Ivan Rybkin now claims that his disappearance wasn’t entirely voluntary after all. Just to be on the safe side, he’ll stay abroad till the elections are over. (From the BBC.)

If Der Spiegel has its facts right, Elizabeth II is a pretender and the true King a beer-drinking Australian farmer. If so, this would clear things up for the Scots, who wonder how they can have an Elizabeth ‘the second’ when they never had a first one: Good Queen Bess would’ve had as little claim [...]

This post is a follow-up to the one below on Hannah Arendt and the notion of the banality of evil. I fear, from one or two of the comments, that the reservations I expressed about her arguments may have led to misunderstanding. My point was certainly not to suggest that one shouldn’t try to understand [...]

The European Commission has approved the merger of Air France and KLM

Britain’s Conservatives have agreed a deal to remain within the EPP-ED group in the European Parliament

See Martens, S. (passim) for insightful analysis and thoughtful commentary on the French headscarf controversy. For my part, may I say simply that the majority in the National Assembly is scandalously, monstrously, shamefully wrong.
The French treasure la?cit? as a safeguard of the republican values of libert?, ?galit? et fraternit?. And so it is. All [...]

Yesterday, the French National Assembly voted for a ban on “conspicuous religious symbols” in public schools by a majority of 494 in favour to 36 against. With the bill polling at 70% favourable among the French public, neither major political formation saw any gain in opposition.
Votes against came from several quarters. Alain Madelin [...]

From the BBC: headscarf ban passes in French lower house by huge majority.

Ivan Rybkin wasn’t ‘disappeared’, it turns out. As the BBC reports, he simply disappeared of his own accord for a few days. Odd thing for a presidential candidate to do; what’s the ‘backstory’ here, one wonders?

I’ve noticed that, after the front page, the consistently most hit posting on AFOE is this one. Somehow, I doubt that my shining prose is the reason.
Also, we get quite a lot of traffic from people looking for sexy weman. Well, this is certainly the right place. :^)
What lessons should we be taking [...]