Back to Life, Back to Reality

Can we stop now?

Can we PLEASE stop watching and listening to nonstop encomiums about how wonderful Tim Russert was? He was a lawyer turned interviewer (not a journalist), and he favored leaping out from behind a rhetorical tree and screaming "Gotcha!"

Here's what went on while the press mourned and performed funerary games:

Four Marines died in Afghanistan, and President Karzai has threatened to invade Pakistan.

Iowans (among others in the Midwest) were flooded out of house and work, and the corn and soybean crops for this year are largely knackered. Get ready for higher food prices.

Our Dear Leader had tea with Elizabeth II while riot police dealt with protestors outside Whitehall.