From the Someone Get This Man a Thesaurus Department..
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced his take on the impending war with Iraq. The verdict? Not nice.

Now, onto more things from Spain. Today I went for a delightful walk - it's getting warm here - to buy my brother a soccer jersey. He had requested a Ronaldo jersey, but Ronaldo plays for Real Madrid, and looking for such a jersey here is like trying to buy your Official Derek Jeter Duvet - Dust Ruffle Set on Landsdowne Street. It makes people a little annoyed and they charge you more.

The proprietor asked if I spoke English. On La Rambla, that really means, "Would you like to be gouged on this official-looking knockoff jersey?" I told him, no, that I hablo-ed the Español, and we haggled the price of a jersey down from a remarkably unreasonable number to a less unreasonable one. I told him I would come back after looking some more, and he knocked another 30 bills off the price. Rivaldo, Ronaldo, who knows the difference? I asked him what the price would have been if I only spoke English. He said that I didn't want to know.