Mrs. Tilton has come out of retirement, and if you don’t know how good news that is, take a look at her old blog, and your in for a treat. Note the new address.

No joke, unfortunately
“Across Romania, fear is growing of a looming porcine genocide as the country prepares to negotiate its way into the EU. For the fact is that most pigs are bred and slaughtered here in a way that fails to meet EU standards, and no one is prepared to invest the money needed to [...]

BBC NEWS | Europe | EU pins hopes on Serbia reformers

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court clears Kuchma for third term

Denktash appoints pro-EU PM

Maybe
“A few days before 25 European Presidents and Prime Ministers met in Brussels to try to ratify a constitution, former French President Val?ry Giscard d’Estaing had dire words of warning. Failure to approve the 265-page text, of which he had been the principal author, would be a disaster for the cause of a united Europe: [...]

This article in Prospect is a must read. It expalins you of the role of corruption in the political system, look at its causes, the role of the press, the judiciary, and French culture, gives you the history and whrere things stand at the moment I’d quote the key parts, but then I would [...]

The front page of today’s Washington Post has a none-too-flattering analysis of Gov. Howard Dean, the man most likely to challenge GW Bush for the White House in 2004. It starts:
“Former Vermont governor Howard Dean stands on the brink of a remarkable achievement in American politics, having transformed himself from rank obscurity to clear favorite [...]

Max Sawicky has a new MT blog.
Before the holidays, Norman Geras and Robert Tagorda also moved, and switched to Movable Type.
Oh, and let’s give Scott a proper link to his new blog (another change to MT.)

Just to say, sorry I haven’t been around too much recently. That will change in the New Year. I hope people in Italy aren’t going to be stuck for food. I also note that the US has one more problem to add to the list. This latter should come as no shock, for reasons [...]