Politics

I did not go 'wow' when I read this news today. What I find remarkable though is: The Swiss people decided to do so during a poll - not the politicians. Maybe I should drop some prejudices about this country... So what does it mean for us? We'll probably save some minutes at the border. I guess not very much, because the control procedure has not been very complicated from what I have experienced so far.

... and now? I have spent much more time on watching his campaign than I have ever done with any German candidate. In fact, he's one of the political figures I am now most familiar with. And not only because I watched the general election campaigns, but also the primaries and the battle with Hillary. Her voting yesterday reminded me of how long I have been doing this. I don't know exactly when it started. However, I know who's to blame for getting me addicted and I also remember a bit the first video where I think ten Democratic candidates were standing next to each other including John Edwards :-)

The question is now, what I'll do after this is all over and there is no more shocking clip about Sarah Palin. I guess, my hits on the CNN video website will become less, but I if go there, I will check out how Obama is doing in office.

My short answer would be: It doesn't seem so at all. I guess McCain picked her, because she was young, feminine, fresh and a Washington outsider. If you watch the following interviews, you might think McCain's decision was just dead wrong. Not only does she seem inexperienced: She seems even uninformed and dumb.

The question might have a negative connotation which is not intended. I asked this myself this morning during watching McCain's attempt to suspend the debate on Friday in order to go to Washington. I think him being slightly on top in the polls is a result of the better situation in Iraq and his better commander and chief image. But this is likely to change within the next days. The fact, that McCain tries to avoid confrontation with Obama right now is a good indicator, that this man fears a discussion on the economy.

Just a quick note to all Obama fans: It looks like while we were sleeping here in Europe, many of the American democrats did their duty and voted for their party candidate in the beautiful state of Maine.

Again winning a large majority of the votes, it looks like Obama has finally managed to pass ahead of Clinton. Meanwhile, Clinton has fired her campaign manager and friend Patti Doyle... It looks like someone is getting nervous.

It's a rare occasion when anything web 2.0 materializes in that other place, the "real world". Were it so, the next president's name would be Ron Paul, Hillary would have transformed to Darth Vader, lolcats would be on TV screens, oh yeah, and l33tsp33k would be a widely used language. However, yesterday all over the world something from the online world swept over to reality: The wish to put an end to the Scientology organization.

A little follow-up on the Dalai-Lama situation in here in Germany. As I reported before, German chancellor Merkel had an official meeting with the spiritual leader in the chancellery. Since then, China has been showing its opposition to the meeting by cancelling just about every upcoming meeting. For days now, China has not commented on the actual reason for the cancellation, but merely stated "technical difficulties". That is, until today, when the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jian Yu finally spoke what everyone knew already. So, as there was an official statement, it is always interesting to see what the newspapers have to say. Even more interesting is the comparison of mainland news with Hong Kong news, which can be said to have a free press.

Merkel's meeting with Dalai Lama was not only a rude interference into China's internal affairs and strongly hurt the feelings and emotions of the Chinese people, but also gravely harmed China-Germany relations, Jiang stressed.

It is almost ironic that a German chancellor under the socialist/green government sold nuclear plants to china, while the current conservative chancellor Merkel decides to invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the chancellery. She is the first chancellor to do so, and China is not at all happy: Another meeting with the minister of Justice with the Chinese government was cancelled from China's side "for technical reasons."

A recent article on a famous German news site is talking about the significant world wide climate change we are facing at the moment. In fact, most scientists judge the situation much more severe than I have been doing so far: They talk about 13 years during which we will have time to take big efforts in gas reduction. This means we may not wait until sometime in the future, but measures have to be taken in the upcoming years. I am not an expert in those things, but I have at least some thoughts to share about the topic.

I am kind of in a rush right now, so I'll have to be very brief. Just thought I'd share this very interesting article with you by Doug Soderstrom of on "The Dumbing Down Of The American Mind".

In case you are interested in discussing it, why not join in on digg. Hope to hear your interesting comments here or there!