Archive for September, 2008


The American presidential election (70)

September 30th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

If this year’s presidential race is as close as that in 2000, it could all come down to the Jewish vote in Florida – in which case, here’s some advice for the young relatives of retired Jews in that state: The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo. PS Happy Jewish New Year to […]

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Last post for Postwatch (3)

September 30th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

Today is the last day of existence for the consumer watchdog for postal services Postwatch. As Chair of the Greater London region for the past two and a half years, I decided to go out with a bang. Footnote: When I wrote this posting this morning, I thought that the “Telegraph” was the only newspaper […]

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The American presidential election (69)

September 29th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

I know that there’s a ton of media coverage about the US Presidential election and that that I’ve written constantly about it on NightHawk but, if you only read one article about the contest, make sure it’s this one.

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Jews in wartime Slovakia

September 28th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

One of my closest friends – a Jewish man from Slovakia – is involved in a project describing the experience of another Jewish Slovak man discovering how his father died in the Second World War and the implications of this story for the present time. My friend’s translation agency translated the project from Slovak to […]

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Congratulations to Maria and Angela

September 27th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

BBC online today has a news item on the civil partnership between Treasury Minister Angela Eagle and her partner of 18 years Maria Exall. Angela is the only openly gay woman in the House of Commons and Maria is a BT engineer and a member of the Executive of the Communication Workers Union. When I […]

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The human cost of China’s economic miracle

September 27th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

A large part of China’s remarkable economic development has been achieved at the expense of the basic rights of millions of former state-owned enterprise workers, states a new report released by the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin and Canada’s International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, commonly known as Rights & Democracy. “No Way […]

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The American presidential election (68)

September 27th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

The first of the four debates between the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates was held at 2 am British time, so we recorded it from CNN and watched it over breakfast this morning. Here in the UK, we have nothing like these gladiatorial televised contests but, if we did, the moderator would have been sharper […]

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Last post for Postwatch (2)

September 26th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

Effectively Postwatch – the watchdog for postal consumers – ended today after almost eight years of operation. Technically the organisation will be in existence Monday and Tuesday, but nobody will be working, since all the IT equipment and office furniture will be on the move so that, on Wednesday, Consumer Focus – a merger of […]

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The American presidential election (67)

September 25th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

“The West Wing” was my all-time favourite television programme and the election battle between a minority Democratic candidate Matt Santos and a maverick Republican candidate Arnie Vinick beautifully anticipated the real-life contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. Jeb Bartlet was the best President the US never had and hopefully Barack Obama will be one […]

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The American presidential election (66)

September 24th, 2008 by Roger Darlington

I’ve always said that, if the world could vote in the US Presidential election, it would choose Barack Obama. Now “The Economist” magazine is running a world-wide on-line poll. Votes are cast on a country-wide level. Each country is assigned a number of votes according to the size of its population ( “electoral-college votes” on […]

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