Just what might they be smoking?

President Obama is picking up criticism for his handling of the attempted terrorist attack by such characters as Dick Cheney, Pete Hoekstra, and a couple of the other losers on the right. That Dick Cheney can contribute anything meaningful to the world is doubtful at best and a sorry indictment of the garbage the media likes to spew forth. Anyway the Republicans are trying to use this to their advantage, despite the fact that the democrats did not act in this way when a similar event occurred. I give you Politico´s take on it as well as Time´s Joe Klein.

I am afraid for the United States. If this party ever gets back in power there is no telling what they might stoop to. With a Republican at the helm it seems that there is a middle ages just around the corner. German political commentators have noted that they have never heard a condemning like the one Obama has made of the governments after this incident. Nice to hear some honesty, instead of continuously talking about brave men and women and so on...

On a happier note the Winter Olympics are coming up and Sweden has a pretty nice team that is going to play for the repeat of the gold medal from Torino. Peter Forsberg made the squad and for those who don´t remember what this man is capable of I give you this video to remind you of the time he took his first olympic gold back in 94. A real classic but watch it for Forsberg´s second shoot-out goal.
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Those days in between

Outside little boys are playing with firecrakers in the middle of the afternoon. It will never cease to amaze me that others are so amazed with these little exploding things. Emergency rooms and four-fingered hands seem to have no effect on their popularity. That is not what this post is about.

This post is about the days in between. The days when we survive on eating left-overs of Christmas dinners and do little tasks here and there to get to the next year. Some of us have to work and others, like myself, have to look for work. Many things have happened this holiday season. For one it appears that the health care reform is really beginning in the US after all this time. The bill is of course imperfect, but as of yet no government has put forward a perfect bill, and when it does one day happen it will be criticized as being too perfect.

A man got past all the airport security measures and tried to blow up a plane on its way into Detroit. Of course this has led to the GOP criticising the current administration. They would have criticised the administration without the terrorist as well for not being like the GOP. I made the mistake of reading comments on news sites after the attacks and was impressed with the general level of bigotry and fear available in mass doses. The solution is really quite simple: stop bying oil from shitty little dictatorships and this won´t be so much a problem. Besides its not like its something new that there are crazies in every country trying to kill people. Closing borders is something a crazy dictatorship would do and not a democracy and it wouldn´t stop the McVeighs among us from doing what they want to do.

Enjoy the days in between as soon the in between will be at its end and we will have a whole year in between the next in between.

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Things on my mind: Krauthammer and Tarantino

Let us begin with Charles Krauthammer. This man is arguably one of the few conservative intellectuals left in a party that is slowly but surely turning into right-wing bottom dwellers. He went ahead this week and made the comment that "Environmentalism is the new socialism." Of course the lovely hosts that had him on their show didn´t really question him on such a broad statement (with all due respect, his bed buddies at Fox News don´t know how to ask serious questions). What could this really mean? For one thing it could mean that there is some conspiracy (like the Reds in the days of yore) to take over the world with Environmentalism as the banner to unite us all. That would be what is known as a conspiracy theory. Is Krauthammer that dumb or is he playing to the generally white, middle aged male audience who is watching? He could be suggesting it is a threat to our freedom (which is the standard Republican playing card) like socialism was (that is of course a matter for another debate). How would he imply freedom here though?

Most likely he is suggesting that governments are using environmentalism to interfere with our everyday lives and ability to make a living. Because you own a piece of land does not mean you can do whatever you like with it. For instance if I wanted to build my own nuclear powerplant on my property, it does not mean that my rights are violated if the government says no (instead it means they are looking out for a more common good). Of course now I am a socialist by making the suggestion that government is for the benefit of their own citizens. If it wasn´t then there would be no point in having it (as we could all do so much better). The market economy of the world has failed to solve our problems and instead of curing our cancer has given us viagra.

Let us return to the environmentalism. There is no secret group of environmentalists infiltrating the government in an attempt to take over. This is Fox News fantasy at best and pure stupidity at its worst. Note also that a clean planet would be a lot better for people then some smog chocked world where industry is given all its desires on a silver plate.

To other things then. I recently watched Tarantino´s Inglorious Basterds and had some after thoughts. The only actor worth a damn was the German who played Hans Landa SS. Tarantino plays with history here and the effect is actually disturbing: in his version a crack group of violent murderers is able to end the war and by doing so will have an SS officer, whose job it was to track down Jews, as the allied hero. Seen from that angle the story falls apart. I would have preferred a western approach that stressed character development a bit more. The time issue could have been stretched a bit more and not hurt the overall final version. Tarantino can do better than this, a lot better.

Todays Profile: a man who is a threat to the very country he claims to serve

Ladies and Gentlemen, today I present you with Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) as the biggest threat to the United States. Of course Mr. Inhofe doesn´t think of himself this way in the least and instead thinks of himself as someone who is protecting the United States from everything Mr. Inhofe is against (which is a lot of things). If the right wing dominionist movement would ever have a sympathetic ear in the US government, that ear would certainly belong to Inhofe.

He believes that the United States is a Christian nation (despite the founding fathers saying otherwise) and he does not believe in Climate Change (no not one little bit). In fact he believes it to be the biggest hoax ever played against the United States (right behind his belief that there is no separation of church and state). This also makes Mr. Inhofe a conspiracy theorist: meaning he believes that there is a giant conspiracy between the media (so wise to lump them all together) and scientists to destroy the US government´s standing through climate change laws. He is also an avid hater of gay people and thinks in fact that they should be discriminated against. Anyone who votes for such a man should take a good long look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not they are in touch with reality.

Weekend Approaching

The weekend is essentially here, well I mean at 16:00 on a Friday I am going to call WEEKEND! Of course in my case this means that tonight I am off and then I have work Saturday and Sunday. After Sunday I will be officially unemployed as the pizzeria I am working at for the moment is simply not making enough money to have me working there. Cést la vie says I.

Its too bad of course, but this just means that I will have to put more effort into finding a real job which its about time to find. There is also a messy fight going on between the owners at the pizzeria and while I like them both, I do not wish to witness the whole disintegrate first hand. So this weekend maybe I will go for a swim or maybe for a little skate (depending on the weather of course).


Otherwise not much else going on. I went to see 1. FC Köln play Hertha BSC a few weeks ago and here is a photo from said event.

Centrism, the death of the US, and how I feel

This notion of bi-partisanship is dead in the US and for the time it should remain that way. Why comes the shout from the peanut gallery? The Republican party has fuck-all when it comes to answers as to how to solve things. No thats not right, they have exactly the same ideas they had eight years ago and even earlier all the way back to Reagan; lower the taxes and everything will solve itself. This idea that one persons personal greed can translate into fulfilling the needs of others is so beyond idiotic that its amazing they can still sell it.

The way they do it is have you believe that starting now, you can be a millionaire before you know it. Everyone can is the fairy tale line that has been the staple of the conservative party. Never mind that they are only interested in helping certain types of people and would like rights only for those who agree with them (or how else can DADT or Protection for Heterosexual Marriages be explained). Worse is the fear of Islam, while they want the churches to have all kinds of rights.

The US will slowly recede on the world horizon if it doesn´t get its shit together in a hurry. If they were to elect someone completely lacking in answers (even afraid to give her own opinion) like Palin it will only speed up the process. This isn´t an admonishment of failure or an I give up statement no I will opt for the John Paul-Jones route: I have not yet begun to fight. I will oppose these empty nationalist parties and their attempt to dictate how people live their lives (because telling people what is and what is not accepted sexuality is about as far from freedom as one can get).

Sure it gets lonely at times but I remember there are others out there who care about standing against a system that perpetuates injustice and even mistreats its own citizens.

Been a month

Well its been about a month since anything has happened on this blog. It isn´t that I haven´t had anything to write about, I just haven´t taken the opportunity, but it seems that I am back now and ready for the minimum two-a-week post schedule. Maybe the whole thing would be better if I had an editor breathing down my neck.

I just finished John Irving´s "Until I Find You" and I think that I can honestly say it was the worst book I have read in a really long time. The characters seemed very shallow and the story line at times became just too unbelievable. I am still somewhere in the middle of Atwood´s "The Tent" and I just started Jonathan Franzen´s "The Corrections." I have a lot of reading ahead of me. I want to get a hold of Atwood´s "After the Flood" which is the sequel to "Oryx and Crake" (which had to be the best book I had read in a long time).

"Oryx and Crake" is easily described as a post-apocalyptic novel. The tone throughout is somewhat sarcastic and there are two periods that are explored: what happened leading up to the event that killed off civilization and then what happened after. The narrator is the person who believes himself to be the only survivor. The book takes a negative view of transnational corporations and their influence on politics (or power to control politics) as well as how run-away greed is able to lead to bio-engineering. The book also uses the overuse of resources as a central theme to what drives humanity into the squalid conditions found in the novel. While I have never read Atwood before this, I imagine that it is one of her best works.

In sport, the little nation of Slovenia managed to knock out the Russians from the World Cup and this, while the only upset in the playoffs, was a great moment in sports history (actually just great that the overrated Russians were revealed for what they really are: just average with a lot of luck).

Well that is about it for this post.

Coffee, Starbucks, and Sweden

Its not exactly big news or anything but it seems that Starbucks has decided to open its first store in Sweden. Where are they going to do so? At Arlanda (Stockholm) airport. To start with a side note before I continue with this discussion on the meaning of Starbucks and so on: I used to drink Starbucks coffee about once a week when I lived in the US. It was within walking distance from my house and no other cafe´s were. Now back to the situation.

Sweden is a nation of coffee drinkers. The last time I heard any statistics concerning coffee, it was that Finland was the biggest consumer per head while Sweden was second. I grew up watching my Swedish elders consume copious amounts of the black gold (usually in percolator form). As someone noted on The Local-We can coffee!

So now comes Starbucks, which has stores all over the world and they chose to go into the Swedish market. Well almost Swedish, Arlanda Airport is pretty far from being downtown. There are already big chains that sell coffee like starbucks already in place. My wife worked for Wayne´s coffee when I met her, actually coffee can be seen as one of the reasons we are together. So what is the problem with Starbucks and I note here that I am not writing this to bash the US or anything like that. No, I am approaching this from a coffee consumer standpoint.

1. Their coffee product is not as good as what the Swedes already have. Swedish coffee is tastier and less expensive than Starbucks prices will be.

2. They have a very corporate and scrubbed identity. There is nothing unique about a starbucks cafe i.e. they are the McDonalds of coffee. Wherever you go it will be the same.

3. They are anti-labor. This means that they have been against attempts by their baristas to unionize. This kind of thinking also makes it difficult for them on the Swedish market.

4. They are anti-competition. Every corporation is. They set up as many shops in an area as possible to weed out all the competition and become the only chain (not that Swedish chains are better about this).

5. If we go back to the product part again, we can also add that they are not about supporting the individual: employees are easily replaceable and are not encouraged to be creative in their barista skills. This is where independent coffee shops hold the edge for two reasons: they are more open to innovation and they are able to do things that could be controversial in a corporate setting.

I don´t live in Sweden anymore, but if I did I would not drink Starbucks coffee. I would also try to avoid the other chains. Mass produced food is not exactly something the human race should be proud of in the way that it is sold at McDonalds and Starbucks.

Why will the Swede´s love it? Because they are afflicted by a peculiar love/hate relationship with America. They will talk garbage about it, then give them record profits as soon as the first store is opened at Stureplan.

Sleepy Sundays

The canal water was still, the swans like specks of white drifting slowly on its mirrored surface. The path is wet from fall rain and like an unfinished clay pot, awaiting an oven to reach its final firm texture. This is what it is like to wander through a sunday. Two books in my bag, listening to the occasional passing cars, distant sirens, and foreigners talking fantasy football, making my way through the streets. In Berlin a new sight is always around the corner; something new to be experienced and a hidden neighborhood to be discovered. I tread carefully on this city´s cobbled streets.

Above me and along the canal:lofts with their big windows. Some lit, others black and cold. Lives happen there. Families come, paint the walls, share laughter and tears. They share living and dying. Someone else takes their place and repeat. Every corner, every stickered lampost, and fall browned leaf is a poem waiting to happen. This is what it is like to wander through a Sunday.

Wednesday Review

Tonight is Yoga night. That is right, for all those who didn´t know, I go once a week to a VHS and do some Iyengar yoga. I have noticed two things: A. I am more flexible and B. My back pains have gotten better. Now if only the weather would warm up a bit I would go skateboarding.

I am a bit more than halfway through Isabelle Allende´s Portrait in Sepia which is supposed to tie together two of her other unrelated books Daughter of Fortune(hated it) and House of Spirits (loved it). Its decent so far and I like that she has done her homework on Californian history. The best example of this is how the creation of Chinatown came about in San Francisco. She also illustrates very well what many Americans would like to forget: that the white people created an America for themselves and tried to keep others out of power as long as possible.

Next book that I will read seems likely to be a William Golding book or Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster. While I am a fan of Paul Auster I did not care for the last book I read by him one bit (Moon Palace).

Today I was able to send off another application and that means that I have send a total of five so far since graduating. Not good enough. I need to get to work and find more places to apply at.

Letter from a Tuesday

Things are returning back to normal after the chaos and despair of losing a chance of being in South Africa. It means I will only be cheering for Germany which is not a bad thing at all, considering that they will probably go quite far (dare I say final)? In other news the sun has made a small and unexpected visit to the otherwise gray and cloudy city that is Berlin in the fall (and winter and early spring).

Turns out I have to work today and that I have to keep looking for jobs which is never fun no matter what the thoughts are about there being so many possibilities out there. I wish, honestly, that I could get paid for reading and critiquing fiction.

I read too much political news and that has the effect that I just get depressed about the failure of progression in modern times and all that, but I won´t give up. I believe eventually the conservatives will come up really short and realize they are a thing of the past, a thing so far removed from todays reality that soon we will study them with amazement.

If writing were therapy, then this would be aspirin

It was not so much shocking what happened last night. I sat at home watching the game, which I had told myself over and over again would be a loss, hoping that some magic moment would occur; a glimmer of hope. To be honest that is not what the Swedes needed: they needed skill and team spirit. An active coach would also have been something we could have used. Lagerbäck has done great things with these boys. He´s taken them to championships for the last ten years, but like all good things, they had to come to an end. If I would compare us to another team, then I hope we will be like England who missed the Euros and then came storming back. I am not sure that is what will happen but hope is the last thing to die.

Its time for two things now: new coaching and new blood. I am thankful for what the older players have done, but I think the time has come for a different approach to Swedish football. Players like Svensson and Henrik Larsson need to retire, as well as Daniel Andersson and Mikael Nilsson. There have been highpoints that were truly high and there have been those low moments that scraped the bottom. Let us hope then on the next generation that they have the skills, the burning desire, and the leadership to succeed.

Thank you Lars Lagerbäck and your staff for the last ten years of Swedish Football. We´ll be back.

Don´t ask, Don´t tell. Its time to grow up.

There is no proof that the reasoning behind the creation of don´t ask, don´t tell (an excuse to allow homophobia in the military) has ever been valid. While it seems that the general feeling in the US is that this last-century policy in on its last legs, where is the outcry? Where is the outrage that we have allowed our military to discriminate against able bodied men and women for so long?

When this law is finally repealled I want everyone who reads this blog to do me a favor. Find out who votes to keep it in place and find out what their reasoning was. If they have one good reason among them I would love to hear it.

As for any who might chose to leave the military because homosexuals are allowed to serve openly there is only one thing to say: good riddance. The military should not be a place for bigoted world views.

Change, but the bend-over-backwards kind

The current debate in health care reform and other items that are up for "change" have run into a strange discussion. The discussion of bi-partisanship. The idea that the American people would much rather prefer to have their politicians work together and reach compromises. Imagine if this had been the approach to segregation. Brown vs. Topeka results in a compromise. One side gets something they want and the others get a bit of what they want. Change is not a bi-partisan. Bi-partisan is generally a status quo. Look at the election. Enough American voters were fed up with the system being the way it was that they voted to give democrats majority. Its currently filibuster proof and the democrats are wallowing around as if they are the minority. Strange and bizarre is the way to describe this.

One could say the opposition is getting their shit together and the Democrats are MIA. I am going after the President on this one. Do something so we don´t fall right back into the hands of the people who gave us the last eight forgettable years. As for the Republican party: why is it impossible to have a proper debate about health care without resorting to scare tactics? Why is anyone listening to a former governor who ruled a small state and quit halfway through? Why is Betsy McCaughey getting airtime with her lies. I remember when I was a little boy if I was thought to be lying I was threatened with the legendary leather belt. Worked everytime.

Lastly lets think about the right-wing propaganda machine (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and co.) Is this the face that the Republicans want to use to advance their cause? A group of uneducated, hate mongers? We can move forward in the US, the question is if we should really have to ask the republicans for permission on everything. The Republican party originally had a president who didn´t do things that way. Abe Lincoln got his way. Time for Obama to stop asking for change and just do it.

3 days to go...

Last time Sweden showed up at Parken they managed to surprise even themselves about how effective they were. This video includes all the goals (swedish commentary) from both sides and this one the fan incident. Lets be honest here Sweden got lucky, there is no way they should have let Denmark back into that game. On the other hand Christian Poulsen demonstrated something that was already known about him, that is his lack of control under extremely stressful moments such as this game. Punching a striker in the stomach in the penalty area is about as stupid a thing as you can do in football. A right deserved red card and penalty kick awarded. Then came the fan. Drunk as piss and trying to punch the referee. When you host a qualifier, it is your job to make sure that fans can´t attack the referee and that is why the game was abandoned.

There won´t be fan problems this time around, so Sweden should do the dirty work themselves. Lets win 3-1 this time and have Zlatan score a brace.

The Internationals

Destiny has arranged a date for Sweden to decide how much it wants to play at next year´s World Cup finals. The date is the 10th of October, the place is Parken in Copenhagen. Sweden has played how it often does: bad more often than not but still somehow managed to sneak into the second spot, which if clinched would mean at worst a playoff spot against another european powerhouse. Denmark opened really strong but has more often than not had luck on their side. Portugal has played terrible the whole way through and given that they finished in fourth at the previous World Cup they should be ashamed.

To return to the problem at hand, Sweden vs Denmark, the quality of the Swedish Squad has to be questioned. Ibrahimovic and Henrik Larsson deserve to start no doubt. Berg has had a rough start at HSV and should therefore ride the bench until he is needed. Källström is on fire at Lyon. Svensson, the old man at Elfsborg, is also a shoe-in. Rasmus Elm? He´s been a bit weak as of late but should still start. Sebastian Larsson takes Holmen´s place in my eleven or maybe if he want to go crazy hold Larsson on the bench for the first half and let Dusan Djuric show what he is made of (note: Swedish Coach Lagerbäck is a conservative coach and while this is not a way to play beautiful football, it has led to five tournaments in a row that Sweden has played in). As far as the defenders, Sweden´s spine, we are going to play as follows Safari-Majstorovic-Mellberg-Nilsson. My question mark here is whether or not Oscar Wendt isn´t the man for the job. Nilsson is also the reason we didn´t get a draw in the last game between Sweden and Denmark.

I am too nervous to predict a goal fest win for Sweden. If we have what it takes then it will be 0-1 or 1-2 and we will leave it till late to finish. Of course what I am hoping for is that Denmark plays it as a draw and we go up three before halftime and don´t have to deal with any drunken fans like last time.

Here is where I am going to be extremely candid: Sweden can beat Denmark. We have the quality for it, but the fire is another thing. I just hope those boys will show up as men and play their hearts out. If we don´t beat Denmark then to be perfectly honest, we have no business in South Africa. Ninety minutes are waiting on Saturday and no matter the result I am asking for an instant classic.

Oh, leftist city of underachievers!

For those reading this blog who appreciate or are interested in non-US based newspapers and magazines that are of absolut top class I have a recommendation to make: Der Spiegel. While I am sure critics are sure to retort by calling it left-leaning, biased, etc., I find it to be rather balanced plus there is the added bonus that the writers tend to see things from a German perspective which as a resident of their country is important to have access to. Final added bonus: they have an english news section.

There is currently an article about the former finance minister (SPD) Thilo Sarrazin who said recently that Berlin had an underclass that was too big and was only growing outward but not economically upward. He also added that people who aren´t contributing should go elsewhere. Note that his current employer the Bundesbank has made sure to distance themselves from this remark.

As a resident of Berlin I find his statements rather insulting. The notion that those who don´t have anything should just pack up their bags and leave is a slap in the face to those who lost their jobs when the west stopped subsidizing them at the end of the cold war. Perhaps we should look at the false economy that was built up in the Western parts of the city to serve as a sort of propaganda that the western model was working (without the subsidies manufacturing jobs in Berlin would have dissapeared long before the wall came down). The city is currently in the middle of an economic crises, that much is clear, but what is not clear is where the city itself is headed. Creative center? Business Center (can´t compete with Frankfurt and Munich)? Manufacturing (outsourced)? Essentially the city is in the midst of a shift that no one seems to be able to control (not exactly anything new) so I don´t quite see how blaming poor people helps in any way.

Thursday or how the weekend began...

Today is Thursday and I have to work at shift at the Pizzeria, which given the current weather patterns is likely to remain dead.

I have been struggling my way through a Faulkner novel because I thought that I should, but now I am realizing that I am wasting time with books I don´t want to read and that this is leading to me reading less (neither of these two are good) therefore I am switching over to Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov (otherwise famous for The Master and Margarita, which if you haven´t read it is fantastic).

Hopefully the clouds will part tomorrow and I will be given a chance to skateboard tomorrow (at which point I will hopefully have recovered from Wednesday´s Yoga class). I leave you all with this video which illustrates the joys of skateboarding: Jason Dill´s new video part.

Further, I read this interesting article about Cider, which if you didn´t know was the drink of choice for "real" Americans before this foreign thing called beer entered only recently. Worth a read anyway.

The right wing or the death of progress

Many things the left has fought hard for have eventually come to pass. The end of segregation is a good example. Today I am not so sure that the human race in the west of the world is moving in a forward direction. Let us begin with Europe: Two days ago the SPD (Germany´s Social Democrats) lost the election in what was their worst placement in recent memory. Who were the winners in the whole thing? The FDP and the CDU. One party claims to be the Christian Democratic Union (and party that uses Christs name is something to be wary of) and the Free democrats (who are essentially Libertarians). In many ways this union of these two parties for a four year mandate are oddly similar to the Republican party in the US, which if the current pattern continues is poised to make a comeback. The reason for all this? I don´t really know where to start.

The FDP have sold themselves as being some kind of saviors for the economic crises and have along with their allies the CDU promised to make tax cuts. How they are going to do this is not clear at all. This is a similar Republican strategy as well: tax cuts and talks about morality. The idea behind these types of thinking is that the Market economy will solve any and every problem faced by society. In truth it has done exactly the opposite. Lack of regulation was a big cause of the current economic crises and this is generally accepted by most economists (I defer to Krugman here over at the NY Times).

Essentially the policies that this union are offering to Germany is this: hey government sucks (but not us of course, because we somehow don´t) and all you need is greed. Hey they should re-write that Beatles song: All you need is greed....Greed....Greed is all you need!

A sad day for Germany

Today is a sad day for Germany. Many of us knew it would be, but tried our hardest to put on a smile and say a few optimistic words. Even up till the results were first broadcast, I hoped that there was some chance that this wasn´t going to happen. That the CDU and the FDP were not going to be able to jump into bed together. It did. Now we are stuck for the next four years in a nightmare.

The SPD are the big losers here: they can´t really form an alliance with the Linke party as they are too leftist and the Green party is just too small. So what is the big goal of the CDU and their new partner: lower taxes. How this is possible no one knows. The only thing that makes this a bit more decent is that in recent years the CDU has come more toward the center and the FDP is by no means a Republican party obsessing about family values and such garbage. No in fact the head of the FDP is actually gay so that should send a message that while they may be neo-liberal economists, they are left wing when it comes to accepting people as they are. For the next four years the German people have given the CDU and the FDP enough rope to hang themselves on, lets hope when the next election is coming around they figure out how to tie the noose.

Request for Serious Debate

The US seems to have lost all capability to debate when it comes to serious issues. Generally it turns into a shouting match lead by the loudest ignorant person around. For instance the Tea-bagger-or-bags-or-whatever-they-wish-to-be-called seem to never run out of steam. They are against "Czars" though this term was started by a republican and has never been questioned under any other presidents. Or what about health care being used as a way to compare Obama to Hitler (ironically this is a slap in the face to anyone who fought Nazism).

Today I ask for a serious debate about Homosexuality on two fronts: Marriage and the Military. Lets get things started: the military has the famous don´t ask don´t tell policy that is used to prohibit homosexuals from serving openly. The reason given is usually something about unit cohesion though no proof is ever presented to back up this claim. Is this the best answer for the reason that gays are discriminated against? Because straight people are uncomfortable, though no one has been able to prove this? Every other western democracy allows homosexuals to serve openly and their militaries aren´t falling into disarray and confusion or turning to orgies either. Please give me a good reason beyond some form of conservative religious morality.

Secondly we arrive at marriage. Marriage is a state institution. What that means is that in terms of legal framework it is something that the state recognizes as a union of two individuals (it can be talked of in more romantic terms but that is not the purpose of this post). At this point in time the US states tend to recognize only the marriage between a man and a woman (defined by what and shouldn´t they have some athletic gender test to make sure that this is always followed). What is the reason for denying marriage to same sex couples who wish to look out for one another until they die in both the romantic sense as well as the legal (financial and death) sense? Is there any reason beyond conservative religious morality that is used to defend straight marriage as being the only option that should be tolerated?

For those who wish to cling to religious answers please note your constitution is secular and calls for a separation of church and state so as not to discriminate against minority groups and others who do not share the same religion.

Which Mad Hatter will win?

Well the Republicans already think they have the 2010 election in the bag and it would probably be good to let them keep thinking that for now. The question that I am chewing on right now is which of the mad hatters they have available will get the nomination for the 2012 election. Palin, Huckabee, and Romney have all made sure to keep their names on the tip of potential voters tongues. So what do these people really stand for? Well what do the republicans stand for.

If we try to boil it down to ideology questions then the first thing we get to is that the government should spend less. Less of course on social issues and more on military doodads and campaigns. Following this notion that government always ruins things and can´t run things we should turn to the stellar way that free enterprise has always worked for the good of mankind (when you can find an example, then please leave a comment). Another one they like to talk about is that government shouldn´t regulate health care, but should ban all forms of abortion. They claim to stand for family values and this has worked with keeping the Dobsonites on board till now. The problem is of course that they don´t really practice what they preach on that one. Their foreign policy is essentially simple: who isn´t for us (giving us troops for our wars and bases) is against us and socialist etc. They also seem to believe that the US is not capable of commiting wrongs (please tell this to the Slaves, the people of Iraq, and countless other countries they have meddled in).

From what I have boiled down so far I get a party that I wouldn´t vote for in my worst nightmares. These are some candidates that creep me out.

Kitchen Nightmares

I have been watching a few episodes of Gordon Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares and last night I noticed a difference between the English version and the American one. The American version is shown on Fox, which while that doesn´t necessarily tell you much it should say that there is something that American audiences love to see: as much drama as possible. The English version on the other takes a more traditional food program take where it focuses on improving how the kitchen is run and lets the drama be a less in your face and more sophisticated type. Therefore as a cook I prefer the English version better.

The episode I watched last night featured a restaurant in Scotland now known as Abstract and which had probably the fanciest walk-in refrigerator I have ever seen in my life. They actuall had the produce as fresh as possible (meaning crayfish were still alive and everything) and the produce was all the most expensive one could get. The way to do this: have a multi-millionaire owner.

Anyway I made the Creme Brulées last night and they are looking to be a great success. More information to follow.

Sick and Back again...

Had some small and annoying cold thingy thats kept me behind for a couple of days here but now it seems the worst is over and I am on the way back to good health. Tomorrow is a big day for cooking and I am planning on making Flammkuchen (as the Germans call it) or Tarte Flambée (French). Of course I am doing the vegetarian version so no bacon. This is a dish which is Alsatian in origin. To go with this I am also planning on serving Creme Brulée for dessert. This will be the first time that I have made Creme Brulée at home so I am a bit nervous about messing that up. However the friends we are having over for dinner supposedly have a burner so I am going to call them in a few minutes and ask them to bring it along.

My experience with Creme Brulée is that it has to be watched rather constantly so that the eggs don´t get a chance to overcook, because if they do you end up eating sweet scrambled eggs. There is also no better smell than when you have cut a vanilla bean and gotten some of the seeds on your hand. For a whole day you can smell vanilla on them.

I am still trying to decide if I should have some starters. I was thinking about some form of italian bread chips (the name is escaping me) with some tapenade or something like that. We shall see what happens.

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Almost forgot to mention that we are planning on drinking Federweisser which you can read about here. Seeing as how its a fall thing, I think everything here is pretty much timed perfectly with the season.

Paranoia U.S. and A style

I have lost all hope of any kind of logical debate occuring in the US over healthcare. From either side. In my time living in the US and following politics there I cannot say that I have seen any good debates take place where both parties were involved. Take Presidential debates: both candidates blow smoke up each others ass because the American public don´t like to see their politicians bicker. Americans also supposedly believe in this concept of Bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is in many ways a practical way of saying hey we don´t actually want anything to really change so we take this half-assed approach where we water something down to the point where both parties look like losers. The democrats need an FDR, desperately and at the moment they haven´t got it. To Obama: stop bending over backwards and shove this thing through.

Paranoia and right-wing populism seems to be the way that the Republicans are going to retake the house and the senate. Too bad I would have loved to hear something solid coming out of their mouths instead of the garbage they are spewing at the time.

Funniest statement of the month: a man was interviewed on BBC about Carter´s comment that race is motivating a lot of the criticism of Obama (something I have not taken a stand on yet) and said something like this... actually racism in the US is not a real issue anymore. I almost died laughing wondering who the idiot who said this was.

Tonight Barcelona vs. Inter or as the press likes to call it Etoó versus Ibrahimovic. Hope Messi and Ibra rip through Inter.

Invitation for Lesbian Haircuts

Todays facebook highlight had to be the invitation for a Lesbian haircut that a certain Quebecoise native sent me. I checked it out and laughed myself silly for about five minutes and then started thinking about it. How do these women go to a barber and request these styles? Do they do what we all did when we were young: take a photo of some celebrity we wanted to look like and kinda thought we would if we had their hair, or do they have proper terms for them? Are there barbers who specialize in cutting Lesbian´s hair? There are plenty of women in Berlin going around with these haircuts in any case.

Tonight the group stage of the Champions League begins and while I have to work tonight I am looking forward to watching the Barcelona/Inter Milan game tomorrow. It will be fun to watch Ibrahimovic face his former teammates so early on.

Tomorrow I have my first Yoga class for this fall term. Its going to be fun and a lot of pain. Last time around I was really starting to notice a difference after a month or two.

I think that there is no longer anything worth saving in the Republican party and hope that they will eventually expose themselves as the corporate party that they are instead of sucking up votes by playing nationalist and family value cards. Despicable.

There is something fishy about all this...

These protests have been the talk of the summer (and now the fall as well) in the US and A. They don´t necessarily seem to be going away either. Fox News and their make out buddies (you know who you are) take the approach that this is the voice of the "normal" American speaking out against his country being stolen out from him by fill-in-the-blank a. african-born unconstitutional leader b. marxist c. socialist d. fascist e. hitler f. stalin. g. mao h. all of the above. Just what exactly has he done so far to merit any of these empty phrases being thrown at him? I am not so sure really.

Health care. Its a debacle in the US and there is really no ignoring that. If the republicans manage to block this bill and/or water it down as they are hoping to do, we will be facing another long drawn out period of waiting for Americans to get tired of being taken advantage of by big corporations who reap profits off them being sick. That in itself is sick enough to merit change. Does anyone really truly deep down believe that capitalism will solve its own problems? It hasn´t been able to so far in history so why would that change this time?

Le Weekend

This weekend was spent in the following manner: Friday was filled up from 11 am to 1 am with the wedding of a friend, Saturday was spent in a relaxing manner where the house was also cleaned up and I got a chance to watch some of the Barcelona game, then Sunday was spent having breakfast with a friend in Friedrichshain, going to the market in Boxhagener kiez and then home to do nothing (which is definitely underrated).

Today I wasted some time looking at photos of protestor´s signs in the US that are against Obama. I don´t really know what to think about this most of the time. I have narrowed it down to two options: A. these people are completely out of their minds and paranoid about everything or B. these people have no idea what is going on and are using this opportunity to prove just how bad American schools are for promoting free thinking.

All these notions that the US is being destroyed that are promoted on all the media outlets by such scum as Glenn Beck and co. are actually counterproductive to any debate taking place. These people are screaming that they should be heard, yet they are actually well represented in both the House and the Senate so this brings us back to the idea that American schools are doing fuck all to educate them about how democracy actually works. A diversity of ideas and a healthy debate are what make democracies and cultures strong. That Obama is labelled a Fascist or Communist at every turn is a slap in the face to anyone who fought either of those two forms of government. In fact it is a slap in the face to every veteran from WWII. I wish the Republican party had some intellectual thinkers who could debate things so that there would be a debate and not a minority mob chanting in the streets about their paranoia.

Berlin and Fall

The weather has taken its turn and the clouds are gathering. It seems that the summer has lasted so long that I am having a hard time remembering what a fall is like, though I won´t deny that I would have liked it to stay away a bit longer. Especially as I have started skateboarding again now pretty frequently.

I have a job interview tomorrow which is good, though its another restaurant job which doesn´t make it as great as I would wish. Maybe if this keeps up I can find a restaurant that focuses on Env. friendly food and make my mark through the world of food. It isn´t exactly what I had in mind but if that is where its at then I will be happy all the same.

I recently read the novel, or novella is more correct, named The Road by Cormac McCarthy. While I found great portions of it pretentious, I will say that some parts of it triggered my imagination into thinking whether or not some of the happenings would be possible. For instance if the governments completely ceased to exist and nothing grows anymore are humans going to return to a tribal mentality or even an individualistic cannibal lifestyle where friendship is only based on whether or not they increase the persons chance of survival (meaning at some point if the survival chances are lowered the said friends are likely to try to eat each other without even having to think about it). Essentially, we are just one nuclear war from falling apart. Somewhere there are dusty red buttons that some lunatic designed in the name of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Inhofe is a liar

Read the following link about Sen. Inhofe and once you are finished and if you find yourself agreeing with anything the guy is saying, please go check yourself into a mental hospital.

Link

Berlin, Berlin

Raining cats and dogs this morning and to add to all that it didn´t start till about four in the morning when a loud crack of thunder pealed through the sky and woke me up. Maybe the grass will return to its more natural green color before fall has its savage way. Speaking of fall the leaves are turning just slightly and that means that winter is peeking its frigid eyes on us.

Amidst all this it somehow stopped raining a few minutes ago and that means that if this sun thing keeps up long enough the skate-spot at Hasenheide will be dry enough to hit up by six in the evening. Needless to say I am hoping for this option. Today is work on application day as well as try to figure out what other paperwork needs to be filled out so that I can change my name day.

I want to write a blog for ESPN about Hertha Berlin (the local Football team in the Bundesliga), but there is no contact information to get ahold of those individuals who can pull those strings. Work is ok for now but seeing as how the high season is about to end (if it has not already done so) means I need to find another temp. job for the moment.

Otherwise things are good today, going for a skate, got payed, and having chanterelles for dinner with the most beautiful woman in the world, well it doesn´t get much better.

CIA Probe and politics

Supposedly if Obama decides that the hood of the CIA should be popped open and a look given to the machine running beneath it, it would be bad for politics. First it would somehow take away from morale at the CIA and second Republicans and moderates would have a fit.

Let me see if I understand this correctly, because maybe I am just a bit confused here: The CIA, a US government agency is accused of torturing people (which is illegal in the US), and people don´t want to know. Pathetic. A nation that likes to think of itself as a democracy and a place of laws has an obligation to investigate and prosecute for misscarriages of justice; no matter the scenario.

The other side of the coin is this: if the CIA didn´t do anything wrong then there will be no consequences of this investigation, so if they are innocent as they claim then they should welcome an investigation. This doesn´t seem to be the case.

Finally, in regards to Republican stances of righteous anger about prosecuting their sacred cow, I ask how was it possible that they went after Clinton for a blow job but torture is somehow ok. Something is rotten in that party.

Anti-Semitism, Aftonbladet, and Freedom of the press.

I have no way of knowing how much you, dear readers, are aware of the current "crises" between the Swedish and Israeli Governments. I will however attempt to give you a quick rundown. First let me be honest; I am biased towards Sweden as I am half Swedish and up till a few months ago lived there.

Donald Boström wrote an article where he makes the accusation for the sake of bringing it to the public´s attention that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) might be stealing organs from some of the palestinians that they kill in combat albeit those they take back to their base to do "autopsies" on. Question number one; why would you do an autopsy on someone you shot in combat, or do you not have any faith in the power of your own weapons?

The Israeli foreign ministry and also Mr. Netanyahu accuse Aftonbladet and Boström of bringing up old Anti-semitic claims against the jews and that they are showing off the racism that is apparently evident in that neutral land (we can discuss this at another time). They also demand that the Swedish government distance itself from this article and condemn it. The Swedish government refuses to do so and states (quite correctly) that according to their constitution they are not permitted to do so. Question number two; why are the Israelis reading Aftonbladet?

Aftonbladet is really a tabloid where celebrity gossip is mixed with fairly small snippets about international affairs and some actual first class sports journalism. Let me restate this: Aftonbladet is a Tabloid. Sweden´s law prohibits the government from making positive or negative statements about the press, that is their law. Why is Israel pressing a nation to go against its constitution when they don´t appreciate anyone telling them what to do? Whether or not the article is false or not I know not. Boström presents no evidence except a photo of a palestinian man who was killed by the IDF and then autopsied for some reason. He also connected it with some organ ring in the US supposedly run by a rabbi. Whether or not there is truth I know not. I doubt it however.

The next topic is the accusation that the Swedes are showing Anti-semitism here. This is Israels go to answer whenever it is criticized for anything. However the problem is that Israel is a state and not a people group. True the population of Israel is primarily Jewish but this in itself is another dilemma: is being jewish a religion or a race? Apparently if one criticizes the IDF which is a part of the state of Israel then one is Anti-semitic. Therefore any critic can be labeled easily as racist and ethnocentric and written off. That is pretty pathetic. If Boström had alluded that this was normal "jew" behavior then he would have been anti-semitic. He was however not making a claim like this and so I find the Israeli statement labelling this as Anti-Semitism fairly weak. Further Israel is now acting like they are going to not allow Swedish journalists access to the country. The Swedish Journalist association made a statement about this today in Dagens Nyheter; till now only dictatorships have done things like that.

Lesson learned; In Israel whatever a tabloid writes is cause for indignation.

Health care protest=staged

Read this if you weren´t sure.

Health care and the Republican mind

Two things in need of change: the United States health care system and the mindset of the Republican party. I am not the only one who is noting that the Republicans have fallen off the deep end. By accusing the other party of being fascist or communist, they are essentially appealing to a right wing base (which is where fascism lies incidentally) and they are ignoring the use of any facts and reasonable debate. It is one thing to disagree with the idea of health care reform, it is another to call someone a fascist over it without any real proof of this.

A perfect example of this ridiculous behavior is Sen. Jim DeMint. I am going to go a step further, I am going to call the man what he actually is: a grade A idiot. We are talking about someone who sits in a powerful position in the US government and had quite a few idiots vote for him. Here is saying that the US is on its way to becoming like Germany or Iran. First off I live in Germany and I can tell you that there is more freedom here than there is in the US anyway. What makes me wonder about DeMint is whether or not he has really ever traveled anywhere and seen the world or if he is just another Republican All American with his head up his ass.

Introducing Micke Huckabee: the moron

This article pretty much sums up Mike Huckabee´s uber simplistic take on the world. Hey Mike while we are at it, can we give the land you currently call the USA back to the native Americans? Didn´t think so. Hope the Republicans pick you for their presidential candidate as it would mean the end of modernity and the return of the dark ages.

Weekly Politcal commentary

No one should be surprised that this blog is carrying on about political issues (including race, gender, etc.) I am generally quite open about where I stand which compared to the President is indeed to the left. So here we go...

Any talk about discrimination against white people is the most ridiculous thing that I have heard (shame on Limbaugh and co. for continually harping on all the discrimination against them). This article does well to point out the fact that despite all this talk it is still the white man running things.

The health care battle is starting to scare me. I will be honest I can´t really afford to live in the US at the moment, as my standard of living would be lowered due to the bills I would have to pay to private insurance companies who are just what they are called: private. Anyone who believes that capitalism can "solve" things is ignoring the stupidity of humanity, and besides if it could solve things then why do we need government in the first place. When a republican administration really does create a smaller government then I will observe the experience and weigh it based on its own merits, though to this day I haven´t seen this to be the case (can´t count Reagan, he poured all that money into the military which sorry to say is another government operation).

The President should come down hard on the righties and let them know they aren´t the only ones who can create a scene. He should demonstrate that the Democrats are the party in power for one reason: that is how the people of the nation wanted things to be (its called a democracy for a reason). So its about time that Congress and the President got to work.

Finally, the right to bear arms. This should be the one thing in the constitution that would need some work. If you have a rifle for hunting that is great. If you have an semi-automatic and take it to protests, there is something wrong with you period. This is something you don´t even see in most third world countries.

On the perception of weakness

I was skimming headlines and through a few clicks I ended up on some conservative blog about Russian submarines being spotted outside American territorial waters. Of course the article itself isn´t so much interesting as the comments that follow it. What makes the comments themselves interesting? The paranoia and the fear that the current president is somehow weak. Its bizarre to me to read all this but I can kind of understand where its coming from. For the last eight years the country has suffered from having to hawkish leaders who were more likely to pull the trigger than try to work things out. Here´s a lesson that people who think the president is weak should learn: Diplomacy that doesn´t come through a gun barrel is a lot more challenging then squeazing a trigger.

Why all this paranoia about Russia by the way. Of course they are flexing their muscles but they were doing this under Bush as well. How do you think they feel about the US recruiting all their former satellite states for NATO? Essentially these paranoid individuals seem to think its ok for the US to act aggressor but not for anyone else to play the same game. Excuse me while I go throw up. Weakness is not the use of diplomacy as a first negotiating tool, its the use of force when its not called for that is. Paranoia about Russia is equivalent to being a dumb hick who is unaware of recent history.

Top Ten list of people we should ignore:

10. Robert Mugabe (There should be no need to explain his presence on the list).

9. Kim Jong-Il (Seemingly proud to be out of his mind and insane, suffers from penis envy which goes a long way to explaining why his starving country is building nuclear weapons).

8. Glenn Beck (hate speech promoter and all around liar-for-ratings).

7. Sean Hannity (See Glenn Beck).

6. Orly Taitz (Birther lawyer and dentist and real estate agent also out of her mind yet still able to practice law).

5. Sarah Palin (imagine her as president and once you finish vomiting your migraine will show up, has demonstrated repeatedly she is incapable of running anything but Wasilla).

4. Dick Cheney (torture can be justified, I am sure a certain Reich´s Führer would have agreed 110 percent, responsible for making the US just that much less safe).

3. Mahmoud Ahmadinajad (Where to start... Stole an election and is generally regarded to be out of his mind as well).

2. Karl Rove (need I explain why)

1. Mark Sanford (showing why people shouldn´t vote for a party claiming to be about "family" values).

Note: this list does not infer value based on the numbering system used, it is simply how they came to mind.

Weekly Commentary

In just a week Lou Dobbs managed to flush his journalistic reputation down the toilet by continuing to cover the non-story that is the birthers. Actually the real story would be about the people behind these types of conspiracy theories. Or what about the GOP senators and representatives who are pandering to the fringe base with their bill concerning the birth certificates being or not being (check the video at Huffingtonpost to see what kind of weirdos are making your laws).

Picked up my new passport from the US Embassy in Berlin. I have to say that I went in there completely prejudiced against Embassy security, having dealt with angry and irritated little jerks in Riga. These guys were completely friendly and even wanted to talk about books I was reading. My respect goes to those guys. Except for the Marine with his war face in the second office, staring everyone down who walks through his diplomatic halls.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is now playing for FC Barcelona. First congratulations to him: everyone wants to go, but few are given the opportunity. I hope he makes the most of it and does two things: wins the Ballon D´Or and Champions League next year.

On the football note it seems Sweden will not be playing at the next world cup in South Africa which means that I will be supporting the German national team. The only good thing to come out of this is hopefully that Sweden realizes they need a new strategy to reach some new footballing heights.

The Birthers or the nutcases among us

Today I have been reading and trying to keep up with this bizarre group of people called the birthers. For those who are completely unaware of this group, its a bunch of conspiracy theorists residing in the USA who are for various reasons trying to have President Obama removed from office by claiming he is not a "natural born citizen." Of course they are completely wrong on two accounts: A. his mother was a US citizen and B. he was born in the US.

I am going to be completely honest. If I found out that any of my friends were in any way associated with this movement it would be automatic cause for the end of that friendship. If I were to meet anyone who holds this view (not very likely as these nutcases are generally unaware that there is a world outside the US) I would in no way associate with them. Period. The soldier who took this to court should be dishonarably discharged and held in contempt of court along with his lawyer who should never be permitted to practice law again in any state. Period. Anyone supporting this movement is in no way a patriot but instead completely delusional and insane.

Strange Summer, Job search, and more

This is going to go down as an even worse summer than last year if the weather continues as it is now; rain, cloudy, sunny for five minutes and then repeat. Add to this that the humidity can reach almost tropical levels (Which means another storm is coming) and you have a recipe for a rainy year. I am going to Sweden next weekend for what could be called a mini-honeymoon before the real one in February (which will be on the islands of Maui and Kauai).

The job search is on and so far I have found a few places that I am interested in applying to but now I just need to get my letter of application finished.

That is about it for right now, I am still making pizza and hoping the sun will come out tomorrow so I can go for a skate, which would be the first skate in three months.

Trapped in the rain

Went to the Berlin Library (AGB) and got trapped there in a downpour of torrential tropical rain. Before I got here the weather was so humid that I was sweating just sitting at my computer. There is no escape from the European summer and considering that this is what was sorely missing until a week ago I shouldn´t be complaining.

Just picked up Paul Auster´s book Moon Palace which I do not believe that I have read and am therefore very happy to do so now. I dropped off Marina Lewicki´s Two Caravans (which I do not recommend by any stretch.

I am getting married in a week and that is incredible. Now I just need to keep looking for a job. Time is going by so fast, too fast almost.

Considering that the rain is coming down as hard as it is, I guess it means I won´t be skateboarding today. Oh well.

Le Weekend

Big plans, big plans. Actually a lot of wedding related stuff. There is supposedly a job fair as well so I need to fix up my CV a bit (you know add the part about having a masters degree). Getting a haircut as well around 11. I guess the term trim is more correct.

In the evening its time for some Under 21 European Championship footall. Sweden vs. England and to be perfectly honest and clear, Sweden aren´t tipped to win. Then again we weren´t tipped to win against Serbia either, which we did on Tuesday 3-1. We did it in style and team Serbia collapsed like a wounded giant and by the time the referee had decided to blow the final whistle it was an eleven man Sweden vs nine man Serbia (both red cards coming after the score was already 3-1). What I am trying to say is that if we go out tomorrow and battle our little hearts off, there is a chance we could pull this off. Not a big chance, but a chance all the same.

Ahmadinejad or the other option

I read an interview with Moussavi about two weeks before the election. Its funny to hear the GOP hyping this guy up as the person who would be able to bring peace and harmony to the region. Would he be better than the incumbent? Without a doubt, yet he is by no means what the GOP think of as a free leader. Look up the interview in Der Spiegel and make up your own mind.

There is still the question of whether or not the election was rigged or not. From everything I have read and heard, it was rigged. Shame on those who did it, it makes them look stupid and weak.

John Fante

I read the Road to Los Angeles when I was still in undergrad at FSU. It was part of a creative writing course and it was supposed to get us into exploring new ways of writing prose. At the time I had a sort of love/hate relationship to the book and though I knew that Fante had written some more stories using the same character, I didn't jump at any opportunities to read on.

That all changed three days ago. I was at the Berlin Library and looking for books in English which can be a trying experience (to be fair they have a great selection but you have to order most of them in advance if you want to get them, so browsing is not the optimal way to do things) and there it was in front of me: Fante's Ask the Dust. I picked it up with a feeling in my gut that this was probably not going to be the most exciting book I had read recently but whatever it was there and why not have a go. I had a go and its been a rollercoaster of an experience. The prose is straight from Fante's mind and onto the paper. At times it becomes impossible to separate the author from the main character Arturo Bandini (essentially himself, but in fiction format). At other times I was so lost in the story that I couldn't put the book down.

Note: its not for the weak of heart, and not for people who like happy endings. After all its John Fante and there is a good reason that Charles Bukowski thought he was god.

The Wedding Approacheth

And I am feeling it every minute. The thesis is done, stamped and over with. My provisional degree is on my desk and within the next three months the official one will arrive. Haven't decided whether or not to hang it on the wall: this always struck me as a lame thing to do.

Was sitting at my desk trying to figure out directions to two doctor's offices where I had to go and pick up some reinbursements for various reasons, and while I was doing this the sound of a trumpet and an accordian slowly made its way up the street. That is why the window is open almost 24/7: to hear the street life. Anyway I finally looked out and saw three guys making their way past all the cafes; two of them playing a barely perceptible tune, the other collecting money in a disposable Starbucks cup. They were being modest and only went with a grande. Didn't help their music. Saw the same group perform in a park. They approach some people having a perfectly good day and annoy them until they pay some money. All the while they wear the creepiest smiles and seem very into what they are playing.

Some strange person requested me on Facebook. Have no idea why and honestly find it annoying that someone I don't know in any way would think I would like to be friends.

Musings of a Master

Seems like the elections might have been rigged in good ole Iran, but who is really surprised?

Leaving Lund in the morning with a one way ticket to Berlin. Bout time for that one really.

Berlin better have a better summer this year than last. I am tired of getting rained on. I feel like a lot skating is in store for me and that the mini ramp at YAAM is going to have some hot sessions as well as the Warschauer Benches.

Getting married in less than a month and it is going to be amazing. Can't wait to see everyone who is invited.

Now I get to find out what a Master's degree means in terms of jobs. Going to be exciting. Thinking about a Sustainability Advisory company for the Surf industry. Any excuse to see the inside of a wave barrel.

The conspiracy theorists

I will name at least three of them. While their party is out of power and in the wilderness, they are promoting conspiracy theories for their eager uneducated listeners. Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage. They all imagine that the government is fascist (or when they want another word they turn to communist or socialist anything to fit the moment). The best part is that quite a few million people sit around listening to these "prophets" words of wisdom.

Hilarious actually.

Tin foil hat

Listening to a speech by Sarah Palin. Now, don't misunderstand me, I don't agree with just about any of her ideas of how the country should be run or with her ideas of how to interact with the world (someone who hasn't traveled to other countries doesn't have much clout in telling me how the world works). Basically what I am trying to say is that I will never vote for her.

Listening to her speech however is pure pleasure. To hear her talk about how government is ruinning our lives and destroying our "freedoms" and being weak to all these enemies who are just waiting to pounce for no good reason at all. Its like listening to that homeless person on the street with the tin foil hat on his head so the government can't send signals or hear his thoughts. The bum is Sarah Palin and if you look closely enough she and the rest of her choir all have homemade tin foil hats on. I just hope the audience is smart enough not to believe the bum

Americans with Guns

So now you can carry your guns in national parks. Its jolly great is what I say. That stupidity goes this far. That a bunch of paranoid nuts get to buy handguns in sport stores and then carry them around in their everyday lives. Not to keep wild animals away. Not to protect themselves from gang wars (how many of these NRA guys really live in an inner city). No they want the guns so they can feel masculine and tough. A gun is a symbol of power. Without it they are simply not men. For them the loss of a gun is the same as testicular cancer: a loss of manhood. The gun then is truly a phallic symbol in every sense. Just like rape is a control method used by men in prison, so the gun is a feeling of being in control in their everyday lives. To them this is the freedom promised by America: the myth of the wild west never disappeared. They traded the horses and wide open plains for pick-up trucks and interstates. The thing that bothers me is they don't seem to be using their brains for much.

Stuck in Lund

I am here for about two weeks much to my own disappointment. I am tired of university towns. Ok, I will admit that when you live in Berlin its hard for everything else to in any way come close to the feelings that Germany's capital can provide. I have my defence on Monday. Then after that its a waiting game until Friday when graduation takes place. Then on the fifteenth its back to Berlin and the opening of the job hunting season.

I just had a genius idea that could one day make me a lot of money: A thesis coach job. What I mean is that I would be paid to coach people through their theses. Since professional coaching seems to be in right now in the business world, I can't think of any reason why this wouldn't work in the student world as well. Think about all these students with too much money on their hands and procrastinating like there was a thousand tomorrows, it could work.

Saturday at 20:00 Sweden plays Denmark in a world cup qualifier that quite frankly Sweden has to win. Otherwise we can kiss South Africa goodbye in which case I will be cheering for Germany. This game is going to hang on one man: Mr. Ibrahimovic. If he has a good game then the Danes are going to lose. If he has a bad game it can end 0-0 which no one likes (except the Danes of course). Anyway its time for a Swedish win. We have the squad quality for it so I want to see some goals.

Last day...

This is the last day to work on my thesis and its ending one minute at a time. Every second that goes by is a missed opportunity to add, edit, or remove words and sentences. What would happen if I just stopped now, cold and walked away from it. Left it to die on this old computer. What if I never bothered to turn it on again? Is it failure if you choose not to follow through?

This is highly unlikely to happen of course. In a minute or two I will return to the work at hand and try to establish which sentences go where, which sentences have to go, and which have to be created.

I hate this thing and it really is consuming my life, one second at a time, as it marches on toward the Monday high noon deadline.

Intolerant religion

The title sounds harsh. This is not an anti-religious post. Its time to talk about Liberty University, the school of Falwell. This last week they banned a group of students who had organized a student Democrat group. The thing is the group had already been around for a while and there had not been any problems with them before. Note that the republican group was not banned. So what is going on here? First Liberty is a private institution and therefore has the right to say who can and who cannot be represented on campus, however if they in any way accept federal funding than I think that they have to allow groups like these.

The statement that is really being made here is that one cannot be an accepted Christian and a Democrat in the eyes of the people running Liberty. They are also saying it is completely in line with Christian teaching to be a Republican. How do they come up with this line of reasoning? I really do want to understand this but I have to say it looks like they are taking a real black and white approach to such issues. This is not a black and white kind of world.

Secondly they are doing something that a university should not be trying to do: they are indoctrinating. Wait don't get me wrong I know most professors lean one way or another in university life, I am not an idiot who is suggesting there should be no bias. However if what you preach is real, then you should allow for a powerful debate so that it can be tested. Banning a group is only pouring gasoline on a fire: are they willing to play with the fire?

Listening but not hearing anything...

I watched part of Cheney´s speech yesterday and then I read different pundits opinions on it. It seemed like a good deal of people really think this old man really did some great things for this country. Supposedly he kept millions of American´s from being killed and so on by torturing people, no to him they are just terrorists...

Turns out he was full of his usual lying and distorting on these issues. I am not buying what he is saying for a minute. Why? Because he tortures and because he seems to think that the only way of doing things is the way he would like to do things. Its really sad to think this ego-maniac was a heartbeat from the presidency. We would have really seen what a fascist government looks like. What about all these conservative pundits? Obviously they are listening to their religious neo-con god figure and when god speaks they all say amen because in their small minority the ends always justify the means.

Conservative thinking

Was reading a conservative blog by some common fox news commentator. She noted that the bust of the group trying to blow up synagogues in New York was something he inherited from Bush. What I imagine she would have said if they hadn´t been stopped would have been it was all Obama´s fault. They tend to use some great reasoning.

In another of her posts she commented about losing freedom because of the MPG regulations in cars. Plus she also tried to use statistics about highway fatalities to prove that higher regulations would lead to less safe cars. Actually this is a good case of correlations: its actually bad car design that leads to fatalities not the car size. Then there is this notion of freedoms that they are really clinging to like it was the only tune they knew how to whistle; suddenly they won´t be able to choose gas guzzlers. Hmm, so its ok to be able to drive badly engineered vehicles that pollute (and thus affect everyone around them) but not ok to regulate these things. So why don´t we get rid of rules on public decency (they would argue that its morality that counts (but remember theirs not someone elses)) but yet at the same time it is a freedom that is lost. What about people who don´t want to drive cars yet can´t lead the same lives as those who do? Apparently they have no freedom of choice. I could go on and on.

Irony

I think the funniest thing that is taking place right now in the world of the media is the presence of Mr. Ventura in the spotlight. Why is it amusing? One of the people who has actually done combat time, been waterboarded (in training), and served in high office in this country is putting out a very strong argument against torture. His notion: if this country is going to stand for some principles then you can´t do this. Exactly, but what is scary is that the right wing seems totally happy with torture under the excuse that they were afraid of a ticking time bomb. Is it ok to torture someone when you are afraid? Seems an easy way out.

The democrats are losing their chance to make a statement by helping to close Guantanamo Bay. They are also losing their credibility as a strong party. Keep it up and we´ve blown the next election.

Excusing torture (a post about brothers)

When I was a child, between the ages of 5 and 12, my brother and I constantly irritated one another. Many times he irritated me to the point where I finally decided that I had had enough and that I would hit him to make him stop. To me this seemed like a perfectly rational reason for hitting my brother but to my father it just wasn´t very convincing.

We hear an excuse like this quite often on tv and the news now (usually by republicans) that torturing (you can call it whatever you want Cheney but lipstick on it doesn´t make the pig anything else) is justified if it a.) gets answers and b.) saves lives. By hitting my brother I also usually was correct that he would stop bothering me, the only problem: I don´t have the right to hit people. Police officers don´t have the right to strike people in custody. The U.S. Government doesn´t have the right to torture people that they have taken into custody. We have signed treaties against it and we have prosecuted others who have employed the same techniques. If ever there is a more conventional war where U.S. soldiers are captured and these same torture tactics are applied to them, there will be outrage when we can´t prosecute these people later on down the road if we don´t deal with our own dirty laundry now.

Finally, I am ashamed of my country for not coming out harder against these things and I am ashamed of leaders who took the easy way out instead of going the hard road that they always talk about and is the reason we elect them in the first place.

Political Thoughts (again I know)

Seems like most people are referring to them as "harsh interrogation techniques" and yet in other wars that America has fought they were considered torture and anyone who was caught on the other side doing them was sentenced for war crimes. My how times have changed for "God's nation" (complete and utter sarcastic remark written with a snear on my face).

Unfortunately we are learning the same lesson we learned under Clinton, to do something you usually have to come center. Too bad, because there is so much that needs to be done and a harsh and firm stance would be nice, very nice.

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy should be removed from the military now, immediately, without further pause. Why are we waiting, whose interests are being protected by this? If we are worried about losing servicemen who will quit in "disgust" (bigots is the right word for that type) then we are being silly: if bigotry is a reason to stop serving your country then we shouldn't want them there in the first place.

Cheney please keep on talking, everytime you open up you let us see just what a monster you really are. Republican redemption will come when they tell Limbaugh he isn't welcome and that the former VP is a lunatic.

McDonalds Claim: in the ballpark

Today I was wasting time and avoiding my thesis so I read for a bit from Time magazine's online articles. They had an interview with the person at McDonalds who is responsible for their recent entrance into the specialty coffee market.

Their claim: While our coffee is not Starbucks quality its about a dollar cheaper per drink and the quality is in the ballpark.

A reminder to McDonalds: A ballpark can be a very big place.

Bachmann and the beast

Michele Bachmann, the politician from Minnesota, who would do well to talk a lot less. This is the classic stereotypical case of the far-right American politician who really buys into the whole idea that the United States is created by God and is somehow his country. Historically, people who have bought these types of arguments usually become known as dangerous nationalists. In the US though nationalism has its own party: they are called the Republicans. Do you doubt me? Then read some of their websites or listen to their leaders rant and rave about end times and the need to be at war permanently and so on.

My real question though is how does someone like Bachmann get elected? She is well educated(far more so than Palin) and she appears to have some kind of radical right wing base that either has no problem listening to her lies or believes them themselves. What really bothers me is that Minnesota is a normal state, they have a lot of well educated individuals so how does someone like this make it into power. Its a mystery.

1st of May

Well its possible that we were in the news, well not me of course, but my neighborhood. Not really my neighborhood either but the neighborhood next to mine. There were these guys you see, and they were dressed in black and wearing ski-masks and they decided to do what people dressed like this on May Day usually do; they scooped out the cobblestones from the street and sidewalk and started throwing them at a few of the 5000 police officers dressed in what they call riot gear. Anyway by the time I got there, around 10 p.m., things had quieted down and there was a block party where I live and we thought well the rioting is already over so why not go check out the area and see what is going on now.

It was a standoff. People all over the square, many of them having nothing to do with the rioters, just waiting for a fight. Waiting in the eerie darkness with no cars on the roads, a helicopter circling somewhere above, and several hundred police officers blocking off several of the streets. We finished our beer and went home. When we turned on the news the next morning, we learned that we had just been in the eye of the storm and that it got worse before it was all over. 200 were arrested. Most of the stores were still boarded up on Sunday.

A welcome change

Today this blog will leave behind politics for a post or two...

Its time to talk about Ice Hockey. The IIHF world championships are on and I have been trying to keep up with them, even watch them when I can (Germans aren't all that crazy about it). So part of the time I have watched the games from LNT (Latvian TV which streams some of the games online for free).

Anyway this looks like another bleak year for Team Sweden. We have once again a rather average group of NHLers and KHL and even a few from the SHL. So we crushed Austria, then lost in a shootout to Latvia (for the first time in history by the way), and then against all odds came back from a 2-5 deficit and beat the USA in overtime 6-5. Not bad, so now today around 16:15 we get to take on Russia. If we lose (high probability) we have to beat Switzerland and France to have any hope for advancing (note that beating those two would be a walk in the park with our top A team available).

It might be a very short World Championship this year.

Disturbing at best

Certain conservative news programs have been running with the idea that it is immigrants who are bringing the flu. This is really racist and a sick, uneducated guess. Its stuff like this that leads to violence and hate. It also provides good ratings, because people want some kind of conspiracy theory to live by. Take Michael Savage, he is proposing that its Al Qaeda at work. Somehow, in a cave somewhere in Pakistan, they have managed to figure out how to make a flu virus and then they set it off in Mexico. Does that even sound like it stands a chance. The only bright note in all this racism and idiocy is Fox New's anchor Shepherd Smith who has been the only voice of reason on the network. Here's to you Smith, may some better network scoop you up one of these days.

Here is to you Glenn

This will be the first edition of the Paranoid awards (a.k.a The John McCarthy Prize). This months goes to none other than Glenn Beck. Congratulations on making up news (none anywhere other than Fox as lying) and proving the point continuosly that you don't need a brain to be a personality on TV. I bet your stomach rises to your mouth everytime you hear there is a White House press conference, where you fear the outcome will be the announcement of the end of the US as you imagine it to be. Here is hoping that your ranting and raving is just losing more of the conservatives and that the rest of us will see your party for what it really is; a bunch of paranoid pre-teens.

Torture

I am really impressed that Dick Cheney is continually seeking out the spotlight and trying to paint a better picture of himself. I am also continually impressed that so many Americans have decided for themselves that what we did was not torture (even though after WWII we prosecuted Japanese for waterboarding as well as our own soldiers after Vietnam). The thing that is really sick with denying that it was torture is that these people are probably the same ones who believe in manifest destiny (get over yourselves America is just another country).

Lets look at another country that has done extremely horrible things: Nazi Germany, but I would be willing to wager that if they had managed to surrender without the Allies taking full control, there would have been no Nuremberg trials and no one brought to justice. People would even have said, no what we did wasn´t really all that bad, hell it was even necessary. The sense of guilt that Germany finally took on was not something they immediately accepted, but had to be pushed on them from the Allies. That was necessary. In the US however the officers will get away with it because they followed orders (that excuse didn´t fly at Nuremberg). I know these are two very different examples but the idea about guilt and accepting the truth is the same. I am happy the US has a president who isn´t arrogant and can even admit that the US makes plenty of mistakes. Refreshing difference from Cheneyism.

Gingrich

He is not what he was yet wishes and hopes and thinks that he could be. The once and future king? No doubt all the recent jockeying by Newt G. is meant to set up his bid to be President in 2012. The sad thing is that we really don´t need someone like him in that office. By now the world would have been destroyed (he would have attacked N. Korea), Cuba would have been invaded (because after all people everywhere just want the freedom that GW had on tap), and there would likely be no Venezuela as well. Obama is soft he says. I say Newt is looking more like his namesake every minute. First off Obama has presented and acted in a manner worthy of a President, and second the actions he has taken have not shown any signs of weakness. If being strong means making threats and ignoring others then the Republican party is a group of bullies.

Now getting down to things I find really interesting is Newt´s accusation that Chavez is a dictator. Where is Newt getting his information from? Is he not aware that this man is democratically elected and that he will remain so until the moment he refuses to step down should he lose an election. To lie about this on tv only further confuses Americans. Oh wait so I guess I will go one step further then... I am officially calling Newt, the Newt, Gingrich a slimy little liar.

Right Wing extremism

This one bothers me. One of the government departments released a warning about far right groups being a threat to US security in the future. Now its being slammed by the republicans and their puppetmasters the radio show hosts. In all fairness the report was not as clear as the one released a few months before about extreme left wing groups (don´t recall hearing any complaints about this one). Two things then: the republicans are going to attack everything Obama does from now on till the end of the first term so everyone is just going to have to get used to it, the second thing is that considering all the apocalypticism that the right wing media has been stirring up as of late, this report seems very justified. With radio show hosts and politicians talking about secession (gov. of Texas) and revolution and so on it seems that there is a good chance a group of isolated psychos in the US have a good chance to do something stupid. Of course getting a hold of the automatic weapons to do so wouldn´t be a problem either.

Its a sad time when you have so many people spewing hate on the airwaves. I guess it proves that there are a lot of sore losers out there.

Republican´s like teabagging

Its almost too much, that the GOP would set themselves up for this kind of joke but they went ahead and did it so let them choke on it (the teabags that is). Apparently its going to be a real riot with plenty of strange Americans out and protesting at what they think is socialism (but in fact lower tax policies than under the Reagan years for 95% of Americans). That is what makes this so amusing; these people are out and about protesting about something they don´t understand. This should be one of those signs that the Republican hardliners aren´t really completely there or it could just be a sign that they are into strange things like....teabagging. Wish I was in the US right now so I could go congratulate all the people who are proud to be teabagging together...haha this just doesn´t get old.

the Mad Hatter and the Hare have a tea party...

This thing with tea parties in the US is really one of those amusing things that just couldn´t be allowed to pass by without a blog post. Let me put it in these terms; if Democrats had done the same during the Bush years, we would have been told we were anti-american and unpatriotic. Yet these conservos throwing tea that they paid for into the water are heroes according to Fox News. The term "Fair and Balanced" should be changed to "Fully Biased."

To those engaged in tea parties; I refer you to Jon Stewart from the Daily Show "losing is supposed to taste like a shit taco." Your actions are a mocking of everything those original Boston residents stood for. All this talk about revolution by the way is actually tantamount to treason and if it had come from Liberals you would be saying this as well. Get over it, come up with something good policy wise, and try to win the next election; that is how it works in a democracy.

Florida and Sustainability

I was reading Time Magazine´s online webpage today and they had an article about a sustainable development housing scheme that just might come to be a reality (whether it actually works the way its supposed to is another thing). Anyway what is amazing isn´t the article itself, or the project for that matter. What is worthy of a blog post is the way that the author, Michael Grunwald, slams the way the state has been developing previously. I will have some quotes that illustrate Mr. Grunwald´s opinion (that I admit I share to its very core):

1. "The community of Babcock Ranch is designed to break new frontiers in sustainable development, quite a shift for a state that has never been sustainable, and lately hasn't had much development"

2. "southern Florida's planning-nightmare sprawl of golf courses, strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions named after the plants and animals they replaced"

3. "It's no secret that growth has been Florida's primary economic engine for decades. Yet Fortune 500 companies haven't flocked to its sprawling bedroom communities with lousy schools and overpriced houses, and the paving of paradise has left the state with overtapped aquifers, overcrowded hospitals, overstretched services, traffic jams, a dying Everglades and a vanishing sense of place."

I think the last one really sums it up best. Here is to you Mr. Grunwald, you have summed up the state in only a few seconds.

News or not news?

I like to read Foxnews sometimes. Why is the question that is most likely coming to your lips at this moment? Because they are amusing. First, they always have this celebrity section down at the bottom with a couple pictures of scantily clad females wearing way to much make-up. Secondly, their layout is oddly reminiscent of a gossip tabloid and the headlines of most of the articles seem to back this up. Thirdly, the content of their political commentaries are pure classics in the sense of how biased they are. Take today: there is an article stating that the President has yet to attend church in Washington. I don´t see what is so newsworthy here. In fact the only point of this article is a weak attempt by some right wing nut to try to impose his views on why Obama is not a Christian and so on. A typical right wing evangelical stance (I apologize to the evangelicals who vote left). The truth is that its actually none of this writers business when or if he goes to church.

Final note: I want someone to write a book doing research about all the lying that Sean Hannity does on his show. Its amazing that Fox news would present themselves as serious journalism and then run with this type of programming, don´t get me wrong I very much like the fact that this man spews his lies whenever he opens his mouth, I just wish the rest of the media would really do their homework on the issues and call him on it. Of course I don´t see this realistically happening, but it would be nice.

Anti this, Anti that

There is a lot of talk about Anti-Americanism in the US press. They sit around and talk about why there is this feeling going around in Europe that is a hate for the US. Then they go on to explain it as being some kind of jealousy because America is so great (this is American Exceptionalism (I prefer the term nationalism) at its best). I always find this idea really amusing. I have lived on both continents and I don´t really know what the Europeans would be so jealous about.

The thing that isn´t talked about so much is Anti-Europeanism that is coming back from the US. All these comments about Socialist European governments and this idea that the European Union is failing somehow are some of the most amusing sentiments around. However no one in the US is condemning these attitudes or even questioning them. Why do these sentiments exist? Probably due to a lack of experience. Most of these "haters" have never left the US for longer than a week or two of vacation and thus suffer from what I would call a nationalist tendencies. They know there is another mountain with another set of pastures that are somewhat different, but they never even bother to read up on it. So as long as they shout about anti-americanism, I will shout back with anti-europeanism.

Back from the Baltic

Ok, I am back in Berlin and working on the ever present thesis. Its going to be a long two final months but I am going to get this done, or die in the process. Sometimes after working on the whole thing all day I feel that I actually know nothing about what I am doing. That is of course an exaggeration but this is apparently how it feels to write a thesis. Anyway Clara and I, as well as some others, spent the weekend at the Baltic Sea in a small town near the German port of Rostock. It was beautiful, sunny and we came back with a little bit of red skin. When we got home we found out that the tree directly outside our bedroom window had bloomed and this was a source of great joy, as well as the fact that its pretty much non-stop sunshine here right now. The summer is going to be amazing.

Prediction

By the time the Republicans are done using the word socialism, the average American will assume that it means anything not Republican approved.

Sustainable Republicans

Its definitely a strange title for a blog post on such a liberally biased blog as this (yes I admit my bias). So what could I possibly mean by using such a word to describe a republican? The easiest answer would be to say that they have highjacked the term like just about everyone else these days (after all, an ill defined term can be used quite freely; freedom is a good example). No, what I mean by using this term in the same sentence is the interesting stance that the Republicans have taken on the bailout money and stimulus spending. They keep talking about or kids being poor (shall we remember for the sake of argument, just who spent the last eight years running up debts for the sake of planting a flag in "freedoms" name). This talk about the future generation is therefore a discussion on sustainable development; since one of its key notions is intergenerational equity. If you are rather unaware of what I am going on about here then you may try reading about it on Wikipedia (and then go to your library since your taxes pay for it) and read up on John Rawls. The Republicans are making the argument that our kids are going to be poor because of our choices now. This is rather strange, because in general the republicans have no problem using up all the oil and other non-renewable resources (in the name of the father, the son, and the free market). So if businesses were to use up all these resources that would be fine in the sense that it was a free market decision but trying to save the economy now in the hopes that growth in the future will make up for the lending is not ok. Strange thinking.