People living in Hamburg have to cope with a rather special political crop these days: Roland Schill, a former judge who founded his own party and in 2001 managed to gain enough votes among dissatisfied conservatives to become junior partner and senator responsible for police and internal affairs in a CDU led coalition. Knowing that only continued bullshitting can assure public attention, he now demands taking genetic fingerprints for fare evading… (via Spiegel Online).

For those who would like to know a little more about him, “The Schill Factor in the Hamburg State Election 2001” [PDF] is a paper by my friend Thorsten Faas and Andreas Wuest, published in “German Politics” last year. A summary is also available in German.