The German newspaper whose web site really could be better organized had a fistful of bloggable things on Tuesday. Just pretend I’m discussing them a little more punctually than two days later.
? Stoiber says collecting signatures to oppose Turkey’s admission to the EU is prudent. I suppose. It’s a good way to find conservative voters, but it won’t do diddly about Turkish accession. First sign the CDU/CSU knows they’ve lost on this issue.
? Headline: Central Government and States Dispute Federalism. Dog bites man. Nighttime dark.
? Suspects nabbed in bombing of Indonesian embassy in Paris. Not to worry, it was just a little bomb. It can’t happen here. (Speaking of bombs, we’ve got our own letter bomber in Bavaria. First it was a number of local officials, but he’s now moved up to the Polish consulate in Munich. And speaking of bombs, the dee-lightful folks who were planning to bomb the cornerstone ceremony of Munich’s new Jewish cultural center are on trial. A couple have turned state’s evidence. The proverbial book is being thrown.)
? Libya awarded Hugo Ch?vez, president of Venezuela, the Moammar Qaddafi Prize for Human Rights. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
More
? New elections expected in Poland in May 2005. Mark your calendars.
? Italians not happy Germany is pressing for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. All together now: “ME TOO!”
? Lithuanian government defeated in elections; clear outcome must await runoffs. But what’s really interesting is that the FAZ reports on this from Stockholm. Clear signal that the Baltic republics are part of, well, Baltic Europe. The reporter covering Lithuania for the Washington Post, by contrast, is based in Moscow. Some paradigms are slow to change. (On the other hand, in the same edition the FAZ reports on Somalia from Abidjan, a bit like reporting on Moscow from Lisbon, or Dublin from Baghdad. Can’t win ’em all.)
? Store owner in Bavarian town of Amberg killed with samurai sword. Yes, the tabloids had a field day.
? After more than ten years of litigation, the Spitzweg pharmacy in Langen will be allowed to put its parrot, named Nelson, back in business, where it had greeted customers with “Guten Morgen!” since 1973, until someone officious deemed the setup unsanitary. And you thought Germany wasn’t funny.
>I suppose. It?s a good way to find conservative >voters, but it won?t do diddly about Turkish >accession. First sign the CDU/CSU knows they?ve >lost on this issue.
I am still trying to understand the signature initiative. It doesn’t make any sense to me whichever way one looks at it… But I would not say that the privileged partnership is off the table. We’re talking 15-year negotiations here. Who is to say what’s gonna be in fifteen years. That’s like predicting in Messina that the UK would join the EC in 1973. Frankly, I’m not sure – and many others aren’t either – that Turkey will still WANT to enter the EU in 2015-2020. Who knows. Stoiber and Merkel? I don’t think so.
I remember when Roland Koch’s Hessian CDU were collecting signatures against citizenship-law reform. Some Unionistas asked me to sign as I was walking along the Bockenheimer Landstrasse (their Volks-Radar was malfunctioning, apparently). That was fun.
Is the parrot in the Langen near the Frankfurt airport, BTW? Maybe I’ll pop by some day and teach it to say Sprechen Sie mit ihrem Arzt oder Apotheker ?ber Viagra!
“Sprechen Sie mit ihrem Arzt oder Apotheker ?ber Viagra!”
I see in there the germ of an idea: the parrot spammer …
The commercials for Viagra here feature not a parrot but Pele. The great man (obviously dubbed) gives us that very advice, adding (after a pregnant pause) ‘…ich w?rde es tun!’
I like the implication of that subjunctive very much. ‘I would… if I weren’t so obviously the very incarnation of stallion-like potency! But as for you, you pathetic excuse for manhood, better run along to your Arzt or Apotheker!’
The other thing is that German-speaking conservatives always fall in love with direct democracy – when they lose. I remember well the FPO constantly collecting signatures on one Volksbegehren or other. Even if it’s completely ridiculous, it has the advantage that you feel that you’re doing something, which goes double for the rank and file; if you want to collect sigs you have to crank up the party basis and hit the streets, so at least the activists feel the leadership are active.