Berlin Blogs - English language

Am having a big Beth Orton phase, slightly frustrated by the fact that I can't find YouTube videos of the songs I want to post. Eh. Well, this album reminds me of this part of my life. She also makes me think of Norfolk, being a Norfolk girl and all that (well, this song, which is Christmas in Norfolk on the beach, and this one, which is all about being eighteen and wearing a big fluffy fake leopardskin coat and having chipped sparkly nail varnish. Or at least, it is to me). Weird that the video is filmed among the redwoods.

Rare Treatment Is Reported to Cure AIDS Patient

A Russian invasion of Georgia long, long ago in August, gas supply cutoffs to several European countries after price disputes with Ukraine a year before that, and clearly dependent upon Russia for 30 percent of its natural gas needs already, EU countries, with Germany leading the pack, have once again expressed nothing but the greatest of confidence in Russian Puppet Master Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when it comes to his altruistic and “multilateral” Baltic Sea gas pipeline policy. Or they are just about to do so, I should say.



Going through the ritual motions of pretending to be able to say no to the RECTUM MAXIMUS (Russian Energy Czar Taunting Ultimate Macht (power)), EU lawmakers have called for an investigation into the pipeline’s environmental impact (Europeans would just hate to mess up the environment while selling themselves into Russian energy slavery, I guess). This angered RECTUM MAXIMUS however, and led him to threats that he may scrap the project. If Europe keeps delaying the pipeline, so RM, Russia might just build liquefaction plants instead, making Europe’s dependency even more expensive than it already is, and that's saying a lot, but then again, RM always does.

EU lawmakers will now be forced by Germany to waste no time to apologize profusely for this unfortunate misunderstanding and then explain in a groveling fashion that this itsy, bitsy little investigation of theirs won’t take all that long at all really as, for instance, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia won’t even have to be investigated in the first place as RM thought far enough ahead of time to have the foresight to have the pipeline bypass these pesky countries altogether, uh, in the first place to begin with already, already.

"The German government sees the pipeline as a central project to the future assurance of European and German gas provision," a spokesman for the Germany Economy Ministry said when officially asked about the pipeline as seen within the context of a central project to the future assurance of European and German gas provision.

So there we have it. Thank goodness Gerhard Schroder and co. have straightened all of this up for us again already already again.

"We cannot lower our environmental standards."

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.

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A week after declaring his intentions to position Iskander tactical missiles in Kaliningrad region in response to US missile defense plans for Europe, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lays out his terms (Reuters):

But we are ready to abandon this decision to deploy the missiles in Kaliningrad if the new American administration, after analyzing the real usefulness of a system to respond to 'rogue states', decides to abandon its anti-missile system.

We are ready to negotiate a 'zero option'. We are ready to reflect on a system of global security with the United States, the countries of the European Union and the Russian Federation.

Obama can expect pull in the other direction by the US Missile Defense Agency, whose outgoing Director Lt. Gen. Trey Obering argues missile defense technology may be farther along than the President-Elect believes (CNNPolitics.com):

Our testing has shown not only can we hit a bullet with a bullet, we can hit a spot on the bullet with a bullet. The technology has caught up.  What we have discovered is, a lot of those folks that have not been in this administration seem to be dated in terms of the program. They are kind of calibrated back in the 2000 timeframe.

Jeff Lindemyer links to two articles that offer a view of what Obama’s stance on missile defense was during the campaign at Nukes of Hazard.

See also from Atlantic Review:
* Is Russia a Superpower?  Cold War II?
* United States and Poland Agree on Missile Defense Deal
* Georgia Conflict Gives Boost to European Missile Defense Talks

Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of Online University Rankings, wrote this guest post:

Are European and US college programs equivalent?

The transatlantic divide is being further torn apart by the educational argument. The fierce debate rages on – are the three year degrees offered by institutions in the UK and across most of Europe equivalent to the four year programs on offer at US colleges? If not, which of them is the more superior? Are graduates of the shorter program less smart than their American counterparts? Or is it vice versa?

Continue reading "Europe or the US? Educational Questions We Need to Ask"

Last night my deeply Republican mother and I had a political conversation. This usually ends badly as I am so far to the left, and she is so far to the right.

What it came down to was her using the term "liberal" as though it is a dirty word. The tone of her voice when she says it exposes her deep sense of loathing for the word and the deed. It is the same tone she uses when she calls me un-American, or Agnostic.

Perhaps what the latest presidential election has meant to me is that my elected leaders are no longer going to use the word "liberal" as a dirty word. It is no longer equated so easily with this un-American terminology.

I, like The Resident, am proud to be an American... and a liberal.

Now that Obama has ended the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (damn, and this guy isn’t even in office yet), German troops stationed in the high north of the once so not particularly war-torn Hindu Kush region have begun demanding an immediate increase of the home-brewed beer rations they so badly need (or at least badly want). A mere 1 million liters of the life-giving substance had been provided to the German fighting men in Afghanistan last year and this is, well, against the Geneva Convention or something.



Furthermore, the said increase will be absolutely necessary, as a Bundeswehr spokesman said, before the German government can even begin to consider saying no to the recent British and US requests for sending more NATO troops to the southern regions of the country, where a more equal sharing of the peace burden will now be necessary.

“We need more of the European multilateralism,” one American officer said. “Now more than ever. And damn that beer looks good. Do you mind?”

“When Europeans talk about ‘multilateralism,’ they don't mean agreeing on a policy to carry it out together. They mean relegating global security to the United Nations, where Russian and Chinese vetoes curtail any effective action. At best, multilateralism à la Paris and Berlin is short for European approval for where and how Americans may spill their own blood and treasure to defend Western freedom.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klaro.

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KDE trunk now needs CMake 2.6.2. A few people have asked where it can be found for Kubuntu, fear not friends it's in intrepid-backports. You can enable backports through Adept by ticking the "Unsupported Updates" box in the sources editor.

Someone please give me this guy's contact information.
I want to give him a hug.



Thanks Matt

Don't want to watch?
Maybe you should just read it.

Special commentary
Keith Olbermann—Countdown, MSNBC
11/10/08

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.

This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.

If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

---

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.

"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

"So I be written in the Book of Love;

"I do not care about that Book above.

"Erase my name, or write it as you will,

"So I be written in the Book of Love."

---

Good night, and good luck.

Only a Popel (a booger, snot) would drive an Opel, or so the German saying goes. So that’s why there won’t be any German government aid for the ailing automaker, I suppose (it's not like Germany would ever give a carmaker any special treatment or anything). Or maybe it’s because Opel is a GM subsidiary and GM, as we all know, is an empire of evil (it makes politically incorrect cars, usually in the wrong country, and even has the word “General” in its name), although it is near-broke empire of evil, but still.



That’s right, although German and other European governments “can’t avoid seeing what the Americans are doing” (talking aid packages for carmakers), they are nevertheless doing their level best to pretend that these nasty carmaker problems will eventually just go away, or drive away if you prefer, and leave them alone. In other words, they’ll change their minds in the next few days in a big way and then jump in to help after all.

By the way, a Lord drives a Ford over here (as the same German saying goes on), although I simply can’t imagine this to be true, even if English Lords have fallen on hard times and all. And Ford, the second largest automaker after GM in the US, will be cutting up to 10 percent of its labor force after having lost $129 million last quarter. So pull that Opel out of your nose and wake up and smell the coffee already, people.

"Washington needs to look at fast-forwarding the $25 billion that has been provided for retooling the factories for basically a more fuel-efficient auto fleet."

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

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My favorite piece of this story comes one week later, when NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me quiz show addressed the issue of sagging pants, and the audience and panel reacted, almost in total unison, in agreement with President-elect Obama.

There was this blog entry about the state of packaging for the Mac.
Containing "Then you think to yourself, if only those nice boys and girls in KDE-land had a native solution for installing their software,"

So, if you want a native solution, please join kde-buildsystem and let's see what needs to be done to get the packaging support you need for OSX. I don't have an OSX box here, so your help is needed.

Looking forward to hearing from you
Alex

There was a nutty little piece in the weekend Berliner Zeitung about Berlin’s three “mountain” peaks, all 115 metres above sea level and all on the outskirts of town: the Große Müggelberg in Köpenick, Teufelsberg in Wilmersdorf and Ahrensfelder Berge in Marzahn. The former is a 100% natural product of ice age continent-smashing and the official “highest point in Berlin”—that’s what it says in the tourist brochure. The second is arguably the most beautiful of the three—and completely artificial. It was built entirely from the rubble of WWII, true story. It’s green on top and woody at the base, offering a grand view of west Berlin, a popular site for campfire parties in the summer and once the site of America’s Cold War era observation station—David Lynch also tried to buy it a couple years ago. The latter mount, in the red-headed stepchild of Berlin districts, Marzahn, until very recently 112m, was just given a 3.5m-high viewing platform, rendering it 50cm higher than the other two.

The Teufelsberg people seem mostly bemused about the new peak, professing to not really care about being the highest, rather just keeping theirs a nice recreational area. The Köpenick tourism board, on the other hand, is just this side of hoppin’ mad, not about to rewrite their brochures that proclaim the Müggelberg as Berlin’s highest. They’ll wait for the official reckoning of an upcoming land survey, thank you very much, before they’ll accept this pesky newcomer as the champion. The Marzahn tourism board—if such a thing exists—says read it and weep. This probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but Berlin, a former swamp, is 95% flat. Perhaps little surprise then that its residents would fight over its more voluptuous features.

While eagerly awaiting KDevelop4 to become stable (it crashes on me too often right now)...
I'm back to forgetting vim commands

To get a list of files on the left (still need to get comfy with it, but it looks useful) use the Project plugin

Substitute (replace stuff - I've used this so often that I remember, but maybe you don't yet?)
:%s/what/with/g
(with % on the entire file, without only current line)
(g all occurrences in the line, without only the first hit)

Do something on lines that mach a search pattern (this is what I always forget because I don't use it that often):
:g/search pattern/command

Delete empty lines using the above:
:g/^$/d

Herein a constantly updated round-up of useful articles:

• A literary agent's blog full of great advice.
• What being an unagented author means (written by an editor).
• How do you know to which agent to send your manuscript?
• Five reasons why you don't need to write a book.
• Unasked for and excellent advice about money from John Scalzi.
• What your hot literary novels sales actually constitute.
• Writer's Edge: Your book's balance sheet.
• What Sales Conferences Mean.

Today is another Bug Jam day in Berlin. Hope to see you all at c-base later on.

At some of the last Bug Jams, Berlin’s release party and other conversations I’ve had, there were lots of of requests for coupling Bug Jams and Packaging Jams. The “Fixing a bug in Ubuntu - it’s easier than you think” session at Ubuntu Open Week last Friday showed me how much excitement there is and that it’s probably a good idea.

Looking forward, it’d be great to have more of those sessions: more sessions, more cities, more topics.

A questions to the reader: If you were to visit such a city in a place nearby, what would you like to see?

–

My 5 today: #294708 (upx-ucl), #295802 (tiger), #296397 (notecase), #294156 (ubuntu), #271516 (ubuntu)

Do 5 a day - every day! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day

Talk about your locusts in action. Deutsche Post shares rose 6.8 percent to close at 10.00 Euro in Frankfurt yesterday once the glorious news about Germany’s DHL cutting of 9,500 American jobs came out.



Germans always being open for international solutions as you well know, a spokesman for DHL said the company would nevertheless unilaterally discontinue US-American domestic-only air and ground products as of Jan. 30 and “focus entirely on its international offerings”, whatever that means. Sheesh. It sure is a good thing that the German DHL jobs here in Germany are offered internationally, you know? Otherwise they might have been among the ones about to be cut, too.

This is the famous German social market economy Rhine model of capitalism Dingsda (thingy) in action, I suppose. That means that any jobs beyond the Rhine are open to disposition.

"We are more than aware of the consequences but there are no alternatives."

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!

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As you might have noticed, KDE 4.1.3 has been released, codename "Change" (in line with other C- codenames recently, as a kind of a joke on all those people who fail to see that still writing comments with overuse of K after 10 years of KDE's existence can only be a sign of brain damage). Not many changes in KWin there though, the changelog part for KWin has just one change worth mentioning. But that is not the case for users of the openSUSE KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop packages, which are the packages that will be also used for openSUSE 11.1. This is because they include a special KWin branch, which contains both backports of various new features from other KWin developers from SVN trunk (Lucas' blog keeps track of many of those) that cannot be backported to the 4.1 branch by KDE rules but should be stable and safe enough, and new features developed specially for the needs of openSUSE11.1/SLED11.

The most prominent of these is probably the fact that compositing is going to be enabled by default if possible - that is, if you install openSUSE 11.1 on a system capable of decent compositing without explicit installation of drivers, you will get desktop effects out of the box. And since decent compositing should not include the infamous cases of getting a nice white screen or detailed view of how things are painted one after another, KWin has a couple of various clever or crude tricks that should ensure it works. KWin compared to Compiz has the design advantage that it can handle gracefully working without compositing, and so far it seems these checks do their job pretty well (and if not, you should complain, that is what beta releases are for). Selecting where to enable compositing by default was also based on the list of systems where people have reported success with running composited KWin.

Another, well, significant feature is the desktop cube. Let me get this one straight - there are only two things I find good about the cube:

1. It gives users who have problems grasping the concept of virtual desktop a nice way to imagine how it works (except that in reality it does not work that way at all, but who cares if it works for the user).
2. The cube has somehow become the symbol of desktop effects and so KWin simply has to have it to be taken seriously by some people (and of course it makes it possible to enable it for 5 minutes to impress people stuck with MS Windows). Guess why I ended up including the cube image inline as the only one.

What I especially don't think the cube is very good for is to be actually used - I always get motion sickness when I have to use it for a short while and I don't think it makes it easy to find things either (and that was just with the default 4 desktops, what would be with my usual 12 or if I enabled options like the transparent cube). Nevertheless there are enough people who find it useful, so why should I be stopping Martin from implementing it, right? So we now have the cube, hurray (or something), not enabled by default, but that is easily changed in the configuration.

The PresentWindows effect includes backport of a more natural layout of showing all the windows and it can be also configured as the effect to be used for the Alt+Tab functionality. The updated DesktopGrid has not been included due to some minor problems with it, and the 4.1 version has distortion problems with non-square desktop layout, so we have default number of desktops now again 4 like in upstream KDE (I've never understood what was the point of having only two, not a big difference to having just one). For people with a different layout the effect at least tries to keep the presentation as square as possible. Options to select which effect is to be used for Alt+Tab or desktop changes are now two simple comboboxes, with a third one globally affecting all animation speeds for those who find animations acceptable only if they are fast.

As for technical backports, there are several features worth mentioning too. I have backported fullscreen window unredirecting, new handling of idling, and the 'Keep window thumbnails' handling, which when set to 'Only for shown windows' makes desktop switching as fast as with Compiz (since it technically makes it handle the window contents the same). To my knowledge KWin's performance should roughly match that of Compiz and if it does noticeably worse on some setups that should be usually a case of the drivers being bad.

There seem to be already a number of happy users of KWin's compositing, so, well, I hope it will work well for you too. Maybe you will not even notice at first .

Last item is not about KWin but rather Compiz - the option to select the window manager to be used with KDE is in the more logical Default applications module in Systemsettings and, when Compiz is selected, the Configure button will launch simple-ccsm-kde, which is simple-ccsm equivalent that does not drag in all the g* dependencies. For people who still have a reason to use Compiz instead of KWin.

openSUSE 11.1 will include (besides the to be expected plasmoids from kdebase4-workspace and kde4-plasma-addons) three more plasmoids to be closer to KDE 3.5 functionality: Quick Access, Quick Launcher and Keyboard Status Applet:

And many more plasmoids are available from the KDE:KDE4:Community openSUSE Build Service repository thanks to the openSUSE KDE Team.

And other strange activities in the Middle East.

Having not forgotten that wonderful June speech in Berlin in which then US-American presidential candidate Barack Obama called for Germans to take more of the fighting burden in Afghanistan, the German government is wasting no time now after last week’s election to remind Obama and everyone else out there that they will continue to resist calls for more troops in that country while still remaining the best of bosom buddies with us at the very same time (and with Angelika Merkel that’s saying a lot - the bosom part, I mean, get it?).



And just to prove just what good buddies we will continue to be, German foreign minister and aspiring chancellor candidate himself Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) will, uh, prove it and jump over his own quite substantial shadow by travelling to IRAQ ITSELF right after Obama’s inauguration. This is significant or something.

Probably because you could call this planned German visit to Iraq a good-will visit of sorts I guess, although, technically speaking, Steinmeier won’t be the first German minister to visit that terrible, dreadful, awful place. German economy minister Michael Glos held quiet, semi-secret talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad back in July already, expressly stressing Germany’s interest in Iraqi oil, remember? No, of course you don’t.

So you could say, or at least I will, that Steinmeier’s good-will visit will be good in that it will be “good” that the Germans can finally get what they “will” (want, in German). Now that Darth W. Vader has finally been besiegt (defeated) by, uh, Luke Waterwalker or whoever.

You gotta have friends, I guess. Or bosom buddies, if you don’t have those. And with buddies like that, uhm, how’s that saying go again?

“Damit solle ein Signal an Obama gesandt werden, dass die Bundesregierung seine Politik im Nahen und Mittleren Osten unterstütze.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

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Because of the migraine and the aftershocks, I haven't been out much – two forays into the social whirl resulted in a whirling head, nausea, and the need to be at home under my duvet – so, apart from RFM, I've mainly only had the company of Internet America.

And it's been bloody terrifying.

I've seen cyber acquaintances claim "the end is nigh" because Obama wants peace in the Middle East (I wonder if everyone over there knows that it's their Biblical duty to remain constantly in conflict just so that the Rapture doesn't come too soon for some mid-western baptist?), or that the United States of America is about to turn into the United Socialist Soviets of America because of a negligible tax change. That "the Rose Garden is now the Watermelon Patch". That "it doesn't matter because he'll be assassinated before Inauguration Day." That now the US will be punished with a terrorist attack even greater than 9/11 because abortion will go on. That if McCain had come to power, Russia wouldn't rattle their sabres any more (yeah, right. After McCain called Puti-Put pure KGB).
It's all as florid and weird as a migraine aura, and leaves a similar, sinister atmosphere. If something does not conform to one's world view, it is obviously a lie, a distortion and possibly part of a colossal, improbable conspiracy theory involving Satan, the Elders of Zion, the Liberal Media and Ellen, and, unchecked, will lead to the breakdown of marriage and the overfunding of fruit-fly research. That kind of thing.
It doesn't sound like any Americans I know in the real world, and my memories of being in the country itself don't include gay-bashing in the streets and people who think that paying income tax will condemn them to a gulag.
I know that part of it is just the amplification caused by the internet, and of course media coverage of America for the last ten years – there's nothing, short of a mad mullah with a hook for an arm, that a TV news producer or newspaper editor loves more than some whack-job American who will tell him that a Jew was piloting the plane that hit the Pentagon.
But this has been an incredibly bitter election. In the UK there's so little difference between the two main parties as far as most of us are concerned, that we react to the General Election with a kind of cynical lethargy. It's not great for democracy, but at least we don't burn crosses on the lawns of those who support the opposition. And yet we still have ravening racists, and the "I'm not racist but..." crowd, and those who think the Welfare State is a scam and gays should be put in camps. It just never feels like the country's about to split asunder.

Somewhere along the way in 2008, George W Bush ceased to feel like the most dangerous and powerful moron on the planet and just faded away, to be replaced by greater horrors like, um, John "health of the mother" McCain and then, comble de malheur, Sarah Palin. Right now the "Internet America effect" is so strong, that I'd welcome a vision from four years in the future, to assure me that no latter-day Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray wipes the President Elect out. If it didn't provoke a mass panic and conspiracy theories, I'd suggest the whole interweb was switched off for a couple of days.
I'm sure you're all normal really, when you haven't got an avatar and a screen name to hide behind.

No comment accept that, yes, I did eat them. It was the weekend.

Thomas Friedman in the NY Times (HT: Katie):

To all those Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, Russians, Iranians, Chinese, Indians, Africans and Latin Americans who are e-mailing their American friends about their joy at having “America back,” now that Obama is in, I just have one thing to say: “Show me the money!”

Don’t just show me the love. Don’t just give me the smiles. Your love is fickle and, as I said, it will last about as long as the first Obama airstrike against an Al Qaeda position in Pakistan. No, no, no, show me the money. Show me that you are ready to be Obama stakeholders, not free-riders — stakeholders in what will be expensive and difficult initiatives by the Obama administration to keep the world stable and free at a time when we have fewer resources.

I agree. The honeymoon will not last that long.

Before the presidential elections, there were reports about Europe's Letter to the Next U.S. President: "In an unprecedented move, EU foreign ministers will send a six-page memo to the winner of the U.S. election asking for cooperation." I heard rumors that this letter was supposed to be quite specific and promise specific EU commitments to more burden sharing. I don't know if that letter has now been delivered...

Newsweek has a good piece about Obama that shows how well he understands the hopes and dreams projected on the big screen of his image as American Redeemer. They’re not entirely real. Separating himself from the image is crucial; it’s one way he navigated his campaign, and it will be the only way to get things done as president. So it’s good to see him give a completely boring press conference. The expectations for Obama are beyond what any man can achieve, and he seems to understand that when a leader is lifted so fast by a popular groundswell, it’s a psychological phenomenon, an expression of need in a society more than a function of raw talent. This phenomenon can happen to good and bad people, and I happen to think Obama is good, potentially great. But we’ll see. For the moment I’m just pleased that a sober, competent guy I liked from the start has made it to the White House. That never happens.

UPDATE: Colson Whitehead, author and skinny black guy, never thought he’d see the day when a truly skinny president took office.

UPDATE 2: This wish list for Obama story has been making the rounds, and it emphasizes just how historically different the Obama presidency has the potential to be — even, or especially, if none of the interest-group “wishes” are fulfilled. Because of the way he raised money, Obama is less in hock to union and corporate interests than the sort of politicians we got used to in the 20th century. This is dawning on both liberals and conservatives:

“He owes nothing to anyone except the people who elected him,” said Democratic strategist Steve McMahon.

Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that the unprecedented ground organization and campaign infrastructure that Obama built left him less reliant on groups such as labor unions to get voters mobilized and to the polls. As a result, he said, Obama is less obligated to them now.

“He doesn’t have the traditional strings attached,” Ornstein said. “For labor, it’s not like they can come to him and say, ‘You would not be president were it not for us.’ ”

The same is true, Ornstein said, for campaign contributors. In the past, he said, trial lawyers – as a group a reliable supporter of Democratic candidates – could go to a presidential nominee and make certain demands. But he said they can’t do that to Obama because his own e-mail list of small donors has proven it can raise far more.

“The implicit threat of financial blackmail – it’s just not worth very much,” Ornstein said.

That’s where the potential for greatness lies. What if the American empire can be run like the old American republic?

Despite the latest dire global financial crisis warnings, this time given by Germany’s famous five-member government council of “wise men” economic advisers (some, like me, prefer to call them the wise guyz), most Berlin residents, long broke already (just like their city government before them), don’t understand what all the fuss about collapsing banks and economies in recession is, well, all about.

“I haven’t felt a thing,” said one unconcerned, clueless citizen when asked about the global financial crisis. “But then again, I haven’t felt anything for about seven or eight years now. Not when it comes to money, I mean. Uh, can I have that Euro there when you’re done with it, buddy?”

"Poor but sexy" Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit couldn’t agree more, I’m sure, if anyone would only care to ask him. He may know that the financial crises now sweeping across the world may be a bad thing, but it can’t happen here because it’s already been happening here for a long, long time already, already. While Londoners are suffering the biggest drop in property prices in 16 years, for instance, Berliners can’t even imagine what that means, having little to lose in the first place and therefore being in the happy position to hardly care less.

“We’re talking poor here, dude” said the same unconcerned citizen after haven been given that Euro he had groveled for so intensely. “Berliners are so poor that instead of real shoes, we have to draw shoes on our feet. Poor? In Berlin? Most Berliners can’t even pay the rent on their cardboard boxes anymore. We’re talking poor. Scores of people are so poor here that even their middle names have been repossessed. You want poor? Why I’m so poor that I can’t even afford to pay attention to you anymore. I gotta million of them, folks. But that will cost you another Euro, of course.”

“The advisors will forecast zero growth for 2009.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

                             

KDE 4.2 is approaching its first Beta release and it has been a while so here is a new KDE Four Live release with KDE 4.1.72 snapshot SUSE packages from the KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop repository.

This CD is still based on openSUSE 11.0 (which had "NetworkManager 0.7"), will switch to 11.1 either during RC phase or after its release in December. knetworkmanager is the last KDE3 based application on the CD as Will is developing the NetworkManager plasmoid against "NetworkManager 0.7" (as in openSUSE 11.1). Confused? Yeah, I guess nobody has an overview how many incompatible "NetworkManager 0.7" versions exist or have been shipped by distros by now.

One of the most beautiful things about living in a place like NYC is people watching. To top it all off, I recently got my first, very own iPod shuffle (right here at the ripe age of 32), which makes the people-watching that much more dramatic and cinematic.

Last night, I went to see Anton Corbijn's Control, a biopic about the late Ian Curtis and Joy Division.

But first, let me tell you about the subway ride there:

Sitting next to me was a young couple speaking in sign language. They were in their own world completely, laughing (silently, it all seemed), and totally unaware of all the wandering, curious, fascinated eyes and slight smiles stealing glimpses of their silent love affair. At some point, they stopped signing and started examining each others' hands - something lovers do, but these were hands they obviously already knew, hands that spoke to them, that held the key to everything between them in a way far more fundamental than in the beauty of their lines and muscles. They then started playing with each others' hands. First, slow, soft movements, then jokes -playful twists and turns of the wrists. He was speaking, she was squeezing to make him be quiet. Their fingers wrestled and tugged in this alien, communicative, sensual experience that they were both clearly completely lost in. Every single person on the bench opposite them was enraptured. An old, hippie couple - clothed in grey hair and glasses - riveted, eyes pointed over the newspapers that opened against their chests. A man with a bible - letting his eyes pass equally back and forth between the bible and the couple without noticeable preference for one or the other (he could have been a minister marrying them in this silent, emotional film). Another woman, piles of bags beside her, hid nothing in her expression as she watched the two - without reserve, unembarrassed to stare, and staring hard, like the intensity of a keen television watcher. And then me, beside them, watching them as intensely as all the others, but through the reflection on the window opposite. I had the special vantage point of seeing the watchers and the watched at the same time, and then the melodic filter of the music playing through my headphones to keep me at a safe, disconnected, anonymous distance. I stole occassional glances to my right to see them in color. In the window reflection, everything lacks bright tones.

I landed, several stops from the theatre, and much too early. I was in the West Village, so I decided to check it out. I thought of Berlinbound, and how he and HH must know those streets so well. I wished I had him as a guide as I walked in circles without a map through the cozy, criss-crossed streets.

I got to the cinema two minutes before the film started and had to take the LAST seat available in the second row next to a 60-something gentleman who was very well-dressed (business man style) and was hushing the chatty people behind us even while just the movie previews were playing. Being so packed into a theatre in seats so small, it is hard not to be aware of the strangers sitting on either side of you in a sort of forced intimacy. You can smell them. You can hear them breathing when the loud surround-sound pauses. This man was breathing so quickly, that I was worried he was going to die on me. The movie began, and throughout the film, he was reacting quickly in these funny laughs that made me think again and again that he was actually one of the people depicted in the film, or else used to have some close relationship to Joy Division. I even caught him feigning chords with his left hand during the performance scenes. Anyways, I thought about striking up a conversation with him afterwards to get the real scoop on Joy Division, but instead, just watched him swagger in this akward, jerky, mechanical way (much like Ian Curtis on stage) into the night, his suit pants actually hemmed about a half a foot higher than normal.

So I get back onto the subway, super late. I sit down, and again, there is a couple next to me using sign language. This time, they were older, more settled and mature. They weren't sitting together, but directly across from one another. They, like the couple earlier, communicated in a world that didn't seem to associate with the rest of the people around them, in that there were no voices to engage.

This is not to include all of the other people I "interacted" with over the course of the evening....people I asked directions from, people I made eye contact with, the waitress with the English accent and big glasses in the West Village. The personalities that come through in these small moments are so full, so expressive, so unguarded in a quick moving city way where people seem to be surrounded by walls, but when interacted with, are very quick to let them all down as though they are starving for human contact.

As for the film, it was beautiful. Well, to be honest, it was one of the most depressing films I have ever seen....but I appreciated the long, quiet spaces which say more than words...something one doesn't see in films or real life much anymore.

Good night and good lovin',
Love Mama Jens

The Mp3 Experiment Tour from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

The KDE BugSquash team is holding another testing and bug triaging day tomorrow, Sunday 9th of November, to help maintain and improve the quality of KDE PIM applications.

Especially versatile applications like KMail and KOrganizer can potentially be tested numerous times by its developers without finding any issues because it requires a certain workflow or data set to trigger them.
Therefore help by as many volunteers as possible is hugely improving the situation, because every person will have different goals, preferences on how to do things (e.g. mouse v.s. keyboard), data sources, amount of data, etc.

If you are interested and have some time tomorrow you'd like to donate to KDE, see the BugSquad's information page.

The Gaza Strip may be the only war zone in the world with a surf club.

Beautiful German of the week.



Because somebody has to admire them.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Szymon Stefanek's KMail GSoC project was merged into trunk today.

Stunning. You've got to try it. KMail has been re-launched!

r881321

To quote the commit message:
"... New features include grouping, multiline items and the ability to customize just about everything of the look of the message list.
Also, we have a tabbed interface for opening more than one folder at once now..."

Fantastic work Szymon and Thomas.

• You know how glossy magazines sometimes show things but no price? And it says, "price upon request? A New York Times reporter actually investigated and discovered that "most of the unpriced items were never available for purchase." Which sums it up, really, doesn't it?


• Tattoos, premarital sex and two hundred lovers. That's Winston Churchill's mother.
  

• What went wrong in book publishing this October.

Leftover and Store Cupboard

fennel, kohlrabi, carrot, pumpkin, courgette, celery, potato and onion.
Lots. One of the things you didn't want to know about migraines is that it stops your stomach draining. Ergo, I did not cook much last week, and am still only eating small amounts of food.

New in This Week

– celeriac
– butternut squash
– carrot
– salad leaves
– oyster mushrooms
– Jerusalem artichokes
– SCHWARZWURZELN aka VIPER'S GRASS aka salsify

Vague Plans

Kohlrabi and celeraic fritters; roast pumpkin and other veg with coriander pesto; Middle Eastern boiled carrot dip; carrot salad; carrot soup; steamed carrot; roast carrot; curried carrot; carrot sticks; more roast veg with pesto; salad, with carrot.

Crucial Questions

Is it best to just keep Jerusalem artichokes plain and enjoy the flavour?
What in tarnation is salsify, and is it desirable to have so much of it?

The hard-working Danny Allen put out a new Commit Digest, and the resulting discussion on the Dot raised a few comments about Microsoft Exchange support in kdepim.

The short version is that it isn't going to make it for KDE 4.2. Maybe 4.3. Maybe not for 4.3 either. Sorry.

The longer version is that I had some real-life work intrude (I'm only a volunteer developer), and also did some work on something I really do plan to use (being the .snp generator for Okular). More recently I've also been working on the underlying libraries (OpenChange). Those are hopefully going to be of some use to some of you too. I do believe this stuff is important, but it isn't the most important thing to me all of the time (in particular, when I have to work, or travel, or catch up on some sleep).

When dealing with MS Exchange, people often suggest "just use IMAP". I don't think that mail is the real reason why people use Exchange and Outlook. There are lots of ways to use IMAP clients (including Outlook) and servers (including Exchange) for mail. If it was just email, there wouldn't be much point to OpenChange. The real lock-in for most Outlook / Exchange houses is the shared calendaring (including Free/Busy), big use of contact lists, and Public Folders.

The good news is that OpenChange is well advanced in supporting those, and the work that Alan Alvarez has done on the Akonadi OpenChange resource has set us up well for making some use of that.

The bad news is that right now the resource won't even compile (because of some changes of API in OpenChange), and Free/Busy isn't supported in Akonadi yet. There is a long way to go.

It does seem to be taking a long time, and that is probably a fair criticism. Please understand that the Exchange protocol is very complex (some 20+ documents in the specification set, and some of them are into the hundreds of pages) and no-one is working on this stuff full time. Julien Kerihuel is the closest we have to a full time developer of OpenChange, and he is mostly doing it on a self-funded basis. Certainly a lot of time invested and some great work, but still only a single developer. I'd also like to recognise the work of Jelmer Vernooij. So, not many people working on it, and a lot of work to do. When we get OpenChange into shape, I still have to put the work in the Akonadi resource.

Sorry.

Ukraine and Georgia were previously anticipated to take the next step toward full NATO membership, attaining Membership Action Plans (MAPs), at an upcoming December NATO Ministerial.  However, Georgia’s conflict with Russia and the destabilizing, perennial internal political squabbles between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko in Ukraine has made a 2008 MAP for either country all but impossible to imagine. 

Steven Pifer, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, believes that in this situation, it would be unwise for the US to push hard for MAPs in December.  Instead the US should develop a Plan B for moving Georgia and Ukraine toward membership:

Rather than pursuing a quest certain to end in diplomatic failure, Washington needs a Plan B. It should aim to shape a December outcome that sends positive signals to Kyiv and Tbilisi while making clear that NATO does not concede Ukraine or Georgia to Russia’s geopolitical orbit.

Seeking MAPs in December, only to fall short, would not be good for Ukraine or Georgia or for their long-term NATO prospects. Likewise, it would not be good for the U.S. government to make a big diplomatic push to persuade allies to agree to MAPs – and fail again, as it did in Bucharest.

Pifer outlines his own Plan B proposal here.

Continue reading "Two Different Paths to NATO: Georgia and Ukraine"

Talk about a short honeymoon. Not wirklich (really even) waiting to let President-elect Obama have a chance to even move into the White House, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has done his duty and wasted no time in beginning the inevitable German sobering-up process by quietly but firmly raising doubts about Obama’s sincerity in all matters green, thus gently ushering in the next era of Germany’s unfortunate but necessary disillusionment with America.



Calling for something Steinmeier unfortunately labeled a “New Green Deal” (only this time for the whole world and even more expensive, get it?), Steinmeier informed listeners that US climate protection plans under the new President will still take a back seat to economic concerns. This is of course a very, very bad thing and something he and the rest of the German nation would never ever consider doing in even its wildest of its many bekanntlich (well-known) wild and illustrious dreams.

An unofficial spokesman for the President-elect said the new administration will most certainly examine Herr Steinmeier’s suggestion very thoroughly and quite intensely but for the moment “We got your new green deal for you right here, pal.”

"Climate change is one of the challenges which we can either solve together or fail on together," said Steinmeier, who is due to face off again Angela Merkel for the chancellorship next September.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

PS: Thanks for the rock link, Indeterminacy - and your link too, hawaiianpun. Comments refuse to work right here, try the radio button in the middle.

Just before my brain exploded I meant to blog this.

The Queen may only just have received her first Lipizzaner as a gift, but she actually got to ride one after a performance in London in 1953. Alois Podhajsky's My Dancing White Horses contains the tale:

The Duke of Beaufort ... came up to me at once and said, "Her Majesty has asked me to find out whether the invitation to ride your horse was given merely out of politeness, or whether you really meant it. We are good friends, you and I, so please tell the truth." When I replied that I had offered my horse in all seriousness, the Duke said he would inform the Queen.
...
Punctually at 10.30 Queen Elizabeth, followed by the Duke of Edinburgh, their two children, and Princess Margaret, entered the room outside the school ... I asked the Queen, remembering what I had said at Kensington Palace, whether she wanted to ride Pluto Theodorosta on a curb or a snaffle ... She replied, "I prefer the snaffle." ...
When she was in the saddle and had taken the reins she asked me who besides myself rode Pluto Theodorosta, and when I replied that he was only led when I was away said, "Shall I really be the first strange rider he has carried? ..."
When the Queen had tried out some more basic steps, delighted with her success so far, I asked her is she would like to try the piaffe and passage. ... Pluto Theodorosta changed into the two steps of the haute école. Her Majesty's cheeks grew rosy, and when she finally stopped she called out, "I am thrilled!" And I, too, was pleasantly stimulated and happy.

The Prince Philip has a go ("not so sensitively and quietly as the Queen, rather more in polo style.") and starts to try Pluto Theodorosta's patience. Prince Charles and Princess Anne also get a ride, before stuffing PT with carrots.

So says today's Hindustan Times lead editorial.

He’s young, but it sure is a relief to be talked to like an adult for once from that bully pulpit. His maturity, like his mandate, doesn’t come out of nowhere; the NY Times has a good retrospective on grassroots movements and the black vote, from the Civil Rights era on.

WAIT, THOUGH: What if it’s the liberal media’s fault? A one-and-a-half year election, a gruelling primary for Obama, the highest voter turnout in the history of the nation — what if all those Americans have been herded like sheep? What if Sarah Palin really would have been A-Okay if we just got to know her personally? What if she can actually reform the media?

Erm, we’ll see.

This past weekend several art fairs all converged on Berlin. One was held at the historical Templehof airport, serving as the location for Allied air aide to West Berlin and officially closed last Friday. Another was held at Messe, a large conference center on the western side of Berlin. Two others were held at hotels in Berlin. Ultimately art fairs are exhausting and often not the most exciting places to see artwork. There is usually a lack of cohesion between the art presented in the gallery's booths that is mostly on display for collectors and sales.

However, we thought this would be an opportunity to see a lot of art all at once and took the marathon trip to visit these over the end of last week.


Entrance to Preview Berlin at Templehof hangar


Preview overview

There was a free shuttle service provided from the Preview Berlin fair to Artforum Berlin across town. We had managed to obtain a free professional pass to Preview and were able to ride in a Toyota Prius across town. At Artforum we were expecting to have tickets on hold. The tickets were not there when we arrived but somehow we managed to talk them into giving us a free VIP pass.




Albert Weiss work on paper

I could not get very many good angles of the Artforum booths but the architectural features of the building were amazing for their 1960's kitschy German style.


Coatroom


Lounge (w/ mirror and glass terrarium)


Chandelliers

We also attended an opening in a pavillion on Karl-Marx-alee held in an old building that was build by the East German gov't to house communist art in the 1960's.


Capitain Petzel opening

backyard

Herbst is the German word for Fall. The season of Fall. After living in San Francisco for 5 years we have not had the opportunity to experience seasons and the changing of leaves. Berlin had a few spectacular weeks, a lot of yellow and a little red.



We had a relaxed Halloween. No Trick-or-Treaters. There were some people celebrating but it still seems like an imported American holiday. Just to create the holiday ambiance S carved a mini Jack-o-Lantern from an orange bell pepper.

If only I'd been able to eat some hot dogs.

Also, from Newsweek:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

Welcome to the Virtual Post Election Bash courtesy of Diane at Martinis for Two!

I'm not sure if this is what she really had in mind with her idea, but after deep reflection throughout this November 5th, 2008, it is exactly how I feel.

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd, “and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Sorry for the bad pun, but I’m not quite awake (after getting to bed at 8am this morning) and haven’t even begun to process all the post-election news today, but I still feel giddy and intoxicated from what happened last night — and that’s not just post-party chemical residue talking: I think I’m nursing a hope hangover. Last night, down in south Berlin, gathered around a CNN-broadcasting television with some Americans (hot dogs and beer, Michiganian caterer in Neukölln — big up Suzy!) and European sympathizers, dampening our nervousness by commenting on the skeletal structure of James Carville and debating the absolute necessity of CNN deploying an actual hologram, we saw Pennsylvania go blue around 3am and then Ohio go at around 4:00, it was good but hard to believe. I had planned on going home and then waking up to the votes still being counted ad infinitum a la the last two elections, the two that also inform my experience as an American voter.

So, at 4:30 in the morning, walking down Westerstrasse to pick up other friends at a big screen Ami gathering at the bar Freies Neukölln, I was taken aback to see 1) CNN declaring Obama President Elect and 2) McCain offering his gentle concession within the hour — amazing.

We — my neighbor from San Jose and my couch-surfing friend from Argentina, to whom I enjoy explaining this whole thing — made it back to mine at 5:45, just in time to see Obama hit that beflagged stage in Chicago to say, in the most moving words I’ve ever heard from Obama, this change has come, though it’s been “a long time coming”, lines straight from Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, a more appropriate narrrative I cannot conceive. This is a song by a black man, one done wrong but unbowed by 60s era racism and, not insignificantly, inspired by a white man, Bob Dylan, his own Blowin’ in the Wind a commentary on racism. This is the song Rosa Parks listened to for comfort. This is THE story. Last night really did mark a new chapter. Little wonder then that Oprah would be teary-eyed in Grant Park as is Jesse Jackson as is Colin Powell speaking to the Associated Press, talking about coming closer to reconcilliation in America and Obama being the best of America.

Long time coming. I think I can say I’m proud, today, by association at least, with no reservation, to be an American. There is still some good in us. It has been a long time since the entire world could rejoice with us about anything. The sense of relief is profound. As Warren Ellis twittered today, “Nice work, America. You got your country back.”

Page 56 of the nearest book, sentences five through ten:

In his business, which was sales and marketing, he had many sexual proposals from visiting women — all Egyptian men did. Visitors found them attractive. Well, I could vouch for that: the embankments of the Nile rang with the shrieks of Europeans being pleasured on board feluccas. Indeed, the very name “felucca” had a sexual ring to it.

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux.

Last week's dishes:

beetroot and chocolate loaf; chicken stock (most beautiful, flavoursome celery I've ever had); cabbage and kohlrabi greens; roast butternut squash and coriander pesto (best thing of the week, served with roast chicken); mushroom risotto; salads; Brazilian bean, savoy cabbage and chorizo stew (possibly the migraine-trigger).


Leftovers:

apples, pears, parsnip, carrot, two tomatoes

I had a cooking frenzy on Friday because I was too ill to go out of the house and work, and produced carrot, parsnip and pear soup; kohlrabi, apple and beetroot salad; a loaf of bread and more chocolate beetroot cake. Which got a bit burnt.


In the box:

– kohlrabi
– parsley (swizz! I already have a bush of it)
– carrots
– pumpkin
– aubergine
– courgette
– bulb of fennel with fronds. I also ordered a bag of potatoes, à la carte.

I can't decide between two layered vegetable dishes, both of which contain tomato, courgette, aubergine, onion, potato and garlic. One is Greek, Briam, and is served with oregano and feta. The other is a Bene Israel/Jewish-Indian dish, with a coconut and spice sauce. Both are ridiculously easy to make, but the choice just a matter of directional jonesing on the night.
I grilled last week's courgettes and an extra aubergine to eat with salt and lemon. What about the pumpkin though?


Some recipes I have one beady eye on:

Kohlrabi and celeriac fritters; fennel and kohlrabi salad with lemon and caper dressing (both these via a great kohlrabi recipe round-up).

German and American policy pundits and exchange students look forward to a new phase in transatlantic relations, but also recognize the limits of further US-European cooperation. That's my conclusion from speaking to dozens of America enthusiasts at Telekom representation in Berlin, where one of the many election night parties took place.

Here's my interview with Dr. John C. Hulsman and Dr. Henning Riecke of the German Council of Foreign Relations as well as Johannes Thimm, a Ph.D. candidate at the Free University:

 

 

You will find the interview with the German Fulbright alumni and the US exchange students on Atlantic-community.org.

Denis Boyles argues in the National Review that while the vast majority of Europeans are hoping Obama will be elected President of the United States today, he would not have a chance of success were he running to lead any European country. Boyles offers five reasons why:

1. “His tax policies are frightening,” in that they are too far left for Europe.
2. “His views on abortion are way too extreme for Europeans.”
3. “His lack of experience means trouble.”
4. “He’s in love with failed ideas.” Boyles calls Obama a “socialist romantic”, compares his policies to the EU Constitution, and then argues that the dream of Obama and all liberals is to have kids raised by the state – the first argument makes no sense and the second argument is simply not true.
5. “His name, incidentally, is Barack Hussein Obama. Sorry to save this for last, but the sad fact is a politician with Obama’s racial and ethnic background wouldn’t stand a chance in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, or anywhere else in the European Union no matter how charming his speeches were.”


Continue reading "Five Reasons Obama would not be Elected in Europe"

As Andrew Hammel from the University of Düsseldorf pointed out in his interview with Jörg Wolf recently, most Germans "haven't the faintest idea what John McCain stands for" politically. If you thought you could find out by reading his autobiography, think again. "Faith of My Fathers" could just as well be placed on the bookshelf labeled "military history".

In his so-called "family memoir", John McCain describes in detail wartime adventures of his father and his grandfather. Both were named like himself: John Sidney McCain, and both were four-star admirals in the Navy. John McCain the third (72) succeeded them to military academy and became a bomber pilot. After childhood and youth full of fits of rage and fistfights followed the stereotypical life of a soldier, including fights, romantic escapades, alcohol and gambling.

Continue reading "War Hero Versus Shooting Star"

I’m going to give a talk at the 3rd Free Software Congress in Alicante, Spain on November 6th. It’s going to be about “Ubuntu Development in the bigger picture”: how Ubuntu development works, what’s planned for the future, challenges we face and what’s so exciting about it all.

I’m looking forward to talking to everybody interest in Ubuntu, free software development in general and our awesome community. If you’re going to be there yourself and want to chat with me or have a beer, drop me a line.

But I swear it's worth it, to hear her get prank called by these Canadian comedians. And her campaign have acknowledged it's real. Listen very very closely at around 5.48, *after* she's been told they're calling from Montreal. Because I think you can hear her saying "it's a radio station from France".


Oh, and here's an interview with the pranksters. Guess what?

"When we started to work on the idea last Tuesday," Mr. Audette said in an interview yesterday, "we thought it would be mission impossible. But after about a dozen calls, we started to realize it might work, because her staff didn't know the name of the French President. They asked us to spell it."

Last week Slate had a piece about the simultaneous elation and dread building up in The Liberal Media on the hyperbolic task of reporting the upcoming Obama rapture, when they’ve already exhausted their best superlatives covering the campaign. Writer Jack Shafer reckons the burden must be heaviest for those most shamelessly infatuated with Obama, like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’s and his shivery leg or the journalist with the biggest crush, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and his so-called “erection of the heart”, a phrase that I’ll always remember learning from David Foster Wallace in 1996, describing a friend’s reaction to Carole Maso’s pomo tome Ava. Turns out his friend borrowed that phrase from its original creator, Lester Bangs, that eminently quotable rock critic. Why isn’t he idolized like HST?

The Berlin release party was excellent. Lots and lots of people, very likely due to the great support of “Berliner Fenster” (the company that runs the announcement/news screens in the Berlin metros)

Thanks a lot, dear supporters at Berliner Fenster.

So what was the party like? We met in Berlin’s c-base (the sunken spaceship) and around 150-200 people showed up. There was a very busy schedule of interesting talks and lots of chatting on the hallways. Lots of interesting people, lots of excitement, lots of good questions and lots of interest in more bug jams and packaging jams.

After the talk programme we had a band and a Techno live act play and everybody enjoyed the event. Thanks a lot to everybody who helped to make this happen, particularly thanks to the unstoppable Caspar Clemens Mierau.

Hope to see you all on the next Bug Jam (Nov 11th).