An interesting little book: A journal of the late siege by the troops from North America against the French at Cape Breton, the city of Louisburg, and the territories thereunto belonging, surrendered to the English on the 17th of June after a siege of forty-eight days / by James Gibson. London : Printed for J. Newbury, 1845.
At the end of this tiny book it is revealed that parliament had some money waiting for Gibson or his descendants!!

Hey! "Huit pays europeens tournent le dos a la "vieille europe"! That's in today's Figaro.

Today's installment from Colby Cosh has this to say about Bush's address, in particular, his seeming difficulty with public speaking:

This isn't cultivated folksiness: anybody who describes Bush as a "good ol' boy" probably hasn't met one. It's something else. How does the viewer respond to his "I just gotta put my head down and get through the next 45 minutes alive" technique? It creates drama, for one thing. I think the most hysterical Democrat alive would admit that Bush's SOTU speeches are vastly more compelling, in that respect, than Bill Clinton's agonizing orgies of silky-smooth self-congratulation. Bush's visible difficulties give him a wholly genuine aura of intensity.

This is a good observation. It's just impossible not to listen. One point, though: I believe the pronunciation "nucular" is acceptable. I've heard reasonably well-educated people say "fillum", for example.