Simon Usherwood thinks it's all to play for.

Jon Worth is much less sanguine.

Timothy Garton Ash is optimistic about winning.

Glenn Patterson compares Belfast to Miéville's Besźel and Ul Qoma (The City & The City).

List of "fiction with third gender and or genderqueer characters".

Good to see that even the deceased can expect active representation...

Very reassuring!

Opposition wins deciding seat by just four votes.

Gun culture: Why Switzerland and Israel are quite unlike the US.

@jan_techau looks into his crystal ball.

Alex Kane: "the UUP is now closer to the DUP than it has ever been. Indeed, I can’t actually point to one area or issue in which there is now any significant difference between the two parties."

"Heartbreak is a burden to us all. Pity the man with two."

"I could have sworn I'd answered this question before. "

A teacher is the one who gets shot first.

"all that is certain is that EU law would require all parties to negotiate in good faith and in a spirit of cooperation"

A farewell to cagefighting.

The shocking facts about political decisions which defy scientific evidence.

Too little too late, I fear.

Stefan Lehne: "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail... Sanctions are a powerful tool for the EU, but they cannot be the union’s only tool."

David Rennie, lucid as ever.

Robert Cooper draws comparisons.

A third-party defence of the piece I linked to above.

The asteroid and the Chinese probe

A gut-wrenching piece about mental illness and parenthood.

I think I agree -a line of salutation is sufficient!

"In the early days of the social web, there was a broad expectation that regular people might own their own identities by having their own websites, instead of being dependent on a few big sites to host their online identity. In this vision, you would own your own domain name and have complete control over its contents, rather than having a handle…

Reports of their rightwingery were exaggerated.

Best analysis I have read of the BBC's (and Entwhistle's) Savile screwup.

Þ, Ƿ, Ȝ, Æ, Ð, &, ᵹ, ꝥ, Œ, ⁊, ſ, and ŋ.

Unfreezing the legacy of war.