cricket latest

It's not just what you say in an online cricket commentary, it's the way you say it. Here's from the cricinfo.com commentary on today's fourth One Day International between England and South Africa:

32.1	It is raining but the game continues Broad to Botha, no run, very full outside off stump, Botha tries to paddle it away but misses

news from elsewhere

Yes, obviously, I'm twitchy as hell over what tomorrow's likely to bring to New Orleans. Thanks in large part to LJ, this time -- unlike the case of Katrina, when I was as horrified as anyone but had almost no direct connection to the inhabitants of New Orleans -- my concern is a personal one: I blame louismaistrosand waifnola, but there are others.

At the same time . . .

This just in from the BBC:

Indian floods cut off thousands

Half a million people in the Indian state of Bihar remain stranded in villages which have been devastated by massive flooding, officials say.

A BBC correspondent reports chaotic scenes as soldiers try to reach those cut off and people attempt to scramble from rooftops into rescue boats.

With 1.2 million people homeless, India is struggling to cope with the crisis.
The flood waters are spreading to new areas, and conditions in relief camps are overcrowded and unsanitary.

The floods are known to have killed at least 75 people in Bihar but the death toll could climb once the situation in remote areas emerges.

Tens of thousands of people have also been displaced in neighbouring Nepal where some of those who have lost their homes are camping under plastic sheets.

It's a truism that we should think about those closest to home first, but let's not forget that Americans -- or Brits, or Ozzies, or Belgians, or Dutch, or whatever -- aren't alone in having to face what our planet does to us. This is not to diminish my concerns about New Orleans friends -- far from it! -- but I have friends in Bangladesh and India too.

Of course, as Our Glorious Leader keeps telling us (not to mention the Palinette), the jury's still out on anthropogenic climate change. I wish that on occasion they'd sip the Kool-Aid they insist on doling out to the rest of us.