Repelling a spam attack

There was an enormous spam attack overnight. It came to about 300 posts. I’m trying to install some software to more permanently forstall this problem.

I’ve deleted all the offending posts, but it’s possible that I have deleted non-spam posts as well, although I did my best to avoid that outcome. If I have, I apologise and assure you that no political censorship of comments is intended. I have only once deleted a comment for reasons other than spamming, and that was a clearly personal and offensive attack on a poster.

So, if you have a had a genuine comment of yours removed in the last couple of hours, please feel free to repost it.

Safari

Yes, we’re aware of the Safari problem and looking into it. Any advice would be appreciated.
Update: Could Safari users please indicate if the problem has been fixed on their systems? Thank you!

New Europe, new afoe

Gentle readers, important things are happening this week. At the risk of telling you something you may have heard before - in only four days, on May 1^st, ten countries will become members of a European Union that will hopefully not just become larger, but better (alright, over time). Only fifteen years ago, predicting such a development would have been considered hallucinary - and rightly so. So much for lacking European dynamism.

Reflecting this important development, afoe is welcoming the new EU cititzens with a new and improved design. I know - de gustibus non est disputandum - but we like it and hope so will you. By the way, the random banner images already include some pictures from the new member states - we are forestalling a little. Please note that we are now showing abstracts of the three most recent posts from our partner site Living in Europe.net in the sidebar, right under the ’quicklinks’.

The design has been tested on a good deal of OS/browser combinations. But there will always be the one combination that will not produce results at least close to the visual effect that we have in mind. So please let us know if you are experiencing any difficulties while reading a Fistful of Euros.

Update: Thank you for your comments! I would be great if Safari 1.x as well as IE 5.2.x users could tell us if the remaining display problems have been solved. Thanks in advance!

Rodrigo Rato: Wagging The Finger, Or Wagging The Dog?

I have already posted on my own blog about what I see as the surreal consequences which might follow from this wish becoming a reality. If what I think happens next to the Spanish economy really does happen - and I have no doubt whatsoever that the housing bubble will crash one or other of these days - then the situation will be a bit like having Menem at the head of an IMFwhich is telling Argentina that they should have thought about the consequences before getting into all that trouble……..

My interest here today, however, is more the European dimension of this process. Firstly, if it is true, as the FT seems to contend, that the European candidature will carry the field, what does this tell us about the IMF? Secondly, maybe focussing on the IMF managing directorship is to miss the point. Maybe the real horse-trading is over future control at the ECB. In other words: will this be a case of wagging the finger, or wagging the dog?

Anniversary

Missed an anniversary. Yesterday, it was six months since the blog was launched.

We’d like to thank the Academy

We were happy when AFOE was nominated for a Koufax Award, so we’re even happier to learn that we’re in the final seven for Best Group Blog. Thanks to everyone who’s nominated or voted for us and we hope to live up to your expectations over the next year!

Links to comments

We like to keep on top of the latest in high tech here at AFOE. So, thanks to our crack AFOE research and development team, you can now create links directly to comments on this blog by using the URL you get by clinking on the comment’s data and time.

AFOE Labs appreciates the support it has received for this challenging, ground-breaking software engineering development project. Calpundit had nothing to with it. Honest.

Greetings from the Guest

As David mentions below, the kind people at Fistful… have invited me in and asked me to do a guestblogging stint, in the (vain) expectation that I might have something interesting to say about things European.

For people who haven’t stumbled across me before, I blog over at the Virtual Stoa, was the subject of a recent Normblog profile, and spend my days teaching politics at Magdalen College in Oxford -- though my expertise, such as it is, is in topics in pre-20th century history of political thought rather than in anything useful (contemporary European politics and society, for example).

I’ve enjoyed reading Fistful… from time to time since its launch last year, and was very pleased to see A Fistful of Dynamite aka Duck, You Sucker, aka Once Upon a Time in the Revolution again over Christmas in Berkeley, CA. And I’m now the proud co-owner of an almost authentic-looking Sergio Leone-style duster coat, so I’m feeling especially qualified right now to contribute to the discussions here.

Before I close this introductory post, do check out, if you haven’t already, Scott Martens’s superlative summary of the argument of Karl Marx’s 1843 essay, On the Jewish Question, which appears in the comments to this recent post: it’s a patient and accurate summary of a complex and much-misunderstood text which deserves a bit more prominence than it gets buried away at the end of a long comments thread. Good stuff, Scott.

Right, more soon.

A good week

This week, A Fistful of Euros is very proud to present two new members of our team, Scott MacMillan, and Mrs Tilton. I trust they are already familiar to our regular readers, and their qualitifications speak for themselves.

A warm welcome to them both.

Also, this week we’re very happy to have the brilliant Chris Brooke as guest contributor. We’ll feature guests regurarly from now on.

Because we care

As of yesterdeay, we have archives by author. Click on the eternity symbol after our names. Thanks to Kieran Healy for helping me out.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you who’ve been reading, commenting on and linking to FOE for the last few months. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you so I trust you will all have an enjoyable 2004.

So, to get the FOE year off to a good start, what are your predictions for what might happen in Europe in 2004?

I’m predicting that the Irish presidency (which begins today) will make progress on the Constitutional talks, though maybe not on the Constitution itself (at least on the Giscard D’Estaing version) and also that in June’s elections, the EPP will remain the largest grouping in the Parliament, but the biggest growth will be in the smaller groupings and independent/non-aligned members.

Merry Christmas to All

And to all a good night!

See you again around the 28th…

Vote AFOE

Wizbang is having a Blog Awards competition. We’re one of twenty nominees for Best Foreign blog (What an odd sort of category on the Internet one would think, but I’m not complaining.) Please, please, please go there and vote for us if you think we’re any good, because I really want to win this thing. I’ve never won anything in my life.

Update: Now here’s a good reason to vote for us, tell all your friends, family, and random strangers to do the same, pimp us on your blogs…
The frontrunner is currently Merde in France, the France-hating wingnut. (#2 is Tim Blair, the Australian one-man Sasmizdata.net) We’re third and are well positioned to stop him from winning. I daresay we’re easily the best of the ones with a chance to win. Keep the eurohaters from winning. Vote AFOE!

The poll is open until dec 14. I will occasionally bump this post till then.

Speaking of Spam…

Speaking of Spam, it’s remarkable how much regular spam we get, even though it says “at” rather than @. Presumably, it’s not actual humans who read that adress, so people need to refine their anti-spam techniques. Bother.

Oh Dear

We’ve been hit by coimments spam. I guess I’ll ahve to read up on what to do. Good thing really, since Europundit already had problems, and I only bothered to ban and delete.

How are we doing so far?

Greetings, gentle readers. I may have recovered from blogging fatigue, and thought I’d start over by asking you for a little help. How do you think we’re doing? Any complaints? Any helpful suggestions? What do you want to see more of, or less of?

Oh, and suggestions for good blogs asnd other sites to link atre always welcome.

We’re, like, huge

After reading this Crooked Timber entry, I went and typed ’fistful’ and ’euros’ in Google, and, get this, we’re the number one result for both. Ahead of companies with domains like euros.net, euros.nl, etc, presumably spending good money on their websites and marketing. Euros is a sponsored links query.
How about that?

Life Before Power Point

Another quiet Saturday morning here in Barcelona. This post is definitely for those looking up at the grey sky, and feeling the need for some pretty mindless entertainment. Power Point presentations: ever been subjected to one of them. Or put another way: what was life like before Microsoft? Well Peter Norvic has been thinking about this, and I for one had a good laugh. Looking for a European connection in all this: well what would count as our equivalent of the Gettysburg Address? Suggestions Please.

BTW today is Diwali in India, so happy Diwali everyone (and no, my real name isn’t Dilesh, but would it matter if it was?).

Open Thread

Estonia said yes, Sweden said no (or rather Let’s wait and see,) will Latvia say no? Plus Cancun, the new constitution…

Football?

You can help

Does anyone have suggestions for good blogs? I’m especially interested in blogs with an European perspective and ones covering the politics of a European country or region, but any good blogs are of interest of course.

One of my megalomanical hopes for AFOE was that we could use it to create a European corner of the blogosphere. Just as there is a comics blogosphere, a linguablogger blogosphere, a German blogosphere, and on a larger scale a techie blogosphere and a US politics blogosphere, there should be a pan-European politics blogosphere.

Basically I want every worthwhile English language blog about european politics to be on our blogroll. And I want as many as possible of them to become aware of each other and start talking to each other.

I think we have enough traffic for it to be actually achievable.

The result

With the final result in Sweden’s referendum on the Euro being 56% no, 42% yes and 2% undecided the joint winners of the first Fistful of Euros prediction competition are Stefan Geens and our very own David Weman who both got closest, predicting a 54% no vote. It appears that the polls before Anna Lindh’s murder were actually quite accurate, both in predicting a ’no’ victory and that it would be by a relatively large margin.

Sweden and the Euro - you decide

With Sweden voting on whether to join the Euro tomorrow, it’s a good time to test the predictive knowledge of the readers of A Fistful of Euros. So, what do you think the result of the referendum will be? Give us your prediction in the comments box and we’ll announce th winner on Monday, along with a link to your website or blog, should you have one.

This Reuters article gives the latest polling figures, with both sides averaging around the mid-40s and the undecideds seemingly the key to victory.

My prediction? No, by 53%-47% though that’s based on nothing more than pure guesswork. What do you think?

Open thread

Should we have open threads?

1 September 2003 - A day that will live in infamy

Welcome to A Fistful of Euros. In celebration of Labour Day - the bank holiday that Americans and Canadians get in lieu of that subversive communist holiday May Day - we are finally on line. This is the blog you want for creative, English-language coverage of European affairs.

Add it to your bookmarks and stay tuned.