In favour of smaller states.

A handbook.

Via @CarlBildt.

Been there, done that.

Cory Doctorow on interfacing with the real world.

Sir Michael speaks.

Headline slightly oversells interesting conclusion.

Book review in The Economist

How to rebuild your political party from defeat.

Brilliant account of the $19,500 bill for an 1866 telegram to Napoleon III (which in fact was not delivered to him).

The moral and ethical poverty of US media revealed!

Today’s great information technology goes out onto the streets with us on our smartphones. It does not only convey information from top to bottom, but also from bottom to top and side to side. It continues to convey information, however, from top to bottom. A lot of information. In the internet age, those at the apex of politics, business or civil…

Alice Welbourn, who has spent her career working to raise the profile of HIV positive women.

Kim Jong-il, the enigmatic North Korean leader, died on a train at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in his country. Forty-eight hours later, officials in South Korea still did not know anything about it - to say nothing of Washington...

1. The presence of hate in politics. 2. Money matters too much. 3. Refusing to even listen to the other guy. 4. The micro managing of politics. 5. The disparaging of experience and learning.

the Sunday Times is guilty of spectacular understatement when it says that: Whatever the outcome, the AU will have to position itself so that it is a voice that is recognised by the next Libyan government.

What's in Carl Bildt's suitcase?

Trouble at the Henry Jackson Society.

"A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask. Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been …

Republicans fail in bid to defend freedom from energy-saving lightbulbs.

'The world is a hostile, alienating place. Power has been concentrated in the hands of often unaccountable elites; backed by covert insitutions. That much is as arguable as the words, “The sun is hot.” From there it’s just a matter of how altruistic they are – and, considering the decades of conflict and exploitation we’ve experienced, you wo…

Good question.

Money quote: "Without a vigorous restatement of the principles of humanitarianism, humanitarian action will remain in a state of crisis and continue to be a selective tool for the powerful and hence fail in its global mission of protecting and restoring the dignity of human life."

Various interesting points, including: "There is no Cold War, and the War on Terror is not as effective as the Cold War was in solidifying elites against change."

The new Canadian MP who has never actually been to the district she represents and barely speaks French. "In the interview with Trois-Rivieres' Le Nouvelliste, the 27-year-old said that she will quit her job as an assistant bar manager at Ottawa's Carleton University and devote herself to her new post." Glad to hear it!

"Melissa Kite in the Daily Telegraph has been doing that other thing the No side have been engaged in for weeks now, deliberately shutting down their brain functions and going on about how complicated it all is... By her own words, it took Melissa an hour to count eight votes. I’ll say no more on the subject."

But the 2011 protesters are different not because just Facebook and Twitter replaced sms. They are different in a deeper sense. The current protest movements are not stricto sensu youth movements, but a blend of young urban middle-class facebookers, mild and not so mild conservative islamists, and (sometimes radical) leftists. Compared to the 2000…

"Americans, I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin. If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singapore…

“I can’t believe it lasted this long,” said “US Ambassador to the UN” Susan Rice laughing, “who would really believe that there is this magical agency that would, like, be responsible for solving all the problems in the whole world?"