The Anti-Democratic Altiero Spinelli
Mar 10th
The Ventotene Manifesto must be regarded as one of the most important documents of European Federalism. It was written by Altiero Spinelli, one of the so-called “founding fathers of the European Union,” with the help of the somewhat less-famous Ernesto Rossi (perhaps just a “founding uncle”).
The Manifesto was penned whilst Spinelli and Rossi were being More >
Nigel Farage Should Not Have Been Fined
Mar 3rd
UK Independence Party MEP Nigel Farage launched a ham-fisted attack on EU Council President Herman van Rompuy recently in a bid to become a YouTube celebrity. Trying to be funny, he just came across as an ignorant bully sans either wit or charm – reduced to yelling at van Rompuy and calling him names. Most More >
Reading The Communist Manifesto
Mar 2nd
I volunteered to give a short presentation on The Communist Manifesto to my class on Wednesday. I must confess I’ve never actually read the thing, though I have read endless summaries and analysis of it. I was surprised to find it much shorter than I expected, and relatively easy to read. I’m a proud member More >
Augmented Reality is Going to be Noisy
Feb 28th
I caught my first glimpse of augmented reality last night. A friend of mine showed me the streets of Trento through the viewfinder of his smartphone and I saw geo-tagged photos, videos and blog posts floating in the air around us. When he turned his phone towards the centre of town (where most of the More >
The EU Leadership is a Mess
Feb 26th
I’ve been distracted from EU politics for several weeks. Now I’m coming back to it, I find it in a complete mess. After Copenhagen (where the EU – the so-called “climate-change leader” – wasn’t even asked to help negotiate the meaningless text that was eventually cobbled together), the EU-US summit debacle and the general scramble More >
Visa problems
Feb 25th
My entire life is apparently being taken over by paperwork. I’m helping my wife apply for permanent residence in the UK. I’m also proofreading an academic text and next week my lectures start in earnest for my final semester. It’s going to be a busy semester, with a full schedule of lectures. Still, I have More >
Apologies for the Silence
Feb 12th
I know I’ve been very silent for the last few weeks – and you’ve maybe noticed that I’ve taken my site down. I’m sorry about all this. My only excuse is that I’ve been unbelievably busy with real-world things recently – from university to my wife’s visa application for the UK (an enormous task).
The site More >
