The German newspaper whose website could be better organised has a very good article about the Gurtel, Vienna’s other great boulevard, once described as the proletarian Ringstrasse. I never knew this, though:
Wobei auf dem Gürtel früher Linksverkehr herrschte, wie in England. Siegfried Tschmul, ein Wiener Jude, erinnert sich gut daran. Als er 1938, nachdem die [...]

The associative mind works in mysterious ways. At least, mine does. The New York Times has an amazing article today called Bacteria Thrive in Inner Elbow; No Harm Done about, as the title suggests, the countless bacteria that live in and on our bodies. It turns out humans are really individual ’superorganisms’. What caught my [...]

This post reminded me a lot of Vienna University in 2001-2002; I was there as a SOCRATES student, still actually a member of the Labour Party, while the strange times we live in began. I also first encountered the word “blog” around about then, and indeed visited the Blogger front page, but for some reason [...]

DTV (digital television) is here; just at a time when people are giving up on watching TV in favour of YouTube. Or so we might have thought. There’s also going to be a switchover in America. What if you’re poor and can’t afford a new television? US Congress has thought of this: two $40 vouchers [...]

Malta’s Justice Minister is Dr Borg.
That is all.

One of the things that’s generally known about Germany, but not often spoken about for various reasons(1), is how much continuity there was between the Third Reich and the early days of the Federal Republic. A certain degree of continuity is inevtiable any time a government changes; even the Bolsheviks brought back a lot of [...]

After Spain’s post-national elections, Poland is shaping up to be another case of post-national democracy in Europe: the Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk turned up in London this weekend to launch a campaign swing pitching for the votes of thousands of Polish expatriates. The polls suggest the Poles are quite narrowly divided; the contribution of [...]

Chris Dillow (of Stumbling and Mumbling), responding to Gordon Brown’s recent speech to the Labour Party, says that “economic success requires that talent not be unlocked, and remain unused”. So Brown’s call for the development of “all the talents of all the people” is “purest wibble” because “all profits come from power, and this means [...]

Dozens and dozens of beautiful libraries from many parts of the world. Go and look.
(Hat tip: Lance Knobel)

Osama bin Laden is still at large. This American thinks that is a damn shame.
If you haven’t read 110 Stories, you should.
That is all.