The British never made very likely imperialists because, as we all know, they're a fey bunch of ninnies who enjoy dressing in ladies' clothing and tending to their gardens. But they did run United States for a time, and their terrible despotic rule was marked with grievous injustices like asking that we pay an extra ha'penny (which in modern dollars is nearly a tuppence!) to drink our precious tea. So after some mooks in Boston got wasted, dressed in racist costumes, and engaged in some reckless property damage (some things never change, right?) we all decided that meant war, and a couple years later, the rest of the colonies had beaten the British and all that remained was for them to finally leave New York, where we never really minded their presence that much, as they were certainly preferable to those mooks in Boston.

Still, the British were a little bitter about having to leave New York and go back to London, where the ladies all had comically screechy voices and sometimes chased you around at high speed while wearing frilly lingerie. So on their way out of town, they acted quite the cads!

Departing British troops nailed their flag to a pole downtown and greased it. Every November, a descendant would re-enact the legendary feat of John Van Arsdale, a sailor, who donned cleats and shimmied up the flagpole to replace the British colors with the Stars and Stripes.

As George Washington triumphantly proceeded Downtown, jeering Americans on Staten Island were fired upon by a British ship in what has been described as the last shot fired in the war.

All that nonsense happened on this day in 1783, and New York used to celebrate with parades. The Irish were really into it. The celebrations leveled off when World War I came along, and we had to like the British again, but you can still head down to Battery Park today and see some nerds dressed in funny costumes reenacting the goofiest end to the goofiest insurrection in history.

Some goofily dressed nerds won't be participating, of course:

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the British consul-general in New York said he had no plans to commemorate Evacuation Day.

Sore losers!

It's true, according to the vice president of Colombia!

"Santos said many middle-class Britons who used cocaine were unaware of its environmental impact. 'For somebody who drives a hybrid, who recycles, who is worried about global warming - to tell him that that night of partying will destroy 4m square of rainforest might lead him to make another decision.'"

So stop it, all of Hollywood! [Guardian]

Neither the Clintons or the Obamas seemed to show much favor to the foreign press during the campaigns, and no UK paper, let alone The Guardian, was handed a scoop of this magnitude over the domestic press. So why now? As Wolff points out, the Europeans love Bill Clinton much more than we do, here where he used to run things, because we had to see his shouty red face so much during the primaries. So maybe it's just wishful thinking?

But now the speculation has lasted days, without denials from anyone, so, yeah, it seems like the SecState gig is Hillary's. The trial balloons been floating out there for a while now, and no one's yet come up with a great argument against the nomination that doesn't boil down to "the Clintons are a headache."

We are probably happier with her than with, say, hilarious clown Bill Richardson or old man Richard Holbrooke, but we were kinda warming to the John Kerry idea. That guy's been in the Senate way longer, and is clearly way more sick of being there, right? He was investigating Iran-Contra when Hillary was in Arkansas doing whatever she was accused of doing in that Whitewater thing! (Remember that?) Both of them were dead wrong on Iraq, obv, but we're probably not going to sell anyone on Secretary of State Russ Feingold. At least she's smarter than Condi Rice.

Still, Clinton's rehtoric on foreign policy has always seemed more resolutely, defensively hawkish, in that "Democrats can be war-mongering badasses too" way we deplore, than that of genuine old-timey liberal John Kerry. Of course, Obama's language has been similar, so we probably shouldn't expect the doves and peaceniks to run the foreign affairs department in an Obama administration.

Which means it's disappointment season! Turns out the new politics of hope might involve some hopeless old politicians! Because, hey, the only Democrats hanging around Washington with any experience in the executive branch are old Clinton people (there might be some Carter guys, at Brookings or something, but no one talks to them). So the faces of triangulation did not melt, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style, when Obama won the nomination. It is a great excuse for us Coastal Liberal Elites to Hate America Again, for the very first time.

Just keep Mark Penn far away from 1600 Pennsylvania, Barry, for the sake of the country.

[Facebook via Adrants]

As the Telegraph reports:

He went on to conclude: "My name is Adam Smith, also known as Steve Zacharanda, who has just resigned from the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, to set up my own magazine. F—- you, I'm doing what I want."

Steve Dyson, the editor of the Birmingham Mail, declined to comment on the video, saying: "This is an internal matter".

This man is a hero to journalists everywhere.

Commentary has a think piece out this month on new legislation signed by New York's heroic blind governor last spring, which allows judges here to invalidate libel judgments obtained in countries with lesser free speech protections (hello, UK). The prime motivation was reportedly the nonstop libel tourism of Khalid bin Mahfouz (see below), which threatened to bankrupt some journalists. Huzzah for our right to write things, and yours to read them! Here are some of recent history's most notable libel tourists:

• Khalid bin Mahfouz—a Saudi billionaire who may be the chief libel tourist offender. He's been successful three dozen times, according to Commentary, winning either cash or an apology. His main problem is that lots of people say he funds Al-Quaeda.
• Sidney Blumenthal—wonky former Clinton advisor and (irony!) journalist who sued Matt Drudge for $30 million for alleging Blumenthal abused his wife, based on anonymous sources. Drudge later apologized, but Blumenthal never won his suit formally.
• Richard Perle—hawkish Bush advisor "threatened to sue investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in London, because of a series of critical articles Hersh had written about him." Jerk.

Truth is the ultimate defense!

[Commentary (abstract); pic via Reuters]

NYT stories by Sarah Lyall, a selection:

6/2/06
"It's Springtime for Soccer, And For Rowdy England Fans"

1/11/06
"Ever Since Falstaff, Getting Sloshed Is Cricket"

7/22/04
"British Worry That Drinking Has Gotten Out of Hand"

9/2/02
"What is it About British Men? Cheap, Drunk, and Stiff-Lipped."

5/1/00
"Later Pub Hours? Europe Tells Britain It's Time."

There's more!

"The days when Sag Harbor was known as a writers' colony are over," says a local estate agent. "They can't afford the rent any more." Indeed, to rent a three-bedroom cottage from Memorial Day to Labor Day (the period that constitutes the summer in America) now costs at least $75,000.

Part of the problem is that the book-publishing business is in dire straits...

According to one New Yorker staffer, "It is becoming increasingly tough to score a decent advance, even as a household name."

Luckily Toby Young was able to use a tiny fraction of his movie money to secure a spot on the front lines of the Hamptons to bring this news to the people of the UK. Meanwhile Adam Gopnik can't even get $250K for his next book of essays on raising children like the French! Where's the justice?

[Independent UK. Toby Young's most notable contribution to American culture was actually just to play party host to our own Ian Spiegelman.]

Their opinion page today takes a nostalgic look at the legendary Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858. And they bemoan the current state of political discourse and all that. The scheduled Obama/McCain debates, they lament, will not "even approach the unforgettable exchange of ideas that took place when Lincoln and Douglas shared the stage." The Post, arguing for reasoned, logical exchanges of ideas on The Important Topics!

That's because today's debates are dispassionate affairs in which the candidates exchange meaningless 60-second snippets of carefully scripted replies to a series of often bizarre questions put by self-aggrandizing news personalities on often-irrelevant topics.

That is actually 100% true. (Also, top political stories on nypost.com right now: McCain Unsure of How Many Houses He Has." And: "CINDY'S SIS FUMES OVER SNUB") We agree with every word! And then, ha ha, they say, "McCain tried to remedy this by proposing a series of 10 town-hall meetings with Obama" and we realized basically that the Post did not actually know how the Lincoln/Douglas debates worked.

They were not informal site-down "town hall" meetings with pre-screened citizens asking questions about their pocketbooks. They were an hours of one guy talking, followed by 90 minutes of talking from the other guy, and then the first guy talked again for a half-hour. Have you seen John McCain give speeches? A Lincoln/Douglas debate would actually kill him.

The Spanish Basketball Federation insisted that certain media had "gratuitously" tried to "damage the image not just of the federation but of the country and Spanish sport" in general.

The backlash started with 20 Minutes, which claimed England had written off Spain as a racist country by launching another attack. El Mundo said I had written a "venomous" article in which, "without proof", I insisted the Chinese would be offended. Marca questioned the Guardian's credibility.

Then he goes on for eight more paragraphs explaining that he's just a reporter doing his job. Sample: "Far from venomous, I used a neutral and cautious tone, and stressed that no offence was meant."

Dude, just tell those critics to STFU.

[Guardian UK]

Stills from the 2000 UK documentary Boom or Bust, by filmmaker Si Mitchell:

From Squall magazine:

Two prints from British artist Mister Aitch, both of which are allegedly profile pictures of Banksy. We're told that the title, "F5," is a reference to the button people hit on their keyboard over and over to refresh a page when a new Banksy print goes up for sale:

[Read our previous Banksy coverage here. If you do not feel this investigation is as exciting as I do (it is very exciting), please keep that to yourself.]

PRs - that mysterious and dark breed of fixers, stuntsters and arch media manipulators - have, for more than a century now, been as fundamental to the Tinseltown fantasy as the Hollywood sign itself. They are, according to Borkowski, in his new book The Fame Formula, the hidden gatekeepers of the Hollywood dream machine “who guard its formula, often to the death”

Even today, Borkowski, whose clients have included Michael Jackson, claims that movie publicists are part of a powerful cabal who mostly go unnoticed, who ruthlessly hold the media in their grasp and who “truly understand the dark Conradian soul of man” (ie, our baser instincts).

And the most incredible line of all:

Here, increasingly, the job of the publicist is to tread the fine line between matching a “suitable” journalist with the talent and choosing a craven sycophantic hack who will play the promotional game.

That would be you, Times reporter Kevin Maher! Flack-turned-author Mark Borkowski thanks you for being enough of a sycophantic hack to make his book sound interesting!

Remember, a "Hollywood publicist" is often a guy like this.

[Times UK]

The Sun is outraged. In London there have been 21 teen knife murders this year! That's the average total from a single LA house party gone wrong, but no matter. The manufacturer of SuperPoke, Slide, has pulled the application, and these digital knife-pokings have been stopped. Should everyone now go to jail?

Members could use the blade icon to deliver the “attack” to any friend or stranger who has a profile. The victim then received a chilling message saying they had been “shanked”. The SuperPoke! system is a favourite among teens, with more than a BILLION virtual actions sent – including kisses, hugs and slaps.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said no offence was committed when users sent the “shank” message.

Next up for The Sun: ridding the world of sharp, pointed objects.

[Sun UK]

The insatiable British appetite for stabbing their fellow citizens caused bad PR levels to rise so high that Nike had to start pulling the shoes last week—even though they've been selling them for 20 years.

A company spokesman said: "Given the current climate we have withdrawn the shoe indefinitely from Nike's own stores in the UK."

He said the Air Stab name reflected the fact that it was first launched in 1988 as a stability shoe and had no connection to knives or stabbing.

"While it may be an unfortunate coincidence timing-wise, given current problems regarding knife crime, we completely reject the idea that we are in any way condoning or encouraging the issue of knife usage," said the spokesman.

If the Brits decide to start using Lebron James as a weapon, it will truly spell trouble Nike's European marketing plan.

[Telegraph UK via Adrants]

No-one ever considered that the child might like the quirkiness of their name. Nothing has ever held back my development or progress in the world. I'm now working in the catering trade and everyone calls me Eggy. I don't see the problem!
Egnorwiddle Waldstrom , London, UK

I hated my parents for what they named me up until I was a teenager, but then I just became comfortable with it. I suppose it was just bad for me as my sister was called Judy.
Ftango Molasses, London England

My friends call me Manny!
Mangled Brown Fence-Post, London

We're sure they do, Mangled Brown Fence-Post. We're sure they do.

Mosley, 68, brought the case earlier this month, saying the newspaper, which published pictures showing the Formula One boss being spanked by women dressed as prison guards, was responsible for a "gross and indefensible intrusion of his private life".

The News of the World had claimed Mosley was involved in Nazi-style role-playing and that the sex session was an example of "true depravity" not just harmless "hanky spanky".

Giving evidence during the case, Mosley confessed to having had a penchant for sado-masochism from an early age, but dismissed any suggestion of a Nazi fetish. He said he could think of few things more unerotic.

[Reuters]

[via Adfreak]

What is KNIFE CRIME? It's England's version of our regular crime. Except with scary scary knives instead of boring, conventional guns. And it's a menace that's shaking the very foundations of British society! No Briton can walk down their funny, twisty streets without being HACKED or SLASHED or STABBED these days! Mostly stabbed!

NO PART OF BRITAIN IS SAFE FROM THE BLADE MENACE.

Ministers and police search in vain for solutions! Perhaps knives should be outlawed! But then, as we in America know, only outlaws would have knives. And the outlaws will have extra-scary knives. Like the dreaded WASP KNIFE, a "deadly new knife with exploding tip that freezes victims' organs." Holy shit!

Labour MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, Khalid Mahmood, said: "Weapons like this are absolutely disgraceful and there is no reason at all why people should be walking around the streets with them.

"There should be high-profile operations and high-profile arrests against anybody caught with them. The way to tackle the wider issue of knife crime is with effective community policing, which the West Midlands force does very well.

"The Met could pick up on the lessons from West Midlands Police in its excellent community work in places like Handsworth, Aston and Lozells."

There does not yet seem to be any evidence that anyone in Britain even has one of these American-made knives. But, you know, PANIC.

[via Jossip]

Last March, Rupert Murdoch's News of the World reported that Mosley had a Nazi-themed bondage party with five prostitutes (actually dominatrices!). They have a tape, it's kind of inescapable. Mosley sued them for breach of privacy anyway. And he is probably going to win!

Britain is so open to libel suits that Mosley's case looks good even though the basic facts of the News of the World story are all true, and yes, there is a tape. But Mosley argues that sado-masocism is totally normal and harmless (no argument here), and furthermore that his party was not Nazi-themed. This is where he kinda loses us, as the tape features the women explaining that they're beating him because they are "the Aryan race" and there are some very Nazi-looking uniforms and also a lot of German is spoken. Also Mosley conveniently deleted a couple emails he sent to "participants in the session."

But he got himself a great judge:

The judge, the paper said, was “almost single-handedly creating a new privacy law” with a series of landmark judgments against newspapers in libel and invasion-of-privacy cases.

The Times cited a 2006 case in which the judge granted a “gagging order” to a famous British sportsman, unnamed in the order, who had had an affair with a married woman, to prevent the woman’s husband from going to the papers and exposing the sportsman as a philanderer.

So the expansion of the right of complete privacy to people who are outright no-foolin celebrities does basically mean the crippling of the celebutainment industry in Britain.

The Times story is written by John Burns, by the way. You may remember John Burns as one of the reporters whose extramarital affair was part of a wrongful dismissal suit filed against the New York Times a while back, which was reported on in the New York Observer and elsewhere. Though Burns probably hopes you don't remember this. (He should move to London!)

(The story also features the most helpful Times photo caption ever: "Max Mosley, in a video on a Web site.")

[Full speech available here]

The UK does not want Martha Stewart no matter how many lines of crockery she's designed for Wedgwood! The UK Border Agency has barred the felonious lifestyle queen from entering the country, presumably because of her criminal ways here in America. It's admirable consistency for the agency—famous star criminals must be kept out along with the common scum. But it may turn out to be a crippling blow for England's Toad-in-the-hole industry:

Martha Stewart "loves England." Her spokesperson says so! Just look at some of the English businesses that have benefited from mentions on Martha's website:

Toad-in-the-hole

Exceptions to all such general rules exist. Toad-in-the-hole, from England, and pannukakku, from Finland, are baked rather than fried.

'Transferware Cake'

The nineteenth-century English pottery that inspired this cake (top left) was known for intricate scenes and border patterns. Here, a border detail is repeatedly piped in chocolate.

Some kind of plant

Bred in England and introduced by Graham Thomas in 1961, 'Bobbie James' bears small, fragrant, creamy blooms in large clusters

Crumbles

Recipes for these desserts were primarily passed by word of mouth from mother to daughter, not created by and attributed to a particular chef. Many date loosely to colonial America (some, like crumbles, hark back farther to England), where a necessary efficiency prompted home cooks to look in their larders and out their windows into the fields or orchards before whipping up dessert for the family.

Consider the consequences, England.

[Telegraph UK]

"The libel claim focuses on a series of articles that appeared in the British press including the Daily Mail, the London Evening Standard and the Independent on Sunday from April 22 onwards.

These articles alleged that Robert Dee had lost 54 consecutive professional matches, making him the world's worst player. British-born Dee, who works full time as a tennis professional at La Manga in Spain, has denied the claim.

According to his spokesman, Dee said that while he has lost 54 consecutive International Tennis Federation matches he also won 20 other professional matches in that time."

Robert Dee is a terrible tennis player. God bless the USA!

(Also, could this spell the end of derogatory listicles in the UK? Heaven forbid!)

[Guardian UK]

And last night Mr Obama promised Americans they could propel him into the White House on a wind of change in November.

He is now a step closer to realising the ambitions of Martin Luther King, the black civil rights leader assassinated in 1968.

It was in August 1963 that King famously declared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’."

‘America, this is our moment ... tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the start of another’

Illinois senator Mr Obama finally swept to victory after pocketing an unstoppable majority in the number of nominations needed from Democrat supporters.

The last time the paper loved a liberal so much was 1997, when it suddenly supported Britain's Labour party for the first time since Murdoch took over the tabloid. Because ideology takes a back seat to power, and Murdoch does not like to be seen backing losers. Once the liberal's in power, Murdoch can hopefully use the power of the press to encourage a little political realignment. Say, fighting the Euro and backing Iraq, in the case of Tony Blair. And would you look at that, the portion of Obama's speech that the Sun seemed to like the most was the saber-rattling against Iran:

He vowed that as President he would do "everything" in his powers to stop Tehran getting its hands on a nuclear bomb.

He told a 7,000-strong crowd: "The danger from Iran is grave and my goal will be to eliminate this threat. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

He added: "I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world." Mr Obama has already vowed to pull US soldiers out of war-torn Iraq.

And last night he insisted it was right to force the country’s own military to take charge there.

He went on: "Keeping all of our troops tied down indefinitely in Iraq isn’t the way to weaken Iran, it’s precisely what strengthened it."

Murdoch still isn't quite as influential in the States as he is in Great Britain, but what a difference four years could make!

As the Thatcher era drew to a close in England, Murdoch switched his allegiance from John Major's Tories to the Labour party. Specifically to its rising star Tony Blair, a Clintonian centrist liberal who promised to remake and modernize (or modernise) his stagnant party. Murdoch's papers endorsed Blair in 1997, because Murdoch generally prefers backing winners to ideological purity. This tends to help with things like encouraging the government to let one crazy Australian own as many forms of media as possible. Of course, Blair spent some time courting Murdoch's support personally, surely flattering for the would-be kingmaker.

Murdoch even rewarded the former Prime Minister with a job offer! It was the least he could do for the despised Blair, who dragged his nation into Bush's war against everyone's will and consulted with Murdoch multiple times a year (often in secret) on government policy. Murdoch won important victories, getting Blair to reverse his opinion on the Euro and more. Though the BBC was not, sadly, destroyed.

In other words, Obama should watch out for Australians bearing gifts. Though Murdoch isn't yet as powerful in the US as he'd like to be, a couple years worth of regulatory changes could fix that. And maybe Rupe will finally get his long-overdue invitation to the White House.

(Also, Murdoch on Keith Olbermann, virilant critic of Fox: "I fired him 5 years ago," when he was on FoxSports. "He was crazy.")

A spokeswoman for the force said today: "City of London police had received complaints about demonstrators using the words 'cult' and 'Scientology kills' during protests against the Church of Scientology.

"Following advice from the Crown Prosecution Service some demonstrators were warned verbally and in writing that their signs breached section five of the Public Order Act.

Civil rights groups are justifiably outraged. But it turns out the London police have a history of supporting the wacky church:

The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology.

The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening
of its headquarters in 2006.

Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.

[Guardian UK]

Formerly in the Anonymous vs. Scientology battle: Protests, Video attacks, and the church's counterattack.

Mainly the government wants to keep ads equally loud to the shows they surround, not louder:

The new British rules take account of this, saying that "broadcasters must endeavor to minimize the annoyance that perceived imbalances could cause, with the aim that the audience need not adjust the volume of their television sets during program breaks."

Still: volume button? Anyone? Regulators? Times? Advertisers? I admit to being partially asleep right now and not that bright overall, so help me out here. What if your asshole neighbor just plays their freaking TV too loud? It should be legal to shoot them. Governments are so weird.

Less than a fortnight ago Mrs Grinhaff, 42, updated her profile on the social networking site, Facebook, telling friends she was "currently splitting" from her husband.

She added: "Been married for 16 years but together for 26!!!! God that makes me sound old."

Some neighbors told the Daily Mail that she was having an affair, but who knows. The one sure thing is that, if she wrote that message on her Facebook page, her husband was sure to find it. Here's her complete list of friends:

[via Daily Mail UK]

[via Mr. Gay UK]

The rules make it an offense to blog, use brand ambassadors or seed viral ads while "falsely representing oneself as a consumer." They also apply to bloggers who fail to disclose they have accepted money to write about a product.

This is not of course, happening in the US. But maybe bloggers should rethink their opinions about accepting free shit in return for positive reviews. Word of mouth marketing online is big business here, but most companies and their marketing agencies are smart enough to realize already that disclosure can save them a world of scandal and bad PR.

So far the exact penalties haven't been spelled out, and it will likely take a test case, reported to the Office of Fair Trading and prosecuted, to make clear the size of the penalty and whether jail time is really likely.

Flogging?

Also, here we gratuitously bring up once again Edelman's famous fake Wal-Mart blog. If only it had happened after May 26, and in the UK.

[Ad Age]

Mosley himself pointed out, in response to their joint condemnation of him:

Given the history of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, particularly before and during the Second World War, I fully understand why they would wish to strongly distance themselves from what they rightly describe as the disgraceful content of these publications.

Zing? Honda and Toyota also issued somewhat more mealy-mouthed statements on the affair, generically calling for "high standards of behavior" among senior officials.

But why? BMW/ Mercedes said in their statement that because of Mosley's position, the scandal's "consequences therefore extend far beyond the motorsport industry." Really? Because unless I missed something, it consisted of a leaked tape of a man pursuing his own, admittedly kinky and extreme, sex life. You could be forgiven for thinking that it's more disgraceful for executives at some of the world's largest auto companies to spend hours viewing Mosly's private sex tape in order to determine their own high-handed response.

These companies have never been shy about using sex to sell their products. Indeed, sex is a basic staple of auto marketing, from its TV commercials to the models at its trade shows. And does anyone believe that Mosley is actually a Nazi because he has a fetish? By that logic, lots of otherwise straitlaced executives at corporations around the world would in fact be dungeon masters or slaves or tigers or Catholic schoolgirls.

Mosley is thus far standing firm in his decision not to resign.

[via Ugly.org]