Bush and Aznar pre-Iraq Invasion-- Transcript of their private conversations in Crawford, Feb 22, 2003: "Quedan dos semanas. En dos semanas estaremos militarmente listos. Estaremos en Bagdad a finales de marzo", le dijo a Aznar. ("2 weeks. In 2 weeks we will be ready militarily. We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March", he told Aznar.) Consider this historical documentation. Full transcript here, and audio clips in first link.
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

Euromyths from the English press in alphabetical order collected by the European Union's UK Press Room. Examples include: EU orders farmers to give toys to pigs, pets to be pressure cooked, circus performers must wear hard hats, no more Caerphilly Cheese in Caerphilly, butchers cannot give a dog a bone, EU says Brit yoghurt has to be called Fermented Milk Pudding & Brussels makes bright smiles illegal.
posted on Aug 25, 2007 - View this thread

Interesting goings-on in Belgium (really). "Plucky little" Belgium, HQ of the very post-national European Union, is in the throes of a deep political crisis, driven by strong nationalistic feelings. The winner of the recent general election, Yves Leterme, has proved [FL] unable [FR] to form a government across the Flemish-French divide, and talk of the country splitting two (or even three) is more serious than ever before. [more inside]
posted on Aug 24, 2007 - View this thread

EU Tube: sharing the sigh(t)s and soundsmoans of Europe. Human rights around the world? 700 views. A smoke-free Europe? 2300 views. 44 seconds of sex scenes from award-winning, popular European movies? 1,900,000 views. The European Commission just launched its own YouTube channel, using the oldest marketing trick ever, all for 350 Euros per clip (link includes the list of films), even though the usual suspects aren't happy.
posted on Jul 4, 2007 - View this thread

Que would happen if, wenn Du open your Metafilter, finde eine message in esta lingua? No est Englando, no est Germano, no est Espano, no est keine known lingua - aber Du understande! Wat happen zo! Habe your computero eine virus catched? Habe Du sudden BSE gedeveloped? No, Du esse lezendo la neue europese lingua: de Europanto!
posted on Sep 5, 2006 - View this thread

At last, someone is going to take the legal route. Italian authorities have issued arrest warrants for 22 CIA Agents suspected of involvement in the US kidnap/torture policy. "The new warrants allow for the suspects' detention anywhere in the 25-nation EU, a prosecutor said." That's more lost clients for the European tourist industry.
posted on Dec 24, 2005 - View this thread

accurate weather forecasts...yes... Add your own sound effects.
posted on Dec 22, 2005 - View this thread

Switzerland Votes for Closer EU Integration What with all the play that the narrow French rejection of the proposed EU Constitution enjoyed, I doubt that Switzerland's successful referendum accepting endorsement of closer EU integration (specifically, enacting the Dublin Convention on shared security and policing) and gay marriage recognition will get much coverage. It just doesn't easily fit into the narrative of an unravelling Europe, one which Swiss voters seem to have rejected despite strong internal debate.
posted on Jun 5, 2005 - View this thread

Non (en anglais)
posted on May 29, 2005 - View this thread

CIA Predicts European Union Will Break Up Within 15 Years. With all the attention focused on Iraq, this new CIA report seems to have slipped under the radar. Europe's dismal economic prospects and the continent's unfavorable demographics could have dire consequences for the EU, result in the dissolution of NATO and generally @#$?! up every post World War II/Cold War alliance that has been formed over the last half-century. Not that the CIA has ever been wrong...
posted on Jan 20, 2005 - View this thread

Shut Up! "The EU has requested that member states come to a standstill at noon today to observe a three-minute silence for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Is this just a shallow, belated gesture - or the best way to show our solidarity?" Blake Morrison of the Guardian asks. There's also an interesting "History of Silences" at the end of the article.
posted on Jan 5, 2005 - View this thread

New Power for 'Old Europe'
"Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the European Union has been steadily transforming itself from a facilitator of trade to a sophisticated geopolitical power with the teeth to back up its policies... Over the past decade, EU member states have ceded governing and enforcement authority to Brussels in areas ranging from environmental regulation to food safety, accounting standards, telecommunications policy and oversight of corporate mergers."
posted on Dec 13, 2004 - View this thread

Turkey Rhubarb in the Low Countries. Since there's nothing interesting going on here in the US right now, let's enjoy a moment of EU fun. (y2-length post inside).
posted on Oct 3, 2004 - View this thread

The European Dream Sure. They are doing better than the U.S. in so many aspects of living but we are number one with our military! Or perhaps that is why they do so well? Note: their view of religion does not come anywhere near the crazed attention religion plays in American life, in our politics, tax relief, social legislation etc....
posted on Oct 2, 2004 - View this thread

So this is the new European world. OK basically there is a new superpower in the world and damned if I can find anyone in my county seems to know or care..... but we're all about one mans untimely grisly death. Compare the world to the US I think this may be a good indicator of the rifts that exist between us and the rest of humanity...
posted on Jun 19, 2004 - View this thread

Europe's not-too-modest anti-piracy proposal. If accepted, it means that "not only could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent to jail under it; so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager happened to use, whether they knew what the teenager was doing or not." The proposal is being spearheaded by French parliamentarian Janelly Fourtou. Coincidentally enough, her husband is the chief executive of Vivendi Universal.
posted on Oct 19, 2003 - View this thread

Italian spammers face jail. The ruling follows estimates by the European Commission that spam e-mails cost EU companies approximately 2.25bn euros in lost productivity last year.
posted on Sep 4, 2003 - View this thread

European right of reply. The Council of Europe is drafting a proposal, "... that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or 'blogs'), must offer a 'right of reply' to those who have been criticized by a person or organization." Considering that someone will have to pay for the storage and bandwidth required to host rebuttals, this seem the very antithesis of "free" speech and could get quite expensive.
posted on Jun 16, 2003 - View this thread

The EU decides to expand and I am obviously looking forward to reading about and discussing this event when i log in on metafilter this morning, only to find that this story has not been posted. This is probably one of the most important changes in the European political landscape since the Wall came down more than ten yeas ago and I must say I am a little disappointed with you all that it was not linked and discussed last night. Shape up metafilter!
posted on Dec 14, 2002 - View this thread

What do you think of when I say United States? Probably not this.
posted on Oct 29, 2002 - View this thread

Have the anti-Euro lobby shot themselves in the foot? A video promoting opposition to the UK joing the Euro has been critisized for including a spoof of Hitler praising the currency. It's attracted publicity for the campaign, all right, but has it unmasked the "No" campaign as anti-Europe "little Englanders"? (Guardian link)
posted on Jul 3, 2002 - View this thread

EU Countries Soften Cannabis Policy. This past week, experts and officials from around the EU met in the central Dutch city of Utrecht to exchange views at the European City Conference on Cannabis policy. (From Radio Nederlands)
posted on Dec 8, 2001 - View this thread

Euro-court outlaws criticism of EU, and thus demonstrates what inevitably will happen when most European governments have communists(or "former communists") on board. PS: beware that any reply to this tread could be seen upon as additional critisism against the Holy Union...
posted on Mar 7, 2001 - View this thread