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Anthony Zacharzewski

Anthony Zacharzewski

Working to make European democracy work. "Refreshingly free of the usual platitudes". Belge par choix, Brits door opvoeding. President of Demsoc.org but posts here are personal.

📍 Brussels

What do we need to do to get your attention?

WIRED blogs reports a great new advertising campaign by the Red Cross to get the people of the Bay Area to prepare for an earthquake. The best stunt was parking a two-sided advertising trailer in front of the Ferry Building. From one side, it shows the Ferry Building on fire.

Dreadful news

Chris Lightfoot, MySociety’s first developer and all-round e-polymath, has died unexpectedly. He was 29. R.I.P.

Two examples of how useless Internet debate is

Exhibit A: the comments on an Observer article claiming that climate change exists. All in agreement with the Channel 4 lunacy about climate change being a big hoax, plus personal invective at the author and RANDOM capitalisations to SHOW that there is GREAT CONSPIRACY afoot. Thank you, representative sample. Exhibit

I wish I'd had a camera

I was in a meeting in someone’s office earlier today, and I noticed behind her shoulder a switch marked ‘press’, with a sign fixed to the wall above it reading ‘do not press’. Unfortunately I didn’t get a moment alone to take a photo.

Little MP3s

When I was in Amsterdam last, I heard a song from the new musical version of “Wat Zien Ik?”. Searching for an MP3 version of it, I came across the fantastic word MP3’tjes – surely only the Dutch language could add a diminutive to an acronym. For cultural cross-referencing purposes,

Elections in the House of Lords - right here, right now

If you ever doubted the case for reform of the House of Lords, take a look at this PDF which bubbled up onto the frontpage of Parliament.uk today. The document is the notice of an election – yes, an election – for a Tory member of the House of Lords. It’

We have always been at war with Eastasia terrorists

Iraq war a bad idea? Not to the committed Republicans of the Victory Caucus, which is always a reliable place to find upbeat reporting on the fledgling democracy that is Iraq today (think Switzerland, with oil, apparently). If you think their logo and terminology is a little familiar (Victory Mansions,

Early insider trading

From Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution: As soon as he was at the head of affairs, Solon liberated the people once and for all, by prohibiting all loans on the security of the debtor’s person: and in addition he made laws by which he cancelled all debts, public and private.

Or is he the English Mart Laar?

An otherwise mundane article about David Cameron’s visit to Sweden contains this description of the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. He has been dubbed the “Swedish David Cameron” Is it just me, or does that sound like the dubbing of a British newspaper? Maybe I’m wrong, and Swedish

Sod the Mediterranean diet, just take a nap

The Washington Post reports that regular naps could reduce heart disease mortality by 30%.