Update: Welcome co-conspirators. Guido is on the case. * * * * * The Labour Party are now officially making a total fool of themselves over Michal Kaminski. Young British diplomats are taught that it is poor technique (and, worse, stupid) to quote someone’s words from a magazine without checking that that […]
An eruption of peace, or something, in Honduras. The issue will be how far ‘President’ Zelaya, if he is briefly restored to office, can manage to manoeuvre anything other than a polite handover to his successor after the forthcoming elections. If these elections do pass off peacefully, Mr Micheletti can be […]
Here is a deft essay by Stephen T Asma on the role played by monsters (and Zombies!) in helping us deal with real-life extreme people and situations: You can’t know for sure how you will face a headless zombie, an alien face-hugger, an approaching sea monster, or a chainsaw-wielding psycho. Fortunately, you’re […]
I have just spent a grim two days getting to Katowice and back, and am poised to collapse from exhaustion. So no hard-core blogging tonight. BUT, since I am now officially in Living Dead mode, I offer you another must-read. Go and get a drink and set aside twenty minutes […]
Update: since I pointed out the egregious mistake on the FCO website as below, the error has been corrected. Glad to see that someone is reading this blog with an eagle eye. But I’ve left the original blunder quote up for the sake of accuracy. * * * * * The FCO […]
A nice essay over at Heresy Corner by Father James Rattue, doing his best to look on the positive side of the move by Pope Benedict to lure Anglicans in Rome’s general direction: It represents not the triumph of denominational rivalry as it appears, but the erosion of those very […]
The looming entry into force (or not) of the Lisbon Treaty will bring to the fore all the fascinating questions of how and where the EU exercises its new ‘foreign policy’ capability. First things first. Who gets which jobs? And even above that: who decides? Genuinely tricky and interesting from […]
The decision by the Catholic Church to create a formula to allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church but keep some of their Anglican persona is a stunner. Above all, because it represents the latest move in a Great Negotiation which has proceeded for some 500 years as between Rome […]
A great diplomatic flurrying around the latest vote by the UN Human Rights Council in effect condemning Israel. The resolution passed seems to be this one. The resolution welcomed the earlier Goldstone report which condemned human rights abuses by Israel and Hamas alike. But it also contained a long list of condemnations […]
Here – via Arts & Letters – is a fascinating article by Eric Hoover exploring how far we can identify common characteristics among the current (or any) ‘young generation’ which are going to echo far into the future: Kids these days. Just look at them. They’ve got those headphones in their […]
