Just a short line for Tobias:”God Speed Your Recovery”. We and Europe need you. BTW: doesn’t this make an even stronger case for good public transport and walking!

just a short note to let you know I will presumably not be able to write much for the next four to six weeks as I broke my [...]

You sometimes meet interesting people flying across the Atlantic, and this trip has to just about take the cake for it. On the way from Minneapolis to Amsterdam yesterday morning, my flight was carrying a group of Amish bound for Zurich.
Now, the Amish are perhaps another institution Americans are more familiar with then Europeans. [...]

Twelve golden stars on a deep blue field. Soon to fly alongside the national emblems in twenty-five states, with more than a dozen more conceivable in the medium term. Why should hundreds of millions of citizens want to join their futures to this project?
Are Europe, and its Union, just shorthand for peace and prosperity? Normality? [...]

Later today, Iain Duncan Smith, the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, will face a vote of confidence in his leadership that he’s widely expected not to survive. (For those of you looking for blogged coverage during the day, I recommend British Politics, Anthony Wells, Iain Murray and our own Matthew Turner. We’re yet to have [...]

Since I’m on the subject of things extra-European today, I note that Le Monde is reporting that there will be a referendum in Guadéloupe and Martinique in December over changing the status and government structure of France’s Caribbean colonies. France has a tradition of being a very centralised state, but the last 20 years [...]

Doug and Elliot Oti brought up the subject of European free riding in the comment’s to Doug’s latest post.
Let me pose this hypothetical. After his landslide win in 2004, president Kuichinik, slashes the US military budget to a third of its current size.
Do you think the European countries would feel compelled to raise [...]

So, today I’m blogging from Idaho where I’m visiting the in-laws. This is the first time I’ve been back in the States long enough for the place to feel foreign since decamping off to Belgium a couple years ago. Actually, the strangest part of this trip has been the feeling of being in [...]

After reading this Crooked Timber entry, I went and typed ‘fistful’ and ‘euros’ in Google, and, get this, we’re the number one result for both. Ahead of companies with domains like euros.net, euros.nl, etc, presumably spending good money on their websites and marketing. Euros is a sponsored links query.
How about that?

This thing got a lot of attention from US rightist blogs. I was rather puzzled why would do something like that, no credible explanations were advanced. Now, via Mark Kleiman, I learn it was apparently all wrong. Should have guessed.

Read more… or Read [...]

Well, well. The richest man in Russia got arrested yesterday. Rather unusually brutally too, FSB raid, as demonstartions. What’s going on?
Let’s turn to not mainstream media but rather The Moscow Times who of course are all over this.
First, some kremlinology:
Analysts have said the attack is an attempt to curb Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions. Not only has [...]