressive invasion, the Greeks had systematically deprived the Turks of rights previously -- neither side has anything to be proud of.
However, I'm not sure how strong the "ennosis" (?) movement for Greece-Cyprus unification is at the moment, but that will surely be an issue as well, given the Turkish position that Cypriot accession to the EU amounts to unification.
Anyone who's ever had to grapple with a problem caused by judges extruding new rights from the text of justiciable documents will appreciate the mess in the UK at the moment. This excellent Times piece by Earl Howe shows just one of the reasons why the UK government is taking such a perverse approach to civil liberties. We can't deport people suspected of terrorism thanks to a right invented by the European Court of Human Rights and attached to Article 3, from which there can be no derogation or suspension. So they're having to restrict Habeas Corpus, because they can suspend Article 5, where those rights are spelled out.
The European Convention on Human Rights and its bastard children have got to go.
Never thought I'd link to this tabloid rag, but the "trenchant" Richard Littlejohn has some good points to make about the UK Lord Chancellor's son's problems in The Sun.
The Lord Chancellor is an odd office, combining parts of the Attorney-General's, Chief Justice's and Vice-President's duties in the US context. It is therefore understandably a powerful one, with a major say in the consideration of new legislation. If the Lord Chancellor's son is addicted to cannabis, then, some questions have to be asked about his Government's moves to decriminalize it. Moreover, Littlejohn is right to ask why a prominent Law Officer did not alert the police to his son's use of a drug classified as so dangerous by the law. This is not a private matter. It is very, very public. It is therefore disgraceful that, at a time when the need for a UK version of the First Amendment is so obvious, the Government has sought to restrict free speech by importing a right to privacy that has been used to cover up corruption in France. Once again, the European Convention on Human Rights is the villain (I feel like a broken record here).
The Sun Also Rises
Never thought I'd link to this tabloid rag, but the "trenchant" Richard Littlejohn has some good points to make about the UK Lord Chancellor's son's problems in The Sun.
The Lord Chancellor is an odd office, combining parts of the Attorney-General's, Chief Justice's and Vice-President's duties in the US context. It is therefore understandably a powerful one, with a major say in the consideration of new legislation. If the Lord Chancellor's son is addicted to cannabis, then, some questions have to be asked about his Government's moves to decriminalize it. Moreover, Littlejohn is right to ask why a prominent Law Officer did not alert the police to his son's use of a drug classified as so dangerous by the law. This is not a private matter. It is very, very public. It is therefore disgraceful that, at a time when the need for a UK version of the First Amendment is so obvious, the Government has sought to restrict free speech by importing a right to privacy that has been used to cover up corruption in France. Once again, the European Convention on Human Rights is the villain (I feel like a broken record here).
Robert Harris is the author of Fatherland, probably the most successful alternative (or "counterfactual" as it is called these days) history novel ever. He writes occasionally, and well, for the Daily Telegraph. This column contains two interesting points. First:
Every commentator on this conflict - and I write as one who supports it - seems to have got it wrong. What's frightening isn't the prospect of the Americans becoming bogged down, as in Vietnam; what's frightening is the almost contemptuous ease with which they are winning it.
True, so far. The technological gap has increased so far that this war is the equivalent of those colonial wars where Western troops brushed aside their primitive foes. Of course, we should always remember that incompetence (Little Big Horn), bureaucracy (Isandhlwana) and overconfidence (Gordon in the Sudan) can close that technological gap pretty dem quickly. Reporters who were schooled in Vietnam remember the human elements well but forget the technological gap. This war is to Vietnam what the Second Afghan War was to the First. Let's hope that our leaders are as competent as "Bobs" was.
I am, however, worried by Harris' predictions of technological totalitarianism. The US has maintained its constitutional protections such that it has working safeguards against such an eventuality. The British have acquiesced in the evisceration of their constitution so that the only way to overturn such a regime is by revolution: either peaceful (the election of a truly libertarian-oriented government) or through concerted civil disobedience (which I sincerely hope it never has to come down to).
I find it interesting that once again, it is the gun enthusiasts in the States who are most aware of the last time anything like this happened. Don B. Kates, in his useful book Armed, co-written with Gary Kleck, quotes Edward Gibbon (I Decline and Fall, p. 53), writing about the Roman monarchy, but obviously thinking of his own time:
Unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism ... A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.
By nobility, Gibbons of course meant local bigwigs rather than Earls per se. The UK no longer has such a body of men, prepared to stand up for their local neighbours. The new nobility is merely a Court Party, a gang of super-rich bohemians who control the commanding heights of the media and legal establishments. The commons is not so much stubborn as disengaged, demoralised by the trashing of their values by that new nobility in the culture wars. Property rights have been quietly done away with, and their assemblies destroyed. Arms? Ha! Is it any wonder that Tony Blair's position is so strong?
According to this report in The Times, bin Laden is planning to follow an ancient western tradition, and fall on his sword rather than be captured:
Bin Laden refuses to allow Americans, or members of the Northern Alliance, to kill him, and also refuses to be taken prisoner by them, because that will be a major defeat for him. So, he has instructed those aides who remain with him until the end to shoot him if he is surrounded by American special forces or the Northern Alliance.
The USA is playing the role of Caesar to Osama's Cassius: "Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords/ In our own proper entrails."
Of course, this shows further that Bin Laden doesn't understand the West at all, in that he gives up his chance to make the West squirm a la the worries about Hitler expressed below. Now were the anthrax letters precisely targeted (to engender maximum panic in the media and Congress) or badly targeted (thinking Brokaw and Daschle were tools of the President)? The answer to that question will reveal whether it was Bin Laden or domestic terrorists at work.
Josh Chafetz, writing in The New Republic, talks about the dispiriting anti-Americanism at Oxford. No change there, then. I remember hundreds turning out to Oxford Union debates to express their displeasure at American foreign policy during the '80s, in the process supporting some very unsavory regimes. The funniest memory is of a debate where half the Sandinista cabinet turned up. The vice-president, "novelist" Sergio Ramirez, refused to listen to the American speaker, so spoke first and then left the chamber with his gang of cut-throats in tow. He got a standing ovation for this act of stunning arrogance and discourtesy, of course. After the students had had their throw, a young American congressman spoke. He got a standing ovation because his speech deserved it. His name was Newton Leroy Gingrich...
Which just goes to show that Oxonians are not immune to reason, but you have to break down walls of prejudice to get through. Not for nothing is Oxford so often called the Home of Lost Causes.
France and Germany seek EU constitution, reports the Telegraph. This is deeply worrying. For example, the current "Charter of Fundamental Rights," which Keith Vaz (who he, ed?) said would not be justiciable and now is, does not contain a prohibition against self-crimination but does, laughably, contain a "fundamental" right to a free placement service. Moreover, as we all know, constitutions tend to be all about "ever-closer" union and do not contain provisions for secession. I have no doubt that this move was timed by Chirac and Schroder to take Blair down a peg or two. The consolation is that any Constitution will be very difficult to sell in the UK. But there's always a chance that this is being brought forward now partly to put the Euro and Corpus Juris in a less damaging light (this is a tactic Pompey used in the 60s BC, for goodness' sake). This is one to keep a very close eye on.
Shouting 'Cross the Potomac (part of Quasipundit.com) picks up on the fact that there are doubts over whether the Al Qa'eda suspects arrested in Spain will be extradited here if the military tribunal is to apply. Quasipundit misses the identity of the key player in the drama. Baltasar Garzon, the judge who ordered the arrest of these suspects (remember, America, in continental Europe, without benefit of common law, judges conduct criminal investigations and order arrests -- a lovely system the EU wants to foist on Britain and Ireland), is actually a Socialist politician slumming it as a judge while his party's out of power. He was the one who found enough evidence to cause an international crisis by sking Britain to extradite General Pinochet, despite the presence in international law of the principle of sovereign immunity. I'm willing to bet my hat that Garzon would not have ordered these arrests if the President hadn't issued his tribunal order. He seems to want to impose the Code Napoleon on common law countries by legalistic diplomatic means. However, as a continental European socialist politician the odds are pretty good he'll have a skeleton or two in his closet. Perhaps an investigating magistrate in another country could issue a warrant for his arrest...
The Telegraph reports Naughty children to be registered as potential criminals. Well, of course. What else would we expect in the free country that is Britain. Where once quiet words within communities would enable local people to keep a watch out for potential troublemakers, now we brand them with a virtual iron.
The thing is, my mother was a primary school teacher for 30 years in one of the most deprived areas of the country (South Shields). She would regularly open the pages of the local paper and exclaim something along the lines of, "Oh, Johnny Smith's been put away for murder! He was such a lovely little boy..." Past record is not necessarily a predictor of future performance, especially when you're dealing with the young.
A final thought. How odd that, in the race to be non-judgmental over teaching children the difference between right and wrong, we have turned to a system that institutionalises another, more telling, form of prejudice.
Although the ubiquitous Glenn Reynolds has written frequently on this, I thought I'd put in my two penn'orth. Michael Bellesiles wrote an award-winning book called "Arming America" in which he purported to have found documentary evidence that the US national gun culture was invented comparatively recently. The colonial America he describes was indeed Moore's Utopia, a happy place where homicide was unknown. Fiction, obviously, and recent scholarly investigations have confirmed that. Bellesiles is squirming now that his own university has decided to investigate. Melissa Seckora on National Review Online has drawn attention to the weakness of his defence.
In general this confirms an impression I have had since I started writing on gun issues. I arrived in the US thinking that guns in civil society were an abomination, and I still shudder whenever I see an armed policeman, although I know I should not. But virtually everything put out by the anti-gun lobby is disingenuous, tortuous or just plain lies. My examination of the arguments for Encyclopaedia Britannica shows just how far they go with statistics (although I do worry, as the article suggests, that the pro-gun forces go too far themselves on occasion), but Bellesiles' work is the most egregious example. The argument for gun control had come almost to the brink of success, but it is now in total retreat across the country. That is partly due to 11 September, partly due to the work of John Lott and other principled scholars, but also due to the public realising that the gun grabbers are just plain dishonest. Bellesiles may turn out to be the Anthony Blunt of his faction.
Great article by another old acquaintance, Stephen Pollard, in The Independent. As Natalie also points out, he does a great job in desbribing how America's retreat from shilly-shallying has cowed the "Islamic street," as they like to call it. But he goes on with an even more important point:
But there is a more optimistic alternative [to endless terrorism in Islam]. The second largest Muslim community in the world (after Indonesia) is not Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. It is, with 150 million believers, India. And yet, even though they are a minority dominated by Hindus, Indian Muslims do not see America as the cause of their ills or flock to join militant terrorist outfits. The reason, of course, is that India is a democracy – market-based and multi-ethnic. Democracy is the answer, as it always has been. Everything possible must be done to promote it.
India is probably one of the best examples of the Anglsophere phenomenon. Simple adherence to basic anglo-american concepts of liberty, tolerance and democracy, have contained the monster. Ever wonder why Fascism never gained a foothold in the UK or US?
It seems that the first "amendment" to the European charter of rights will be to prohibit speech, even if it is speech of the most reprehensible sort. EU considers plans to outlaw racism is the Telegraph's take. This is straying into some very dangerous territory. If religion is sacrosanct and cannot be criticized then what about religions that belittle others? Where is the line drawn? Nigel Farage of UKIP also speaks cogently to the inclusion of "xenophobia" in the mix. Would it have been xenophobic to write the stinging criticisms of Hitler's Germany that many writers produced in the 30s? If a population is going through a mass psychosis, isn't it appropriate to point this out? The great virtue of free speech is that arguments can always be argued against, and Madison recognized this. Better free speech that allows the hateful to speak and have their arguments demolished than restricted speech that allows hateful arguments to fester, spread underground and eat away at the body politic like a cancer. Britain needs a real "first amendment" and it would be good for the Tories to champion this idea.
Meanwhile, there's an "anglosphere" crisis brewing that's gone unnoticed in the US. India's sticky wicket is what the Telegraph calls it, for the crisis is over cricket (a sport that almost led Britain and Australia to cut diplomatic relations in the '30s). In many ways this is a question of the rule of law, the laws of cricket in this case. If India refuses to play by the rules, England might refuse to play (literally), and the cricket-mad Indian populace will be outraged. Cricket's international governing body has suffered a series of blows to its authority. This could be the last one, and the system of Test Matches that has delighted so many billions since 1878 could collapse. Where's Kerry Packer when you need him?
Boris Johnson has a passion for things Greek (and Latin -- I once heard him quote Ovid's Metamorphoses in a speech about nuclear disarmament). But persons Greek? That's another matter. Trust the Greeks to jail the wrong terrorists is his latest assessment, concentrating on the bizarre arrest and unseemly punishment of a band of harmless 40-something British "plane spotters" for spying. Boris thinks it's symptomatic of a larger Greek malaise:
At a Uefa [Cup] match in Athens, not long after the massacre, 30,000 Greek soccer fans jeered through the minute's silence, while the Stars and Stripes was later burnt in the stands. A recent poll found that 78 per cent of Greeks voting for centrist or Left-wing parties were anti-American, while 58 per cent of Right-wing voters were anti-American.
You may think that a curious way to repay the country that has kept the peace in Europe for 50 years, and prevented Greece from going communist. But that is the way they think. It is time they grew up.
Why should anyone take Greece's side in the dispute over Cyprus? Turkey is the country that has backed the Northern Alliance and helped to oust the Taliban. All the Greeks have done is burn the US flag, stage demonstrations shouting "Down with Bush the killer", and incarcerate, without trial, a hapless bunch of British plane-spotters.
If things go on this way, I think we should seriously look at expelling Greece from NATO.And perhaps there was something to the borders proposed for Greece in the Treaty of San Stefano...
European Parliament Rejects Genetics Report, reports Reuters. Sounds like the usual chaos:
In a confused series of votes, the Parliament initially introduced several amendments that were mutually contradictory--seeking in some cases to tighten controls on genetic research, and in other cases to ease them.
This is hardly surprising. Votes in the European Parliament go through at a hell of a pace, with "party" whips standing in front of their members' seats, indicating which way to vote by raising or turning down their thumb. Members regularly press their vote buttons without knowing precisely what they're voting on.
At least in this case the motions came from MEPs themselves (and consequently would have had no legislative force). The European Parliament is probably the only legislature in the free world that cannot initiate legislation. That is the jealously guarded prerogative of the Executive -- the unelected European Commission. Democracy? Pah! Dangerous idea.
Oh, and a British Labour MEP once called Mr Goebbels, "Mr Goering, errr, Dr Goebbels, NO! Mr Goebbels..."
Simon Jenkins, ex-editor of The Times, is infuriating. He is at times brilliant, at others just inane and whinging. In recent weeks he's been in the latter mode, complaining about a war both just and necessary. This week he returns to greatness. This article is wonderful stuff, pinning down exactly the dichotomy between the twin stars of New Labour. He begins:
When Mr Blair visited the star-studded Clintons in Washington in 1998, he took with him a retinue larger than any Prime Minister before him. Some 30 aides, almost all political, went to the glittering banquet. Margaret Thatcher never travelled with more than ten. The Blairs did not bother to visit their embassy. A diplomat of my acquaintance remarked: “My God, what have we unleashed!”
We had unleashed a Cavalier, the first to rule Britain in a generation. Every age refights the Civil War in its own way and ours is no exception. Roundhead and Cavalier, Whig and Tory, Gladstone and Disraeli, Labour and Conservative, each conflict is an echo of the original. Each participant is pricked by history. Few are so well-cast as the current contenders, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
True, true, every word of it. It is easy, moreover, to turn this model to American politics. Clinton the Cavalier? Undoubtedly. Bush is more a Fairfax than a Cromwell, but Roundhead he assuredly is. Bravo, Mr. Jenkins! Keep writing along these lines.
Well, Kris and I had some very good news tonight, so we went out to celebrate (thank you, by the way, to the reader who first enabled us to get a babysitter some weeks ago, which has emboldened us!)
I also had lunch today with a former Australian Minister. If you know anything about that adjective-noun combination, you'll realise it was a day-defining experience already.
In the meantime, I managed to post two lengthy items over at Eugene's palace. One deals with Tony Blair's fortunes. The other is a look at where the climate change debate stands currently, which I'm refining further elsewhere. There are some interesting rejoinders in the comments section to this post below, which I urge interested parties to read.
I hope to have lots more up at Volokh.com tomorrow. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
I've been working on my transition to Movable Type, but have hit a bit of a snag. As well as a new blog, I hope to have Iain Murray's Online Home as an umbrella site, and have now got the home page up and running (the other pages are currently dummies), but there's a chance it will get overwritten by the test MT blog...
Which all helps explain the lack of posts this weekend. I hope to have an overview of the weekend's reaction to Blair's constitutional shambles tomorrow evening, which is shaping up to have been a spectacular own goal. And, who knows, I might even have the new blog up and running by then, too. My blog benefactor, Dean Esmay, has been a great help so far and I'm sure we can get this last snag overcome soon.
Of course, Blogger have finally upgraded me to New Blogger, and it happened without a hitch. Too little, too late?
The schools across Norfolk are shutting by the dozen.
Norwich Airport is closed.
I am supposed to be on a literacy course at a training centre in Norwich and ... Norfolk County Council have insisted the course is going ahead and when I phoned asking do they really expect me to attend given the weather, they just made plain that the course was still running and that would be my decision.
Impressed ??? No !!!
Update : Having now returned I can confirm (despite comments from one idiot) that the ring road is now deteriorating badly and a number of less well gritted outer roads are now becoming very difficult too.
The problem was never going to be getting in to Norwich, but as anyone with access to a weather forecast knew, the weather would turn bad. Schools across Norfolk were well aware that staff were going to have to get home again and that is why many decided to close early. At least my course did finish earlier than planned.
In a predictable move, the US Soccer Federation and Bruce Arena decided to go their separate ways today. Realistically, even had the Americans done more in the World Cup than get embarassed by the Czechs, bloodied by the Italians, eliminated by Ghana, and screwed by the refs, Arena's tenure would probably have ended - eight years is an eternity as a national team coach. Still, Arena didn't go out as he would have hoped; his team bitched about him, his best players failed to show up, and he looked like a poor sport on the sidelines. If anything, all Arena did in Germany was present a challenge to Phil Mickelson's best man-boobs in sports. For that reason and more important ones, he will be missed.
Like him or not, Arena was the best coach the US national team has ever had. Even in defeat, Arena got it right: after the Cup, he said that the US cannot expect to contend for the World Cup title with players from MLS. It's just not happening. MLS is a good league, a growing one, and it will continue to get better, but there will never be a time in the next 20-30 years when the quality of soccer in MLS will rival anything in Europe, much less the better leagues in Latin America like Brazil's and Argentina's. Now this statement might upset American soccer fans and make Landon Donovan worry about getting homesick, but it's a fact - American players will improve immeasurably more in Europe than in the US. As a growing soccer country, the US has to do figure out how to improve as quickly as possible; the right answer is not to expect a kid playing in Kansas City to show up in Germany and go toe-to-toe with Ronaldinho - it's to get that kid over to Europe, be it to England or Spain or Germany or Holland or wherever, and let him learn to compete with the world's best week in and week out. Look, it might be great that MLS is able to bring world-class players to the league, but who should our best young players be playing with and against - an over-the-hill star like Youri Djorkaeff or an in-his-prime player like Michael Ballack? You can try to make the case that Clint Dempsey (an MLSer) was the Americans' best player in Germany and that Europe-based players like DaMarcus Beasley and Brian McBride failed to impress, but in no way can you say that the competition in MLS can in any way compete with the quality of play in Europe. If the US really wants to continue to improve and grow into a world power, then the country's best players - Donovan, Dempsey, Mastroeni, etc - need to start competing against the world's best players every week, not every four years. If Arena is able to leave a lasting legacy in US soccer, in addition to the accomplishments of 2002, then here's hoping that it's the insistence that US players leave the comfy confines of MLS and go battle it out with the best in Europe.
When it comes to Arena's successor, there are two options: Juergen Klinsmann and everyone else. Like any US soccer fan with half a brain, I'll take the former. Sorry, but coaches who have taken a team to the World Cup semis don't come around every day in the US. If there's any way the US Soccer Federation can get Klinsi, then they have to do it. If not, well, let's not go there right now - I'd rather dream about Coach Klinsi doing his Tinkerbell dance after Adu scores to put the US in the semis of South Africa 2010. Hey, stranger things have happened...
Trivia question (winner gets a free tank of gas): What club team had the most players participating in this summer's World Cup? Hint: they wear blue, play boring soccer, have a jerk for a coach, and are making the English Premiership less entertaining than a month-long scrabble tourney. That's right, Chelski have a whopping 17 World Cup stars on their roster, which may explain their last two Premiership titles. However, an even more important number might be 818, as in the millions (yep, millions) of dollars that Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovich has spent on acquiring new players since buying the club back in 2003. Looking at the trophy case, it's been money well spent, but factoring in the club's lack of success in Europe, completely underwhelming style of play, and universal dislikability, you can't say that it's been all smooth sailing for the Blues. Does this mean that they won't be lifting the Premiership trophy for a third-straight year this season? Well, let's not get carried away here, but read on just for the hell of it.
It's been an unusual off-season for the big guns of the EPL. Chelsea spent millions buying big-name stars, Liverpool brought in some fresh Latin blood, Arsenal snapped up a great young talent from the Continent, and ManU overpaid to get a defensive midfielder. Shocking! And this doesn't even factor in that Newcastle failed to address their Swiss-cheese-like defense (stop me if you've heard this before), Bolton signed an overrated and unwanted international star, and Spurs smartly acquired an excellent up-and-coming midfielder. Some things never change, and definitely not the ways of gentlemen like Abramovich and his trusty coach, Jose Mourinho.
Just like Real Madrid did a few years ago, these two men have been busy raiding some of the world's biggest clubs to sign their best players (but Chelsea actually pay attention to their defense). This season, the fans at Stamford Bridge will be treated to the sight of Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, signed away from Bayern Munich and AC Milan, respectively; but do these signings make Chelsea a much improved team? Well, the answer, surprisingly, is no. Ballack plays almost the exact same style as fellow midfield marauder Frank Lampard, an attacking, driving middie who loves to push forward into attack as much as possible. And if anyone tuned in to the action in Germany this summer, it's clear that Lampard's play deteriorates dramatically when he doesn't have the center of the pitch at his disposal; Steven Gerrard's presence in the England eleven reduced Lampard's space in midfield, decreased his effect on the game, and generally made him a shadow of the player that he is for Chelsea. Mourinho is clearly a coach who believes that you can't have too much talent, that great players make a team better no matter what; Mourinho's problem is one that most coaches in the world would love to have: how do I pick a team from all these great players, keep them all happy, and live up to the sky-high expectations. Last year, a visibily unhappy Mourinho said that he had the most thankless coaching job in sports, since if he won, then he had only accomplished what everyone expected him to, but if he lost, then he had done the unthinkable and failed spectactularly. Cry me a river, Jose. I guess we should all pity the Portuguese genius even more now that he's got Ballack and Sheva to deal with. Not only will Ballack play a similar role to Lampard in midfield, but Sheva will do many of the same things that Hernan Crespo did for Chelsea last year. The Argentine striker has demanded a move back to sunny Italy, so in steps the Ukrainian to take his place. Sheva is definitely an upgrade over Crespo, but not as much of one as some might think. And where does this leave Didier Drogba? If anyone in that squad will not be okay coming off the bench, it's the Ivory Coast forward. And in Mourinho's favored 4-5-1, there's only room for one striker and that'll be Sheva. In fact, surprising as it might be, the one summer signing that could pay the most dividends for Chelsea over the years is not Ballack or Sheva, but rather Nigerian wunderkind Mikel John Obi (not a Star Wars character, it turns out). Another change for the Blues this year could be an increased role for Michael Essien; the Ghanian looks set to step in more frequently for aging hardman Claude Makelele - but just as Madrid fell apart after Makelele's move to London, I can't help but wonder if Chelsea will struggle to replace him at the Bridge. After all, Essien is much more of an attacking mid than Makelele. A central midfield of Lampard, Essien, and Ballack strikes me as an overcrowded one. Even at the back, undoubtedly Chelsea's strength over the past two seasons, the Blues may be showing some weaknesses. For my money (and that's not much - this blogging gig doesn't pay too well), William Gallas is the best defender on that team, along with John Terry. The Frenchman is powerful, versatile, and just entering his prime; now he wants out, and Mourinho's decision to give Ballack the Frenchman's #13 shirt will not do much to mend the strained relationship between Gallas and Chelsea. If they lose him - and at the moment all signs suggest they will - then Chelsea will be surprisingly thin at the back. Terry and Ricardo Carvalho will be their only centerbacks, with Robert Huth's on again-off again move to Middlesborough still up in the air. Still, this is Chelsea, meaning that quality reinforcements, such as Arsenal's Ashley Cole for one, should be on the way. In the end, any doubts over Lampard's coexistence with Ballack, Makelele's decline, Sheva's uneasy battle with Drogba, a thin back four, and possible fatigue from all their participation in the World Cup, may be overcome by the simple fact that this team has too much talent to fail. Even if all of these worst-case scenarios materialize, there might not be any other teams in the EPL capable of matching Chelsea's strength in numbers.
If there is one challenger that can separate itself from the rest, it is Rafael Benitez's excellent Liverpool side. The Spaniard has turned the club into a veritable airport hangar of arrivals and departures; the influx of talent into Anfield has only been matched by the wave of players heading out of the revolving door. This summer has been no different. While the likes of Fernando Morientes, Dietmar Hamann, and Djibril Cisse have exited, the Kop will be pleased to see Chilean winger Mark Gonzalez, Brazilian leftback Fabio Aurelio, and English convicts, er, troublemakers, er, attackers Jermaine Pennant and Craig Bellamy donning the Liverpool red. Aside from the fact that Benitez is turning Liverpool into Cincinnati Bengals East, the new signings should be good ones. The real steals will prove to be Gonzalez and Aurelio, who will turn the Liverpool left wing into a new M6. Gonzalez is as fast and tricky as they come, while Aurelio is the latest in a long line of fantastic Brazilian fullbacks (see Carlos, Roberto); how Valencia ever let him get away, I will never know. Still, where does this leave John Arne Riise and Harry Kewell? Did Liverpool even have a need for these new signings? And why does Benitez continue to sign wingers when his best options up front are Peter "Bambi On Ice" Crouch, Robbie "Boogie Nights" Fowler, and the hot-headed Bellamy? Liverpool, like Chelsea and Newcastle before them, seem to be under the impression that you can't have too many midfielders. While this obviously makes sense as more and more teams employ the 4-5-1 formation, you have to wonder where Liverpool's goals will come from. Xabi Alonso and Gerrard remain the best midfield duo in the Premiership - nay, the world - but who will be in the box to get on the end of their fantastic passes? If there's one Achilles heel that will keep Benitez's boys from challenging Chelsea, it's a dearth of quality strikers. In that sense, "You'll Never Walk Alone" makes an ironic serenade to Liverpool's crowded midfielders and lonely strikers.
Another manager that has been busy making quality signings is, of course, the world's best talent-spotter, one Arsene Wenger of Arsenal. This year's coup was the purchase of Czech prodigy Tomas Rosicky from Borussia Dortmund. Simply put, Rosicky is one of the best playmakers in the world, a natural #10, the perfect link between Cesc Fabregas and Thierry Henry, and one of the few players worthy of being mentioned as a possible successor to the retired Dennis Bergkamp. Before long, he will be the prince of the sparkling new Emirates Stadium. It is absolutely amazing the way that Wenger consistently brings in amazing young players and then grooms them into world superstars; in my humble opinion, he's the best manager in the world. Of course, he'll have to find a way to replicate Arsenal's Champions League form of last year in this year's domestic campaign. To do this, it appears that he will have to overcome the loss of Jose Antonio Reyes, who has been craving a move back to Spain to take part in Fabio Capello's revolution at the Bernabeu; the Spanish winger will be tough to replace, but Robin Van Persie showed some positive signs at the World Cup of being the man to do just that. And there are other reasons for optimism: Henry has elected to stay in London, Cesc will only get better and better, and this could be Theo Walcott's break-out year (post World Cup, bizarrely enough) - they may not challenge crosstown rivals Chelsea for the title, but Arsenal will mount a much stronger challenge than last year.
Up in the Northeast, the same cannot be said for Manchester United. Yes, they managed to overcome a torrent of injuries to finish second to Chelsea last year. Yes, Michael Carrick is an upgrade over Darren Fletcher, John O'Shea, Alan Smith, and any other warm body that Sir Alex Ferguson could plug into the central midfield slot. And yes, they do have two of the best youngsters in the world at their respective positions in right winger Cristiano Ronaldo and striker Wayne Rooney. Unfortunately, injured or not, players like Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (fantastic name - my first-born will definitely be given the middle name "Gunnar") are d-u-n done; Fergie overpaid to get Carrick, who looks like he may be their only off-season signing; and Rooney and Ronaldo may or may not wish a slow painful death on each other after their little World Cup tift this summer. (Tangent alert! For everyone who is worried about how Ronaldo will overcome the abuse to which he will be subjected this season at stadiums around England, since when has he not been United's most despised player? Since when have opposing crowds not hated him? This is the same kid who played against his hometown club Benfica in the Champions League last year and was so jeered so relentlessly that he flicked off the crowd as he left the pitch! I don't think this year will be anything new for the little Portuguese pretty boy) Anyway, there are just too many holes in ManU's current squad for this team to hope for anything better than a Champions League place: they are thin at centerback after Rio Ferdinand and the underrated Gabriel Heinze, Patrice Evra and Mickael Silvestre are just not good enough at leftback, they have no one but Carrick in midfield, Ji-Sung Park or Park Ji-Sung or Ji-what-Park-Song is not the answer on the left wing, and there is no true #9 (sorry, Louis Saha) to replace Ruud van Nistelrooy (Why is the "van" sometimes capitalized and sometimes not? Or am I just wrong half the time? Can we get an answer on this?). If Fergie can get the Glazers to open their purses one more time to buy Villareal's Spanish destroyer Marcos Senna, then that will be an important addition for them, but overall there is just not enough firepower to challenge Chelsea, Fergie has not been as successful as Wenger or Benitez at bringing in young talent (aside from Ronaldo & Rooney), and there just isn't enough money at Old Trafford anymore for the Red Devils to be the team they once were. On the plus side, how hilarious is it to listen to Fergie bitch and moan about how Chelsea & Abramovich's million-dollar squad is ruining the sport of soccer? Puhleeze. How many years was ManU at the top of the spending spree list? How many times was ManU able to outbid everyone else as they bragged about their status as the world's richest club? Well, Fergie, the tables have turned - deal with it. And here's a hint: the best way to beat Chelsea is not by blowing all of your spending money on Ji-Sung Park, Nemanja Vidic, Liam Miller, Louis Saha, and Alan Smith. But hey, Kleberson and Eric Djemba-Djemba send their regards.
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Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk hʊˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the forty-fourth and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 until he resigned following his election to the presidency. He was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009.
Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer in Chicago prior to earning his law degree, and practiced as a civil rights attorney in Chicago before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He also taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama was elected to the Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.
As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for U.S. military personnel returning from combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Smoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily done as a form of recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual enlightenment. The most common method of smoking today is through cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Other forms, though not as common, are pipes, cigars, hookahs and bongs.
Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include cannabis and opium. Most drugs that are smoked are considered to be addictive. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics, like heroin and crack cocaine, but the use of these is very limited as they are often not commercially available.
The history of smoking can be dated to as early as 5000 BC, and has been recorded in many different cultures across the world. Early smoking evolved in association with religious ceremonies; as offerings to deities, in cleansing rituals or to allow shamans and priests to alter their minds for purposes of divination or spiritual enlightenment. After the European exploration and conquest of the Americas, the practice of smoking tobacco quickly spread to the rest of the world. In regions like India and Subsaharan Africa, it merged with existing practices of smoking (mostly of cannabis). In Europe, it introduced a new type of social activity and a form of drug intake which previously had been unknown.
Perception surrounding smoking has varied over time and from one place to another; holy and sinful, sophisticated and vulgar, a panacea and deadly health hazard. Only recently, and primarily in industrialized Western countries, has smoking come to be viewed in a decidedly negative light. Today medical studies have proven that smoking is among the leading causes of diseases such as stenosis, lung cancer, heart attacks and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and can also lead to birth defects. The well-proven health hazards of smoking have caused many countries to institute high taxes on tobacco products and anti-smoking campaigns are launched every year in an attempt to curb smoking. Several countries, states and cities have also imposed smoking bans in most public buildings. Despite these bans, European countries still hold 18 of the top 20 spots, and according to the ERC, a market research company, the heaviest smokers are from Greece, averaging 3,000 cigarettes per person in 2007. Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in the developed world but continue to rise in developing countries. Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006, falling from 42% to 20.8% in adult
Usually if not with menu lable menampilakn of dropdown,posting will seen length and many. For that I will explain about way of presenting lable with menu dropdown. Following its his :
* Login first in blogger
* In facia window, menu click of layout last selected to edit HTML
* don't forget sign love [in] widget template expand
* Last of this code searching :
<ul>
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:else/>
<a expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
(<data:label.count/>)
</li>
</b:loop>
</ul>
If have met, change the the code with code hereunder :
<br />
<select onchange='location=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;'>
<option>Select a label</option>
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<option expr:value='data:label.url'><data:label.name/>
(<data:label.count/>)
</option>
</b:loop>
</select>
Remember!!!!
blue Code Colour changed with code ruddle....
Finally end seeking have my. This few days is I look for soybean cake about making more read in blog. And this is its result. To you which wish to make more read, I provide the way of him here :
Step to 1
Opening Template - Edit HTML - Give sign of centang [at] " Widget template Expand" Do
step to 2
Don'T Forget to back up blogger with clicking " complete template dowlnoad"
Step to 3 S
earching code hereunder.
<div class='post-header-line-1'/> <div class='post-body'>
Tips: Code of Readmore above can change with sentence alone ( follow the example of " Read Hereinafter", " Read nextly", " As complete as")
Code as complete as if seen will see as follows:
If have found code above, Code Copy-Paste hereunder later;then put down the the code below/under code above.
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<style>.fullpost{display:inline;}</style>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<b:else/>
<style>.fullpost{display:none;}</style>
Then below/under code above we will find code:
<p><data:post.body/></p>
Do Copy-Paste code hereunder below/under code above.
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Readmore»»</a>
</b:if>
Tips: Code of Readmore above can change with sentence alone ( follow the example of " Read Hereinafter", " Read nextly", " As complete as")
Code as complete as if seen will see as follows:
<div class='post-header-line-1'/>
<div class='post-body'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<style>.fullpost{display:inline;}</style>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<b:else/>
<style>.fullpost{display:none;}</style>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Readmore»»</a>
</b:if>
<div style='clear: both;'/>
Step to 4
After code above kept [by] us return and step into Arrangement tab -> Format -> searching " Post Template" Later;Then [at] code input box hereunder.
<div class="fullpost">
</div>
SAVE
Step to 5
Here I will explain the way of usage of readmore on page posting. When us do posting first time we will see code:
<div class="fullpost">
</div>
Don'T be vanished, this code will be used by if us make new posting!!
Way of this it is true very practical make you if wishing direct look for keyword of that blog. Better be direct of debate me. Become to follow its steps.....
To make box " seacrh", first of you of login first. Then select;choose to arrange situation later;then enhance gadget select;choose html / javascript
Hereinafter include code following :
<p></p><form id="searchthis" action="/search" style="display: inline;" method="get"><input id="search-box" name="q" type="text"><input id="search-btn" value="Search!" type="submit"></form></span><span class="fullpost"></span><span class="fullpost"></span><span class="fullpost">
If have succeeded, will see like picture hereunder :
Modestly kan banget??
O.K. Congratulation Try!!!!
Table of contents represent ambit from some posting. And only presenting just article titles. Become article we will seen more practical.
Its way as follows :
* Login in Blogger
* At menu of Dashborad click last Layout edit HTML
* Love of Centang [at] column of Expand Template Widget
* Then look for code as in under this :
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
If have met, change with this code :
<b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl !=
data:blog.url'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>
<data:post.title/></a><br/><br/>
<b:else/>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
</b:if>
SAVE
FINISH!!!!
Sometimes hard it is true if not yet understood about this. Experience of me that is this matter soybean cake from centricle.com
This page have made available tables for the convert of script text to yours html,jadi remain to put down the the code in last box remained to depress knob of ENCODE..
To be more wholy please visit www.centricle.com
