The Latest(ish)
As Silvio Berlusconi has now discovered, publicly comparing a German politician to a concentration-camp guard is a really, really dumb idea, but the row that has followed has been out of all proportion to one very bad-tempered remark. With something approaching relish, Europe’s grandees are citing this gaffe as another reminder that the Italian premier is not up to the supposedly immense responsibilities of the presidency of the EU council. Of course, critics of Berlusconi claim to have more to their case than one stupid joke. They grumble about his unpredictability, his imperiousness, and the way that he is said [...]
Bullying Berlusconi
July 22, 2003
The realization came as I chowed down on a good breakfast of egg, sliced Canadian style bacon (water added!), sweeteners (one or more of sugar, dextrose or corn syrup solids), the salts of the earth and laboratory (specifically sodiums phosphate, pyrophosphate, aluminum phosphate, erythorbate, nitrite, citrate, stearoyl-2-lactylate and good old salt), enriched (a cocktail of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, iron and folic acid), bleached wheat flour (confusingly, wheat flour may contain malted barley flour), vital wheat gluten, trivial wheat gluten, yeast, (and, self-sufficiently, yeast nutrients — ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, ammonium chloride, non-calcium phosphate), partially hydrogenated (more water!) soybean [...]
Mac Attacked
July 7, 2003