Don’t Miss…
Hipparchia has an article on the latest Florida election debacle: moving the date of the primary. Nothing is a simple as it seems, except the Florida legislature.
Apparently no one bothered to check with the political parties about the shift, and it turns out the primary may have no validity as far as the parties are concerned. Just because they use the labels “Republan” and “Democrat” doesn’t mean they are actually part of those parties – just look at Bill Nelson’s voting record.
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Michael, who is currently in Paris, has a post on Barack Obama’s foreign policy positions. Read it and see what you think.
I’m unhappy with it on several points, but it’s your vote.
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Michael, who is currently in Paris and who had a rather surreal experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this morning. I was sitting in the reading room of the archives, surrounded by perhaps 10 or a dozen other people, all of us busily consulting finding aids, fiddling on our laptops, scanning microfilm, or using one of many 21st-century electronic gadgets. Then I had to step outside to the corridor to retrieve a letter from my briefcase so they would issue me a reader’s card and so I could actually order some of the documents I want to look at for Monday (this after I successfully managed to inform them that yes, in fact, they did have said documents). As I was shutting up my briefcase again and getting ready to put it back in the closet so the staff member could lock it up again, I turned and saw a middle-aged gentleman in a white tie and tailcoat, carrying a large green bag. I can only presume it was something out of the diplomatic bag for the Foreign Minister, given that the first sight that confronted me and my colleagues as we went up the hall on our way to the archives was a large, carpeted stairway labeled “Cabinet du ministre” (“Minister’s suite”).
There’s always time for a trip back through history in Europe. In Germany it is a requirement that chimney sweeps wear a top hat and have all of the tools of the 18th century, even though they do the job with a special attachment on an industrial vacuum cleaner.
I don’t doubt that some of those documents were wrapped in ribbon and sealed with wax.