links for 2010-10-21

It turned out Europe's lush vegetation and cooler climates suited diary farming well, and a population explosion among these original Middle Eastern immigrants seeded Europe with its healthy, strong-boned milk-fed future.

The government of David Cameron just took the Tea Party's deepest fantasies — of massive budget cuts, introduced immediately — and imposed them on Britain. When was the last time Britain's public spending was slashed by more than 20 percent? Not in my mother's lifetime. Not even in my grandmother's lifetime. No: It was in 1918, when a conservative-liberal coalition said the best response to a global economic crisis was to rapidly pay off this country's debts.

Nenshi is the first Muslim elected to lead a major Canadian city, an attribute he said was not a major issue in the campaign.
"I haven't shied away from anything in this campaign," Nenshi said Tuesday. "And issues of race and religion have not come up very much — except, frankly, by the media.