Soros speaks. NB that he tends to get things right. If he is right this time, we euro-users are in trouble...

A bizarre story, essentially of a council electoral office going too far and then hoping nobody much will notice.

further to the previous discussion...

Eoin O'Malley, who I haven't seen for years, makes the point that having ministers who are not also members of parliament is a Good Idea.

"I have two children. One is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability I have two boys?" Pete Birks provides the first convincing explanation I have seen as to why the correct answer is 13/27 and not 1/3.

Daleks in your home!

Why "The Lodger" is the best Doctor Who story evar. (I wish AR didn't use that white-on-black layout; I find it unreadable.)

Unpaid internships are bad enough; selling them to rich kids is worse!

The election in Somaliland

Ahmedinejad's alliance with the Cybermen

My research suggests that this joke was already old and tired ... in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Hot young planet, 8 times the mass of Jupiter and 330 AU from its sun; not much likelihood of it harbouring life I fear.

A Cypriot commentator on how the leader of the Russian spy ring skipped bail: "even by our own high standards of incompetence, what happened was incredible."

density of twitter updates across New Yorkm London, Paris and Munich

Mail on Sunday invents story about the EU forbidding gallant shopkeepers to sell eggs by the dozen; lots of people believe this ridiculous lie

Francesc Vendrell - former UN and EU representative in Afghanistan - on what has gone wrong and what can still be done. (I was sitting just to his right as he spoke, but am not in view of the camera at any point)

One should never laugh at a fourth generation politician just because his name strikes you as slightly funny. But sometimes the temptation is irresistible.

David Rennie's valedictory, ending with some serious and justified criticism of the European Parliament.

Fairly general report of how the new intake of MEPs behave. "The Liberals face problems with French and Irish MEPs" - ie Bayrou's lot and Fianna Fáil!

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

Western countries' emissions down heavily due to economic crisis, China and India make up the gap though.

(via Zac) leaving unlocked bikes tagged with GPS devices; if they are stolen, they and the thieves can be tracked down.

Each year, the EU pays Morocco millions of Euros for fishing licences offshore Western Saharan waters – an area not falling under Moroccan sovereignty... a direct support to the illegal and brutal Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.

David Rennie of the Economist is leaving - we will miss him, but look forward to his acerbic insights on British politics in the future.

Renard Sexton explains the World Cup

New Czech government - all ministers male

Dissidents from the Irish Greens to set up their own group. Their disgruntlement with their former party is entirely comprehensible, but unfortunately their command of Irish rather poor; you can have "Fís Nua" or "An Fhís Nua" but not, as they seem to think, "An Fís Nua".

Niall Harrison did like Doctor Who under Moffat, more so than in the RTD years.

Abigail Nussbaum didn't like Doctor Who under Moffat.

Stefani Weiss of the Bertelsmann Stiftung takes a short but hard look at the new European External Action Service and is unimpressed. I think she nails it. (PDF)