If you are trapped because of the volcano ash. You may be interested in a RoadSharing, a tool to coordinate getting out by road with other people.
Also some info on Twitter by the hashtags #ashtag and #getmehome.
And if you still have hope and want to check the flight situation, check Flight Status, with arrivals and departures for all airports.
In a world where politicians and civil servants do nearly what they please with our money and resources, because we, the citizens, don’t have enough instruments to scrutinize what they are doing, the banks take advantage to reap the possible benefits. This is what happened in Greece and other European countries on the road to the Euro before 2001. And this is probably what continues to happen today.
The New York Times, still the best newspaper in the world IMHO, has a news article on how Goldman Sachs and other Wall St banks negotiated financial products with the Greek government, and possibly other European countries, which facilitated their hiding of high deficits to get onto the Euro. In return, they got the future proceeds of Greece’s airports and highways, among other things in a deal termed as a “garage sale”.
This is what happens when governments and public administrations do what their please without the proper scrutiny. In most of Europe, parliaments are not anymore, if they ever where, a place of accountability, but of consent and quarrelling. Today, it is up to the citizen to control that those who govern us and administer our resources and tax money do it properly. Every bit of control, even the minor one is useful by aggregation. For this we need new instruments and rules. Opening public data to all (e.g. data.gov and data.gov.uk) is a very good step in this direction.
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Young Europeans do not want political parties in their lives. Only 4% of young people (15-29 year olds) participate in a political party or trade union (on Euronews (2:02 mark) from Eurostat statistics). This is a clear figure of what young people want or do no want. Political party politicians and their acolytes would quickly blame the education system, capitalism, the television or even the Playstation for the lack of interest in politics of young people. They are blinded by their group thinking and narrow perspective of what politics is. Politics is not only, and not even mainly, about what political parties and their representatives (the so-called “politicians”) do. This fact, many people, including young people, know very well. I recommend the party people to go one night around bars in any city or town in Europe, to listen to what people are talking about. They talk about politics beyond political parties and their captive public institutions. They will be surprised to hear that there is political life outside the party. For politics is mainly about people and what they do, and not about organisations of any kind. That is why we need to reform the system to give chances to those who want to talk and participate in politics, but do not want to be captive of an organisation that has its own interests, often different than the interests of the rest of us.
This is strange. Reading the post “Released documents contain nothing controversial” from Martin Rosenbaum’s blog Open Secrets, I got to know that the contact form of European Commission’s DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities includes a list where you have to select your country. And that the list includes the usual suspects: EU Member States + Liechtenstein + Iceland + Norway and…WALES! I am puzzled, is there any reason why Wales is considered a country at the same level as the rest by DG Employment? Any of the staff related with the design of this form is from Wales by any chance? Do you know the reason?
“The question of democratic legitimacy is a tricky one. How democratic is a Parliament composed of people who were selected by a politburo in a political party and then, vote in by the electorate? Power is in selecting, not in electing. Therefore the so-called “democracy” is in fact a “partitocracy”.”
This comes from a comment exchange I am having on Jon Worth’s blog about the democratic legitimacy of the nomination of the President of the European Council.
Contrary to what I thought, and to what many people in Europe would like (this is just an impressionistic conclusion of mine after gathering a few opinions from people here in Brussels and in Barcelona 
), Dave Miliband, the UK Foreign Secretary says he’s not available, and he has never been, for the High Representative / Vice-President of the Commission job. All the same, in the Dictionary of Politics there is no word for “never”.
Today and tomorrow, European “leaders” are meeting to discuss among other things the Treaty of Lisbon. Among the most interesting stuff, they might talk about who is going to be the first President of the European Council, quite an important position in the new institutional configuration of the European Union. The also might discuss who is going to be the next High Representative/Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of foreign policy/external action of the EU.
Among the men being talked about to be nominated as President is Tony Blair. Yet, it is not going to happen. I would rather say that T Blair is used by the British to get another man in another, perhaps more relevant, job, that is, the second one of High Representative. One person will be from the right and the other from the left or put it differently, one from the conservatives and another from the socialists. My money is on two people that have many of the conditions I reckon are important to have to be selected: being members of one of the big two European coalitions of parties, being or having been in office, being in good relations with most of the leaders around (and perhaps being men, though this condition is a tricky one). These two are Jean-Claude Juncker for President of the EU and David Miliband for High Representative. The first has said that he would be interested, the second has been tipped as a possible candidate.
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