Thanks. OTOH, I must recognize that as an American I am asking for it if I point out -- in the immediate aftermath of a multiple suicide bombing -- that UKers were asking for it because of their reckless foreign policy. However, UKers need not endure the torment of kibbitzing Americans to hear this message. They can hear it in homegrown form -- e.g., that Guardian column I posted to the list earlier by Seumas Milne, "It is an insult to the dead to deny the link with Iraq" <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1528155,00.html> Milne makes the same points I did -- except more eloquently, without typos and free of apparently inflammatory references to Vera Lynn classics.
BTW, LBO Chief Protocol Officer Heartfield has made it known that "Brit" is a term of opprobrium. When did this happen? Last I checked it was a tag as inoffensive as "Yank."
Full disclosure: The horror of dying in, or even surviving, a subway blast is not lost on me. Many years of NYC mass transit commuting aggravated my claustrophobic instincts to the point that I can easily get a panic attack just on *surface* transit (the Long Island Rail Road) if I experience a long delay in a crowded sealed car without adequate ventilation. For years now I have avoided use of the NYC subway almost entirely, partly because I like the exercise of walking but in large measure because I hate the feeling of being imprisoned on a jampacked car between stations.
I appreciate that Londoners have jangled nerves these days. I just wish the hell they'd take it out on Tony Blair.
Carl