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The special relationship 

It’s a sign of how strange political alignments can become that Conservative MP Boris Johnson can write the following about Tony Blair’s summit with president Bush:

  It just seems to be give, give, give, this Special Relationship. And that is why, if Tony Blair is casting around for something he might ask by way of requital for his devotion, I have a suggestion. It is that the Americans should stop treating this country like a vassal state, whose citizens can be whisked off for trial — without any evidence as to their crime — in the territory of the imperial power.

This isn’t, as you might suspect, about Guantanamo prisoners, but about David Bermingham, who is caught up in an Enron-related trial.

Incidentally, has anyone explained why president Bush seemed to laugh when asked a question about the opportunities for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his joint press appearance with Blair? It was truly odd.

Personal journey 

Richard Edelman has a wonderful reflection on the arrival of his family in the US:

  I gave the approximate dates of emigration from Europe of my father’s parents to the Hamburg officials. Amazingly, they came back with photocopies of the original passenger logs. My grandfather, Selig Edelmanova (note the ova), age 6, left Hamburg on June 4, 1888 with his mother and two older sisters. He came from Minsk, Russia. My grandmother, age 3, left Hamburg on March 6, 1890 with her father, mother and three siblings. She came from Kalisch, Poland. I am even the proud owner of a photo of the ship Warrington, which carried my grandfather to Liverpool and then to New York.

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