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POPSGeorge Bush and 'Sarko the American' To America's delight, Sarkozy has boosted troops in Afghanistan and is preparing France for a return to Nato's integrated command. This sparked Sarkozy's political opponents in France to rise up against what they warn is an "alignment" with Washington. Current topics of friction between Paris and Washington include Turkey's entry to the EU - Washington supports this but France continues to put spanners in the works - and climate change. Another awkward point is Sarkozy's warming of relations with Syria, which has already met a cautious reaction from the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. The Élysée palace announced this week that France has invited the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to attend the July 14 Bastille day celebrations after a Mediterranean summit in Paris next month.
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POPSNo Evidence Found Eight Belles Was Injured During Derby The Jockey Club has formed a panel to examine the issues, and its members participated in a conference call Wednesday. Stuart Janney, a thoroughbred owner and breeder who will chair the committee, said breeding practices, track surfaces and medication are among the subjects to be discussed. "We're going to use this committee as a bully pulpit to be persuasive on certain matters, and go to other people in the industry and say, 'This is how we feel, how are you going to help us?'" Janney said.
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POPSTony Blair: Nutjob Some people, when they retire, stop wearing a tie, stop putting on a suit - unless it is of the jogging variety, stop waking up before dawn, stop worrying about deadlines, and just put their feet up. Other people go abso-freaking-lutely nuts when they retire. Guess which one Tony Blair is? Tony apparently is nostalgic for the time of the Crusades. He might have converted to Catholicism, but his rhetoric is straight up "White Man's Burden" from Victorian "Muscular Christianity." I mean, he begins with the implicit supposition that the west has always dominated the world and that the East is just recently rising above the level of savage barbarism to "challenge" the Christian West. Then it goes down hill from there! He actually sounds nostalgic for brutal imperialism. He also sounds frighteningly ignorant. I certainly hope this kind of madness doesn't prefigure Bush's up-coming retirement.