From the monthly archives:

May 2005

Wishful Thinking

29 May 2005

The polls haven’t yet closed in France for the referendum on the EU Constitution, but Spiegel Online says High Turnout in France and that while the opponents had been leading the polls, the lead has “melted away”.

Given Spiegel’s record on citing polls in the last two German state elections, I take it that means the [...]

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Harbor Tour

29 May 2005

We spent a couple of nice hours this sunny afternoon with Anna, who was in Hamburg for the weekend. Christopher enjoyed showing her the harbor on the Louisiana Star (which Christopher has ridden before), and the old Elbe tunnel. Anna’s leaving Germany in a month for her fiancé in Texas, so she’s doing a lot [...]

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Planned Shutdown

28 May 2005

What’s worse than the office building management planning a power shutdown from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday (and you have vital systems in the building that need to be restarted)?

It’s when on Thursday the building management decides to change the shutdown to 5:00 to 7:00 pm, and it’s perfect grill weather.

At least I [...]

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Hot Wheels Gorleben

28 May 2005

You let Mama and Christopher go shopping alone, and you never know what they’ll come home with. Today it was a Hot Wheels Atomic Waste Processing Plant. At least that’s what it looks like.

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When Exceptions Become the Norm

27 May 2005

What Is Torture? is an excellent interactive “primer on American interrogation” at Slate that explains the debate about interrogation techniques used by Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. It presents a lot of detail without being overwhelming. It’s intended to “inform rather than persuade”, but it’s hard to disagree with the conclusion:

What has happened — a [...]

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Working for the Clampdown

25 May 2005

Thorte’s post on the new elections reminded me of the fact that if we were playing six degrees of separation with German politicians, I’d be closest to Bavarian Interior Minister Günther Beckstein, the most right-wing politician holding high office in Germany. That might be enough to save my butt when the clampdown comes, but I [...]

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You say you want a revolution

23 May 2005

powerbook_blog, who normally blogs almost exclusively about his (surprise) Powerbook, makes the observation that the NRW elections and Schröder’s decision to call new elections could be the best thing to ever happen to the German blogosphere. I paraphrase: “In my 1 year blogging career I’ve never seen so many political blog postings. I would find [...]

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Live Journal Exchange

23 May 2005

Live Journal exchange on new elections “This is the most sucky government we ever had”, “But they also had to deal with all the shit 16 years of fat guy brought us”

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SPD Loses Big in NRW

22 May 2005

SPD loses big in North Rhine-Westphalia, Schröder said to seek early Bundestag elections this fall.

So what was this “razor close race” the polls this week were supposedly reporting?

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Germany: No Points

21 May 2005

It’s 10:30, have they started the announcing the votes at the Eurovision Song Contest yet? I’m not turning on the TV until I’m sure the music is over. I only want to watch the results.

Update 0:26: That title wasn’t a prediction. I had no idea Germany would really finish dead last. However, I did enjoy [...]

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SPD, tut nicht weh

20 May 2005

The best comment I’ve heard on Sunday’s election in NRW is the fake radio spot in today’s Bundestagkantine (MP3, 2.2MB, link will probably disappear tomorrow) in the style of Sendung mit der Maus. “Steenbruck is already Minister-President, he knows he can’t do it; the dumb Rüttgers would need to learn that for himself.” Or something [...]

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Pfingstbaum

18 May 2005

Karl talked about Pfingstbaumpflanzen, or planting trees for Pentecost. In his village the young men bring trees to the young women, drinking Schnapps along the way. Here the young men bring trees to every house, and sing in exchange for schnapps. This year they came to us quite late, after 9 pm, and were by [...]

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Spießer

18 May 2005

ChicagoKarl points out an article at FAZ that tries to explain in English the German concept of a Spießer, which can’t really be explained. LEO says it’s “bourgeois” or “square”, but that doesn’t really cut it. It’s more of a middle-class, middle-aged conformist. You could also say suburban, except Germany doesn’t have suburbs.

My personal [...]

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Stick Figures in Peril

17 May 2005

Stick Figures in Peril

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Nazi Spam

15 May 2005

After a frustrating week, I was going to completely ignore work this weekend, but today’s return of the zombie Nazi spambots demanded attention. Many Germans are understandably disturbed by neo-Nazi mails sent by the latest variant of the Sober virus. Users who don’t bat an eye at porn, drug or gambling spam are bothered by [...]

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Who is Germany?

10 May 2005

An ad campaign is to declare You are Germany. Spreeblick says Not me. Moe says Me neither. Nico says It’s morning in Germany. Heiko says I’d rather be pope.

Who is Germany, if not the Germans?

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WordPress Export Plugin

10 May 2005

A lot of people seem to be using my Export from WordPress script. Since I’m not using WordPress right now, I haven’t been maintaining the script. A better alternative might be the WPexport plugin by Eric Pierce, since, unlike me, he regularly exports WordPress blogs (for students at the University of South Florida).

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Determination

8 May 2005

We didn’t intend to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 75th birthday on Mother’s Days and the anniversary of VE Day. It just happened that way. As a surprise for her, we scanned in some of her old pictures and made a presentation. This picture is my favorite, and seems appropriate for all 3 occasions.

This is her confirmation [...]

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Co-Host

8 May 2005

We’re co-hosting Oma’s 75th birthday celebration today. That means most of yesterday and all of today is pretty much shot.

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Paris Hilton On Blogs

6 May 2005

Paris Hilton on blogs: “I don’t really read anything on the Internet except my AOL mail. I don’t like people who sit on computers all day long and write about people they don’t know anything about.” (via Anke Gröner)

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Locked In

6 May 2005

Holiday weekends like Ascension are great for sysadmins. We can try out system changes without bothering anyone’s work, and if something breaks we have a couple of days to get things going again. So I took the opportunity yesterday to update a system, and of course it didn’t come back up. We don’t have any [...]

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Mixing Tiger and m0n0wall

6 May 2005

I don’t really depend on my Powerbook for work, since I can get a browser and an ssh window in just about any operating system, so I was adventurous and installed Tiger when it arrived last weekend. Quick review: everything seems faster, Spotlight is weird, Dashboard is lame.

But I’ve run into an obscure and annoying [...]

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Did You Mean Mother’s Day?

5 May 2005

Today is Ascension, which in Germany is Father’s Day (Vatertag). Dave has some observations on the German tradition of over-indulging on the day devoted to German fathers. Yes, they really do go for walks pulling wooden wagons filled with alcoholic beverages. By the afternoon they usually look pretty beat up.

I did see one group pulling [...]

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The Conversation Has Just Ended

4 May 2005

Like Tobias, I wish that Godwin’s Law (that any discussion should be ended once anything is compared to Hitler or the Nazis) would be enforced more strictly in German politics, and in weblogs about Germany as well. (Although strict enforcement in Great Britain would probably shut down the entire tabloid press… which may not be [...]

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Bargaining with the Tooth Fairy

3 May 2005

We have the feeling Christopher is going to be a union negotiator when he grows up. He always tries to get as much as he can, and then just a little bit more. Can I habe a cookie? Two cookies? Five? Every time you draw a line in the sand, he tries to step over [...]

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Happy Birthday Dave

2 May 2005

Dave Winer turns 50 wants us to push up his Technorati rank as a birthday present. No problem, Dave. Happy birthday, and enjoy your new decade. And remember that little baby you met in Amsterdam a few years ago? He’s now 5 and just lost his first tooth yesterday. So we are all getting older.

Whatever [...]

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Toothy Grin

1 May 2005

Christopher lost his first tooth this morning. He was a bit frightened at first, but some ice cream took care of that. In Germany, by the way, you save your baby teeth in a little box (Zahndose) instead of selling them to the tooth fairy.

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Chain Saw Bush

1 May 2005

First Lady Laura Bush: “George’s answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. Which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.”

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