Via an excited Brad DeLong and the Crooked Timber crew, I am informed that Google is beta testing a A Fistful Of Euros.
Should you be interested, it’s about the effects of campaign spending under the Single Transferable Vote electoral system in recent Irish elections.
Oh my, they actually did it.
Last Night, the Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, invoked the (1949) Continue reading
This blog doesn’t usually resound with praise for the far-sighted wisdom and diplomatic cunning of the Bush administration. (Neither does my own blog, for that matter.)
So I thought I’d be a bit contrarian, and point to a recent episode where Bush, or Colin Powell, or undersecretary of state Marc Grossman, or /someone/, seems to have done something wonderfully and exactly right.
Macedonia: small country in the Balkans, former Yugoslav Republic. Gained independence in 1991. For fourteen years, has been officially entitled, not Macedonia, but “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” — aka FYROM. This ugly neologism came into existence purely and entirely because the idea of a country called “Macedonia” drove Greek nationalists gibbering crazy.
(No, don’t ask. It doesn’t make any sense at all, and never did, so never mind. Oh, we could go into stuff like the early-’90s rivalry between Mitsotakis and Papandreou, and how they and their parties got locked into an escalating spiral of whipping up nationalist opinion on this stupid, stupid issue, but never mind. Just take it as given.)
So: on November 3 — the very first day after the election — the Bush administration announced that, after fourteen years, it was going to start recognizing Macedonia by the name it wanted to be recognized: i.e., Macedonia. And that there’d be no more of this FYROM stuff, thanks.
So why was this such a good thing?
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1944-45. Nazis arm Soviet POWs who are promising to topple Stalin and who then turn around and liberate Prague from the Nazis, only to be turned over to the Soviets after the war ends. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
Vlasov’s forgotten army
Communists buried legacy of Soviet General Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov and his battalion of POWs that helped free Prague from the Nazis
By Stephen Weeks, for The Prague Post
…Between that November [1944] and April of 1945, two divisions of “Vlasov’s Army,” more than 50,000 men, were formed, equipped and trained. Nine officers were Jews, concealed by Vlasov personally. Germany could not afford to equip and provide munitions for more men. This army had its own hospitals, training schools for officers, supply systems and air force. And on April 14, 1945, it was sent not to liberate Russia but to try to halt the Soviet advance across the Oder, only a few hours’ drive from Berlin.
Seeing how hopeless, as well as pointless, the situation was for his force, Vlasov turned his men back and decided to march across Bohemia to get to Pilsen — where he would deliver them as prisoners to the Americans, who were halted there. Stalin had already made it known that if any of Vlasov’s men fell into his hands they would receive long and painful deaths.
Former EU Commission candidate Rocco Buttiglione is apparently actively working to reduce the political damage caused by his remarks about homosexuality being a sin. Yet his strategy seems a little erratic. After reaching out to the social right last week by declaring his desire to build an influential conservative Christian political movement in Europe, like evangelical Christians have done in the US, he now gave the Italian gay website gay.it an interview (in Italian). According to the English
Posted in A Fistful Of Euros, Governments and parties
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Tagged Governments and parties, political
Despite not being entirely satisfied with the revised team, it was expected that the European Parliament would endorse Jose Manuel Barroso’s second Commission proposal with a large majority in order not to further weaken the Commission, the Parliament’s “natural” institutional ally. And that’s what happened today. With Rocco Buttiglione and Igrida Udina out, Franco Frattini and Andris Piebalgs in, and a little portfolio tweaking, the new Commission was approved by 449 to 149, while 82 MEPs abstained from casting their vote. The BBC has the new European Commission at-a-glance. Update: No Honeymoon For Neelie Kroes. When taking office next Monday, Neelie Kroes, the controversial new Dutch competition Commissioner, will be stripped of responsibility for at least three of the competition DGs investigations because of possible conflicts of interest, according to a report by Deutsche Welle, based upon statements by a Commission spokesperson. Ms Kroes, whose extensive business ties remained a considerable concern to MEPs even though they supported the team as a whole, has agreed with the Commission President to transfer cases with a perceived possible conflict of interest to another Commissioner. Matt discussed Jeremy Rifkin’s book on the ‘European Dream’ last month, and just as a little update to that discussion there’s an interesting article on Salon (subscription or viewing an advert required), discussing both it and T.R. Reid’s The United States of Europe. (link via Daily Kos) It’s no secret that the euro is now hitting record highs in its exchange rate with the dollar. It is also pretty apparent that some EU leaders are becoming rather preoccupied about the consequences of this for those eurozone economies which are driven by exports. What is much less clear though is what can be done about it. The dollar early today was trading at $1.3065 per euro in Tokyo, signalling that the $1.30 psychological threshold may now lie behind us. Some experts are suggesting that the ECB would be reluctant to see the euro rise above $1.35, but since what is happening is more a dollar slide story than a euro rise one it is hard to see what they can effectively do about the situation. “This is a crime. Even God will not accept it.” And God, we know, is willing to put up with a lot. I don’t think there’s anything to be said beyond the obvious about the death of Margaret Hassan: This person sounds like a real heroine, it amazes me that two or more people can get together (presumably this was not the act of a lone individual) who are able to justify this to one another. Why? The Independent has an interesting article today entitled ‘Why will a quarter of Spain be supporting England tonight?’ (for those of you who aren’t aware, there’s an international football friendly tonight between Spain and England in Madrid) which looks at how the Spanish national football team is not supported by many of the people of Spain because of the strong currents of regionalism and nationalism. In so far as Catalans will be taking an interest in tonight’s Spain v England game in Madrid, they will be – most of them – supporting England. Should England score, the whole city will know about it. It happens every time, just as it does when Bar?a score a goal: in every neighbourhood there will be someone guaranteed to set off a celebratory firework or two. Now, admittedly, things could get a little complicated this time around. What if Owen or Beckham score for England? The spontaneous reaction will be jubilation, but a moment’s reflection will yield the alarming truth that they play for the most detested enemy of them all, Real Madrid. At which point the mental systems of Catalan football fans everywhere may dangerously short-circuit. Or not. Love for England may momentarily trump loathing for Spain. Whatever the case, it will yield an interesting new twist on the complex tribal impulses that animate the otherwise sane and impressively civilised Catalan people. The Catalans are not alone. The Basques are at least as zealous in their desire that the Spanish football team be beaten. And as far as tonight’s game is concerned, because they haven’t got as much of a thing about Real Madrid as the Catalans do, they’ll be cheering on Beckham and Owen with as much abandon as the rest of the England team. There are other, smaller nationalist enclaves in Spain where they’ll be rooting for England too. A number will in Galicia, in the Celtic-rooted north-west (they play the bagpipes out there, the fields are green and they look Irish); some diehards will in the Valencia region; and the Balearic islanders (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza) will be happy for the most part to see perfidious Espa?a defeated. Update: Unfortunately, the match was marred by some pretty despicable racist chanting from an element of the Spanish fans – see this discussion on Crooked Timber for more.We Have A New European Commission
The European Dream
Onwards And Upwards We Go
Continue reading Margaret Hassan
Nationalism, regionalism and Spanish football