O.K....so I click over to Collounsbury, and what do I find? This brilliant observation, "Back in the States for the first time in quite a while. Always amused by how fat people are. Tubby people everywhere. Of course ever escalating portions I note seems to be reaching Roman levels of gluttony. Connexion?"
You think that passes for analysis? He just stokes more prejudices of which he has many concerning the U.S.

Then there is this gem, "Everyone seems to talking about the Karl Rove and Plame issue. I find the topsy turvey politics peculiar, but unsurprising. Rather clearly they leaked a secret agent's name for sordid political score settling. Law aside, that should be punished, sordid political score settling should be within certain bounds. I'm unhappy the "Conservatives" - or as I have taken to refering to these people, Right Bolsheviks - do not see that sometimes one has to cut out from the fold for one's own good. Having Agency people involved in open political warfare is a bad, period."


He obviously doesn't know anything about the Plame issue aside from what he probably got out of the Guardian, yet he spreads the B.S. to all his readers. There is no analysis or insight in these posts. In fact he's got the conclusion backwards. Why do you link to it?

Barnabus
 

Prejudices:

My dear Barny, I love you too, but I am on the road, mate, and not pretending to do any analysis at all. Off handed comments by a busy fellow like myself. Tubby people is a throw away, lighten up and stop being a humourless Right Bolshy ideologue.

I may add that despite your Right Bolshy ideology, I am not a Guardian reader at all. Financial Times man through and through.

Now, as to not knowing anything about Plame, I would rather disagree. You see, there is a difference between knowing and "ideological knowing."

For the non-ideological, rather than excuse making one steps back and has to say were the parties reversed, people like you would be slavering and frothing (and rightly so) about the issue. Since I have standards that are not concerned with party politics, I call it by those. You, of course, have other standards.
 

Yes, the link to Col the other day was not meant to be serious, just my taking note of Col moving briefly from the Expatland universe to here.
 

Col, you tend to make assumptions about my ideology that you really know very little about. As to the Plame issue, the story is complex and not straightforward as you presented in the post on your blog. The more important issue, that you completely miss, is how a group within the CIA launched a campaign to oust President Bush. Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Africa and he lied about what were the conclusions of his report. Further, Ms. Plame was well known in D.C. circles as a CIA agent, it was by no means a closely guarded secret. As to who, shall we say, officially outed her, as it stands now it seems that a reporter told Rove who then mentioned it to Mr. Cooper; and it was Mr. Cooper who raised the issue in the conversation, not Mr. Rove.

Barnabus


P.S. make sure you stop at Mickey D's and eat a Big Mac and fries...and of course, SUPER SIZE it! It's all we Yanks ever eat.
 

Barny
I make no assumptions, I see what I read. Your spin on the affaire and assertion of "facts" match my read perfectly, as did your absurd Guardian comment. Regardless, I am uninterested in arguing something like this with Right Bolshies.

I however, skipped McDo, which I can get right here (ex the super size for fatties) for some equally sinful burritos. Something I have missed, I confess. Massize Tex Mex burritos. Brilliant invention. I have to find a way to commercialise them here. Perhaps a Chipotle chain.

Nevertheless, don't be so bloody sensitive about North American becoming a land of fat asses, it's what naturally results from a rich environment of abundance where much driving is done. No moral failings implied (well other than the constant whinging on about fatness while getting stuffed, might as well celebrate).

A moral failing is in the prevalence of stretch pants on people who should never come near such things, but nobody is perfect.