Matthew Engel
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/ 9 September 2008

Daddy’s dead but his car is fine

Over huge swaths of the Unite States, country is about all you can find on the car radio – all those songs about tormented love, mommy going away or daddy dying, calculated to make the toughest among us break into floods over the steering wheel as we head through Texas or Tennessee.

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/ 2 June 2003

Ten-pin fans bowled over

You will be delighted to know that the day has finally arrived to bring you up to date with news from the world of ten-pin bowling, which must hit the top 10 list of the most boring spectator sports in the world. It is now successfully doing something about it.

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/ 17 April 2003

Bringing aid and the Bible

It could only happen with a United States invasion. Poised behind the troops, waiting for a signal that Iraq is safe enough for them to operate in, are the evangelical Christians — carrying food in one hand and the Bible in the other.

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/ 9 April 2003

The man who will rule Iraq

It is probably most accurate to call him Iraq’s president-elect. The moment President Saddam Hussein falls, Jay Garner will take over, with the kind of sweeping power over the whole of Iraq that even Saddam has been unable to exercise for the past few years.

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/ 20 January 2003

Bushwhacked

It is more than 30 years ago now, though it seems like yesterday. A Republican president, much derided by liberals, was in the White House and his opponents were being lashed by the right-wing attack dogs, led then by the vice-president, Spiro Agnew.

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/ 15 January 2003

The US: Canada’s national obsession

Now where on the axis of evil can we be? The country’s long-reigning leader thinks the president of the United States is contemptible, a sentiment heartily reciprocated. The leader’s official spokeswoman directly insulted President George W Bush, and she was repudiated only grudgingly.

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/ 20 November 2002

Meet the new Zionists

At first sight, the scene is familiar: one that happens in Washington DC and other American cities all the time. On the platform, an Israeli student is telling thousands of supporters how the horrors of the year have only reinforced his people’s determination.