Lucid essay on the rationale behind this absurd legislation - "Europe’s systemic fears involve nothing less than the extent of her territorial and cultural boundaries. To put it bluntly, an aged Europe feels under threat from a world she once dominated, but which she never properly understood. It is this post-colonial world that is coming back to …

Vote now! for the worst EU lobbyists.

The latest events of the Brussels Brontë Society

Calling out shoddy research - when you are its subject.

Nosemonkey looks into EU trade figures.

Tansy Rayner Roberts gives an excellent overview and ideas on where to get started on the Vorkosigan saga (but doesn't cover Bujold's fantasy books).

Iraq Body Count has patiently and consistently tabulated recorded deaths since the invasion. It has now conducted a preliminary analysis of a sample of the incidents recorded in the documents (including all the larger ones) (see Paul Rogers, “The harvest of war: from pain to gain”, 28 October 2010).This concludes that the logs both confirm the maj…

1) We have got an unprecedented degree of concentrated income and wealth at the very top of our society. The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now makes more than the bottom 120 million. 2) Courtesy of a grotesque opinion by the Supreme Court of the United States, we now have virtually unlimited money flowing from the rich and from corpora…

Why abstention may be the right choice - with reference to Tuesday's elections, but with wider applicability.

"Martin Freeman as Bilbo (possibly the most inspired piece of casting of the last few years, if only because it's made me realize just how much Bilbo and Arthur Dent have in common)"

Crisis in the desert

Michelle Gildernew still wins.

No word on Gollum or Gandalf yet,

Recommendations: * An informal ‘trialogue’ involving the EU, Turkey and Russia should be established, allowing cooperation over security to build from the ground up. * In order to strengthen Turkey’s European identity, Ankara should be given a top-table seat at the trialogue, in parallel with enhanced EU accession negotiations. New chapters should…

SF3 has withdrawn the invitation to Elizabeth Moon to attend WisCon 35 as guest of honor.

Natalie Tocci, like me, is pretty dismayed by the most recent developments.

...In 1991 a ceasefire was declared, and under the terms of a UN agreement a referendum for self-determination was promised. Nineteen years later, the native Saharawi are still awaiting that referendum.

...my own prediction is that even if the margin between unionist and nationalist parties should slip still further in the decades to come (though I doubt that it will have changed much by 2021), the outcome of any referendum vote will remain securely on the pro-Union side, no matter how badly led unionism is in the future.

The King Baudouin Foundation will award the Jacqueline Nonkels Prize to "any person or body who successfully contributes, even in part, to raising awareness and publicizing Belgium’s surrealist heritage, as well as to its preservation, restoration and conservation". Just thought you ought to know.

Guardian is reporting this as news, but if I remember correctly RTD was always clear that the 12-regeneration limit no longer applies.

Genuine tweet message from President Medvedev to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Awful story of brutality from Belgian police

Rather more serious than the Paul Magrs incident I blogged about - she printed the reviewer's email address and phone number and asked fans to tell the reviwer what they think of 'snarky critics'.

Bizarre law that human bones - whatever the provenance - must be reburied after two years is apparently being enforced.

Good luck to them. I've argued previously that electing the Lords is not the answer: http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1305569.html

Bee Gees meet Pink Floyd - superb mashup.