Good Morning America.
The NY Times reports that the American Law Institute, a body made up of about 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors and mostly dealing with creating structural legal directives to keep the different jurisdictional layers of the American legal system congruent, and also the body which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice [...]
read onFrom your tv to your White House.
The NYT’s Brian Stelter looks at some interesting similarities between the last two seasons of “The West Wing” and the current Presidential campaign in the US – Following the Script – Obama, McCain and ‘The West Wing’
read onPaul Krugman agrees…
in the NYTimes after the US House of Representatives voted “no” on the Wall Street bailout plan. He’s right of course, that “flip-flopping” on issues like this in the way it happened isn’t exactly a sign of a well functioning representative democracy. On the other hand, it’s also true that this vote is a sign [...]
read onSarah Palin is simply scary.
You know, back in 2000, I said that Americans were so confident in their way of doing things that they actually believed they could afford someone like the current President to be in charge. Now, a couple of years later, they may no longer be too confident about the situation they find themselves in, militarily, [...]
read onIs France a country?
I’ve watched this clip, but I’m still not sure it’s for real…
read onBill Clinton’s libido is responsible for Iraq.
Well, at least in the sense that he caused the Presidency of George W. Bush. And it’s his fault, too, if his wife won’t be nominated or elected president. Sounds farfetched? Well, not to Bob Herbert. NY Times columnist, who argues, apparently seriously, that Bill Clinton’s famous touch has always been poisenous for other Democrats [...]
read onAustralia will be next – ‘Tokio Hotel’ in New York.
When I had a drink with friends in Sydney’s Darling Harbour quarter, no one native to the red continent understood why I had to chuckle when I read the bar’s name – Tokio Hotel. Well, they may soon, as Kelefa Sanneh, writing in the NY Times about Tokio Hotel’s first concert in New York City [...]
read onStrafmaß als Indikator relativer Bekanntheit?
Spiegel Online informiert uns darüber, daß auch Nicole Richie, die vermeintlich ehemals beste Freundin und “Simple Life” Kollegin von Paris Hilton, wegen Fahrens unter Drogeneinfluß eine Haftstrafe abbüßen muß – allerdings keine 23 Tage sondern nur 90 Stunden. Angesichts der Tatsache, daß die Haftstrafe Hiltons nach Auskunft von Rechtsexperten wohl aufgrund ihrer Bekanntheit nicht schon [...]
read on$65 million for missing pants?
Another thing that can happen only in urban legends and real-life America: Marc Fisher – Lawyers Price For Missing Pants: $65 Million – washingtonpost.com
read onMcCain fries Barbara Ann.
And he not only owes an apology to the Beach Boys for his musical stunt – “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” (video on youtube). Did John McCain suddenly decide that American Idol is the more promising competition? Although I suppose most contenders there have understood that doing electoral math usually has a very early [...]
read onSomething’s going on in America…
and I think we can call it “slow Europeanization”. Think about it for a moment, Rumsfeld fired, Cheney on the verge of being impeached by GQ magazine, President Bush can’t make up his mind about dropping some bombs on Iran, and now this: Reuters reports that the FCC (the organization regulating American tv) is considering [...]
read onPornopixel absurd.
Angesichts der Ubiquität von Nacktheit in westlichen Gesellschaften finde ich es überaus erstaunlich, welche Kontroversen Pornographie immer noch hervorrufen kann, und wie sehr man sie immer noch zur politischen und sonstigen Provokation heranziehen kann.
read onBush in Bild
For those of you, gentle readers, who do not engange in in-depth analysis of Germany’s tabloid newspapers, here’s a transcript of the US President George W. Bush’s interview with Kai Diekmann of BILD – here’s the edited German version published by BILD. They met in the Oval office and discussed, among other issues, the rug-choosing [...]
read onWhy Blogs matter (especially in the US).
Mediamatters.org tells us to which extent the American so-called mainstream media has mentioned the CBS 60 minutes story I reported below – On CBS’ 60 Minutes, former high-ranking CIA official Tyler Drumheller proved that the Bush administration dismissed clear-cut evidence undermining President Bush’s central case for war — that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass [...]
read onThe Daily Show with George W. Bush!
Once upon a time, Comedy Central’s Daily Show host Jon Stewart was asked whether the end of President Bush’s administration would make his life as a comedian harder. His reply was that, yes, his life as a comedian would be more difficult to the extent that the following administration was less absurd than the current [...]
read onI’m having a déjà vu.
reading the NYT’s report about the updated US national security strategy. An updated version of the Bush administration’s national security strategy, the first since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, includes a vigorous defense of striking pre-emptively against countries seen to threaten the United States. The document declares for the first time that diplomacy to [...]
read onThe weirdness that rules our days.
A death row inmate’s execution is stayed because the use of a lethal injection during his execution (sic!) might constitute a cased of cruel punishment, which is banned under the US constitution. Using the drugs, not the execution itself, don’t get this wrong. But it doesn’t stop here – two doctors are called to make [...]
read onPride And Prejudice.
Fair enough, American politics is far more complex than many people on this side of the pond are even able to admit. Still, this week’s Economist asks a seemingly complicated question with a surprisingly simple answer – Pride and Prejudice. Sometimes both come before the fall. Just ask Jane Austen – or George W. Bush.
read onWhy Am I Not Surprised…
… about the two books topping the list of the 1000 books US OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) member libraries are most likely to own (link via Crooked Timber).
read onMore Texan-friendliness.
I had heard of http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/single/se24.jpg/ before, but I had not seen the site until today. As opposed to the reason for its existence, it is really good fun. And in light of this blog’s recently re-discovered Texan-friendliness, I just had to reassure the lady above that while Europeans are religiously deprived and accordingly morally depraved, [...]
read onAn Ambigous Tour Of The Oval Office.
More people than usual are concerned about the quality of the administrational work done by elected officials these days. Domestic German examples abound and include the recent scandal surrounding the “world’s most advanced vehicle toll system”, which is so advanced it has to be protected by not deploying it; and, of course, by a 1700-pages [...]
read onSophie and Hans Scholl, Our Best.
I’m still not writing much these days because of my broken elbow, but today I just had to say something.
read on