Well, I’m back.

It was great week. My thanks to the people of the Dominican Republic, the warm waters of the Caribbean, the inventor of rum, and the three amiable dolphins who suffered me to swim with them (you know who you are).

And BIG thanks to Chris Regan. Despite his rather ungentlemanly attempt to finger me to US Customs officials and thus retain control of this blog, I’m extremely grateful for the good work done here during my absence. I can honestly say that I’ve never been so entertained reading my own site.

Normal blogging operations will resume tomorrow. But I can’t resist posting a few stray thoughts as I attempt to figure out how the world has changed since the last Felber administration:

- Maybe it’s inevitable for an Englishman, but Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is really living up to his Dickensian name. His latest assertion is that even if Al Qaeda DID perpetrate the train bombings in Spain (as they claim), and even if they DID do it in retaliation for Spain’s support for the Iraq war and the policy of pre-emption (as they claim), well, even then people would be “completely wrong” to assume that Al Qaeda was responsible and that they did it in retaliation for Spain’s support for the Iraq war and the policy of pre-emption. The logic of Jack Straw’s viewpoint is almost supernaturally slender and brittle, so beautifully in harmony with his name. Dickens would be proud.

- I’m sure many people have said this already, but I’ve been away: If Al Qaeda IS behind the Spanish attacks, then they have successfully deposed the government of a major western power, using the machinery of democracy against its practitioners. It’ll be pretty hard for anyone in the US or British government to argue against this fairly simple conclusion, but expect a lot of Strawesque attempts anyway. In the official War on Terror, the enemy never scores a victory. This makes for good politics, of course, but someday our children are going to be playing some extremely dull and lopsided board games.

- How dare John Kerry make the ridiculous assertion that many world leaders would like to see him beat Bush!? Why, why, it’s almost as if he’s saying that all those nations that opposed the preemptive war in Iraq, all those leaders of the “old Europe,” all the voices who decried the circumnavigation of the UN, all those guys in charge of countries that had foodstuffs sardonically un-named after them, all the powers that saw themselves shut out of the bidding on Iraqi contracts - why, it’s almost as if Kerry is saying that some of those people don’t like the Bush administration!! If that’s not actual treason, it’s surely some other extremely pejorative and sensational Ann Coulter book-title word. Kerry should reveal those names immediately to prove that should he be elected, the leaders of the world will have no more cause to trust his administration than the current one. Otherwise, the (People Who Don’t Particularly Care For The Bush Administration’s Unique And Controversial Approach To The War Against) terrorists will surely have won.