David Runciman on politics, democracy, the EU, and various other topics. "Keynes readily accepted that democracies were far better at renewing themselves than the supposedly more efficient dictatorships. He just wished they wouldn’t try to do it when they were struggling to stop the world descending into chaos."

Aditya Chakrabortty: "Both the evidence and the voters are against investment bankers. So why do the politicians cling on to them? Part of the answer is financial. ... the City now provides half of all Tory party funds. That is up from just 25% only five years ago." "Running this government are two sons of bankers. Cameron's father was a stockbroker, Clegg's is still chairman of United Trust Bank."

(Side note: the picture is of Canary Wharf, part of the City-as-finance but not City-as-geography or City-as-government. It's arguably more photogenic, though.)

"Paid-for references to products and services are now permitted for the first time in shows produced in the UK, including soaps and one-off dramas."

"It has something to do with the ideal of the American Everyman. As with the military or medicine, so with museums, we are by national inclination meddlers. Europeans are not, which is why they have reacted to the Smithsonian flap with the same mildly appalled bafflement that they express toward American opposition to the health care bill. It all seems inexplicable to them." The NYT on Wojnarowicz, Sensation, Tate, the Smithsonian, and attitudes. 

A Lego map of Europe, complete with notable buildings in the style of the Architecture series. Impressive.

"SNCF and Deutsche Bahn are for the first time competing directly for mastery of European high-speed rail." "ICE trains are more spacious. French trains à grande vitesse (TGVs) are faster. The TGV is usually cheaper, but ICE trains are used to competing with German luxury cars."

"We should change our focus to the other side of the equation and curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving? The answer, of course, is public transit."

Interesting musings by Amy Hoy on placebos and advertising.

"A median of 65% in 14 European countries interviewed between March and July of this year say who wins November's presidential election in the United States makes a difference to their country." Which means 27% don't, which amazes me. (Slightly old data.)

It's a good thing I don't fly in Europe much, and that this won't work over the Atlantic. Now, if they'd allowed SMSes only, I'd probably be OK with it.

The US seems determined to make it almost impossible to travel there. Why not just end the visa waiver programme and make it clear foreigners aren't welcome any more?

(Warning PDF) Slightly breathless Alstom PR material about their new AGV, a 360km/h train for the French high speed network. Sounds fabulous though.

If record labels are "prepared to keep copy restrictions on his label’s songs on iTunes for six months to a year while Amazon establishes itself", then where does that leave Europe? DRMed, evidently.

UK prices to drop to the EU level, but there's the implication that if labels don't play along they'll lose catalogue. No sign of allowing you to buy tracks from outside your credit card's nation either.

Jeremiah Foster fixes his iTMS authorisation issues. I disagree with him - and agree with the commenters - that the EU is right to try to get the iTMS to be country-neutral within the EU.

"Apple has always wanted to operate a single, pan-European iTunes store [...] but we were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us." Blame the artists, then?

"When I bought some of the finest American music around and then moved to Sweden, my music was no longer authorized and cannot be played" I knew there were limits at purchase time, but authorisation that varies by territory is awful.

Lisa Jardine (who's been writing some good stuff for the BBC) on Europeans, the British, language and national identity

dots!