One surprise this week was the appointment of a European president (EU announcement), which went to a former Belgian prime-minister, Van Rompey. It appears he’s a pragmatic politician, who has been quoted the following words:
The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey.
On the other hand, the other contestants were Tony Blair and the current Dutch prime-minister Balkenende.
If you’re European, you may not have noticed this in the news: Oprah’s announcement that she’s stopping her show in 2011. I have never liked her show and I don’t understand how people like her get to a meteoric rise to fame: the most likely answer to that question is ‘targeted marketing’. Last year, when I saw Oprah stumping for Obama, I thought that was going a bit too far. Maybe Oprah knows more about the Obama presidency.
And finally, the moment we’ve been waiting for, the Large Hadron Colider has restarted. Fourteen months ago, a bunch of time travelers stopped the machine from operating, possibly delaying the creation of the Great Black Hole of 2107. Uh. Or something. On a serious note, the next coming years the LHC will help scientists narrow down the search for the Higgs boson, a sub-particle that has been predicted but so far, has not been found.