I am posting today from the far off Tuscan hills and my first challenge is to master the Italian keyboard (Unsucessfully I might add so forgive the missing apostrophes scattered throughout this post).. One tends to forget the glaringly obvious when home, i.e. that the internet is indeed global. Of course therein lies the whole omnipresent secret behind its success and yet when one is in a mindset of mailing local friends and contacts and frequenting the intensely parochial halls of such sites as politics.ie and even (sadly) kcc online, one can lose sight of the ubiquitious reach of the highway.

US forces eventually halted the balkan slaughter

Sticking with European affairs I saw that Serbian warlords are being mopped up and shipped off to the international courts now that a pro-western government has taken up office in the last fortnight. Although it was a bloody conflict I couldnt help feeling some sympathy for the nationalist serbs who abetted their former leaders in evading capture for so long after the NATO brokered peace deal enforced a settlement on their country(ies). It seems the lure of the EU was too great and the new cabinet are eager to be onside with their western neighbours, no longer the pariah of the region. That aside, the conflict did see literally millions displaced and made homeless and hundreds of thousands slaughtered in some incredible savagery. US neo-cons still maintain those killing fields were only finally halted when heavy US bombing brought the militias to an eventual ceasefire after enfeebled EU efforts had lacked anywhere near sufficient punch to land a knockout. In circumstances like that its worth wondering whether an EU army would be so bad after all..

While on US-EU matters, of course our friend Obama graced the citadel of Berlin last night, in an eagerly awaited spectacle drawing inevitable parallels with JFK “Ich Ein Berliner” (I am a cocktail sausage) a few decades before. Obama brings an almost equally potent cocktail of youth, energy, hope and grassroots activist and a simple but hugely powerful promise that should banish the cynic in all of us, that it really can be that simple. Hope and you will succeed. Change and the world will change with you. Probably shouldnt admit it, but I was quite excited about us being in contigious countries Thursday night. I had hoped to catch his oratory live in the pool bar, alas tour de france held sway and the Miss Norcenni competition drew the crowds soon after.

Anyway time to sign off now.. my net timer is ticking.. Ciao!!