The much-hyped Carla Bruni love songs album is supposed to be great. It also reinforces pretty much every stereotype of over-sexed Europeans.

Charles Bremner writes, "This must be the first time that the presidency of a leading nation has promoted a pop album." But even if you were the leader of a European nation, wouldn't you promote an album if it talked about you like this?

The Berlin Zoo is in trouble yet again. Spiegel Online reports that the zoo director, Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, had a goat from the petting zoo killed and fed to the zoo's wolves - in front of families visiting the zoo.

Or, as Der Spiegel rather dramatically put it: At the Berlin Zoo, it's a short distance between the petting zoo and the wolves' habitat. But it can apparently also be the distance between being lovingly caressed by children and being dismembered by bloodthirsty predators.

According to the AP, three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos, whose inhabitants are known as Lesbians, are taking the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece to court over their name.

One of the litigants says, "This is not an aggressive act against gay women. Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

Their argument: they've been Lesbians for thousands of years. These new lesbians have usurped the name and corrupted it with a sexual connotation.

Rachelle Atkins just wrote a piece for Babble called, "C'est Bon? An expat fact-checks France's rep as a parenting paradise."

In the article, she breaks down the myth of France's superiority to three items: the relatively relaxed standards for women during pregnancy (a little Brie is okay over there), the low cost of daycare, and the child-friendliness of social functions.

The most compelling of these for us was the third, about which Rachelle writes:

Child are omnipresent here, whether it's in posh restaurants or dancing until the wee hours at parties. Several times my husband and I have been scolded for getting a babysitter. "You must bring the kids!" is often included in an invitation, whether it's for a house party, a meeting in a bar, or dinner out with friends. Children are included from the earliest ages in all parts of their family's life, so they adapt quickly to social situations and know how they are expected to behave.

We were appalled by the to-do made about Hillary's really perfectly demure blouse. What would the big deal have been if her shirt had been down to her navel? It's not like you can't run a country and be busty.

So demonstrates the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, arguably the most powerful woman in the world and certainly the foxiest member of the G8.

Broadsheet picked up this photo from Der Spiegel of the world leader. At the opera with the king and queen of Norway, Merkel rocked a seriously low-cut gown.