President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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In his new book, Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian response to the “gay” agenda, author Scott Lively repeats his claim that the rise of Nazi Germany was animated principally by homosexuals. In his first book, The Pink Swastika, Lively chronicles a long line of people who he claims influenced National Socialism and were gay. However, […]

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MEMO TO: Richard Feducci, Overlord of Finance
FROM: E Pluribus, Wondergod
SUBJECT: Five Year International Finance Plan
DATE: January 1, 2005
Happy New Year, Rich. Got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: We’re going to let the American economy crater. The good news: Everybody else’s will, too. The best news: By 2010, we’ll be on […]

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After the reports that melamine contaminating baby formula in China had sickened thousands of children there, some parents felt that soy products for their beloved children was safer.
Well, think again.
As early as mid December, Health Canada was noting trace amounts of melamine in soy products, including some that were labled “organic”.
The level wasn’t high enough […]

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Despite the initial predictable calls for a political solution to a military conflict and justified concerns that Israel’s retaliation to Hamas rocket attacks will only create a new wave of martyrs eager to attack the Jewish state in the future, Germany openly defends Israel’s right to defend itself and puts the blame squarely on those […]

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Go Europe, leader in all things having to do with, uh, reduction (in this case CO2). The times and the rhetoric can sometimes climate-change on you faster than you would like, I bet.
Are you already missing the good old days in the never-ending climate change story when the traditional villain (Dr. U.S. Evil) was […]

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Well it is if you translate it into English. When Germans say Finanzkrise, they actually mean “financial crisis”. Of course I do see why they want to scrunch it up like that. They too, like the rest of us, want to get it over with as soon as possible.
But that’s about where it stops […]

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Germans love words like solidarity and consensus and agreement and uniformity and accord and stuff like that. But let’s face it. They don’t love them that much.
In calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel “Europe’s Geisterfahrer” (the wrong-way driver on the freeway) - and a woman Geisterfahrer at that - German opposition politicians are turning up the […]

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Today is Veterans’ Day.
So congratulations to all Veterans, including my husband Lolo (World War II) and my son in law John (Iraq) and my cousin Billy (Viet Nam).
Veteran’s day started out as “Armistice Day” to celebrate the end of the “war to end all wars”, AKA “The Great War”, AKA “World War I”.A lot of […]

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Forget the bird flu. The real contagious stuff these days is German Bad Comparison Neurosis, or GBCN. The latest victim was one of Germany’s leading economists Hans-Werner Sinn who (rightly) said Germans should not search for scapegoats behind the current market meltdown – it’s systemic problems, stupid - and then (wrongly) referred to the 1930s […]

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Despite the sore shoulder German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has received by patting himself there so vigorously, he has expressed delight at financial markets’ reactions after Germany’s 500 billion Euro rescue package (in Europe it’s forbidden to call these packages bailouts) was endorsed by the Merkel cabinet, the biggest state intervention in the Germany economy […]

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The glory days of “the mother of all airports” (British architect Sir Norman Foster) having long passed, the last few days on life support for Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport are about to run out now, too. Berliners are currently hurrying to say their goodbyes and hustling to get on one of the last sightseeing flights offered […]

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Germany is renewing forces in Afghanistan? Which forces? It would be more accurate to say that Germany is extending its withdrawal there. Not having used the 100 German special forces soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, not once, in over three years time, the German government has actually decided to withdraw them while at the same time […]

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Disillusion is perhaps the better word, come to think of it. This certainly isn’t the best way to start your week. Long believing, hoping that all of this is somehow only just a horror movie (it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie…), the reality bites from the financial crisis meltdown have now bitten Germany […]

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How you figure? Those folks over at Reuters obviously don’t know what the hell is going on here in the land of Beschwerden (complaints) when one of them actually has the gall to entitle his/her piece “Choir full of moans a surprise hit in Germany.” Of course it would be a hit here. How could […]

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As witnessed by the recent fascination with films about Hitler, refugee flights from East Prussia, the bombing of Dresden, the Berlin Airlift, the Woman from Checkpoint Charlie and, most recently, the Baader-Meinhof RAF terror era, German filmmakers are obsessed with addressing historical subjects from the recent past for an audience that clearly can’t get enough. […]

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As an observant Stern journalist put it, German know-it-all Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück can lash out at the American failings that have lead to the current financial market crisis all he wants to, what he and other vocal German critiques of late are really doing is covering up their own grave shortfalls. Germany is sliding […]

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In what almost seems to be a demonstration of her frustration at certain governments’ traditional opposition to stronger government regulation in national and international  economic matters (but what really is the difference between national and international these days?), German Chancellor Angela Merkel will openly go head-on with the European Commission in Brussels and continue to […]

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There will be nothing terribly complex about “The Baader-Meinhof Complex”, which will be released in Germany on September 25th. For one thing, with the deadline for foreign-language Oscar submissions looming on October 1st, a number of countries will be revealing their choices for the competition next week. For another thing, the repeated re-examination of the […]

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Despite some recent excitement about the price of beer in Germany these days, not to mention a Bavarian politician’s provocative remarks yesterday about how German beer drinkers are still fit to drive after putting down two liters (or maybe precisely because of peculiar things like this), it might be about time for you to get […]

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Only the actual name of their candidate in next year’s election will be Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Schroeder man and current foreign minister. In what some see as having stepped back from the precipice just in the nick of time, and avoiding an ugly marriage of convenience with Germany’s radical Left Party, it could just be that […]

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On September 4 in Hamburg, Germany, an unusual event occured: Germany’s Department of Interior Affairs’ Ursala Caberta held a 3-hour seminar on the dangers of Scientology while members of the Church were told to “stay away”.
Caberta has been head of the “Working Group on Scientology” since 1992. The 3-hour seminar, titled, “That is Scientology! Reports […]

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Not in words, or not in English ones anyway, but by being the Austrian-born Governor of California himself. Attempting to explain American politics to a German audience that doesn’t really get it, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has himself, unintentionally, offered the best example of what the current excitement about Sarah Palin’s entry into the 2008 presidential […]

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There is a popular saying one hears here in Germany from time to time: You haven’t got a chance, use it. And although Germany’s wildly popular teeny rockers Tokio Hotel (wildly popular in Germany that is) were realistic enough not to expect winning the nomination for Best New Artist during the MTV Video Music Awards […]

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I can’t really agree with Chancellor Merkel when she announced on Friday that “We’re dealing with a coalition partner that’s becoming increasingly unreliable.” Her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners are no more unreliable now than they have been in the past, and that’s the real problem. But Merkel knows this better than anyone, she only […]

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In light of recent increased attacks upon German ISAF forces in northern Afghanistan, it didn’t take long at all for the pullout calls to begin again back home in earnest. These calls have in fact never really stopped, of course. They just become more audible whenever the Taliban reminds Germany that the going in Afghanistan, […]

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Despite President Sarkozy’s initiative to lead the EU in a united stand against Russia in the aftermath of that country’s military intervention in Georgia, and its de facto theft of South Ossetia and Abkhazia through occupation and unilateral recognition, it is clear to leaders in the Kremlin that a divided Europe, once again, will enable […]

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel certainly means well. But it must be tough when good intentions, especially when they come from the world’s most powerful woman, get laughed at by an autocratic puppet who really couldn’t care less.
That Russia finds Germany’s (OK, the EU’s) “tough talk” about its actions in the Caucasus amusing certainly has its […]

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Following Russia’s military intervention in Georgia, Chancellor  Angela Merkel’s more than skeptical view of Russian foreign policy is slowly but surely gaining ground over the atmosphere created by her predecessor’s hopes for a special relationship with Moscow.
As her spokesman made clear yesterday, there is still no firm evidence indicating that the promised Russian withdrawal […]

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The Gerhard Schroeder faction in Germany, and there are a whole lot more of them than you would care to imagine, can’t seem to find anything wrong with anything New Old Russia does.

Whether it’s the murder of critical journalists in Moscow or political opponents with polonium in London, convenient “technical” and other difficulties with […]

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