On a recent factoid-finding mission to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, I discovered that Bulgarians are very keen on their yogurt. The secret of long life and happiness, they claim, is yogurt…

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I’m not alone in thinking that our last debate about multiculturalism was marred by the fact that nobody seemed to agree on what the word actually meant. The following bit from a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece caught be eye:
Supposedly [European authorities] were enlightened “multiculturalists” who respected differences; for many, the real reason was a [...]

I’m going to barf if one more person writes that “multiculturalism” has somehow contributed to the riots in France. How exactly you square “multiculturalism” with France’s ban on the headscarf – and the fact that French is, officially, about as un-multicultural as you can get – is beyond me.
If you ask me, I’d hazard [...]

Daniel Pipes, a Middle East scholar prone to lambasting Edward Said, says that the French media is ignoring the obvious: that radical Islamism is behind the riots in France.
I don’t read French so I can’t check all his links. The theory fits in nicely with many people’s worldview (including, I suppose, Pipes’s), but is [...]

Well, I don’t read or speak French, have probably spent less than 30 days in France in my entire life, and I don’t tend to follow French politics much. But what the heck, here I go.
Of leading French politicians, it seems Nicolas Sarkozy has actually made one of the stronger efforts to reach out [...]

From a July profile on Nicolas Sarkozy in Foreign Policy:
Stéphane Rozès of the polling institute CSA compares Sarkozy to Napoleon during the famous Arcole bridge battle, in which Napoleon charged ahead urging his soldiers to trust him despite not knowing what was on the other side. “Sarkozy charges ahead, begs his supporters to follow him [...]

Here’s my take on the IRA peace announcement, written for Slate yesterday.
The smartest thing I have to say involves pointing out how wrong I’ve been about a few things in the past.

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Today is the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. AP quotes the commander of EU peacekeepers in Bosnia saying “the net is closing in” on the two men responsible for the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Nice, except that’s followed up by the dumbest quote I’ve seen this morning (it’s early yet): [...]

I?m grateful for the thought (and the information and the links) that have gone into recent posts by my co-blogger Edward. I find myself disagreeing with him about only one thing: That the London bombing will (or should) lead to a major change in the way we see things, or to the West?s anti-terror strategy [...]

This is more or less an open post to discuss what’s going on London. I’m sure I know much less than many of you at this point.