And I wonder how the Fearless Leader's health affected this.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/11/us.north.korea/index.html

To ensure his status as most Bond-villain-esque (former) world leader, someone gave Putin a tiger for his birthday.

Just returned from a wonderfully long vacation in Southern France (Languedoc), where my wife's father and his side of the family grew up and live.

Fluent in several languages (mother Scottish, father French), well schooled in European and world history, and a world-travelling businessman-engineer in the aluminum industry, he always has interesting observations.

He thinks that the crisis will force "core" Eurozone countries -- France, Germany, Belgium, Finland, etc. -- to work ever more closely in concert on economic policy, increasing the likelihood that these "core" countries will become a single nation-state within a decade. The logic being that such close coordination of economic policy would further erode inter-European nation-state policy boundaries.

He feels crisis-based coordination comes first, with the final step years later being constitutional changes enabling more direct elections of this new One-Europe's representatives.