Elite shall speak peace unto elite
Latvia’s parliament has ratified the European Constitution treaty. And, as the horse gallops over the horizon…
Anthony Zacharzewski
What shall it profit a man...
A truly depressing piece on Jim and Kathy Link in the New York Times. Most depressing elements – the rapid relocations (something I can sympathise with, being in the middle of a house move across London), and the constant driving. It’s no wonder the environment is screwed.
Killing Socrates
In an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of democracy at MetaFilter, someone commented: “A democracy killed Socrates”. I’ve heard this line of argument before (in fact, there are whole books on the subject – I.F. Stone’s The Death of Socrates, if it’s still in print)
Tadeusz Konwicki
A 1991 interview with the author of A Minor Apocalypse and The Polish Complex.
Referendum, departmental results
Le Monde has an interesting map of the referendum results département-by-département. I don’t know enough about French political geography to understand all the permutations, but there’s no surprise in seeing leftish areas like Nord-Pas de Calais voting strongly non.
More surprising, for a British observer, is that Brittany
What kind of Europe?
Crooked Timber has an interesting discussion, kicked off by Henry Farrell, on the meaning of the EU referendum vote. All the points he makes are well made, but I think he misses one important shift in the way that the EU is used.
One of the principal reasons that the
Referendum exit polls
A detailed breakdown (en français) here. Interestingly, 72% of voters (and more than half of No voters) want the process of European construction to continue. More than half of No voters said they voted no because of “Dissatisfaction with the current economical and social situation in France”. The most popular
Non, merci
Anthony Barnett, writing on the Open Democracy blog, gets it right on the referendum result – France saying no is OK, Britain saying no if others say yes would be bad.
Discussion at Fistful of Euros.
Referendums
David, at A Fistful of Euros, comments on referendums:
“I’m quite fond of representative democracy, and don’t think replicating the Swiss or Californian system would be a particularly good idea. I do however think that referendums are an occasionally vital and necessary part of democracy[…].”
While I agree
Dorset names
I’ve just posted this map of Dorset to a very puerile thread on MetaFilter.
Looking at it, it reminded me just how odd Dorset placenames are. I mean, aside from Piddletrenthide and Affpuddle, a good 50% of the names sound like romantic novel heroes (“Winterbourne Clenston held her in