German Politics, photoblogging

Property Issues

Oscar Lafontaine campaign poster appropriates Victor Hugo.It’s a well known fact that property is not something people on the economic left have a lot of sympathy for. So it should not be too surprising to see that Oscar Lafontaine has appropriated Victor Hugo’s realisation that there are times when nothing is more powerful than an idea and put it on the poster in a way that looks lke it was his own… by the way, replying “we’re not mad” to his invitation (scribbled on the poster) was probably wrong – to some extent. While not as many people voted for the Linkspartei.PDS, it was still 8.7% (or 4,086,134 people) of Germans, 4.7% up from 4 years ago.

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German Politics, photoblogging

She never looked better.

Angela Merkel looks better on.Certainly not after the results were announced. Not even the little moustache someone painted above her upper lip seem to bother her. Stuff like that doesn’t bother people who have already discounted a clear-cut victory. However – losing bothers them. A lot. Return to this picture to see what I’m talking about when you’re watching the news these days.

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German Politics

A Used Papamobil.

Netzeitung.de reports (in German) that 21 year-old Benjamin Halbe from Olpe, Germany, is selling his car on ebay. Not news, you think? Fair enough, but apparently, according to the car’s documentation, it previously belonged to Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger – although I’m not really sure about how Cardinals are supposed to handle personal property.

The new Pope supposedly used it to drive around incognito. I’m rather sure that will not be the reason for which the next owner will pay a significant premium for a used VW Golf.

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German Politics

The Bike is back.

When my sister moved to Hamburg last year, one of the first encouters with her new city of choice was that someone chose to steal her bike. As it was an unusual bike, maybe the thief was as confident as police were that they would find it and decided to take it back after sleeping over it.

The thief who stole Hans-Christian Stroebele’s bycicle last week apparently wasn’t quite as concerned about selling his booty. Via German MP Jakob-Maria Mierscheid’s blog I just learned that Hans-Christian has been united with his bike – a bycicle messenger recognized it on a local flee market and just bought it back for the rightful owner…

And the bottom line of this story? We don’t need increased electronic surveillance of public space. We need more cycling, attentive citizens. Sure, the former is a lot easier to achieve than the latter, but it’s also a lot less effective. QED.

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