Today I'm going to try to outline some of the many wonderful uses that make helium special, and make the case that a total depletion of the Earth's helium reserves would be a tragedy. We stand to lose much more than party balloons and squeaky voices if we run out of helium.

English language quiz - I got 6 on the first round, 5 on the second and 4 on the third. What about you?

...human rights for all kinds of groups across Europe have been improved thanks to the work of the European Court of Human Rights. The question would better be “Do you want human rights cases to be judged only in the UK, knowing this would endanger the human rights of other Europeans - including gay rights, the rights of women, the rights of minor…

The ECHR is very far from perfect. But a country lucky enough to enjoy the rule of law, like Britain, should think long and hard before flouting international treaties which offer perhaps the only hope of legal recourse to people in much less lucky climes. Above all (and with apologies for a very long posting) though prisons are full of nasty peop…

Because Anne asked.

On reading your ex's poems, written about you fifteen years ago.

My cousin Sarah in Africa's newest country.

The Lysistrata strategy. I don't think it will catch on though.

Wow.

"We have lost three of the new candidates we fielded in the Westminster Elections last May. That means we have retained eight, seven of whom are standing again. Which is the more news worthy? You do the math!" - I dunno, Mike, the fact that the party has lost more than a quarter of its new candidates from what was already its worst election in his…

Choose your roadsigns carefully!

Lots and lots of links to the current online debate about piracy.

"Cameron clearly does not understand that identity politics in the UK are often divisive and politically unrewarding. Such speeches may be grounded in genuine concern about social cohesion and the potential of violent extremism. But they often merely feed bigotry for those who seek to conflate extremist Islam and Islam as a religion...His linking …

"The Spanish government, and Minister Aguilar in particular, are effectively choosing plunder over principle, and tarnishing the EU’s reputation worldwide. "

Thoughts on what's up with the EU, from a slightly different set of angles to the usual.

David Cameron’s Munich speech urges “a clear sense of shared national identity that is open to everyone” (however toxic its undertones, as Stuart Weir has discussed). So why has his government more than halved funding for the Refugee Council’s vital advice services to asylum seekers?

The difference between Cameron and Baroness Warsi on the Muslim question is striking.  She knows what she is talking about. He doesn’t.

"Escalating front-line clashes, a spiralling arms race, vitriolic rhetoric and a virtual breakdown in peace talks increase the chance Armenia and Azerbaijan will go back to war over Nagorno-Karabakh, with devastating regional consequences." -> in my own view this is the conflict whose renewed outbreak is easiest to predict for the next couple of y…

"He was *trying* to *flirt* with you!" "Well, he wasn't very good at it!"

Lesbian couple, married in Iowa, denied driving licences in South Dakota.

Restaurant sues blogger for bad review. (Japanese restaurant suing Lebanese blogger in Kuwait.)

Eurabia's fundamentally an ideology of revenge ... as well as an ideology of envy. Muslims, imagined by Eurabianists as beings somehow completely resistant to the influences of modernization and post-modernization etc., are imagined as perfect conservatives, retaining the superfecundity of old and maintaining the traditional family. Why them? some…

Cinematic analysis of a scene from Time of Angels

It's official!

I've always loved isoglosses. But am more used to the standard east-west ones in Germany.

"In the 15-year-old book, Yeskov re-wrote Tolkien’s masterpiece from the point of view of Mordor"

Not just Prince Charles, but Peter Robinson too!

I love this sort of thing!

What the British system is really like. I'm not myself its biggest fan - it seems to me that the Belgian system, which has a minimal charge rather than no charge at all at the point of service, seems to do it better - but the contrast here is with the US system, and there really is no room for debate about which is better.