The U.S. is in the process of losing its last friends, the Brits.

I'm not just talking here of recent elections, where Labour lost much of its majority specifically due to its support of the Iraq war.

No, I'm talking about Malcolm Glazer.

Malcolm who, you ask? Glazer owns the Tampa Bay Bucs. You may remember his eldest son Avram from the dot-boom, as the head of some nonsense called Zap.com, which tried to roll-up a bunch of disparate Internet assets into some super-duper-something. They got less than nowhere. (The parent outfit, Zapata Corp., had as its co-founder one George H.W. Bush. We'll just let that one sink into the heads of Manchester's tinfoil hat crowd.) Zap.Com also gives us an excuse for discussing this sports story in this here tech blog.

Anyway, yesterday daddykins bought England's true crown jewel, the Manchester United football club. And he seems to have bought it the way LBO artists did it in the 80s, aiming to "unlock value" by dumping his debt onto the books. Needless to say you don't want to be wearing a Bucs' hat in Greater Manchester this afternoon.

On top of this, of course, MP George Galloway has accepted an invitation to appear before a U.S. Senate inquisition (excuse me, investigation) into the Saddam Hussein-era oil for food program. Galloway is accused of taking options on selling 20 million barrels of oil but denies that completely. What the Senate likely doesn't know is Galloway, a fierce war opponent under Labour, was elected back to Parliament this month under the banner of the "Respect" Party. In other words, he won't be a pushover, and regardless of how the U.S. spins it he's likely to get a hero's welcome back home.

About the only thing he could do to become more popular would be to spit in Malcolm Glazer's eye.