3 lawyers on each corner might not be a bad thing, they're never going to take the other down in a cage match of all things, but if their lawyers get involved they're going to waste away their time and money on this conflict instead of making life harder for us!

Here I am to be a contrarian: I love summer and it doesn't even go below freezing during winter. It rarely even goes below 5 °C.

...or maybe I'd enjoy winter more if we had snow instead of just rain and depression?

I like listening to historical podcasts, and my favorites are "The History of Rome" (which has finished) and its followup "The History of Byzantium" and "Hardcore History" . I've heard good things about "Revolutions" by the creator of "The History of Rome" but I haven't checked it out yet.

Also I've been enjoying "Fall of Civilizations" a lot, but so far have only listened to a few of the episodes.

I can't believe you went for these obscure examples like the US or the EU and not the most obvious example: the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek, of course!