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 you can find explained here and in particular here. Apart from anything else, the virtual inevitability of this is connected with something called the Gibbs Principle. The Mad Cow site used, in it’s day, to be one of the best on the net as far as I was concerned, and it is a pity that more have not followed the model. Ok that is enough of this gruesome topic, or you’ll all be vegetarians by tomorrow. So what about xmas?
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And to all a good night!

See you again around the 28th…

As Christmas approaches, consider this open thread a gift from all of us at AFOE to all of our readers for you to play with as you will. Hopefully, unlike traditional Christmas presents, this one will not break within a few hours of opening it.

Wizbang is having a Blog Awards competition. We’re one of twenty nominees for Best Foreign blog (What an odd sort of category on the Internet one would think, but I’m not complaining.) Please, please, please go there and vote for us if you think we’re any good, because I really want to win this thing. I’ve never won anything in my life.

Update: Now here’s a good reason to vote for us, tell all your friends, family, and random strangers to do the same, pimp us on your blogs…
The frontrunner is currently Merde in France, the France-hating wingnut. (#2 is Tim Blair, the Australian one-man Sasmizdata.net) We’re third and are well positioned to stop him from winning. I daresay we’re easily the best of the ones with a chance to win. Keep the eurohaters from winning. Vote AFOE!

The poll is open until dec 14. I will occasionally bump this post till then.

Speaking of Spam, it’s remarkable how much regular spam we get, even though it says “at” rather than @. Presumably, it’s not actual humans who read that adress, so people need to refine their anti-spam techniques. Bother.

We’ve been hit by comments spam. I guess I’ll have to read up on what to do. Good thing really, since Europundit already had problems, and I only bothered to ban and delete.

Greetings, gentle readers. I may have recovered from blogging fatigue, and thought I’d start over by asking you for a little help. How do you think we’re doing? Any complaints? Any helpful suggestions? What do you want to see more of, or less of?

Oh, and suggestions for good blogs asnd other sites to link atre always welcome.

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?

Another quiet Saturday morning here in Barcelona. This post is definitely for those looking up at the grey sky, and feeling the need for some pretty mindless entertainment. Power Point presentations: ever been subjected to one of them. Or put another way: what was life like before Microsoft? Well Peter Norvic has been thinking about this, and I for one had a good laugh. Looking for a European connection in all this: well what would count as our equivalent of the Gettysburg Address? Suggestions Please.

BTW today is Diwali in India, so happy Diwali everyone (and no, my real name isn’t Dilesh, but would it matter if it was?).

Estonia said yes, Sweden said no (or rather Let’s wait and see,) will Latvia say no? Plus Cancun, the new constitution…

Football?