Remember Lisa Hawthornthwaite back in October being appointed as the National Trust’s first Dorset cowboy? Well it appears this modern day move to horse-powered conservationism has now hit Wales, or Angelsey to be precise.
Chris Bennett is working for the Countryside Council for Wales herding 138 cattle around common land crossed by a main road. As the BBC report states:
Cowboys do not always wear a Stetson, shout “yee hah!” or eat sausages and beans around a camp fire… well, not on Anglesey anyway.
And another popular topic is in the news again - ‘George W. Bush should be 2008 Texan of the Year‘.
Just remember, “Yee-haw is not a foreign policy”.
Christmas is coming, it’s getting colder (well oddly not today) and milions of people this year in the UK are going to struggle to pay their heating bills.
Energy costs are soaring as fossil fuel stocks are depleted - peak oil is coming - and many would say there are companies out there looking to profit. Well that’s the opinion of Richard Bacon, the Tory MP for South Norfolk, quoted in the Telegraph:
Britain’s energy market is now a “wild west town in need of a sheriff” because the regulator, Ofgem, has failed to keep down gas and electricity bills, say MPs.
We don’t have the option of drilling for oil - not that I’m aware of anyway - but no wonder Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin was so popular with Republicans keen to exploit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Will there be blood?
…to go meet Al ‘Sundance’ Gore?
The BBC reports on the “not-so-secret code names used by the US Secret Service” and reveals some corkers from the last 3 decades.
Remember Ronald Reagan in Cattle Queen of Montana? No me neither:
Well that western movie icon must have been pretty pleased with his ‘Rawhide’ codeword, whispered down many a sleeve by a buzz cut wearing bodyguard or 6.
Al Gore though as Sundance? I don’t see the likeness with the Sundance Kid. And as for poor Al’s daughter Karenna Gore - AKA Smurfette - well what can you say.
The biggest cowboy in America will say goodbye to the White House on 20 January 2009 and hello to a life of Secret Service protection. Asked by CNN’s Heidi Collins what he planned to do Bush replied:
No doubt I’m heading straight home. I miss Texas; I love Texas; I’ve got a lot of friends in Texas.
When interviewed by Stephen Applebaum about his latest Bush biographical movie ‘W’, Oliver Stone said of the outgoing President “We have some Bush in all of us…
He’s the kind of guy who represents an American mind-set of revenge, force, violence and greed. He condones it.
Whilst Stone is never going to be Bush’s biggest fan he does believe the Texan is going to be one of those Presidents we’ll all be talking about in years to come and if he’d had success in Iraq, Iran and Venezuela would have been next on the list. Bush has “produced heavyweight consequences” and it’s now down to Obama and his Democrat forces to change America for the better.
Some ‘Cowboy Bush’ highlights from the last 8 years:
I’m sure you’re tired of reading about Obama’s win and US election politics but whilst scanning the blogs I came across two interesting comments from readers on Matthew Price’s election blog for the BBC:
1. “Interesting to look at the political map of who won which states. A centre with two coastlines… as others have said, an inward looking and an outward looking country.”
2. “As an Englishman looking at the Election results on the Map of America, the divisions look like the Confederate war, who knows ‘The south may rise again’”…
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