Not sure how long today's post will be so will tentatively commence with a table of contents which may turn out to be superfluous and very short:

1) Property
2) Iraq
3) The domestic 'front' - in there because I usually add something personal

Over the months I’ve noticed that one of the America websites that I’m signed up to bidding for freelance work has a lot of contracts relating to real estate investment. For Americans with some capital, business savvy and a desire to work for themselves, Real Estate investing seems to have been hugely popular. I don’t have any statistics to hand but proportionately much more popular than the buy-to-let fashion in the UK.

Just recently, I’ve been looking at some website comparative popularity statistics. Again US websites are in the top positions but the sites names like ‘I am facing foreclosure’ or ‘Housingpanic - there goes the neighbourhood’. Financial disaster blogging seems to be bewitching thousands of Americans (and others), presumably appealing to those who share the misfortune, less savoury types who want to gloat and a lot of people somewhere in between.

For some with a modicum of imagination who hit financial disaster early on, the pearl of self publicising opportunity seems to have caught their eye. Hence, "I am Facing Foreclosure", who is also facing an investigation by the FBI, I understand, so is giving up blogging. But clearly that option isn't open to everyone who is in the same financial boat. presumably, at some point a school of thrifty, personal stock-taking style of blogs may come along, though I'm not sure it'll be all that much fun reading them.

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It seem to be more difficult than ever to get a straight answer to the question , are the allied forces achieving anything worthwhile in Iraq. On yesterday's Today Programme, the BBC correspondent, Paul Wood, quoted unnamed senior officers saying that the situation was 'unwinnable'. This was immediately followed by General Jonathan Lamb saying almost the exact opposite, that Basra's murder rate was lower than Washington's and the city's police could be trusted sufficiently to take over from the British Army. In fact, he deserved some kind of award for ploughing on with his point of view in a John Humphries interview.

In the American sector, Anbar Province is reported to have been turned around (or maybe the Sunni shiekhs have turned themselves around with some encouragement from Saudi Arabia) and the US adminstration talks of the government meeting 8 out of its 16 targets. and yet US congress-people and senators speak of wanting to disassociate themselves from the occupation. Sometimes it looks as if the Americans will pull out before the British.

Douglas Alexander's speech this week felt like the end of all British support for US unilateralism but very far from being the end of support for a strong policy in the Persian Gulf (President Bush was probably past caring anyway). The speech took the UK to where most of us would have liked to have been in 2002/3 - UN agreement deemed to be essential to any large-scale military intervention. The Brown government's policy will be, firstly, to do everything possible to avoid the Iraq occupation being an issue at the next (2008) general election, secondly, to give themselves as much room for manoeuvre in foreign policy, and, thirdly, to give whatever help they can to enabling this and future US administrations to act decisively in the Middle East.

It would be cynical to say that Democratic presidential contenders would prefer to fight their 2008 election with the occupation as the key issue but it does seem that they believe that they can 'lean into' President Bush's determination to stay the course. Presumably, further down the road, presidential hopefuls are going to have to be more constructive, meaning that they recognise that Iraq's oil is very important, that Gulf oil and natural gas is all important and that Iran's nuclear policy is very dangerous.

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On the personal front I've been busy working. I'm tendering to do some editorial work and deliberating about what to submit as samples. My experience of this situation is that the 'other party' never tell you quite enough about what they want to find out about you.

This summer seems to be high on flies and bindweed. Meanwhile the plants put there by myself to flower are having a hard time of it. I went to our usual supplier of local honey (which comes from Shillinglee - I think I've posted about that before) but the bees having been feeding off the combs in the hives rather than producing more honey so there was none to for sale.

On Thursday I went for a walk in the vicinity of Marley Common. In fact, I got myself loss in the chestnut coppices - in a harmless way with no unlooked-for consequences (like being out all night).

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Last topic for this posting is the news that has demonstrated that global warming isn't the result of increased solar activity because solar activity has decreased in the last 20 years. A while back I was impressed with an interview with Christopher Monckton in the Sunday Times, which said that his opposition to ‘global warming due to carbon emissions’ arguments was based on his belief that solar activity was the cause. I’ve been a little sceptical about how ‘orthodox’ the carbon emissions argument has become but I guess the ball is in Christopher Monckton’s court now.

Speaking of global warming, the Liberal Democrat’s plans for extra tax for polluters are not logical. At some point they have to either fail to stop people polluting (in the same way that alcohol taxes don’t stop people imbibing) of they have to fail in raising tax revenues.