Well give Luda a special pardon if I’m ever in the slammer
Better yet put him in office, make me your vice president
Hillary hated on you, so that b^$&%* is irrelevant
…
So get off your ass, black people, it’s time to get out and vote!
Paint the White House black and I’m sure that’s got ’em terrified
McCain don’t belong in ANY chair unless he’s paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and I throw em like candy wrap
Cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you the worst of all 43 presidents
Get out and vote or the end will be near
The world is ready for change because Obama is here!
Cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here!
Mind you, it might secure the voters here …

I last visited Berlin in 1991, when the wall was open but the city was very much two cities. In the west a colourful, modern, hectic western city with all the trappings of a big European city, including foreign tourists and immigrants.
And in the east – a dull, grey, run-down city with few tourists, no immigrants and a population driving awful East German Trabant cars on poorly maintained roads.
Where I stayed was just a few minute walk from Alexanderplatz, near the centre of old East Berlin.

The building above was once the Centrum Warenhaus, what passed for a department store in communist times. Like much of this part of Berlin, it’s been refurbished inside and out and doesn’t show much evidence that it was ever a communist eyesore. Indeed, you can drive back and forth in many parts of Berlin now and not really notice where the wall was. The roads, trains and stations have been brought up to western standards, as have many, many buildings. The typical concrete slab communist buildings can still be found, but many have been demolished and many more have been refurbished into something more livable.
However, a couple of blocks away I found this:

A classic concrete slab building that hasn’t been touched since the collapse of communism. I wondered why this particular building still stood untouched while so many around it have been modernized and repurposed.
It turns out the building holds the Stasi archives, which are still being preserved.
Another interesting note – two major streets that intersect Alexanderplatz are named after Karl Marx, and Karl Liebknecht, a founder of the German Communist Party. I found this a little shocking at first, especially at such a prominent location, but these communist era names still exist all over the former East Germany. It’s common to see a Marx-Engels Platz, Lenin street, and even a German-Soviet Friendship street, which surprising still exist even though the Soviet Union no longer does. I expected such things would have been renamed by now, but it appears the locals are happy to keep them.

People of the world – look at Berlin!

And so I did.
Actually I was on vacation in Germany before the Messiah arrived in Berlin for his speech. If you think the media here are infatuated with Obama you can not imagine the nauseating, fawning coverage he received over there.
I was in Berlin up until a few days before the Celebrity Himself arrived and had to suffer through the breathless anticipation of his arrival. How the media can fill so many pages and so many hours of coverage when they have nothing of substance to actually report is indeed remarkable.
Fortunately, I had already planned to move on to a beach on the Baltic coast by the time Obama arrived and so I was able to enjoy my vacation anyway.
But even out in the boonies enjoying a morning coffee and skimming the local regional paper I had to put up with daily dose of headlines like Obama Superstar and Berlin in Obama-fever. And this in a local paper that more typically carries local interest stories like describing how the recent weather has been affecting the population of wasps and rats. (It’s been too good for them, apparently.)
I just got back from Germany and since Kate’s away anyway I’ll post of few thoughts and pics from the trip. I spent about three weeks in Germany and drove about 3000kms – and most of it happened to be in the formerly Communist east. I don’t intend to bore you with an exhaustive travelogue – I’ll just post some thoughts and observations that touch on some of the themes frequently covered here.
First observation – a steady diet of schnitzels, wurst and strudels washed down with copious quantities of beer is not at all an effective weight control program.

In it’s Q2 financial report, the world’s number one water-wings maker, said today that IPCC orders for water-wings are down:

Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh’s landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.
Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers — the Ganges and the Brahmaputra — had caused the landmass to increase.

In the meantime, green-industry analysts have found a new source for ice cubes, which they claim may help ease the burden of Bangladeshis as they adapt to climate change:

A fortnight ago a Norwegian research ship, Lance, and a Swedish ship, MV Stockholm, got stuck in the ice in the area and needed to be freed by the Norwegian Coast Guard.
While one ice floe does not amount to a mini-ice age, the dramatic evidence runs counter to the mantra of the climate warming cult which has claimed the Arctic is becoming progressively free of ice.

Other sources confirm that the supply of ice cubes for Bangladeshis may in fact, not be as limited as earlier thought … click.

Background *

“I have always loved longitude,” Nancy Pelosi says before breaking into laughter. “I love latitude; it’s in the stars. But longitude, it’s about time. … Time and clocks and all the rest of that have always been a fascination for me.”

Oy Vey !
From Amazon … number 853 and falling … with a one star rating:

The democrat matron of global warming hysteria is doing her part to destroy the planet by writing an unnecessary book – to be made out of paper and ultimately tossed in a landfill?
Even if her publishers are using recycled paper, they are still using materials that could be used for a better purpose. The printing process and delivery of the book also squander valuable energy and resources that could go to better use.
So park your SUVs and turn off your air conditioners… Nancy needs the power to make profits from her book.
Anyone who buys this book should, out of deference for the planet, multipurpose the material and use it for toilet paper – preferably before they read it.

The eminent show-down between the best in the West and the self-declared second-best will be a study in frustration for the fans.*
Well, the fans at the Ranch, that is.
On one side we have Grey Cup quarterback Marcus Crandel starting as quarter-back. On the other we have Henry Burris who. . .well, I guess he did throw for 300+ yards last game. Course, that wasn’t against the best and stingiest defence in the league.
Sure, apparently the Stamps are “good” against the run. I suppose some might assume that means that Mr. Cates might have a hard time running. The fat and sissies haven’t gone up against our front four, they’ll wish they hadn’t. The Stamp defence is ripe for the picking. They’re good against the run in the stats because no one has to run against them. Why bother with the run when you can just throw for 450 yards or so. I mean, that’s never happened to the Stumps against a rookie QB, or anything . . . has it? [cough] Let alone against a Grey Cup Champion quarter-back?
The Stampeder secondary is craptaculous. Marcus (Yeah, I’ve two GC rings, what of it?) Crandel will Darwinize the weak Horseman, leading them to the slaughter so richly deserved. No worries though, we’ll be merciful. We’ll use bullets rather than a bolt for the slaughter.
Stamps are going so down in another home-town win . . . huh? Yeah, I know it’s in Calgary, that’s what I meant.
*err, or are the Stamps the best this week? are the Stamps still undefeated?
Leary would I be to offer a blog-banner bet on SDA, but is there another option? Stump fans?
Cheers,
lance

Kate is down in the States for a show till Monday. Guest bloggers . . . please feel free to make use of the SDA machine.
Good luck Kate . . . and Lucy who is looking to finish her American Championship.
Cheers,
lance

Great marketing piece by the CFL.

The CF is having a rough week.
One of their biggest successes, the Strategic Advisory Team – Afghanistan, which mentors the Afghan civil service, is being wound down due to bureaucratic infighting in Ottawa. The news on much-needed rotary wing support in Kandahar remains confused at best. The brass is catching flak for promoting an officer whose career, it increasingly seems, was buried by a politically-correct witch hunt more than a decade ago.
And certain segments of the population, as well as large portions of the mob we call our national media, have decided to pile on a thankfully-unnamed Canadian soldier who had the great misfortune to make a life-or-death decision that resulted in the tragic death of two Afghan children.
It’s worth reading what another LAV gunner had to say about that:

LAV Gunners take these kinds of situations very seriously and they put alot of thought into their convoy SOPs. No one wants to kill kids and innocents – every one of us knows that we will live with the choices that we make on the roads in Kandahar. But the point at which warning shots turn into lethal force is a grey area, with each situation dependant on the circumstances. It’s impossible to armchair this one.
In fall 06 I was a LAV gunner involved in a convoy op in southern Afghanistan. At one point a vehicle pulled out and began speeding towards us, and I fired my COAX in accordance with ROEs. When the dust cleared the battle aiming mark on my daysight was sitting right in the middle of some kid’s head as I looked through the windshield at him sitting on the driver’s lap. The driver decided to stop just in time, and I checked fire just in time. No one was hurt, but I was seriously pissed off. How the frig could the driver have been so stupid? Risking his life and his family’s life like that? Doesn’t he know that this game is for keeps? If the timing had been a half second off I would have wasted every single ******* person in that car. And I would have had to live with that.
In the early spring 07 another car was speeding towards us. He got the drop on us, and the ****** exploded himself on the side of my LAV. No one was hurt thankfully, aside from the suicide bomber. But what if someone was hurt? Maybe I should have been just a split second quicker on the trigger. frig, I don’t know.
These are the decisions made every day by our guys in Afghanistan and it pisses me off to see this crap armchaired. Guys do enough second guessing of their own actions. They don’t need john smith on army.ca or on the CBC adding to it.

Which goes to show you can do everything right, and still have the situation start circumnavigating the toilet bowl. There are no guarantees. I doubt that will be of any consolation to the bereaved Afghan family, or to the soldier who made the decision to shoot. For his or her sake, I hope the ROE were followed to the letter. And even if they were, that’s something the soldier will have to try to come to terms with for the rest of his or her life.
Some days you’re the statue, other days you’re the pigeon. The CF seems to be getting the crappy end of that relationship this week.