The Capital Letter

Pop quiz, Hotshot:

You all know how these things work by now: below is a close-up photo. What is it a photo of?

Put your guesses in the comments section. I'll post the solution and an eplanatory post tomorrow evening.

Is your computer screen looking a little on the dirty side?

Could your monitor use a bit of a polish?

Well, then get your free screen clean right here. You won't regret it.

[Hat-tip to PC at Not PC.]

Today two excellent links were forwarded to me and I thought I'd share. [Hat-tip on both counts to Twiglets who's obviously working very hard at the office this fine Friday.]

The first of the two links is to a hilarious interview with a search engine, specifically, Ask Jeeves. Here's the introductory blurb:

As random as they are relevant, enigmatic as they are enlightening, search engines have earned a slightly sullied reputation as a necessary evil. But it is a one-sided assessment. The search engines have not been able to explain themselves. Until now.

Thanks to its sophisticated program, which answers questions with phrases or sentences, Jeeves of AskJeeves.com granted SatireWire Editor Treat Warland the opportunity to actually interview a search engine. There were many important questions to ask. Unfortunately, he never got to most of them.

NOTE: These are real screen captures of actual responses. Advertisements appearing with results have been edited out, and the query boxes have been enlarged to allow readers to view entire questions. This does not in any way alter the responses.

Read the rest of this ridiculous yet amusing interview here, where you'll find that little old New Zealand even gets a mention.

The other link I was sent was to 20Q.net. 20Q.net is an experiment in artificial intelligence. The program is very simple but its behavior is complex. Everything that it knows and all questions that it asks were entered by people playing this game. 20Q.net is a learning system; the more it is played, the smarter it gets.

It's fascinating, and frighteningly addictive. Follow the link and see if you can beat the system, perhaps even teaching it something along the way.

Today the Irish Republican Army (IRA) formally ended a decades long campaign of armed resistance to British rule, illegal paramilitary activity and terrorism. In an historical and important step, the IRA announced earlier today that it was formally ordering an end to its armed campaign as of 4pm.

The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.

This will take effect from 4pm [1600 BST] this afternoon.

All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms.

All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means.

Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.

The IRA leadership has also authorised our representative to engage with the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence and to conclude this as quickly as possible.

We have invited two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this.

The Army Council took these decisions following an unprecedented internal discussion and consultation process with IRA units and Volunteers.

Read the IRA statement in full here.

This is a Good Thing and should definitely be viewed as an important step in the right direction. What is unique about this IRA statement is that it is uncharacteristically forthright. Unlike previous statements, it leaves no 'wriggle room' for interpretation, but is rather a bald statement of facts and unmistakeably clear instructions to its members and activists. Unfortunately, the statement stops short of ordering an end to all illegal activities (such as the IRA's suspected involvement in a €38 million bank robbery in Belfast late last year) or of promising to disband. But, if we're being realistic here, this is about as far as anyone could have expected the IRA to go in the first instance.

Predictably, and not unreasonably given the IRA's history of broken promises, initial reactions from the Unionist parties have been somewhat sceptical, in a "let's wait and see if they stick to it" type of vein. So, for example, Sir Reg Empey, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, had this to say:

"I can`t take any statement from the Republican movement at face value because we have had that many of them in the past," he said.

"After having had so many false starts in the past, naturally people are going to say actions speak louder than words. So let us see how this plays out. Let us see what happens to the weapons, let us see what happens on the ground."

Sir Reg predicted it would be "some time" before a power-sharing Executive was resumed. He told BBC Radio 4`s World At One programme: "People are so sceptical, having been burnt so many times before. This is not simply whingeing or being difficult about it. It is being simply factual that we have had so many statements before that haven`t been kept."

Unionist hard-liner Ian Paisley, responded to the announcement in a similar vein, as BBC News reports:

DUP leader Ian Paisley greeted the statement with scepticism, saying that the IRA had "reverted to type" after previous "historic" statements.

"We will judge the IRA's bona fides over the next months and years based on its behaviour and activity," he said.

He said they had also "failed to provide the transparency necessary to truly build confidence that the guns have gone in their entirety".

The unionists have every reason to be sceptical, of course, and we won't know just how historical a step this is until we see how effectively it is put into action by the IRA. If, however, the IRA really does follow through on its promise to "dump arms", that will place real pressure on Unionists, particularly Ian Paisley's hardline DUP, to enter into government with Republicans, as the Financial Times argues in this article.

These are fascinating and encouraging developments, and today has the potential to go down in history as the day the armed struggle for supremacy in Northern Ireland ended and became a democratic and political struggle instead. Alternatively, it could go down as yet another set of broken promises and yet another glimmer of hope for peace dashed. We won't know until we know, but I sincerely hope it is the former.

In all of this, let us not forget that the IRA is not some honourable group of freedom fighters struggling against injustice, but rather a terrorist organisation, responsible for the deaths of over 1,770 police officers, soldiers, politicians and civilians. But let us also not pretend that the terrorism and atrocities have been confined to the republican side of the battle for Northern Ireland. Both the unionist paramilitaries and the British government also have their fair share of blood on their hands.

Spare a thought in your consideration of this new development for the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair and the Taoiseach of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, who have worked extremely hard over recent years to reach this point. Don't forget either that the U.S. President, George Bush, and his tougher stance vis-à-vis the IRA and its political arm Sinn Fein have applied important pressure that has had a role to play in hastening today's announcement. And finally, do not underestimate the significance of the stance taken by the brave and indefatigable McCartney sisters, who refused to be cowed or intimidated into silence and who turned the personal tragedy of the murder of their brother at the hands of IRA members into a personal and political campaign that made a real difference to the Northern Ireland peace process. It's amazing what can be achieved when a handful of of brave people stand up for what they believe in and refuse to be swayed.

For more detail about today's announcement and background information on the Troubles and the peace process, check out these links:
Reaction to IRA statement [BBC].
IRA says ceasing all armed activity in N.Ireland [Reuters].
How the IRA has reached this step [BBC].
Timeline: IRA's armed campaign [Daily Telegraph].
Ireland peace process: interactive guide [The Guardian].

It cannot be often that two stories involving both a bird and a phallic symbol emerge on the same day, but that is exactly what has happened today.

The first of the two stories comes from Cape Canaveral in Florida, where a very large phallic symbol which I've blogged about before successfully launched on a 12 day space mission. By all accounts the launch went smoothly, except for a bit of a question mark over a piece of debris which was observed falling off the underside of the shuttle and which NASA are looking into.

Unfortunately, there appears to have been one exception with regard to the Space Shuttle launch going well: I seriously doubt that the bird pictured on the right had a good time of it! Poor little fellow. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Today's second phallus-plus-bird story comes from the South of Germany, specifically from the Hohle Fels cave, near Ulm in Baden-Württemberg. There, archaeologists have found what might well be a 28,000 year-old sex toy. No, really. Don't believe me? Well, perhaps you'll believe the BBC News website:

A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.

The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.

The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone. Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.

"In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University. "There are some areas where it has some very typical scars from that," he told the BBC News website.

[Emphasis added]

See? I don't just make this stuff up, you know. There can't be many dildos around which have the added feature of doubling as a knapping stone for flints, I reckon. The phallus, for those of you who are wondering, and didn't bother clicking on the link above, looks like this:

But where, I'm sure you're wondering, is the link with the bird in this story? Well, it turns out that in the same cave, archaeologists had previously found what is thought might be the earliest representation of a bird in the archaeological record, carved from mammoth ivory.

The dig site is one of the most remarkable in central Europe. Hohle Fels stands more than 500m above sea level in the Ach River Valley and has produced thousands of Upper Palaeolithic items.

Female forms, such as the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf are more common. Some have been truly exquisite in their sophistication and detail, such as a 30,000-year-old avian figurine crafted from mammoth ivory. It is believed to be one of the earliest representations of a bird in the archaeological record.

Truth, as Mark Twain once put it, is stranger than fiction.

I've been sent the picture below twice in the past hour, and just had to share. This is obviously flying around the cyber-world at a rate of knots, so I thought I'd do my bit to help it on its way. [Hat-tips to Twiglets and RM].

Neither of my sources were able to confirm whether or not this is for real. It certainly looks real, and hand-written signs like this are commonplace at London Tube stations. But it could equally be someone having a lark. Either way, at least whoever wrote it is calling a spade a spade. It would be funnier if it weren't so true. Or, as my London-dwelling, tube-riding friend Twiglets put it:

It's fairly sound advice too. I'm not sure whether I'm appalled by the lack of political correctness or refreshed by the lack of political correctness. At least there's someone there who's prepared to tell it like it is. You are at greater risk if you look a bit foreign.

Quite so. 'Business as usual' in London? Don't think so. How could it possibly be?

Just when I had pretty much given up hope that I would get a response to my open letter regarding Zimbabwe to the New Zealand Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Associate Foreign Minister, I received a response late last week. It was from the Foreign Minister, Mr. Phil Goff.

Here is his reponse in full:

Dear [BerlinBear],

Thank you for your emails of 22 and 24 June. I am replying on behalf of the Prime Minister.

The New Zealand Government has for a long period consistently condemned the actions of the Mugabe regime in undermining democracy and abusing human rights in Zimbabwe. Over the last two months, the situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated still further, with the unprecedented destruction of the homes of more than a third of a million people in what appears to be an act of political retribution.

The proposed cricket tour by the Black Caps in these circumstances is quite inappropriate. It would be portrayed as a lack of concern by the team as to what is happening there, and used by the regime even to suggest implied support for it. Consequently, the Government has told New Zealand Cricket that it is opposed to the tour going ahead. If it proceeds it is not with our blessing. Indeed it is opposed not only by the Government but also by most parties in Parliament and the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders.

However New Zealand Cricket like all sporting organisations and other independent bodies cannot be compelled by Government to follow our instructions. To achieve that we would have to legislate to control non-government organisations and in particular to restrict their right of free association and movement. Freedom to travel abroad as a group or as individuals is a longstanding right of New Zealanders. No government has ever legislated to prevent this and I have no desire to create such a precedent.

The Government has endeavoured to press the International Cricket Council to lift penalties on to its member Cricket Boards who breach contractual obligations by not complying with their Future Tours Programme agreement.

We have said that gross human rights abuses constitute a valid reason for refusing to tour a country and that penalties should not be threatened to force a national cricket side to do so in these circumstances.

Regrettably the ICC has not been willing to adopt this approach. Of the ten countries represented on the ICC, we have been able to get support from the governments of only two others, and neither of these, (Australia and the UK) would be prepared to compel their Cricket Boards to act in a particular way. New Zealand will however refuse to give visas to allow any national representative sporting teams from Zimbabwe to tour New Zealand. This will prevent the proposed tour to New Zealand by the Zimbabwe cricket team in December. New Zealand is the first country to have taken such action. This will clearly, directly and strongly communicate to the Mugabe regime our opposition to and abhorrence of its human rights abuses.

A sporting boycott is not an end in itself but rather a means to the end of putting pressure on the Zimbabwe government to change its behaviour. We have also imposed smart sanctions prohibiting leaders and business cronies of the Mugabe regime coming here. We are using every available forum: the G8, the EU, the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, the IMF and the Southern Africa Development Community to press for stronger international action against and pressure on Zimbabwe's government.

New Zealand is showing leadership in the international community against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Thank you for passing on your views on this issue.

Yours sincerely

Hon Phil Goff
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Interesting. It was good, and encouraging, to receive clarification of all of the steps taken by the government vis-à-vis Mugabe's human rights violations. For example, I was not aware of the smart sanctions that Mr. Goff mentions, nor of the appeals to the various international bodies for more pressure to be imposed on Zimbabwe's government. That is all good news, and I am pleased to see that steps are being taken.

I was a little surprised that Mr. Goff chose to focus so heavily on the New Zealand cricket tour to Zimbabwe, since I made no mention of it in my letter. That is an area where I disagree with government policy. I am firmly of the opinion that, since the clearly amoral ICC failed to take action, what was required was for the government to step in and impose sporting sanctions. As I see it, this need not necessarily have involved curtailing the New Zealanders' freedom of movement and association as Mr. Goff claims. Government action should have been taken to prevent teams and sporting bodies representing New Zealand travelling to and competing in Zimbabwe. Legislation to this end could have explicitly stated that the rights of individual New Zealanders wishing to travel to Zimbabwe in a private capacity were unaffected. As I understand it, the legislation designed to stop the tour, proposed by the Green Party, did just that. Idiot/Savant over at No Right Turn agrees.

So all in all then, it's a good news/bad news response. It is encouraging to see that the government is pursuing various avenues in its efforts to apply real pressure to Mugabe and the Zimbabwean government to halt Operation Murambatsvina and other human rights violations. But it is a shame that the government refused to act to prevent the New Zealand cricket team from travelling to Zimbabwe to represent our country. That sends the wrong signals entirely and is an embarrassment to me as a New Zealander.

Meanwhile 1: Yesterday the New Zealand parliament passed a motion expressing its opposition to the cricket tour to Zimbabwe. The text of the motion was as follows:

That this House, noting with grave concern the oppression by the Government of Zimbabwe of its own people and its gross violation of human rights, calls upon New Zealand Cricket to abandon the proposed Black Caps tour to Zimbabwe, and urges the International Cricket Council to exclude Zimbabwe from international tours while gross human rights abuses continue in that country.

That's all well and good but sadly it achieves nothing. You can read more about the motion here, and about New Zealand Cricket's rejection of the motion here.

Meanwhile 2: Despite the publication of a damning report by the UN special envoy, Ms Anna Tibaijuka, and despite official claims that Operation Murambatsvina has been curtailed, the forced removals and human rights violations continue apace in Zimbabwe, particularly in voting districts which voted in favour of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in the recent election. Sokwanele has the disturbing details.

Germany keeps up its record as the fount of the quirkiest news this week, with this absolute gem reported by Deutsche Welle. It seems that a woman in Cologne thought it would be a good idea to go shopping at 4 o'clock in the morning ... naked! The article is short, so I'll include it in its entirety here:

Police detained a Cologne woman shopping naked early one morning this week but let her go after admonishing her.

The 35-year-old female loser of a game of spin-the-bottle walked into a 24-hour convenience store in Cologne at 4 a.m. Nothing unusual there. But in this case, the woman was clad in an unbuttoned jeans jacket and nothing else.

And although Germans are famously tolerant of nudity, officials said they could have arrested her for disturbing the peace. But they did not. "We are a tolerant city," police spokesman Berkard Jahn told Reuters. "We decided to let her go home with a verbal warning to dress appropriately next time."

He said that decision was made because few people and presumably no small children saw her at that time of the day.

No word yet on what the clerk doing the graveyard shift thought.

Nice touch. It's certainly true that the Germans are very tolerant of nudity, and very keen on getting their kit off: at the beach, in the sauna, even in some parks (though, interestingly, unlike the Brits, never when they are drunk in the pub). That said, I've never seen anyone shopping here in the buff. I must be shopping in the wrong places.

There was fascinating variety in the responses to yesterday's Sunday pop quiz. As you may recall, this week's quiz featured the photo on the right.

Perhaps my favourite response of all was Andaloo's suggestion that it might be a photo of the missing link. Sadly, it was not.

Had I managed to find and photograph the missing link, I think I'd be flogging the photo for a fortune to some magazine, rather than displaying it on my blog. But I loved the suggestion nonetheless. Other interesting guesses involved trees and fungus and all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

In fact, as a number of you guessed correctly (M.P. Black got there first, well done!), it was a close-up photo of a piece of the Berlin Wall, with a hole in it. If you take a few steps back from the hole, it starts to take shape and looks more like this:

And if you step right back to the road and fit as much into the photo as you lens will allow, then it looks like this:

Noone managed to guess exactly where or what it was though. Cufflinks made the logically sound, but ultimately wrong guess that the photo must have been taken looking from the Western side of the wall towards the East.

I say logically sound because, back when the Berlin Wall was whole, the only artwork and graffiti on it was to be found on the West Berlin side of the wall. From the West, you could walk right up to the Wall, and the authorities allowed it to be graffitied and decorated. From the East, on the other hand, the Wall was a pristine and imposing grey, because you most certainly could not walk right up to it. In fact there was a so-called 'death strip', patrolled by East German border guards with dogs and machine guns, and surveyed from on high by more guards in towers equipped with searchlights and more machine guns. The fact of the matter is, there's no way you could have graffitied the "anti-fascist protection wall" from the East, because you'd have been shot before you reached it.

But the reason that Cufflinks was ultimately not right about the orientation of the photo, is because this is a rather special section of the Berlin Wall. It is a small part of the so-called East Side Gallery. The official website describes it thus:

The Berlin Wall East Side Gallery is a 1.3km-long section of the wall near the center of Berlin. Approximately 106 paintings by artists from all over the world cover this memorial for freedom and make it the largest open air gallery in the world.

The East Side Gallery is a special place, where art has become the expression for a unique point in time of the history of a separated Germany. It is a meeting point that talks about an old Berlin and a new Berlin, a separated and a unified Germany.

Between Oberbaumbrücke (Oberbaum Bridge) and the Ostbahnhof, along the former borderline that ended at the Spree and Mühlenstrasse, stretches a unique picture palette that marks a sign of overcoming inhumanity. After the Wall came down in 1989, hundreds of artists from all over the world gathered and transformed the eastside of the Wall that had been untouchable up to now, with their paintings, giving the Wall a new face in a new time.

In 2000, ten years after it came into existence, much of the East Side Gallery was restored by the original artists. The restored section now looks like this:

The East Side Gallery is great. The remaining section of the Wall is long enough that you get a real (if visually vastly brightened) idea of what it must have been like to have a bloody great wall running through the middle of your city. Much of the artwork is really superb, with some very clever political messages. I would highly recommend a visit to the East Side Gallery to anyone who comes to Berlin. It is definitely worth a look.

[Time permitting, I hope to post more about the Berlin Wall tomorrow or later this week.]

I've just made two new additions to my blogroll, which I thought I'd draw your attention to.

First up, the blog of someone I met (briefly) recently here in Berlin. He's a Kiwi, currently living in Edinburgh and his blog covers all sorts. The name is a clever pun on the blogger's name, rather than an indication of where he lives or is writing from: from the morgue.

And secondly, another new discovery: strong-light. Strong light blogs from Wellington, New Zealand, and though she appears to be just getting this blog started, I like what I've seen so far.

Check them out.

Well, my source, or rather her Mum, is obviously impeccably connected in the New Zealand political world, because she had it bang on. As predicted, New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has announced the date of the general election. It is to be held on Saturday 17th September, some eight weeks from now. The New Zealand Herald has the story:

New Zealanders will go to the polls on September 17, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced today.

Helen Clark said she had advised the Governor-General that Parliament be dissolved on August 11. Labour would launch its official campaign on Sunday August 21. Labour will be seeking a third term in office after sweeping to power in 1999 and returning with a large number of seats in 2002.

The Prime Minister's announcement comes a day before Parliament resumes after a four week recess and heralds eight weeks of intense political campaigning. Helen Clark kicked that campaigning off today, saying voters faced "stark choices" between Labour and National in both policy and style.

Leadership, credibility experience and trust - areas where she believed Labour had an edge on National - would be crucial, she said. Labour had kept its election pledges - unlike previous governments - and it did not "overpromise" like some of its opponents. The experience of Labour's leadership team dwarfed National's, she said. She and Finance Minister Michael Cullen had a joint 48 years' experience in Parliament, whereas National leader Don Brash and his finance spokesman John Key had just 6 years. "Leading a government is not a game for amateurs. Credibility, experience and a proven ability to get results for New Zealanders as our government has, do speak volumes."

So now, finally, it's game on. There have already been very clear signs that this is going to be a nasty political campaign, with both of the main parties (Labour and National) already having launched into taking cheap shots at each other, rather than focus on the real issues and differences of policy. Personally, I'd far rather see a New Zealand election campaign fought on policy and vision and important issues, but it doesn't appear to be shaping up like that. It stands in stark contrast to what I've seen so far of the German election campaign, which seems to have all the parties focussing largely on the major issues, rather than getting into gutter politics. I say so far advisedly, as that positive focus may well change as we get closer to the election here. Time will tell.

For more coverage of the announcement of the election date, check out the following links:

Prime Minster's statement on the general election

The announcement of the election date in photos

The National Party's response to the announcement

The Green Party's response to the announcement

The populist xenophobic clowns' New Zealand First Party's response to the announcment

A rumour has come to my attention: apparently the general election in New Zealand is finally going to be called on Monday at a press conference after the scheduled cabinet meeting. So, by the time I get up tomorrow morning, it should be known when we New Zealanders are going to be called to the polls.

Since the NZ election, just like the German election, will in all likelihood take place in September, I will have two different election campaigns to keep my eye on simultaneously. Excellent. Watch this space.

Later today, on the cobblestones of the Champs Elyssées in Paris Lance Armstrong is going to win the Tour de France. Again. He has an unassailable 4 min and 40 second lead over the second placed rider, Ivan Basso. Nothing, barring a terrible accident which prevents from completing today's 21st stage, can stop Armstrong from taking a record seventh Tour de France win in the final race of his career as a professional cyclist. Congratulations Lance! That is a truly amazing achievement. You deserve it.

For those who are unfamiliar with professional cycling and in particular with the Tour de France, it is extremely difficult to convey just what a remarkable achievement this is. The Tour de France is the toughest bike race in the world. This year, the tour route has covered more than 3,500 kilometres, over three astonishingly gruelling weeks and 21 stages. (You can see a flash presentation of the route here.) Before Lance Armstrong won his sixth tour last year, no one had ever won more than five. More than five was thought to be impossible. Even the greatest cyclist of all time, the "Cannibal" Eddy Merckx couldn't do it.

But it wasn't impossible at all, as Lance Armstrong proved last year by winning his sixth Tour de France in succession. And today he makes it seven in a row. Bear in mind that all seven of those wins have come after his recovery from testicular cancer. He was told by his doctors that there was little chance that he would live, and that if he did he would never ride competitively again. Over the past eight years, he has proved them wrong with a display of single minded determination and competitive spirit bordering on the completely obsessive.

Today is the last day in the professional career of a truly amazing sportsman. If you can, watch the last part of the stage into Paris on television or online. Even if you are not interested in cycling at all, you will be amazed at the spectacle. Plus, you'll be watching the crowning moment of a sporting achievement that will probably never, ever be equalled.

Pop quiz, Hotshot!

By now, you know the drill: what is this a picture of?



Solution to follow tomorrow evening. Good luck!

Due to a combination of a busy latter part of the week and a preponderance of bad news which distracted my attention, I missed the chance to blog about the latest big political development here in Germany when it emerged on Thursday. So now I'm making up for lost time.

You may recall that I have posted previously about the complicated procedure for dissolving parliament which was required in order for an early general election to take place. After Gerhard Schröder had deliberately lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag (the German lower house), the next step was for the President, Horst Köhler, to consider whether or not he would dissolve parliament. After the confidence vote, Köhler had three weeks in which to make his decision. This past Thursday, a day before the three week consideration period expired, he announced that yes, he would be dissolving parliament (almost a year before the end of its term), thus opening the way for early elections to be held on 18th September.

German President Horst Köhler gave the okay to dissolve parliament Thursday and called for an early general election on September 18, which polls show Chancellor Gerhard Schröder will lose.

"It is my duty as president to decide this issue according to the law," he told the nation in a televised broadcast. "I think it is best to have a new election to let the people decide."

The announcement came three weeks after Schröder engineered his own defeat in a parliamentary confidence vote in order to call early elections and one day before the expiration of the 21-day deadline he is allowed under the constitution to make the decision. His decision, one of the few real powers he has as ceremonial head of state, could be overturned by the constitutional court.

[Read the full story at Deutsche Welle.]

There may yet be a spanner thrown in the election works. Two MPs, one from Schröder's own SPD party and one from the Greens, as well as representatives of four minor parties (none of which have seats in parliament) have announced their intention to challenge the President's decision at the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Though all the legal experts I've heard or read so far suggest that the court will dismiss these challenges and give the green light for early elections, it is still theoretically possible that they could be stopped by court order. As I understand it, this would involve the reinstatement of the current parliament, which would then have to serve out its full term (i.e. until next Autumn). At this stage though, the whole country is working on the assumption that the elections will go ahead on 18th September. Accordingly, the election campaign is in full swing, all the major parties have released their election manifestos and the political points scoring and cheap shots have begun.

All the indications at this stage are that there will be a change of government from the current red-green coalition of SPD/Greens to a so-called black-yellow coalition of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). The question really seems to be just how much of a majority these two parties will enjoy. There seems to be a very strong feeling in Germany that it's time for a change of government. But, oddly enough, there is very little confidence that it will make much of a difference.

A full 83 percent of Germans believe the new elections will bring a change of government, although 76 percent also believe that the new conservative government would not do a better job than the ruling coalition of Social Democrats and the Green party.

That looks very much like a resigned and pessimistic electorate to me. It would appear that a great many voters have the feeling that come election time they'll be voting for what they see as the lesser of two evils, rather than voting for positive change. That's very interesting, I think, and a telling commentary on the esteem, or rather lack of it, that politicians are held in this country.

For those readers who can understand German, Die Berliner Zeitung and Die Süddeutsche Zeitung have more on this story.

After a week of pretty much wall-to-wall bad news, I was badly in need of a good news fix today. So I was pleased to discover that the Great Pavlova Debate has finally been resolved once and for all.

For those not in the know, Pavlova is a truly delicious and delightfully decadent dessert that resembles meringue, but is lighter and fluffier. It is usually served with whipped cream and fresh fruit. Pavlova is my all-time favourite dessert. It is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.

There has long been a debate between Australians and New Zealanders over who invented the pavlova, with both countries laying claim to it. Until now, though a New Zealand recipe dating from 1933 had been found, Australians were in denial and remained adamant that it had been invented in 1935 by one Bert Sachse at the Esplanade Hotel in Perth. As it turns out, though, they were wrong. Pavlova is a New Zealand creation after all. Good news indeed!

Research by Professor Helen Leach, of the University of Otago's anthropology department, has uncovered a 1929 pavlova recipe, published under a pseudonym, in a New Zealand rural magazine. A 1933 recipe has also turned up in the Rangiora Mothers' Union cookery book submitted by Laurina Stevens as Mrs W H Stevens, of Rangiora.

The Australians have long claimed the light and fluffy meringue dessert as their own - based on a cake Bert Sachse baked at Perth's Esplanade Hotel in 1935. New Zealanders say no - their grandparents were scoffing pavlovas much earlier.

Leach said her copy of the Rangiora book had the correct name, with the correct ingredients and correct method for cooking the pavlova cake, which was named after famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926.

...

And what does the original pavlova taste like? Zest baking columnist Shelley Caldwell whipped up the original Rangiora recipe, which included a cup of sugar and two egg whites, for Zest editor Kate Fraser to taste.

"It's gobsmackingly sweet," Fraser said. "It's very crunchy on the outside and chewy inside. This is more like a meringue than a modern pavlova, which is all fluff."

[Source: Stuff.co.nz]

Australians are pretty keen on laying claim to some of New Zealand's best exports. Think for example of Russel Crowe (actually, they can have him, he's a thug with anger management issues), Crowded House and Phar Lap. But, try as they might, they can't take the credit for pavlova. The secret's out: that one's ours. So, next time an Australian tries to tell you that pavlova is a delicious Australian dessert, feel free to tell him he's behind the times and that myth has now been debunked.

Another day of terror in London ...

Another day of rioting ...

Another day of famine and starvation in Niger ...

Another day of evictions and human rights violations in Zimbabwe ...

Another day of dissembling and denial from Mugabe and his henchmen ...

It's enough to make you want to curl up in a corner and cry. What is happening to the world?

Q: You are the owner of a dairy (convenience store for the Americans, corner store for the Brits amongst you). Someone comes into your store, brandishing a gun, and demands money. What do you do?

A: If you're the guy who owns the Viking Dairy in Otumoetai, a tiny New Zealand town of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it variety, you grab a packet of sweets, lob it at the armed robber, and he runs away. Honestly! Check it out:

A dairy owner threw a packet of pineapple lumps at a masked gunman who demanded money last night during the Western Bay of Plenty's sixth aggravated robbery in as many weeks. A robber brandishing a pistol and wearing black clothing and a mask burst into the Viking Dairy on Otumoetai Rd about 6pm. "He had a gun pointed at me and asked for money. I told him no. He asked a second time and I said no again," said the owner, who did not want to be named for fear of being attacked again. "I threw a bag of $2 pineapple lumps at him as he was running out the door." "I was really surprised. Usually people come in and buy cigarettes. You don't expect them to point a gun at you," the dairy owner said.
The raider left empty-handed.
Source: NZPA

[Hat-tip to Kiwi from Daily New Zealand News.]

I can't decide if that dairy owner is brave or stupid or just really very lucky indeed. And what of the armed robber? Who ever heard of a robber who, while holding a pistol, was afraid of a packet of sweets? What a muppet! I hope they get him. He deserves to do time for his stupidity alone.

Two weeks to the day after the horrific London bombings, there appears to have been more terrorist activity in London today. There have been explosions reported at three London Underground stations: Oval, Warren St and Shepherd's Bush. The result is the closure of three Tube lines. In addition there was an explosion on a bus in East London. At this stage, reports indicate that there has been only one injury. It appears that the explosions were caused using detonators only, rather than explosives. There has been no indication yet as to why this might be the case. BBC News has the full story.

[Update: Apparently part of the University College Hospital in London has been closed and armed police are in attendance after an "incident" there. No indication yet of what that might be.]

[Update 2: BBC News has further coverage, indicating that two arrests have been made in London, that there may be unexploded devices at some of the scenes, and that, according to London Metropolitan Police, these attacks were 'meant to kill'. This raises the prospect that, for whatever reason, the bombs did not detonate as they were intended. Questions abound: Are these attacks linked to the bombings two weeks ago? If so, how exactly? Are these just copycat crimes? Or are we dealing with the same terrorist organisation? If the bombs were meant to kill (and thank goodness they didn't), what went wrong? Who are the two people who have been arrested and what is their involvement? What went on at the UC hospital? etc. etc. Only time will tell.]

Here's one from the you must be having a lark! file:

Next week at the Professional Association of Teachers conference in the UK, delegates will be asked to consider deleting the word fail from the educational vocabulary and replacing it with deferred success. No, really. BBC News has the story.

Liz Beattie, a retired teacher, will call on the association's annual gathering in Buxton, Derbyshire, to "delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'".

She argues that repeated failure, such as in exams, can damage pupils' interest in learning. She told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four she had deliberately made the motion provocative to spark a good debate, but said it reflected the way the education system was developing.

"We have made so much development in recent years in making examinations more flexible, doing them in modules so you can concentrate on different parts of them at different times," she said.

"What happens when an exam is failed but, for example, three-quarters of it is perfectly satisfactorily done? It should be possible to do the other bits as add-ons afterwards and to defer the success of the exam."

Wesley Paxton, a member of the association's council, is supporting the motion. "Elsewhere we applaud those who persevere, like marathon contestants who take days to complete. It's time we made the word 'fail' redundant and replaced it with 'please do a bit more'," he said.

Pardon my French, but what a pile of bollocks! Thankfully, the British Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, is calling it like it is:

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four: "For that particular proposal, I think I might give them nought out of 10.

"It's really important for young people to grow up with the ability to get on and achieve, but also to find out what failure is.

"When young people grow up and enter the adult world they have to deal with success and failure, and education is about creating well-rounded young people who can deal with these sorts of situations."

Hear, hear! I'm not much of a fan of Ms. Kelly, but I completely agree with her on this count. Can you imagine an employment situation in which, when you had not completed your assigned tasks adequately, your boss came to you and said: "Gee, Mr. Bear, it's a real shame you've suffered a little bit of deferred success on those tasks I gave you to do. No matter, please do a bit more"? No? I thought not.

To my mind, school is supposed to be a place where young people are equipped with as much of the knowledge, skill-set and experience that they will need later in life as possible. Sure, pupils leave school with plenty more learning and development and maturing to do. But in my book they are also meant to leave with the beginnings of an inkling of how the big bad outside world is going to treat them for the rest of their productive lives.

Outside of the school environment, people are not mollycoddled and constantly encouraged no matter how poor their performance is. Instead, it's dog eat dog out there and those who do not shape up are not given a cuddle and commiserated on their deferred success. They are told they've failed and shown the door. British schools would be doing their pupils a real disservice and failing in their task to prepare them for the 'real world' if they were to pretend otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the maximum of support for children and young people who are struggling academically. I'm also in favour of flexible examination and testing methods, such as internal assessment, which take into account that many young people struggle with exam situations but perform well in assignments throughout the year. But I find it nothing short of silly and intellectually dishonest to pretend that those pupils who do not make the grade or do not complete the requirements of the curriculum have done anything other than failed.

I can only hope that the delegates at next week's Professional Association of Teachers conference will give this ridiculous notion its own taste of deferred success, and that said deferral will be indefinite.

In what is perhaps evidence of a very early equivalent of the mobile-phone-falling-out- of-your-pocket-into-the-l oo disaster that many of us have faced in our time, archaeologists in Greifswald, in North-Eastern Germany have discovered four 600 year-old Papal seals down a latrine shaft. Expatica has the full story.

The four round seals cast in lead date to the papacy of Pope Bonifatius IX (1389-1404). The 3.5-centimetre seals, each weighing some 50 grams, bear the inscription "BONIFATIUS VIIII" on one side and images of the apostles Peter and Paul on the other.

Regional archaeology office director Hauke Joens said the find - in the shaft of a latrine on the campus of Greifswald University - was "sensational".

He noted that over the years, individual papal seals would occasionally be found in various places. But the Greifswald find was the first in which several papal seals were discovered.

The seals were first discovered last week by archaeologist Joerg Ansorge. ...

...

At this point, the archaeologists could only surmise that the four papal seals had perhaps been contained in a bag which was then given up for lost when it inadvertently fell into the latrine.

But another theory was that the seals were thieves' booty.

I don't know about you, but I'm picturing a Cardinal, a senior Papal official - perhaps even his personal secretary? - in fancy red and black robes being suddenly caught short and making a quick dash to the latrine on his way to sign and seal some very important Papal Bull. Having reached the latrine just in time, he loosens the rope belt that keep his cassock nice and tight around his ample middle, squats over the wooden and very rustic latrine and then hears with horror and a sinking heart, too late, the unmistakeable heavy plop! as the little leather pouch in which he keeps the Papal seals and the handful of ducats and gold coins he uses to smooth his passage through the countryside and pay the coachman slips from the loosened belt into the rancid water and disappears down the shaft faster than the mortified Cardinal can say "Holy Mary, Mother of God!"

Can you imagine the look on his face and the way his ears burned with shame and embarrassment as he attempted to explain that to his boss? Shocker.

George W. Bush visits Algeria. As part of his program, he delivers a speech to the Algerian people: "You know, I regret that I have to give this speech in English. I would very much prefer to talk to you in your own language. But unfortunately, I was never good at algebra...

You gotta laugh, or else you'll cry.

[Hat-tip to HSB]

This week, I've had three fellow tBloggers email me and ask me how to make their archives appear in their sidebar. I responded to the first two directly, but when the third request came in, I realised this must be a pretty widespread problem and thought I'd put detailed instructions in a blog post for all to see. If you find this helpful, please feel free to pass the link on to other tBloggers who might also benefit. If you are a pro user, or for that matter a free user who is lucky enough to have archives that worked automatically, you won't need this information. Feel free to click away and read someone else's blog.

Right, here's the rub. tBlog is supposed to generate your archives and provide a link automatically. In practice, that often doesn't happen, just as it didn't for me when I first signed up. But there is a cheat. It's very easy once you know how to do it, and it is a matter of only a couple of minutes' effort a month.

All you need to do is at the beginning of each month, generate a new link to that months archives and manually insert it into your sidebar, either or the left or the right, whichever you prefer.

First things first, the archive code. It looks like this:

(Click on this link and a new page will open. The code in the address bar is the url for my July archives and is very similar to what you'll need to generate yours.)

That is the code for my archives for July. To get to your archives for July, you simply need to replace BERLINBEAR in the above code with your username. So, for example, if your user name is, say, smilesnz, your archive code for July would be this:

Click here for smilesnz's July archives.

In that code, the month is designated by the 07 at the beginning of the date at the end of the code. Accordingly, August archives would have 08, while June archives had 06.

Once you've got that code, it's simply a matter of cutting and pasting it into either your left pane or your right pane (in the position you want it to appear) on the Blog Options page. Once you've done that, you just need to turn it into a link, rather than a bare url, and that is as easy as pie. Here's how:

First, place quotation marks (") at either end of the archive url.

Next, in front of the url, add the following: < >
Then add: a, then one space, then href=
(Do not leave a space between the equals sign and the quotation marks, only between the a and the href).

Next, after the url, again without leaving a space, add

Now comes the label you want for your archives. As you can see in my left sidebar, I call mine by the month and year, but you can call it whatever you like. Assuming you want your archives to look like mine, you need to add, for example, July 2005, directly after the , without leaving a space.

Finally, to complete the link, you need to add < then /a and then > again without leaving any spaces, after the label (e.g. July 2005, as above).

The result should be a link to your archives for the month you have in the date.

Then, at the beginning of each month, all you have to do is go into your Blog options page, copy and paste the previous month's archive link, change the month (e.g. 07 becomes 08) and the label (e.g. July 2005 becomes August 2005) and you're done. It takes just a minute. You can see the result in my left-hand sidebar, just below the previous posts.

I hope that helps. If it's well received, I might do a few more of these posts with instructions on how to beat tBlog's little ticks and inconsistencies. If you know of anyone struggling with their archives, please feel free to point them here.

President Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive out Trash, continues unabated in Zimbabwe. Until now, we haven't seen any footage of it, largely because Mugabe's regime refuses to give accreditation or visas to western journalists, and has imprisoned or expelled those who have snuck in and attempted to get the word out. The only footage of any kind I've seen have been a handful of photos taken by Zimbabweans on various websites. At least, that was the only footage I'd seen, until Scoop posted a disturbing video about Operation Murambatsvina on its website yesterday.

The video is work-safe and is not gory, but be warned, it's extremely disturbing. Follow this link. The video should load automatically.

Meanwhile, last Saturday a protest march against the upcoming New Zealand cricket tour to Zimbabwe was held in Auckland. Scoop has a photo essay documenting the march, which was led by former Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga and Zimbabwean human rights campaigner Judith Todd.

At the same march, the co-leader of the NZ Green Party, Rod Donald, made what I consider to be a very effective speech. It is not long, so I will include it here in its entirety.

Oppression is colour blind. Whether white on black, black on white, white on white, or black on black, all oppression is equally bad.

It must be challenged, it must be stopped before it chokes freedom and hope to death. Good people can make a difference. You are all good people and your presence here today is making a difference.

As Margaret Mead once said, "Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." The world is watching what we do here today.

New Zealand is the first country in the world to take to the streets in protest at Robert Mugabe's deliberate campaign of genocide. I hope we will not be the last.

Mugabe's behaviour is not the last gasp of a senile despot. It is the culmination of 25 years of increasingly autocratic rule. It is a deliberate campaign to crush democracy, a campaign to systematically eliminate his political opponents.

His demolition squads have now moved from the so-called slums - in reality, vibrant communities - into the suburbs of Harare, as he seeks to punish all those who oppose his regime. He must be stopped.

New Zealand must not give him any comfort, any legitimacy. We must not allow any of our sporting heroes to become pawns in his power play.

The International Cricket Council lives in a moral vacuum. It portrays cricket as a gentleman's sport, yet it refuses to sanction the patron of Zimbabwe Cricket Union, Robert Mugabe. Our own government has been slow to act on our behalf. It has followed rather than led, but at least it has acted. By refusing visas to the proposed Zimbabwe tour to NZ in December, Helen Clark's government has taken a stand.

But stopping one tour is not enough. It is simply unacceptable for our national team to be playing cricket in Zimbabwe while outside the stadium the Government continues to bulldoze the homes of innocent civilians and buries children and the elderly in the rubble.

The Green Party asked the government back in April to do everything in its power to stop the Black Caps tour of Zimbabwe. I ask Phil Goff again today to take action on behalf of everyone here and on behalf of the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders who want the tour stopped. If legislation is the only way that can happen, then so be it.

Which is the greater evil? Suspending the right of New Zealand Cricket to send a sports team to Zimbabwe or letting Robert Mugabe and his henchmen continue to destroy the hopes and dreams of a nation? All too often, we are powerless in the face of government bullying and human tragedy. With Zimbabwe, we can make a difference.

When Norman Kirk sent the frigate Canterbury to Mururoa in 1973 he didn't expect the French Government to stop nuclear testing overnight. But that symbolic protest galvanised our nation and changed the course of history. Stopping the Black Caps' tour is another symbolic gesture. It will not stop Mugabe and his atrocities overnight, but it will help to end his reign of terror.

Rod Donald sums up well how I feel about this issue. That should by now be clear from all my previous posts on Zimbabwe and the NZ Cricket Tour. Sadly, it now looks as though the New Zealand government has hedged and stalled for too long, and has failed to take action while there was still time and the tour will go ahead. I, for one, will not be watching.

Yesterday's incarnation of Sunday pop quiz was less successful than previous quizzes. Perhaps I didn't provide enough clues? Wiccachicky had a crack and was on the right track. But I wanted more detail. Miss Behaviour chimed in too, but since she knew what the photo was, because she was there when I took it, I am working on the assumption that she was well and truly taking the piss with her guess of a bicylce on EPO. There were a few other guesses, but apart from the bike bit, which we established very early on, noone even got close.

The mystery object was in fact part of a sculpture. It was a sculpture of two bicycles, outfitted with brightly coloured neon lights and mounted in a pond near Potsdamer Platz. The sculpture is entitled "Riding Bikes" and is by the American sculptor and artist Robert Rauschenberg.

Here it is in its entirety. Click on the thumbnails to view full size images:

And now I have a question of you. How am I to interpret the response to this week's Sunday pop quiz? Was it too hard? Too easy? Or are you just a bit bored of these guess-what-the-photo-is-o f type quizzes? If the latter, what should my response be? Should I bin Sunday pop quiz altogether as a concept? Or should I see if I can come up with some other sort of pop quiz? Any suggestions?

In response to my recent post reminding my fellow ex-pat New Zealanders to enrol to vote in the upcoming general election, I received a couple of interesting responses. Rather than try to squeeze my riposte into a comment or two on that thread, I've decided to turn the issue into a post of its own.

On the enrol to vote thread Uroskin commented:

Hmm, my objection to you not being able to vote in German elections has its corollary in my objection to you expats being able to vote in NZ elections. If you don't pay tax in NZ, why should you be able to determine how my taxes are spent? (If you are a NZ taxpayer, this comment doesn't apply). I have never voted as an expat in the elections of my country of origin for that reason. My argument is that as soon as you are registered with the local IRD you should be able to vote in that jurisdiction.

The first part of Uroskin's refers to an earlier complaint of mine that here in Germany, only German citizens are allowed to vote, regardless of how long they have been resident here. Thus, for example, someone who has permanent residence but not German citizenship (dual citizenship is not allowed here), has been living in Germany for decades, fully intends to remain here indefinitely, pays taxes here, owns property here, invests money here etc etc etc, will have no say whatsoever in how the country is governed. Like Uroskin, I find that unacceptable and am strongly of the opinion that, as in New Zealand, permanent residents should be entitled to vote, both in local and national elections.

Where I disagree with Uroskin is on the suggestion that New Zealand citizens who live overseas and do not pay tax in New Zealand should not be allowed to vote in New Zealand elections. Here's why:

First of all, for those who are resident in New Zealand, paying tax is not a criterion in determining their eligibility to vote. Once a New Zealand resident is 18, he or she is entitled to have a say in who runs the country, regardless of whether or not he or she receives a tax bill. Many 18 year-olds do not yet work and therefore do not yet pay tax. Some are still at school. Others are in tertiary education and not earning. Others are unemployed and therefore not earning. Their right to vote is not curtailed on the basis that they are not paying tax, so why should an ex-pat's right to vote be curtailed on those grounds?

Secondly, while it is certainly true that one important role of government is to determine the level of taxation and how tax revenue will be spent, that is by no means the only role of government. Nor is taxation the only area in which a government can influence the lives of its citizens in a negative or positive way, regardless of whether or not they are resident in the country. So, for example, New Zealand's foreign policy will vary depending on which party or parties form the government. And foreign policy has the potential to affect the lives of New Zealanders living abroad just as much as the lives of New Zealanders living at home. This is especially so in the case of reciprocal visa programmes, extradition treaties and so forth. Hypothetically speaking, if a New Zealand government were elected whose foreign policy caused a major rift between New Zealand and Germany, it is not inconceivable that that might have visa or administrative implications for me as a New Zealand citizen living in Germany. Since that is possible, is it not important that I should have a say in which party or parties will form the government?

But there are other areas where government policy has the potential to directly affect the lives of ex-patriate New Zealanders. Most ex-pats still have family members living in their country of origin, for whom under certain circumstances they would find themselves responsible. As a result, changes in such areas as health policy, inheritance tax, the penal code, or retirement age all have the potential to affect ex-pats either directly, or indirectly by changing the situation of close family members. Given that, should we not have a say in who is making those decisions?

In summary, my difficulties with Uroskin's assessment that those ex-pats who do not pay tax in their country of origin should not be entitled to vote lie in the dual facts that a) that would apply a qualification criterion to ex-pats which is not applied to residents, and b) it gives undue precedence to taxation policy as the be all and end all of government when in fact other areas of government policy have the potential to affect ex-pats' lives just as much as the lives of New Zealand residents. Taxation is not the only thing, or even necessarily the principal thing, on which voters base their decision of who to vote for. Nor should it be the only criterion for deciding who can and cannot vote.

Another commenter, Cufflinks, added this to the comments thread:

If you have been out of the country for that long how can you be trusted to get the answer right?

Cufflinks went on to clarify this in an email to me:

My comment about the votes is only half flippant. To vote you should be fully aware of all the issues, preferably or at least the issue about which you are most concerned. I would wager that not many people here are as well informed as you, and that even fewer overseas based people are. Does that lead to informed voting?

While I, like Cuffilnks, would wish for voters to be aware of the issues and generally politically well informed, I cannot see how this can be achieved or effectively tested or imposed. It is an ideal that we can work towards in designing the school curriculum, in deciding upon radio and television programming, and in making information about politics and tools for democracy as readily accessaible and easily understood as possible. But "informedness" is not something we can legislate for. Moreover, I certainly do not accept that in this day and age living abroad means de facto that one is uninformed about what is going on "back home." As I put it in my email reply to Cufflinks:

I don't think that being in or out of the country is a decisive factor in staying informed. Definitely not nowadays when I can read the NZ papers (insofar as I can put up with their execrable quality) online before you even get it in your letterbox. I think what is crucial is interest. If you want to be informed and are prepared to take the time to get informed, there is nothing stopping you any more, regardless of where you are.

So, much as I rejected Uroskin's proposal in part based on the fact that it applied a standard to ex-pats that is not applied to residents, I find myself rejecting Cufflink's suggestion that ex-pats are no longer qualified to vote on the same grounds. As long as proving that you are informed is not a requirement for "home" voters, it cannot fairly be applied as a benchmark for voters living abroad either.

So there you have it: my passionate and admittedly self-interested defence of my right to vote somewhere at least. I'll be interested to hear what you make of it.

The third edition of Kiwi Carnival, a fortnightly round-up of some of the best posts from around the New Zealand blogosphere, is now up. This time around it's being hosted by Idiot/Savant over at No Right Turn.

This week there are 16 posts featured. Understandably, there's a focus on responses to the London bombings and on freedom, how to keep it and what it should look like. But there are other interesting topics covered too. Why not head over to No Right Turn to check out the Kiwi Carnival?

Pop quiz, Hotshot!

By now, you know the drill. What's this?


Answer and a picture of the whole object to follow tomorrow.

This will have to be brief, as I've only got a few minutes to knock out today's instalment of Good news Saturday and I've got three things to cover.

First up, I've expressed my dismay before at the refusal on the part of the leaders of Zimbabwe's Southern African neighbours, notably South Africa, to condemn Robert Mugabe or to take real action in the face of his flagrant human rights abuses. Similar concern has been raised by two commenters recently. While that situation has not changed and the condemnation of Mugabe by African political leaders remains conspicuous in its absence, there are encouraging signs.

Doing what their President and Foreign Minister should have done before them, South African church leaders have visited Zimbabwe to see the atrocities for themselves, and issued a statement accusing Robert Mugabe of "trampling on humanity". At least someone in South Africa is calling it like it is. BBC News has the full story. I applaud the stance of this interdenominational group and I hope that it will put pressure on political leaders in the region to follow suit. Better late than never.

The second piece of good news is that this week saw the creation of eight new World Heritage sites of natural beauty by UNESCO. This greatly increases the chances of these natural wonders being preserved. The photo left is of one of the eight sites:

Two of the world's longest and deepest fjords, Geirangerfjord and Naeroeyfjord, run from Stavanger in the south to Andalsnes, 500 km to the north-east and are set 120km apart. They are considered among the most stunning of fjord landscapes and are home to many marine mammals.

BBC News has more photos of all eight sites, which appear to be truly stunning in their natural beauty.

And finally, a piece of personal good news. Today, for the first time ever, I'm meeting someone in person whom I got to know via my blog. Regular commenter Kiwi in Zurich is in town with friends and we are meeting up in my favourite cafe for brunch. I'm really looking forward to putting a face to the pseudonym.

With the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, which had been planned for Wednesday, delayed for the fourth time, on account of a fuel sensor malfunction, I've had space flight on my mind this week. Though the Shuttle launch had originally been provisionally put back to Saturday, that has now been ruled out too as NASA has halted the countdown while engineers continue their search for the cause of the malfunction. Unless they can find the problem and fix it quick smart, they are in danger of missing out on the current launch window, which lasts only until 31st July. If they miss that, then the next possible launch date would not be until 9th September. That would be a problem, because NASA had planned to launch another Shuttle, the Atlantis, at that time.

The fact that the latest attempt to launch the Space Shuttle has been plagued by a whole series of setbacks has set my mind to wondering something. What I am wondering is this: Why on earth in space would anyone want to become an astronaut?

It's not just that astronauts have to expose themselves to incredibly strenuous forces, particularly during lift-off and re-entry. And it's not just that they have to spend many days sitting or crouching in cramped and uncomfortable positions that I wouldn't want to have to remain in for more than an hour at a time. It's not even that they have to eat freeze-dried or liquid food out of fancy silver packets for the entirety of their time in space. Rather, it's that being an astronaut is incredibly dangerous, both in the course of space flight missions and in training.

A list of space disasters from Wikipedia notes that 11 astronauts and cosmonauts have been killed in training, including Yuri Gagarin, who had been the very first man in space. Worse still, 18 astronauts and cosmonauts have died in five fatal in-flight accidents, most recently the seven crew members of Space Shuttle Columbia, which exploded on re-entry on 1st February 2003. In total, 22 astronauts and cosmonauts have died while in a spacecraft. That's out of 439 individuals who have flown on space flights.

About 2% of the manned launch/reentry attempts have killed their crew. Both Soyuz and the Shuttle have approximately similar death rates. (Except for X-15, which is suborbital, other launchers have not launched sufficiently often for reasonable safety comparisons to be made- for example it seems likely that Apollo would have eventually had a fatality had the program continued to the present day.)

About 4-5% of the people that have been launched have died doing so (because astronauts often launch more than once.) As of November 2004, 439 individuals have flown on spaceflights. (Russia/Soviet Union (96), USA (277), others (66). Twenty-two have died while in a spacecraft (Apollo 1 (3), Soyuz 1 (1), X-15-3 (1), Soyuz 11 (3), Challenger (7), Columbia (7)).

If Apollo 1 and X-15-3 are included as spaceflights, 5% (or 22) of the 439 have died on spaceflights. This includes Roger Chaffee (who never flew in space) and Michael J. Adams (who reached space by the U.S. definition, but not the international definition, see below) in the spaceflight total and Grissom, White, Chaffee (the crew of Apollo 1) and Adams in the killed total.

If Apollo 1 and the X-15-3 are excluded; 4% (or 18) of the 437 have died while on a spaceflight. This excludes Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee and Michael Adams from the killed total and Chaffee and Adams from the spaceflight total.

Let's take a closer look at those figures. Even if we take the lower percentage of deaths mentioned above, namely 4%, it's still a proprtion of one in 25. That means out of every 25 people sent into space, one has died. Those are not good odds. Think of it this way. Say you take the bus to and from work every day. And you knew each morning before you left the house that there was a one in 25 chance that at some time between getting on the bus and getting off the bus again that evening your life would end either in a towering inferno, or an excruciating lack of oxygen, or that your internal organs would either explode or implode because of a massive change of air pressure in the bus, would you get on the bus?

No? I thought not. Neither would I.

Add to that the evidence that the experience of being in space, and particularly of walking on the moon, is rather more than the human mind is capable of handling, and the reasons not to become an astronaut seem to me to be completely overwhelming. A review of Andrew Smith's Moondust, which appeared not long ago in The Observer, puts it this way:

Today many people doubt if we even visited the Moon, a piteous state of affairs given the magnitude of the achievement. Worst still, of the 12 men who actually landed (the majority of Apollo astronauts merely orbited it), three are dead and the rest are ageing. At 69, Charlie Duke of Apollo 16, is now the youngest.

Hence, Smith's mission - gloriously realised in this spellbinding book - to seek out the last nine and discover how the decades have treated the only humans to have walked on another world. 'I wondered whether the Moonwalkers had reconciled themselves to being Earthbound; whether they'd made peace with their world or continued to mourn their strangled hopes,' says Smith as he begins his quest.

And so he stalks them, with intriguing results. John Young (Apollo 16), who later flew the first space shuttle, gives an interview in which he directs every remark to the wall behind Smith, while Armstrong, a legend in reticence, offers a few emails, some details of his mission's technical parameters and little else.

Of course, it cannot be easy continually answering the same daft question: what's it like to walk on the Moon? The late Pete Conrad (Apollo 12), got round the problem by answering: 'Super! Really enjoyed it!' on every occasion. On the other hand, the level of dysfunction uncovered by Smith is astonishing.

Buzz Aldrin simply plunged into a bout of alcoholism. 'He resents more not being the first man on the Moon more than he appreciates being the second,' as a fellow astronaut observed. Hence the absence of lunar pictures of Armstrong. Even when specifically requested, he refused to take a single snap of his commander, because he was 'too busy'.

Similarly, Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) became a drunken, rage-filled bully who persecuted his children until he and his wife, Dotty, found God, eventually becoming the Lord's Sonny and Cher, as Smith puts it. Which leads us to another Apollo theme: the epiphanies. While Ed Mitchell returned in his Apollo 14 capsule, he glimpsed 'an intelligence in the Universe and felt connected to it'. He then set up the Institute of Noetic Sciences which is as potty as it sounds.

Similarly, Al Bean (Apollo 12) gave up flying to become an artist, though he paints variations of only one scene - the lunar surface - while Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17) became a Republican Senator who lasted a single term in office. There seems little to connect these men apart from the fact that they were all either eldest siblings or only sons, nearly all chose country-and-western tapes as music for their Apollo voyages, and, of course, that they walked on the Moon.

Perhaps the saddest case is that of David Scott (Apollo 15), who was disgraced for smuggling stamped letters to the Moon and had his reputation trashed in the Daily Mail after a dalliance with newsreader Anna Ford five years ago. In fact, his plan to sell the letters, although dodgy, was legal and intended to raise cash to send his children through college, something he could not have contemplated on his astronaut's salary.

In other words, if you become an astronaut and are selected for a space mission, there's a significant chance that you'll die either in training or in-flight. And if you don't die, there's a pretty good chance that you'll be unable to deal with the profundity of your experiences and will lose your mind, escape into alcoholism, or plunge into the depths of depression. And for your trouble, and for the glory and great PR you've brought your country, you'll be paid a pittance (Buzz Aldrin was paid $33.41 for his Apollo Mission, for example), be dumped after just a handful of missions, and receive a meagre pension. Tempting? No, not really.

Like many people, as a little boy I was fascinated by space flight and in particular by the Space Shuttle in its heyday. When I lived in the US as a nine year-old, I watched with rapt amazement as the space shuttle flew over Washington D.C. perched on the back of a Boeing 747. I also wandered around the Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida in a state of wide-eyed wonder, and came away with the obligatory model of the Space Shuttle.

But now, having given it a good deal more thought, and weighed up the pros (not many) and cons (an awful lot), I know for certain that you wouldn't get me in a space craft under any circumstances. And I'm prety amazed they can find anyone at all to be perfectly honest.

Ms. Bear has politely informed me that my blog posts have been a bit too boring serious for her tastes of late. With that in mind, I think it's time for a change of pace, for something a little more light-hearted. Below is a column, an oldie but a goodie, from the Guardian, which I found by accident when searching for something else entirely, and which demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, the taxman does have a sense of humour. Since I know some of you are link-click resistant, I've included the column in its entirety. I think that anyone who has ever paid tax will find something in here with which they can identify. Enjoy.

Funny money

Chris Addison
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

There follows the text of a letter which I received last Wednesday, second post:

Dear Mr Addison, I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more-than-prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.

I will address them, as ever, in order.

Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we, at the Inland Revenue, have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer, I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised.

In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin" or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores", whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking facade of a university system".

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries: 1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system; 2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money. Please forward it by Friday. Yours sincerely, H J Lee, Customer Relations.

You may recall that back in April I blogged about a petition to stop the New Zealand cricket tour to Zimbabwe. Just to refresh your memory, the New Zealand cricket team is scheduled to tour Zimbabwe next month. With the abominable human rights situation in Zimbabwe showing no signs of improvement, and with polls showing that a vast majority of New Zealanders do not want the tour to go ahead, this has been a major issue in New Zealand in recent weeks.

The sticking point has been the fact that New Zealand Cricket stands to be very heavily fined by the International Cricket Council (ICC) if they do not tour. The only way to avoid such a fine, it had been speculated, was for the government to step in and ban the team from touring by imposing sporting sanctions on Zimbabwe. The Labour-led government has thus far proved reluctant to do so, leaving New Zealand Cricket to sort the problem out for themselves.

However, yesterday the ICC confirmed unequivocally that if the New Zealand government were to impose sporting sanctions on Zimbabwe, thus forbidding the New Zealand cricket team from travelling there, the tour could be cancelled without punishment, as this Green Party press release explains:

ICC President Ehsan Mani released a statement this morning reiterating that the ICC recognises the right of governments to impose sporting sanctions. Mani said, "It is ... recognised that governments will, from time to time, elect to use sporting sanctions as a tool of their foreign policy programmes. Our members accept and expect that where this clear directive is given by a national government, the obligations of the Future Tours Programme will not apply."

"The Government now has no choice but to stop the tour," Green Co-Leader Rod Donald says. "Its only argument for not doing so is that it doesn't have the power. However, the ICC has now made it abundantly clear that it recognises the right of national governments to impose sporting sanctions.

"Where sporting sanctions are imposed, there will be no financial penalty on the cricket board of that country. This is a win-win-win situation. The Government can call off the tour by issuing a directive to NZ Cricket not to go to Zimbabwe, NZ Cricket escapes any financial penalty, and Robert Mugabe is prevented from exploiting New Zealand's good name."

As I see it, the government must now act to prevent the tour. It has, in effect, been given the green light to do so by the ICC. If the government does not step in, it risks besmirching New Zealand's good record in taking a stand against human rights abuses around the world.

If, like me, you believe that the tour should not go ahead, and that the best way to prevent it is for the government to take things out of New Zealand Cricket's hands by stepping in and imposing sporting sanctions on Zimbabwe, there's something active you can do about it.

First, if you haven't already done so, you can sign the Say No to the Tour petition online. At this time 2,222 people have signed this petition, so it could use some beefing up.

The second thing you can do is send an e-card to New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, asking her and her government to impose sporting sanctions, thus stopping the tour in its tracks. The Green Party have made it easy for you, by preparing a form e-card, to which you can add your name and any message you wish and send it directly to Helen Clark. Mine went off this afternoon.

It'd be great if some of my readers felt they could do the same. The more, the merrier. Make your voice heard and stop the tour to Zimbabwe.

Regular readers of this blog know by now that Germany produces more than its fair share of really weird news. We've had, amongst other things,exploding toads, dog DNA testing, dog washes and more recently mobile phone throwing champions. And yet I think I've found a story to top the lot.

Deutsche Welle reports on the truly strange story of a Porsche that doubled as a landing strip for a light aircraft, much to the suprise of the Porsche's driver, who was travelling at 100 miles per hour at the time.

A member of a private German racing club had the shock of his life when a single-seater plane swooped out of the sky and landed on the roof of his speeding vehicle on Wednesday.

Modern motor vehicles come with an astonishing range of added extras these days but none, not even top of the range luxury models, come with an in-built landing strip on the roof.

This may not be news to most of the people on the planet, but someone may want to tell the pilot of a small one-seater plane which landed on top of an unsuspected Porsche driver's speeding vehicle as he was racing with fellow members of his auto club on what he thought to be a disused airfield in Germany.

The 12-strong Bitburg Porsche racing club were putting their sports cars through their paces on a former US air base on Wednesday when, out of the blue above them, the small plane swooped out of the sky.

Despite driving at 160 kph (100 mph), one of the racing club members could not outrun the rapidly descending plane which eventually landed on his car. Such was the shock of suddenly having a propeller-driven aircraft as a roof accessory that the driver slammed on the brakes, sending the plane crashing to the ground.

"It was a miracle that no one was hurt. There was considerable damage done to the plane and the car," said Klaus Schnarrbach, spokesman for the Bitburg police. "The airplane managed to stay steady on the roof at first. They probably couldn't have done it that well if they had tried." Bitburg police revealed that the pilot faces possible charges of negligence.

Isn't that weird?!? The mind boggles as to how that could possibly happen. Even if you were aiming to land on a four metre long landing strip travelling at that speed, how many times out of a million could you expect to get it right? I'm stunned.

This post is one for the New Zealanders living abroad who read my blog (and I know there are a few of you at least).

Though the date for the New Zealand general election has not yet been officially announced, one thing is certain: it can't be far away. The latest possible date for a general election is 24th September. There has even been recent speculation that it may be as early as 20th August. One more thing seems certain: if the polls are to be believed, this election is going to be very, very close indeed. Which is all the more reason to vote, even if you are living overseas. And, of course, in order to be allowed to vote, you have to be registered to vote.

The Elections NZ website explains the conditions that have to be fulfilled for you to be eligible to vote from overseas.

I'm living overseas, am I eligible to enrol?

Yes, if you are 18 years of age or older and either: a New Zealand citizen and have been in New Zealand in the past three years, or a New Zealand permanent resident who has been in New Zealand in the past 12 months, then you may enrol.

Your electorate will be the one in which you last lived for a month or more.

(Notes: There are exceptions to these time limits for certain people and their families, such as members of the New Zealand Defence Force or New Zealand diplomats or trade representatives.)

So, if you fit into that definition and you're not yet enrolled to vote, get on it! You can even enrol online. It's easy, and it's going to be important. Follow the link and make sure you can have your say come election time.

If you've read through the comments on yesterday's Sunday Pop Quiz post, then by now you know that the photo was a close-up photo of one of the many stone blocks which make up the fairly recently opened Holocaust Memorial here in Berlin. Congratulations to Shona who got very close right away, and to Lindy who refined Shona's guess to get it exactly right. See, they're not so hard really those quizzes!

The reason I used that photo for this week's pop quiz was because I knew it would finally force me to write an entry which I've been meaning to write for over two months now but hadn't quite got around to. So here, at last, it is.

The Berlin Holocaust Memorial was finally opened in May this year. It had been a long time coming and had been the focus of much wrangling over location, funding and design for nearly two decades. This Deutsche Welle article provides details and some of the background.

After a long process and much debate, Berlin will unveil on Tuesday a central memorial to the Holocaust. Covering an area of 19,000 square meters, the memorial comprises 2,711 grey pillars, or steles, of varying heights, from a few centimeters to 4.7 meters.

They form a dense grid, which, according to the monument's New York-based architect, Peter Eisenman, is supposed to create a sense of unease and loneliness among visitors who wander through it, reflecting the feelings of Jews who were sent to concentration camps.

The monument, which has been under discussion for 17 years, has been both widely praised and roundly criticized. Its supporters say it is a courageous way for the Germans to acknowledge in the very center of their capital city the darkest chapter of their history. Detractors have slammed the monument as an eyesore, a target for vandals and overly abstract.

As you can see from this aerial photo (not taken by me, unfortunately, it's from Deutsche Welle), the 2,711 steles make for quite a sight from above. But they are no less impressive from ground level.

The opening of the Holocaust Memorial was not without controversy either. At the dedication ceremony, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany strongly criticised what he saw as too strong a focus on the victims of the Holocaust and a failure to force viewers to confront the questions of guilt and responsibility. In addition there was also a kerfuffle over Jewish journalist Lea Rosh's announced intention to bury the tooth and the yellow star of a Jew murdered in the Holocaust under one of the pillars. This was widely criticised by the Jewish community, and she eventually backed down and the proposed burial never took place. There were also initial concerns over the behaviour of visitors (especially children) to the Memorial, some of whom were treating it as more of a maze-like playground than the solemn memorial it is intended to be.

All in all then, the Holocaust Memorial did not get off to the smoothest of starts here in Berlin. Now that the dust has settled though and the news stories about various controversies have died down, it appears to be well received both by Berliners and by the many thousands of tourists who have paid a visit.

I have now visited the Holocaust Memorial twice and I like it. On my first visit, the day after it opened, I too was bothered by the behaviour of several groups of apparently unsupervised children and it was all I could do not to have a word to them. But on my second visit a few weeks later, there was no such problem.

The effect of all the pillars of different sizes and on slightly different angles is disorienting and, in certain parts near the middle of the memorial - furthest from the "outside world" - quite oppressive. This effect is heightened by the undulating ground. In that sense, I think the memorial achieves exactly what it sets out to do.

There is a cold and solemn beauty to the stone pillars. This becomes especially clear as you stand closer to the edges, where the pillars are shorter, and look towards the centre of the memorial.

As you walk from the centre of the memorial, where the tallest pillars loom ominously at more than twice your height, towards the edges, towards the city going about its business, you come across a few small saplings scattered, seemingly randomly, amongst the shorter pillars. (You can just make one out in the photo below.) The effect of this, to me at least, was one of hope. From the darkest depths of despair and horror in the centre, you walk slowly towards the light, and there, against the odds, is new life. It strives upwards, still fragile, but with the promise of growth and gained strength in the future. I can't be certain that was exactly what the architect was going for, but that was certainly the effect it had on me.

The first time I visited the Holocaust Memorial, it was a beautiful sunny day and the interplay of light and shadow amongst the pillars was most striking indeed. The second time it was again sunny, but there had just been a rain shower, and the drops and small puddles of water atop the pillars seemed to dance in the sun.

I would like to go back again both at night and in the snow to see how different the effects will be.

Though the Berlin Holocaust Memorial has come in for a lot of criticism and is clearly not to everyone's taste, I was impressed by it. I found it to be a worthy, thought-provoking and moving memorial to the near unfathomable horrors of the holocaust. It stands as a stark reminder of a period in German and world history which we would wish undone but must never allow ourselves to forget. I, for one, am glad it is finally there.

[Note: Without the benefit of a helicopter, the Memorial is very difficult to photograph effectively. This is partly because of its vastness, which is very difficult to capture, but also because the number of visitors and the maze-like nature of the pillars make it very tough to take photos without unwitting fellow visitors stumbling through the frame. I hope though, that the photos I've included here, however imperfect, give some impression of what the memorial is like.]

The Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel reports today on an interesting but, to my mind slightly disturbing development in the bird world [Warning: German link].

It's only a very brief piece, so I've translated it in full for those who can't read German:

Birds imitate mobile phone ringtones

Mössingen - The unstoppable advance of the mobile phone has even reached native birds: according to the observations of biologists, birds are increasingly beginning to imitate mobile phone ringtones. "The birds can reproduce these tones with amazing accuracy," says Richard Schneider of the NABU bird protection centre. In particular jackdaws, starlings and jays have a knack for imitating mobiles. It is said that this is a sign that the birds are adapting well to changes in their habitat and surroundings.

On the one hand, I think that's pretty impressive. But on the other hand, I desperately hope that they don't learn to do the Crazy Frog ringtone. I'm not sure I could bear it.

This little gem is flying around the internet, [hat-tip to Miss Behaviour who found it on an internet forum and passed it on] and I thought it was hilarious and hence worth sharing. If it offends your sensibilities, political or otherwise, please don't complain to me about it in the comments. I didn't write it, and nor did I contribute to the political situation which has led someone else to write it. Just enjoy it for what it is: hilarious.

Dear Red States:
We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly:
You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelists. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California

You gotta laugh, or else you'll cry.

Reuters reports today that four people were injured yesterday in the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Unlike most years, where apparently most injuries are caused by members of the crowd trampling each other in their bid to escape the bulls, this time around, all of the injuries were bull-inflicted.

A French man running with Pamplona's fighting bulls was gored in the mouth on Saturday and three others were injured in the legs and buttocks by the bulls, officials said.

It was the first day that people had been gored by the bulls since the festival, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, opened on Thursday. The six bulls sent thrill-seekers from all over the world tumbling and leaping over the protective barriers in the July 7 to 14 bull running, part of Pamplona's San Fermin festival.

Hemingway's 1920s novel "The Sun Also Rises" made the fiesta famous and hundreds of Americans and Australians come each year. Fifteen people have died running with the bulls in Pamplona since 1910, most from gorings.

A 24-year-old man, who declined to tell medics where he was from, was seriously gored in the backside and thigh, a festival spokesman said. French man Andre Lailheugue, 50, received a 5 cm (2 inches) wound, which the hospital said was in his face and the Red Cross said had sliced his mouth. A 46-year-old local man, Juan Carlos Labalde, was gored in the leg and another man in the buttock, the spokesman said.

I'd like to be able to say that I feel sorry for those people who were gored by the bulls yesterday, but I don't. I can't muster any sympathy for them at all. How stupid do you have to be to think that running down a cobblestoned mediaeval lane with thousands of other nutters, all wearing red neckscarves, and trying to escape six angry, frightened and disorientated bulls would be a good idea? Why on earth would you do that?

Here's a extract from what Wikipedia has to say about the running of the bulls:

The fiesta begins with the letting off of a rocket, an event known as the Chupinazo. A firecracker announces the release of the bulls from their corral, and a second firecracker signals that the last bull has left the corral.

The event is dangerous. Since 1924, 14 people have been killed (the most recent, a 22-year-old American in 1995), and 200 have been injured. Most injuries nowadays, however, are caused by the stampede of participants seeking to run away from the powerful bulls. The organisers release multi-lingual guides (with safety tips) to running the event: it is strongly recommended that these be read beforehand.

It must be said that in more recent years, beginning with the publication of Ernest Hemingway's novel in 1926 about the event called The Sun Also Rises, a large percentage of runners are tourists. Many tourists have made the event much more dangerous due to their lack of the experience and skill needed to run safely in the Encierro. Local people, as well as visitors from certain areas of Spain have had more opportunity to practice in other encierros, bull and cow fests, which used to be held in a wider space than in Oldtown Pamplona.

Stray bulls become extremely agitated (they are herd animals who do not like to be separated from the pack), and so the organisers arrange for a "second wave" of calmer and older steers to run through the streets after the "first wave," on order to collect any stragglers. The shops and residences along the course are boarded up to prevent damage by either bull or human during the race. One particular stretch of the course, called Mercaderes, is particularly notorious for injuries: on rainy days the bulls cannot turn well on the cobblestones, and often collide into the wall; tear marks from the sharpened horns against the pulp wood barriers give an indication as to the events of days before. While locals are always keen to avoid this corner, it is not uncommon to see tourists getting trampled and seriously injured there.

Apart from being amazed that anyone is prepared to put their life, or their butt for that matter, on the line this way, I also can't help feeling sorry for the bulls. This event seems really cruel to me. What the Wiki article doesn't mention is that each evening of the festival, the day's six running bulls are killed in bullfights, so it's not even as though in this case you could say Bulls 4 - Runners 0.

Though I would certainly visit Pamplona to see the medival town and the other sights it has to offer, you wouldn't catch me dead at the running of the bulls. Not participating, but not watching either. I appreciate that both bull fighting and the running of the bulls have a long, long history and tradition in Spain, it all just seems terribly anachronistic and brutal to me. It just strikes me as, well, mediaeval.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's been to see the running of the bulls, or even participated in it. If the former, what was it like? Would you go again? Were you impressed? Didn't it seem a bit cruel to you? And if the latter, well, just why?

Pop quiz, hotshot!

By now you know the drill on these Sunday pop quizzes of mine. Below is a close up photo of an object somewhere in Berlin. Have a guess in the comments section as to what it might be. Depending on how it's going, I might add the odd clue in the comments section too. I'll post an explanation and a further photo tomorrow evening.

I'm not a fan of Faux News. Not a fan at all. On the few occasions when lack of access to any other station has forced me to watch it, I've been known to jump out of my seat, yelling at the talking head and shaking my fist at the television. I find the way that Faux News deliberately twists its take on the "facts" to fit its ideology distasteful, frustrating and at times downright dangerous. I pity the people who have Faux News as their only news source.

Which is why I was not at all surprised, but nonetheless shocked, to read a piece in today's Guardian entitled Fox News slammed over 'callous' line:

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel was under fire yesterday for comments by some of its leading journalists in response to the London bombs.

Speaking about the reaction of the financial markets, Brit Hume, the channel's Washington managing editor, said: "Just on a personal basis ... I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought 'hmm, time to buy'."

The host of a Fox News programme, Brian Kilmeade, said the attacks had the effect of putting terrorism back on the top of the G8's agenda, in place of global warming and African aid. "I think that works to our advantage, in the western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

Another Fox News host, John Gibson, said before the blasts that the International Olympic Committee "missed a golden opportunity" by not awarding the 2012 games to France. "If they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" He added: "This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics - let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while."

While the first two comments could perhaps be viewed as merely insensitive, or as words poorly chosen, I find the last comment utterly shocking. It is way beyond callous. It is completely unacceptable, outright racism on a nationwide station. There is no way that such a comment can be explained away as being in any way acceptable. Can you imagine the outcry in the U.S. if a French television host actively wished further terrorist attacks on the United States and said so live on national television? For that matter, can you imagine the outcry in France if a French presenter said something like that? John Gibson and his My Word have aroused my ire before now. The man is an ignorant, hateful worm. I've even tried writing to him to object to things he's said before, so I know it does no good. But you have to wonder why this guy has a show on the most watched News Channel in America? And why people watch it? And why Fox is not deluged with complaints about his hate-filled rants on a daily basis? The mind just boggles.

Faux News was already high on my list of things I find repugnant, but today it has outdone itself. Hell, it's even outdone the profiteering London hoteliers. Fair and balanced my arse!

Strange. Normally, my blog stats drop right off at the weekend, down to about half to two-thirds of my usual daily numbers. But today, for some reason which at this point remains beyond me, I've had nearly triple my usual number of hits. And there are still four hours to go in the day. That's triple the usual number for a weekday, not a Saturday. Does anyone know why that might be? Could one of the many of you who are stopping by perhaps leave a comment to say where you've come from? I'd really love to know.

The majority of hits today seem to have been for my London bombings post, which is odd because I really didn't think I'd said anything remarkable or even done the topic justice and (predictably) it doesn't appear on the first three pages of a Google search for "London bombings". So I'd be grateful to anyone who can clear up the mystery. Perhaps a link to me has been posted on a message board somewhere? (I know that's happened once before and my stats spiked then too. Embarrassingly enough, that was my post about merkins a while back.)

Anyhow, since I was checking out my site stats anyway, and since it's been a while since I posted about what search terms lead people here, I thought I'd check those out too. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the recent hits are people who had searched for "London bombings" or similar and there is certainly nothing amusing to be said about that. But I did find two gems worth highlighting as I trawled back through the search stats.

Firstly, someone found their way to The Capital Letter by searching for "photos of Michael Schumacher's mansion." Mate, the thing about Michael Schumacher's mansion, that's been in the news recently, is that it's not built yet. He's planning to build it, and it's going to be huuuuge, but it hasn't started yet, and it won't be completed till early 2007. So, unless it's an architectural drawing you were after, you're going to have to wait on that front.

And secondly, some poor soul found his or her way to my blog by searching for "Why do you sleepwalk". To that person: I'm pretty certain you won't have found the answer here, but if you did find out elsewhere, please let me know. I'd be fascinated to hear.

With the All Blacks rampant against the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand every Saturday for the last three weeks, these Good news Saturday posts have been very easy indeed. Our boys came good again this weekend, thumping the Lions in the third and final test in Auckland (my home town) 38 - 19. Though the Lions put up a better battle this week than they had in the previous two test matches, the All Blacks were just too good yet again. Since that was the last test in this series, I'm going to have to look around for some other source of good news from next Saturday, but for now I will revel in the excitement and the simplicity of it once more.

There are match reports available from Planet Rugby and from BBC Sport. I did have a good chuckle when I read that the Lions coach, Sir Clive Woodward, has claimed that the tour was a success. Two words for you Clive: Yeah, right! Though this was the most expensive Lions tour ever, and though you brought the largest touring squad in Lions history, you got spanked, not just in the three tests, but also by the New Zealand Maori. You suffered a three test whitewash for the first time in 22 years, and you had over 100 points scored against you in the three tests, which was a record. Congratulations on your very successful tour, Sir Clive! Dream on.

I had been hoping to be able to report good news from this week's G8 summit today as part of this good news column, but the reaction to the results of the summit have been mixed at best. Certainly, moves in the right direction appear to have been made on aid, debt cancellation, and access to drug treatments for HIV/Aids. But on the other hand, the summit seems to have come up a bit short on improved trade conditions for Africa and definitely way too short on climate change, where George Bush remains completely out of step with the rest of the developed world and unwilling to budge. So, I guess that on balance, it's so-so news from the G8 summit. That is better than out and out bad news, but it's not what a lot of us were hoping for.

BBC News and The Independent have further details.

Don't get me wrong: I am not opposed to capitalism. In fact, I think capitalism is great. Not completely unbridled, unfettered, dog-eat-dog capitalism necessarily, but as a monetary system, I don't have a problem with it and I don't know of a better alternative. Until, that is, it takes on this shape, which I find deeply disturbing:

Hundreds of commuters spent Thursday night stranded in London and some have accused hoteliers of cashing in on the bomb attacks.

Prices at a number of London's hotels increased by more than double on Thursday night, the BBC has learned. Lastminute.com said price rises for hotels featured on its site had been set by hotels themselves.

However, some hotels offered blankets and use of showers for free and other businesses donated goods to casualties

...

A Trading Standards Institute spokesman said hotel profiteering after a bombing attack was reprehensible.

With the transport networks down and no way of returning home, one businessman from Manchester told the BBC he had paid £250 for an £80 room.

Commuters said they were appalled, and thousands chose to walk for hours to reach home rather than stay the night in a hotel. A spokesman for the British Hospitality Association, which represents hotels, said he was surprised by the increases.

Read the rest of this story on BBC News.

I find that absolutely shocking. I think that the TSI spokesman had it bang on when he called the practice "reprehensible". Though I understand the forces of supply and demand and all that, I am truly amazed that on a day like yesterday, some hoteliers took advantage of other people's suffering as they were stranded in London unable to get home.

Like a couple of people quoted in the article, and lots of people in the "Your comments" section below the article, I think that the hotels in question should be named and shamed. I am not suggesting that official sanction be placed on them or anything so draconian as that (they have presumably not broken any laws), but I would like to see the public have access to that information so that they can choose whether or not to let the hotels in question know how they feel about it and whether to take their business elsewhere in the future.

I reckon that if the general public was aware of which hotels, rather than helping as London tried to come to terms with its tragedy (as some hotels appear to have done), viewed it as a chance to make a quick buck (or quid in this case), they would quickly find that goodwill is more powerful economic factor than they had considered. I could be wrong, and I'm no economist, but I would have thought that a lot of people would have a problem with what appears to have gone on last night and would act accordingly.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a big rant. Suffice it to say, I was pretty shocked by that story and, frankly, disgusted.

You may recall that I blogged a few weeks ago about the German mobile phone throwing championships which were to be held in Bielefeld. Well, they were a success, and the German mobile phone throwing champion has been crowned. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... Thomas Chedor.

Herr Chedor, a 36 year-old former javelin thrower, will be off to Finland next month to compete in the second world mobile phone throwing championships. He beat a field of over 50 mobile chuckers in Bielefeld with a huge throw of 77 metres. Not bad.

The freestyle event sounds like it was considerably weirder though. The winning team did something very odd with their mobiles, as Deutsche Welle reports:

"Accompanying Chedor to represent Germany in Finland later this summer will be the winners of the freestyle team competition in Bielefeld. Michael Juling, Joachim Nelsbach and Kay Sallach won the judges over with their attempt to grill several old mobile phones, only to conclude that "they don't taste good.""

OK. Whatever. Nokia steak, sauteed in a mushroom and white wine sauce, served on a bed of rocket with a mango coulis anyone? Weirdos. Still, it's got them a free trip to Finland in the summertime, so who am I to scoff?

I feel like I should blog about the terrorist bombings today in London, but apart from linking to news stories about the blasts, I really don't have anything enlightening to say. Except: evil, evil bastards.

There should be no place in the modern world for fundalmentalism or extremism. And I'm not just talking about Islamic extremism. I'm talking about any form of extremism at all.

Having lived in the UK for five years, and spent plenty of time in London, I have been to all of the places that were bombed today. I have sat on those tubes. I have caught those buses. I have walked those streets. That is a very sobering thought. Today I spent much of the afternoon sending text messages to the numerous people I know who live in or near London to check that they were ok. Thankfully, they were. It could so easily have been otherwise. What a terrible, brutal reminder of our mortality.

My thoughts and best wishes are with the people of London and the United Kingdom tonight and my deepest sympathies with all of the victims and their families and loved ones.

Following on from my recent posts about Jacques Chirac's take on British food and London hosting the Olympics in 2012, I think that this picture I received yesterday in an email speaks for itself and requires no further commentary. [Hat-tip to SMM for the image].

For confirmation of my assessment of the Sun, check out their front page image and story in today's paper. What was that about nasty, petty creeps?

It's been a while since I blogged an update on odd news stories coming out of Germany. Time to rectify that, I think, since there is certainly no shortage of stories to cover.

First of all, here's a lesson in what not to do on your way home from a picnic in the Alps. Do not, under any circumstances, try to stroke a calf in view of its mother:

At least two people were hospitalised Monday after a herd of dairy cattle went on a rampage in an Alpine meadow during a family reunion near the German-Austrian border.

Ten members of a Bavarian family had finished a picnic on the slopes above Salzburg Sunday afternoon and were crossing a meadow to go home when a child tried to stroke a calf, police said.

The mother cow charged the group and other cattle came to her assistance. Within seconds, the herd of about 40 head were butting and chasing the family members across the meadow.

One elderly relative suffered a heart attack and a seven-year-old child was critically injured during the attack. Others escaped with what were termed minor cuts and bruises.

If that poor seven year-old grows up without having cow issues, it'll be a miracle.

Sticking with animals, what sort of, scuse my French, arsehole would kidnap a prominent person's dog? That's exactly what has happened to Ralf Schumacher while he was on holiday in St. Tropez. Someone nabbed his son's pet chihuahua, Scoopy. Presumably, the dog-napper either expects to be able to extract a ransom for the return of Scoopy, or really really wanted a chihuahua. Either way, it really sucks and I hope they get Scoopy back in one piece.

Keeping it in the Schumacher family, Deutsche Welle reports on Ralf's brother Michael and his current building project.

The villa, or castle-lette, under construction is on Switzerland's Lake Geneva and has 24 rooms all in all. Of those, eight are bedrooms. There are five bathrooms, a 20-meter swimming pool, a cinema with 30 seats, a gym, an underground garage with room for 25 cars and a 63 square-meter (678 square-foot) room for all of Mike's trophies.

To top it off, the palace has a 15-meter tower with an office and a climbing wall.

Not too bad for a family of four. Schumi, his wife Corinna and children Gina-Maria and Mick will be moving in sometime in the summer of 2007.

Sounds nice. Can you imagine the vacuuming and dusting, though? Yikes! Of course, Michael Schumacher is welcome to do what he likes with his money (and he is certainly also a generous supporter of various charities). Fair play to him.

What I wonder though is why, instead of building his own palatial residence, he didn't just snap up one of the castles that have recently gone on sale in Bavaria.

If you've ever imagined living in a converted castle, now's your chance. Bavaria, home to many of the fairytale palaces that inspired Walt Disney, is currently selling off prime property it can't afford to maintain.

As you sift through the property pages of your local newspaper, you might find a bargain tucked away between the overpriced one-room apartments. The State of Bavaria is currently advertising some 170 prime properties it feels it no longer needs -- so if you happen to have a fortune at your fingertips, a hilltop mansion with dreaming spires and acres of land could now be yours.

But be warned -- bartering's out of the question. "This isn't about earning some quick cash," stressed Kurt Faltlhauser, Bavarian interior minister. "We're not just hawking any old thing."
...
Another potential bijou residence for buyers with more money than sense -- a little like the legendary Mad King of Ludwig of Bavaria who built many of the state's flashier palaces -- is a historic castle near Würzburg, a snip for a few million that comes complete with outhouses, a moat and several hectares of land.

Maybe the demure, classicist spa down the road in Bad Brückenau is more to your liking-- or perhaps you'd prefer the traditional Teutonic charms of a hotel on Lake Chiem.

Sounds like Michael could have picked up one of those and saved himself the stress of building. Ah well, to each his own eh?

London!

So, the Summer Olympic Games in 2012 will be held in the UK. Interesting stuff. All the experts are saying that this has been the toughest fought and closest bid to host the Olympics ever. As the BBC News website puts it:

Wednesday's decision brings to an end the 18-month race to win the host contract for the 2012 Games.

And it was the most keenly-fought bidding contest in recent years.

Paris was considered the front-runner for much of the campaign, and was highly rated in the initial evaluation and also by the inspectors after their visits earlier in the year. But it was widely recognised that bid leader Lord Coe, a high-profile personality within the IOC and other governing bodies, hauled London closer to the French capital as the vote approached.

By the sounds of things, the organisers of the London bid had done a remarkable job in turning things around from absolute rank outsider status just a couple of years ago to being real contenders with the long-time favourites, Paris. I feel for the organisers of the Paris bid, but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing London host the Olympics in 2012.

Wouldn't it be great to be a fly on the wall to at the G8 dinner tonight to hear what passes between Chirac and Blair? I don't doubt that Tony Blair will manage to handle it diplomatically, but I wonder if President Chirac will be able to overcome himself and say something appropriate and diplomatic. I wouldn't bet on it.

The voting is going on right now for which city will host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. I'm watching it live on television and I'm going to try live blogging the multiple rounds. The first round is underway. Watch this space.

Just a reminder, the cities in the running are: Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, New York.

UPDATE 1: The results are in for the first round of voting.

Moscow is out.

On to the next round ...

UPDATE 2: The results are in for the second round of voting.

New York is out.

On to the next round ...

UPDATE 3: The results are in for the third round of voting. We could see a decision here, or it could go to a fourth round. An absolute majority is requied.

There's a delay due to some technical difficulties ... Keep holding your breath ... (unless you were supporting Moscow or New York).

Madrid is out

On to the next round ...

Aaarrghh! Typically, tBlog went down right in the middle of my attempt to do some live blogging. Have I mentioned that I am really beginning to hate tBlog!?!

UPDATE 4: The results are in for the fourth and final round of voting. It's going to be either London or Paris. Let's see ...

Well, as expected, it came down to a two-horse race between London and Paris. In a brutal piece of suspense, they've decided not to open the envelope until 7:30pm Singapore time. That's in 45 minutes time. How cruel!

Personally, I have always favoured Paris. It doesn't really matter to me that much, really, but I back Paris to put on a better show than London. There will be some very very disappointed campaigners in various cities and countries around the world today. Whichever way it has gone, it will certainly make for some interesting dinner conversation at the G8 summit dinner this evening. Well, well, well. More to follow in 45 minutes ...

Today's a very big day in various places around the world. For starters, it's the first of the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Scotland. The leaders of the world's eight richest countries won't be starting their meeting until dinner this evening, so the focus today is likely to be on the thousands of anti-globalisation, anti-capitalism, and anti-war protestors, who clashed violently with police on Monday and again this morning, as Reuters reports. I hope that protests don't get out of hand in the same way that they have at G8 summits in the past. But more than that, I hope that, this time around, we will see real progress on Africa. I'm less hopeful for real progress on climate change, given George Bush's comments this week that there will be no change to his administration's previous stance on this isue.

Today is also a big day in Singapore, where the International Olympic Committee will be deciding in a couple of hours which city will be given the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Paris and London are considered the favourites, with Madrid considered a chancer and Moscow and New York the rank outsiders. It'll be interesting to see which way the delegates go. Ill try to cover the decision in a blog entry this evening.

And finally, today's a big day for Lance Armstrong and his team, Discovery Channel in the Tour de France. After they won yesterday's Team Time Trial, Lance is now in the yellow leader's jersey for the first time on this tour, and he and his team will be looking to defend that in today's stage. It's a largely flat, not especially long, stage from Chambord to Montargis. It is most likely to end in a bunch sprint, though there will certainly be attempted breakaways throughout the stage. Interesting stuff.

That paragon of journalistic virtue, British tabloid rag The Sun, is apoplectic today. Its ire is directed at French President Jacques Chirac, who has offended the paper's sense of nationalistic national pride, by making some admittedly pretty stupid and snide comments about British cuisine at a recent summit in Finland.

Under the pretty clever headline Don't Talk Crepe: Sneering Chirac says British food is rubbish, the Sun rants that Chirac is a "plonker" and claims that his gaffe will cost Paris the chance to host the Olympic Games in 2012 (Paris is one of the favourites for the decision, to be made in Singapore tomorrow).

SNEERING Jacques Chirac may have cooked the goose of France’s Olympic bid by mocking British food — and grub from FINLAND.

The arrogant French president was overheard sniggering at our nosh as he chatted to German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin.

He made a plonker of himself by saying: “You can’t trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it’s the country with the worst food.”

His jibes blew the cliffhanger race for the 2012 Olympics wide open.

For Finland has TWO votes in tomorrow’s crunch selection process in Singapore — expected to be a titanic battle between Paris and London.

Two words: Yeah, right. I rather suspect that the IOC Members who make the decision on the Olympic bid may be more inclined to base their decision on the merits of the various city's bids, rather than a few smart-arse, off-the-cuff comments by the French President.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending Chirac. I think he's appalling, and I'd be ashamed to have him as a President. I think comments like the ones he made are completely inappropriate for any top level statesman, but especially one who is currently locked in tough negiotiations with the country which was the butt of his jokes over the future direction of Europe. But what makes me laugh the most is this outburst from the Sun's editorial team:

Just when we believed we couldn’t think less of Jacques Chirac, the French president plumbs a new depth.

His snide attacks on Britain expose him once and for all as a nasty, petty, racist creep.

It's true, of course, that Chirac is nasty and petty, and his racism has been well documented before now. They could also have added conniving. (Can you tell I'm no Chirac fan either?) But, and it's a very big but, I wonder if the Sun editors have ever read their own paper? Because nasty, petty, and racist are three of the first adjectives which would spring to my mind if I were asked to describe the Sun. Oh the irony!

As they say, dear Sun editors, Pot, Kettle, Black!

In my time around universities, I've had to invigilate a fair number of examinations, and I've seen some interesting attempts to cheat. But I assure you I've never seen anything like this story from Russia reported by BBC News.

A Russian youth wearing a drag outfit which gave him improbably large breasts has been caught trying to sit an entrance exam for a female friend.

Moscow University security guards first thought the applicant had an oversized bust because "she" was trying to take crib sheets into the exam.

A search unmasked the false bosom, the university told the BBC News website. The man was barred from the exam and the woman he attempted to cover for was struck off the entrants' list.

Make sure to go and read the rest, because it's truly hilarious.

Ten out of ten for trying, I'd say, but clearly the "young gentleman" needs to hone his act somewhat.

[Hat-tip to Miss Behaviour for the link].

I've been tagged by Ruth at Chaos Theory to do the Respectful Disagreement meme. In this meme, I am supposed to name three people with whom I tend to disagree a lot and say something nice about them. Not as easy as it sounds, but I'm going to give it a shot.

My three respectful disagreement victims are:
1) Aaron Bhatnagar. It's pretty rare that Aaron writes anything that I agree with on his blog, though it has happened on the odd occasion. However, Aaron is certainly very prolific in his blogging, appears to have very well placed contacts in the New Zealand political scene, very rarely descends into the silly name-calling nonsense that abounds in parts of the rest of the NZ Political blogosphere, and he has a smart-looking sepia photo on his blog. (Geez, I think I might have overdone it there.)

2) Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) here in Germany. Policy-wise, I'm not at all keen on what the CDU are offering, and I'm not especially convinced that at the head of a new German government from September (as now seems inevitable) they'll have what it takes to turn Germany around in the way I think it needs to be turned around. However, I certainly respect Ms. Merkel's rapid rise to the top as a protestant woman from the former East in a party that is otherwise largely dominated by Catholic men from the West. That, and I like her new post-makeover look.

3) Ann Coulter. I disagree pretty fundamentally with everything she says and everything she stands for. Sadly, I have nothing nice to say about her. (I know, that's against the rules, but have you heard the things this woman says?!?)

And now I'm supposed to tag some people. Hmm, let's see. Well, I owe Badaunt a tag, and I think I'll also try SheaNC and Shona. I wonder what they'll come up with.

Just as I had hoped, this week's Sunday pop quiz turned out to be much, much harder. Eventually though, with the aid of a few not entirely subtle hints, Sumoboy got there. He was aided, I think, by the fact that he's been spending some time in Berlin recently, and will have seen plenty of the objects in question dotted around the city.

Sumoboy's guess was:

It's one of those water pumps that I've seen around Berlin. Why are they there? Do they get used regularly?

And he was right. It is indeed a part of one of those water pumps that he's seen around Berlin. Specifically, it was part of the handle of one of those water pumps.

I wish I could answer Sumoboy's question about why they're there, but I can't. I haven't the faintest idea. It seems pretty evident that they've been there a long time, but why they've never been removed is beyond me. I don't think they get used very often - I've only ever seen one used once. Until then, I had assumed they were disconnected, but evidently not.

Their presence, however, remains something of a mystery to me. If you know anything more about them, please share.

There's been a new initiative started in the last month, by Richard at Philosophy, Et cetera, called the Kiwi Carnival. It works just like other blog carnivals, such as those listed here. The Kiwi Carnival features selected posts by New Zealand bloggers both at home and abroad. As the ever-grumpy but often amusing Tincanman has noted with much disdain, it's shaping up to be pretty politically focussed. Unlike Tincanman, though, I have found at least some of the submissions to be interesting and worth a read.

In any case, Kiwi Carnival #2 is now up, hosted this time around by Spanblather. There are 13 submissions, including my own Open Letter (more on that later today). Swing by and take a look. You might well find something to interest you. And if you're a Kiwi blogger ex-pat or otherwise, why not consider submitting a post for the next carnival in just under two weeks' time?

And so we enter the fourth day of tBlog misbehaving spectacularly with no remedy in sight. And since today is a public holiday in the US (Happy Birthday USA!) I'm not holding my breath on it being fixed any time today. Perhaps tomorrow? In any case, for now, please accept my apologies for the messed up layout of my blog, the frequent refusal to load at all, the fact that it's so slow, and the pesky SQL database error warning which I can't get rid of. It's all completely out of my control and all tBlogs are affected. Things will return to normal in due course, I assure you. I just don't know when, that's the problem.

Live8: Wow!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be a part of history being made. Along with Ms. Bear and a good friend of ours, I attended the Live8 concert here in Berlin. It was an amazing experience and I'm glad I went.

The reports of numbers who attended the Berlin incarnation of the worldwide concert extravaganza organised by Sir Bob Geldof as part of the Make poverty history campaign to put pressure on the leaders of the G8 nations to take real steps to eradicate poverty in Africa have differed wildly. At one stage, one of MCs at the concert (who did an admirable job of filling the long gaps while the stage was rearranged between acts) claimed there were some 230,000 crammed into the Strasse des 17. Juni, which stretches from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegessäule. That estimate seemed a bit high to me and today various media outlets have suggested that the number was more like 150,000. In any case, there were a lot of us.


The view towards the stage from where we were standing, with the Siegessäule in the background

The view of the rest of the crowd, looking back from where we were standing.
You can just make out the Brandenburg Gate in the background

With typical German efficiency, the show kicked off exactly on time at 2pm, with German punk-rock surperstars Die Toten Hosen [Website in English] opening the bill. They were great and things were off to a flying start, especially when lead singer and long-time activist Campino was interviewed after the set and reminded us all, to rapturous applause, of why we were there: to demonstrate, not just to watch a concert. Subsequently, things got a long way behind schedule, but noone seemed to mind.

Each artist played a set of 15 to 20 minutes, which was great, because it meant that even when acts were on that weren't exactly to our musical taste or that didn't quite manage to win over the crowd, we knew there'd be another one along shortly. An additional advantage was that the short sets meant that the stars felt obliged to whip out all their old favourites and crowd-pleasers - you know, the ones you really want to hear - rather than focussing on their newest, less well known numbers.

In between times, there were interviews with some of the artists, footage of some of the big names performing at other Live8 concerts around the world and at one stage a live link-up between all nine countries participating, co-ordinated from Philadelphia by Will Smith. The weather was fine and mostly sunny but, thankfully, not as scorchingly hot as it has been here recently. The organisers had taken care to erect lots of giant screens and walls of speakers, meaning that those (most of us) who were not close enough to be able to see the action on stage with the naked eye, could follow everything that was going on. In addition, there were lots of drinks stands where (and this is a big advantage to attending an event like this here in Germany rather than elsewhere with rather different drinking cultures) ice cold beer flowed freely and at reasonable prices. Being well-prepared wee things, our party had brought lots of food in a picnic hamper, but had we not thought so far ahead, there were plenty of food stands to satisfy hungry concert-goers. What's more, the organisers had arranged for so many portaloos to be on site that I never once had to queue to use the loo all day. And the advantage of the Strasse des 17. Juni as a location was that the trees lining the avenue provided plenty of shade for those who wanted to get out of the sun. All that said, the organisation of the Berlin Live8 concert was not without controversy after a stand-off between the concert organisers and the Berlin Senate and city council over the location of the concert, which roads could be closed off, sponsorship, and so on. This Deutsche Welle article about the Berlin concert outlines the details.

Amongst the crowd on the day, however, there was no ill-will to be felt. I didn't hear a single complaint all day. Though, in a crowd of that size, the occasional bump as people brushed past trying to get to somewhere else was inevitable, there was no pushing or shoving that I saw (except of course in a small impromptu good-natured mosh pit which developed briefly not far from where we were standing). The crowd were there to enjoy themselves and have fun. They were patient and in a good mood and, judging by the huge applause every time the cause was mentioned, very much conscious that they were part of a political message and something much larger and much more important than a mere concert.

As for the acts on stage, Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame and Norwegian 80s stars A-ha were both highlights for me (see photos below). In addition though, and somewhat to my surprise because they are not otherwise exactly to my musical taste, both Green Day and Audioslave put on fantastic shows. On the strength of Audioslave's performance, I would now definitely go and see them live in concert, given the chance. Chris deBurgh wasn't bad either, and he whipped out Lady in Red to the joy of the crowd, but he lacked a bit of the stage presence of some of the others.

A-ha (above) and Brian Wilson (below) were both huge crowd-pleasers and two of my favourite acts at yesterday's concert.

Amongst the German acts we saw, apart from Die Toten Hosen, whom I've already mentioned, Juli, Wir Sind Helden, die Söhne Mannheims, Silbermond, Sasha and ageing Cologne rockers Bap all had in common that they played tight sets featuring their best known songs, were all well received by the crowd, but also all didn't quite have the stage presence of the best and biggest foreign acts.

We decided to call it a day at 8pm, which was the scheduled time for the concert to finish, but by then the programme was running about two hours behind schedule. As a result, we missed Crosby Stills and Nash, Roxy Music, Faithless and German superstar Herbert Grönemeyer. However, by then we'd been on our feet for six hours, had our fill of great music and an excellent atmosphere and felt that we'd done our bit for the Make povery history message too. We headed off for a quiet dinner at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant and thence homeward, feeling very satisfied indeed.

The only negative aspect of the entire day came when we squeezed into a hugely overcrowded S-Bahn at the nearest station, only to be greeted by a smart-arsed, surly and disaffected teenager with the helpful suggestion that we should get in somewhere else. However, a verbal double-team tongue-lashing from Ms. Bear and myself soon put him in his place, to the amused appreciation of our more understanding fellow passengers and the train journey continued without further incident.

I'm under no illusion that simply attending a concert makes a real practical difference to the lives of those suffering in Africa. And I'm very much aware that without improved governance in a number of African countries, dropping the debt, fairer trade policies and increased aid will not be enough to lift those who need the most help out of poverty. However, I think that yesterday around the world, an awful lot of people sent a very loud and very clear message to the leaders of the world's eight richest and most powerful countries that more needs to be done and that we expect action now. And that, this time, it needs to be real, concrete action, not just more empty promises. And that was an exciting thing to be a part of.

If you want to add your name to the Live8 List, which will be delivered to the leaders of the G8 nations before their summit meeting in Gleneagles later this week, you can do so here. Alternatively, if you live in one of the G8 nations, you can email your leader via the Live8 website here.

[Today's Observer has an interesting piece covering the inside story of the lead-up to yesterday's concerts around the world, which is worth a read.]

Don't think that because Zimbabwe has disappeared from the headlines for a few days that Operation Murambatsvina and the related horrors might have come to an end. Far from it. The Mugabe sponsored atrocities continue unabated and have in fact caused several deaths in recent days. Sokwanele - Enough is Enough reports on these tragic developments:

It has just been reported that four deaths occurred yesterday (June 30) during the demolition of the sprawling Porta Farm squatter camp near Harare and while armed police were making frantic efforts to remove the last of the settlers from this site. The police appear to be under orders to remove the last straggling remnants of a once vibrant community from this site to the overcrowded and unhygienic temporary holding camp at Caledonia Farm, which has become a virtual prison for homeless victims of the Murambatsvina campaign. Clearly the orders of the riot police will brook no delay, notwithstanding the massive suffering inflicted in the process.

Yesterday's victims who died during the forcible eviction included two five-year old children and a young woman who was nine months pregnant. One of the children was run over by a police truck. The other died when the structure he was sheltering in collapsed upon him. The heavily-pregnant woman died when she fell off a police truck onto which she was being pushed, with others, by the police. The fourth victim who died yesterday morning was a Mrs Mandigora, a woman believed to be in her mid thirties. Although already gravely ill, when her home was destroyed Mrs Mandigora had been forced to sleep out in the open. In her weakened condition the exposure to the elements killed her. She leaves three small children, now orphaned.

The United Nations envoy, Ms Anna Tibaijuka, was meanwhile believed to be in the capital, talking with Robert Mubabe.

I trust that Ms Tibaijuka has some strong words for the Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe, and that the United Nations and the leaders of individual nations will follow those words up with effective action. Mugabe's outrages have continued long enough. It is time for change.

Since last week's Sunday pop quiz seemed to go down quite well, I thought I'd try another one today too. This time around, since a certain Smartypants Secretsamurai answered last week's mystery photo question so easily, I've decided to make it considerably tougher. Here goes:

Pop quiz, Hotshot:

Below is a close-up photo. What is it a photo of?

I'll post the answer and a link to a photo of the whole object tomorrow.

The choice is dead easy again this week. The All Blacks provided today's first piece of good news again this morning by thrashing the British and Irish Lions at the "Cake-tin" in Wellington. Once again I was watching in my favourite Irish Pub here in Berlin and was pleased to discover that this time around there were a few more All Black fans as opposed to last week when I was the only one. The All Blacks put in an even better performance than last week's effort and though the Lions were vastly improved over the last test, they simply had no answer to the All Blacks' dominance.

BBC Sport has a report on today's game, as does Planet Rugby.

In other good news, today is Live8 with 10 concerts taking place simultaneously around the world. I'm off to the Berlin concert in just a few minutes. Can't wait.

And finally, today also sees the start my favourite of all sporting events, the Tour de France, with American superstar Lance Armstrong bidding to become the first person ever to win seven Tours, and pretty much every one else bidding to make sure he doesn't. It's going to be another cracker this year and you can expect to read regular updates here over the next three weeks.

And that's enough good news for one day. Enjoy your Saturday.

Earlier this week I blogged that German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had called for a vote of confidence in him and his government to be held in the German Bundestag today. Well, the vote was held this morning and he lost it, just as he had hoped.

Deutsche Welle reports that the vote was lost overwhelmingly, with 151 parliamentarians voting in support of Schröder's government, 296 voting against, and 148 abstentions. This means that Schröder's strategy of asking but not forcing his caucus to abstain paid off.

The DW article explains what happens next.

The chancellor is now free to ask German President Horst Köhler to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

Köhler has three weeks in which to decide whether or not he will comply, meaning that the fate of the current SPD-Greens coalition is now largely in the president's hands. During that time, the government will be in limbo, awaiting his decision.

Even if Köhler were to decide to dissolve parliament, that move could later be overturned by the Constitutional Court. Green parliamentarian Werner Schulz has already announced his intention to turn to the court if parliament is dissolved. He said he was convinced that Friday's confidence vote was a farce. Interior Minister Otto Schily defended the vote as constitutional, adding that Schröder's course of action was "courageous, fair and confident."

So, until further notice, the political parties will be working on the assumption that Köhler will dissolve parliament, and campaigning in expectation of an Autumn election. But, depending on Köhler's decision and the result of a pending legal challenge at the constitutional court, that could change at any time. What is not entirely clear is what will happen if either the President or the constitutional court decide that early elections are not a goer. Presumably, having lost a confidence vote, Schröder could no longer continue at the helm of this government and he would be forced to resign. But there really is not a credible alernative to take his place should that happen. Schröder's party, the SPD, have said that "there is no Plan B". In other words, they're gambling everything on parliament being dissolved. Things could get very tumultuous indeed if that wish does not come true.

These are testing times for the Chancellor and for his party, and interesting times indeed for political observers.

So, how are your searches for extra information for the Oxford English Dictionary, which I blogged about last week, coming along? Personally, I haven't come up with anything worthwhile yet, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Yesterday, I got an email about the BBC/OED Wordhunt campaign, clarifying one point which I had got wrong, which I thought I'd share. In the original post, I had written:

It's very satisfying when you come up with something that you know will be useful to the lexicographers writing the dictionary, I assure you. There's no glory in it, that's for sure, but it is quietly rewarding. So, if you reckon you can provide more info on any of the words in the wordlist, get on it! And even if you can't, spread the word.

But it seems I was incorrect when I made that assertion about there being no glory on offer, as Kim Lomax points out in her email:

Hi BerlinBear,

I’m from Takeaway Media, we are the production company who launched the BBC Wordhunt and are making the associated series for BBC 2.

We’re really glad to see that you and your readers are excited about the project and are keen to join the Wordhunt. I’m sure we’ll get some quality submissions as a result of your blog on Thursday.

One point that I did want to make is that unlike in your previous freelance work for the OED, in this case, there is actually some fame and glory awaiting anyone who finds an antedating or proves a word origin on our BBC series. This will be a real chance for nerds (I’m sure you won’t mind me calling you a nerd!) to get their moment in the spotlight! Not to say that getting an entry into the dictionary is not rewarding in its own right of course.

Feel free to post this as a comment associated with the article, and keep spreading the word. If you need any further information please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards,
Kim Lomax
Takeaway Media

So there you go. There is glory to be had after all. So, get on it. And if you do find anything that you end up submitting to the campaign, let me know. I'd love to blog about it, being (as Kim rightly suggests) a word-nerd.