German Politics

Give him his bike back…

It may be a plot to demonstrate the inefficieny of the increasing closed circuit surveillance and increased policing of public space – or just C/conservative terror against one of the remaining true leftists in German politics.

Last Tuesday, German MP Hans-Christian Ströbele’s bycicle was stolen from the east entry of the Bundestag, despite the presence of security cameras and police.

As Ströbele mentions on his website that he needs his bike to execute his mandate, there’s a chance Friedrich Merz, the former CDU/CSU economic policy spokesperson saw an opportunity to beef up his „street cred“ by finally really stealing a bike, and not just making it up, like he did in 2002…

In any case, if you want to help Mr Ströebele get his bike back, he’s posted a very detailed description with photo here (via German MP Jakob Mierscheid’s blog).

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Allgemein

Laggy.

Hartz IV BierUsually, when important things are changed, a system needs some time to adjust. The (west) German economy will benefit from the famed Hartz IV reforms, but alas, it will take a little. So, in the meantime, why not have a Hartz IV beer, for only two Euros a pint? Let’s just hope that the deflationary effect of such offers will remain rather limited… (ad seen on a pub window this week).

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Allgemein

Cleverle.

It’s not like there are no clever entrepreneurs in Germany anymore… Spiegel Online (in German) reports that the owner of two gyms for women in Munich, who left the Catholic church years ago, registered the internet domain „papst-benedikt.de“ only last Sunday, after doing only a little research about possible names for the next pope.

His bet was correct, and, unsurprisingly, several publishing houses are now interested in his domain.

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Allgemein

Appropriate.

I truly admire the ability of the journalists working for tabloids to break down complicated and confusing world events so everybody can understand what is really going on. While it’s not quite clear who the apparently confused Bild editor is referring to when claiming that „We are pope“, and while the Daily Mirror is struggling to find suitable canine metaphors that link „conservative“, „strong“, and „German“ – ending up with „God’s Rottweiler“ -, the Sun once more excels with a most admirable combination of knowledge and courage.

One clearly needs some guts (and a one-track mind) to use a nazi allusion in a headline describing the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI, the German Cardinal Ratzinger. Of course, after characterizing him as „ex-World War II enemy soldier“ the newspaper suddenly felt the need to state at the end of the brief article that

„[h]e was 14 when forced to join the Hitler Youth. He later manned a German anti-aircraft battery – before deserting.“

The Sun editors probably don’t even believe themselves that anyone will keep reading long enough to get to that clarification.

That’s probably also the reason why they decided to use red smoke to indicate their endorsement for a third term of a Blair government. While I don’t think they wanted to imply that all Labour recently produced was red smoke , given the current state of Mr Blair’s government’s popularity, The Sun’s endorsement once more confirms that the Tories are doing everything they can to help Britain advance on its way to a one party state.

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almost a diary

Getting There.

Hello again!

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted more than the occasional photo or a brief message to all ye faithful out there. Well, I’m not promising anything, but as you can see, I’ve redesigned „almost a diary“ with the intention to write more frequently again.

There’s also a new blog, called „tapsmusic“, which I will use to publish some songs I’ve written, „demo-produced“ and, mostly, also sung – check it out. One of the songs there has already been published over on A Fistful Of Euros last October.

Lastly, „rest“ is the third new element of this site, and I will use it to publish anything that doesn’t quite fit this blog or doesn’t have anything to do with my music.

Well… that’s the future structure, for as you will see by clicking on the links, neither „tapsmusic“ nor „rest“ are working yet. But they will – very soon. Stay tuned!

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Iraq, oddly enough, US Politics

Irony…

ironyLast Wednesday, at the anti-Bush demonstration during the President’s visit to Mainz, Germany: This demonstrator’s „subtle“ statement about murderous, and militaristic foreign policy allegedly exhibited by a well known remaining superpower that „everyone, except ‚us'“ (whoever us may be) allegedly participated in, is, ironically, just as subtly contradicted by a portrait of a certain Mr. Kruger printed on his jacket…

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