Word: rathering
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Bullock's personal acceptance of her two Razzie awards for the deplorable All About Steve the evening before the Oscars was just icing on the self-deprecation cake. Rather than view the Razzies, saluting the worst that Hollywood has to offer, as an embarrassment and praying people would ignore it, she embraced it. Instead of an obvious Oscar hindrance, her willingness to laugh about it pretty much sealed her deal...
...Rather than the politically correct, nonjudgmental phrase that has been foisted on presenters for more than two decades - "And the Oscar goes to ..." - presenters this year introduced each winner with the blunt, old-fashioned but perfectly accurate phrase "And the winner is ..." (See the top 10 memorable moments of the 2010 Academy Awards...
...country holding the rotating presidency; the President of the European Commission and national heads of state and government. The new setup looks like a parody of all that is wrong with the E.U., bureaucratic and complicated, built on least-bad options and seemingly designed to encourage turf wars rather than action...
...towards a consensus. Useful attributes, no doubt, but hardly the ones needed to make the E.U. count on the international stage. Ashton, a former British minister and European trade commissioner, has little experience in foreign affairs. "Van Rompuy and Ashton give the impression of being chosen for their limits rather than their merits," says Dominique Moïsi, senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations. One senior European official frets that when it comes to the E.U. projecting itself, the choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton means the grouping will have to reconcile itself to five years...
Beyond its neighborhood, however the E.U. has rarely punched its collective weight. The main reason for that, of course, is that member states still like to defend and pursue their own national interests, rather than subsume them in a multinational body. There's also a case - and plenty in Europe make it - that Europe is better off continuing to aim low. "Very few European countries see the role of the E.U. as a power," says Moïsi. "They see Europe as a place - with a common market, a common currency, but not a power that should project itself onto...