Gotta new article up now on Slate, covering European papers' responses to the EU summit in Athens. Hacks and news hounds round these parts are speculating that the Czech referendum on EU entry might be a closer call than most people expect. The Czech party that's best at getting out the vote is the Communist Party, which has about 20% of the vote and is already mobilizing their voters to vote "No." In Hungary, only 46% of the population voted. You do the math. If the weather's nice on Friday, June 13th, the entire country might just forget about voting and head out to the cottage. One of my closest Czech friends already told me he's probably not even going to bother voting because he's thinks a "Yes" is a forgone conclusion. The Foreign Ministry official in charge of the "Yes" campaign even told Radio Prague that she would rather the vote were on Sunday and Monday, rather than Friday and Saturday, for exactly this reason.

This BBC article says there's also concern that not enough people will turn out to vote in Poland, which votes in June as well. It also says support is weakest in Estonia and Latvia -- hovering around 50%. Both those countries vote in September. None of this means that expansion is in danger, but it wouldn't be terribly surprising if one of the countries gave the system a jolt with a "No" or even a close call. And it could be the Czechs.

Oh my god. "South Park" is on Viva dubbed in German.