[LINK] A Friday tour of the blogosphere

[rfmcdonald]

• Otto Spijkers at 1948 explores the way in which the candidates in the recent Fnench election used the terms "globalisation" and "mondialisation" in ways that suggested that these two words weren't synonyms of the same phenomenon.


• Alpha Sources' Claus Vistesen links to a contrarian analysis of his about the French economy, arguing that compared to many of its Eurozone neighbours France has what is in fact a relatively strong economy with good fundamentals.


• Aziz Poonwalla at City of Brass links to and comments upon an interesting article regarding conversions to Shi'ite Islam in Sunni-majority Syria.


• Joe.My.God touches upon the fallout of the failed relationship of Lord Browne (formerly of British Petroleum) and Canadian Jeff Chevalier, the whole sad story demonstrating that adequate amounts of palimony and a clean breakup are good things to have in a failing relationship regardless of sexual orientation.


• Bert Archer wonders why the press has such an adversarial relationship with authorities, arguably more so than in the not-too-distant past.
  
• Diane Duane reviews one of her favourite cafe/restaurants, Le Cirio in Brussels.


• Otto Pohl commemorates the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of the Soviet ethnic cleansing of the Crimean Tatars from their homeland.


• Edward Lucas' blog and Peteris Cedrins' Marginalia both have extensive, accurate coverage of the recent controversy surrounding Estonia's removal of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn from its former position of prominence in the Estonian capital.


• feorag at the Pagan Prattle links to news reports of a Satanic-conspiracy mania in an Italian kindergarten, twenty years after the North American wave.