EU's Window of Opportunity Closed On Iceland?
On Sunday, Iceland's new social-democrat Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was sworn in after eighteen years of conservative government on the island. She is the first female Prime Minister on Iceland, the world's first lesbian government leader and will lead a leftist minority cabinet at least until the elections of 25 April. She announced that a special parliamentary commission will be set up to consider eu membership, with the delivery date for its report set to 15 April, ten days before the next elections. She reassured at the same time that Iceland won't join the union without a referendum first.
Whoops... Libertas’ Wheels Came Off
Last night the Bureau of the European Parliament accepted what they saw as the inevitable and agreed that Libertas was a European Political Party. This meant that they were able to go and pick up 200,000 Euro.
And then the wheels came off. In order to set up the party what is required is 7 elected members at Euro, national or regional levels. One of these signataries was Igor Gräzin, an Estonian Liberal. Now he had voted against the Lisbon Treaty, but was a member of the Liberal allied Estonian Reform Party. When ALDE, the Liberal group in the EP, discovered that one of their own had joined a different European political party they went, dare I say ballistic.
The UK: Smothered into Submission
Planetary Bankruptcy
'If all the bank loans were paid up, no one would have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of currency or coin in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks for our money. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp upon the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible - but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.' - Robert H. Hemphill, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Epicureanism and Empire
Standing at radical variance with Platonism in the ancient world is Epicureanism. Plato, the moralist and theologian – the incipient monotheist – developed in his dialogues a representation of the cosmos as grounded in a divine will, or at least in a divine intelligence. So congenial is the Platonic vision to the faith of the Gospels that seven hundred years after Plato's death and after political, social, and cultural transformations in the Mediterranean world, Saint Augustine of Hippo could see in his philosophical precursor a genuine anticipation of Christianity.
Duly Noted: Prejudices Wrapped in Culture
1. Obama’s presidency brings new policies. These justify, even demand, that the observer engage in fundamental thinking about power, government, individual rights and responsibilities as well as economic policy.
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