The Church of England also contacted the store's management about the cards, one of which included the message: 'Jesus loves everyone except you, you c***.'

The cards, which cost L2.99 each, were available in the Banana Moon concession section on the second floor of the store.

Others risque greetings include: 'Happy Birthday You C***'; 'F*** off you f*****g f****r' and 'Die B**ch Die, oh sorry I mean Happy Birthday'.

"Let yourself be inspired by our delicious bits!"

Three guesses. Time's up. For a good chortle, browse through Crocodille's (Purveyor of "Sandwiches") English website. High production values, hit and miss in terms of communication. "Croco Life" is a whole section devoted to a flash movie reverentially praising the company's iceberg-lettuce-in-a-rickety-tub Caesar's salads. Croc o' shit, more like. Of course "Sortiment" gets translated "Assortment". And so on.

Read about how "We Bake Ourselves" (Ref.) and learn the answer to "How do we bake delicious bits?"

Once again, I must ask, with (supposedly) 10,000 native speakers of English clogging up this town, was it beyond Crocodille to snag one that had proofed a bit of Czenglish before? Apparently so.

The crowner, however, is this one: "Everything we bake is based on high technology". Getting hungrier! The "Technology" section is a real appetite suppressor. I can't believe what I'm seeing. Some kind schematic of a big production line, things going up and down (imagine the noise), things going in and coming out the end, automaton worker monotonously repeating the same motions over and over. One of the stages of the process occurs when

A set of knives cuts the row of sandwiches into pieces.

Those knives are whirling around pretty close to that worker's fingers. Don't think that about that next time you are contemplating a bacon turkey on wheat bread.

These guys basically own the market for crap sandwiches in a box. C'est la vie. Now something new: last night I was walking home along Vitezni namesti, and I passed right by a brand spanking shiny new Crocodille sandwich restaurant, in the Express or Subway style. If I'd seen a real crocodile I'm not sure I would have been more alarmed. But here they are. What are they going to serve? Their regular vaccum packed product? I wouldn't be surprised.

Don't go to the website to find out. There's not a thing there about it.

UPDATE: The Croco sandwich shop actually does make fresh sandwiches right there. Everything is on sale for half price as a promotional tool. A visitor reports

they make them in front of you. I wanted to taste them cause I am never going to buy one for 60 or 70 Kc. They have a strange taste I have to admit. J. didn't even finish his - w.chicken.

It's a sandwich. All that money invested and time wasted just to fuck up what is essentially a very simple thing.

What will the Americans do with their captive? Is Saddam going to face a trial? Will the truth of his mass murders and crimes come out? Will the trial shed light on how the US backed him and supplied him with chemical weapons? Will it reveal how the US encouraged him to launch the war on Iran, causing the death of a million Iranians and Iraqis? Will the trial go into the alliances with and support for Saddam by so many of members and parties now in the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council? The dark clouds over Iraq haven't lifted yet.

Let's help him out, shall we? Dear Sami, following please find answers to your enquiries:

- Make sure he's tried by an Iraqi court and executed, and if that doesn't work, do it themselves.
- See above.
- Certainly. I hope that makes you glad.
- I fervently hope so. Part of the justification for the war certainly must be US culpability in helping prop up the bastard in the first place. Will you be directing that question to the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, China etc?
- The Iran/Iraq war is the Americans' fault? Sorry, answered a question with a question.
- Indeed, as it should.

What's the problem, Habibi? You keep asking questions that get you further into a corner:

So at this moment of joy, other questions keep intruding: Who is going to try Bremer, Bush, Rumsfeld and Blair? Will Iraq ever be free?

Well, the answer to the second question is somewhat dependent on the success of obstructionists like you.

What would this man have done? For Ramadani, the campaign in Iraq was a "US-led unjust and immoral war". I can't help responding that whether we went to war or not he'd still be alright, enjoying the benefits of the free, prosperous and democratic part of the world he spends so much disparaging.

What would he do? By opposing the war, he says in essence that Saddam Hussein should have been left in power, and his sons left in line for the succession, unless coaxed out of power by international pressure. That worked real well in the previous 12 years. And I doubt it would be a great big stretch to assume that he railed against the sanctions back in the day.

Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein. The inescapable corollary of opposing the war, for the the marchers to the screeching columnists to the tut-tutting English and European dinner party set to the demented and frothy remants of the US far left to the nervous and concerned church ladies of the American middle classes, is preferring to have left Saddam in power.

And I come back to my first comment: the cloudy confusion. Just what is this man saying? Read the article twice if you like. What is his point? There isn't one, other than the need to say, yet again, that no matter what happens, oppose America abroad. "Saddam is gone, the resistance will grow." Is that a bad or a good thing? If bad, then surely he argues for having left Saddam alone. If good, then he's glad that the coalition will now suffer increased casualties and perhaps leave sooner. Before stability has been returned to the country.

There is no mention, by the way, in Ramadi's piece on whether he intends to leave his life in the west now and return to Iraq to help in the rebuilding of his country.

I can't believe this. I'm crying here. I feel that we now don't have a chance in this election.

Carrie B.

And then a little further down,

I'd like to remind folks to keep in mind...

The press is reading.

Musn't make it too obvious what we really think. Some of the other posters sound similar warnings, while others speculate that the Carrie B. type postings are partially the fault of provocatuers. If you care to page through the whole thread, you will see a conversation predominantly among people consoling themselves on a setback and exhorting each other to keep the faith. On the day after Saddam Hussein had been captured and humiliated before the world.

Dean's speech, the snippet I saw anyway, was subdued and quiet. He expressed approval that Saddam had been captured, and allowed that this was Bush's day. But it was grudging. He never cracked a smile and looked a little tired. Here's his statement.

Joe Lieberman reacted correctly, expressed actual jubilation, and you believed him. And he only spoke the truth: If Dean had been President, Saddam would still be in power today.

And this: "This evil man has to face the death penalty." He doesn't want an international body to have anything to do with it, and says if the Iraqis can't agree to impose death, he should be tried by the US and executed. What he said.

Since 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia created the principle that sovereign states, and therefore their sovereign heads, are both legally and morally absolute, there has been no legal basis for proceeding against such a person, however heinous the crimes he is known to have committed.

In other words, there isn't any internationl precedent to go on despite the pious calls of those that believe the best way to deal with Saddam is to have him tried by an international court convened by the UN.

Did you get that? As you read of such statements in the coming days, reflect on the fact that those same people are the ones who argue that full soveriegnty must be handed back to the Iraqi people and pronto.

Let's hold them to that, and look, perhaps unrealistically, for an admission finally that Saddam must be tried by an Iraqi court or tribunal, which almost certainly will institute the death penalty for the purpose. The best possible outcome of Saddam's capture would be a public trial with enough time to present methodically a representative set of charges covering all his years in power followed by a date with a hangman, said date to be well recorded for posterity, and most of all for Iraqis.

One cannot become a member of the European Union and want to start this membership with a veto.

Gerhard Schroeder

Fine. Not a bit politics going on there. That's just common sense, and has nothing to do with the fact that Germany (and France) in their arrogance never imagined finding themselves in the absurd position of having only a few votes more than Poland (Poland, I ask you!), who, after all, was one of those countries who missed a good opportunity to shut up a while back.

Nothing new under the sun, isn't that about it? Tell me if I'm wrong. France and Germany, with the blood of the stability pact already on their hands, are about to do in the constitution over the voting issue because it threatens their primacy. Some people are probably hoping that something like that will happen anyway.

Yawn. Please note that I have broken protocol to mention the EU. I can make such an exception very occasionally, and only in mid-day when I am most alert and thus the risk of spontaneous trance is minimal.

Do they know it's Christmas?

In collaboration with Project Sance*, Bluebird** is determined to share the spirit of Christmas with hundreds of underprivileged youngsters.

With your support of the Bluebird 2003 Christmas Gift-Giving project, we can make the magic of Christmas a reality for them. Contributions of basic food and clothing are needed.

Suggested food donations include: powdered soups, concentrated beverages (syrup, powder, etc.), coffee, sugar, tea (black or fruit), packaged Christmas pastries or cookies, precooked/dehydrated foods and meals, and canned meats.

Suggested clothing donations include warm (woolen) socks and hats.

How specifically can you contribute to the Bluebird 2003 Christmas Collection?

As an individual: Collect any food or clothing from the above list and call Karolyn Andrews at 721 509 149 (English) or Tereza Urbánková 602 531 391 (Czech and English) for delivery details.

As a company: Designate a project coordinator. Place 2 boxes/containers in an area where employees can donate food or clothing from the above list. Have your project coordinator call Karolyn Andrews at 721 509 149 (English) or Tereza Urbánková 602 531 391 (Czech and English) for delivery details.

When and where:
Donations of food and clothing should be delivered on Friday, December 19, Saturday, December 20, and Monday, December 22. For delivery information, contact Karolyn Andrews at 721 509 149 (English) or Tereza Urbánková 602 531 391 (Czech and English).

Contribute to the Bluebird 2003 Christmas Give-Giving project, and let them know it's Christmas.

That suggestion for warm clothes got to me a bit. I walk every day in the park near my office. It's hilly and there is a lot of shrubbery and scrub growth. I have seen obviously homeless kids, carrying their few belongings stuffed into plastic carrier bags, looking for places to crawl up into the bush and sack out. The other day I came around a corner on one trail and saw a dirty, discarded sleeping bag (summer weight) and lying next to it a can of toluene. Opened and empty. Rather heartbreaking.

Beanies for Baghdad. (Do the scroll down thing.)

At first I thought this was about sending ... ahem ... beanie babies (it's embarassing to say, write or think that) in care packages to the troops. Interesting concept. On foot patrol by day dodging RPG rounds? What better way to unwind back at the barracks than by rearranging your (those things) collection?

But no. Beanie moms are exhorted to donate their floppy little friends to the kids of Iraq, a worthy idea to be sure. So, now I kind of feel bad about thinking of making fun of it. Never mind.

...You are average to above average for the business world; buy a few gadgets and you might graduate to guru.

What am I, from Lake Woebegone?

Survey brought to you by Microsoft, wannabe purveyors of digital gadgets.

CNN.com - Cannibal trial begins in Germany - Dec. 3, 2003

...
He is alleged to have cut off part of the victim's body before the pair ate it together. The defendant is then alleged to have cut up the victim, storing his body in a freezer and eating it over the following months.