Harriet Miers

I have not weighed in on this nominee to the American Supreme Court. She has a good German name. Put her on your Supreme Court.

Angela Meiers is our new Reichchancellor, replacing Gerhard Schroeder, this is a good thing but ostensibly meaningless. The SPD gets eight cabinet slots, while Angie's CDU gets six.

In any such koalition, the government does what it does. Nothing bold.

At least the Greens are excluded.

I did forget

There was something I forgot to tell you the other night, but as I forgot then, I certainly will not remember it now.

Bundestag.

I have been following the saga of Cindy Sheehan with some interest, and I think you should send her here to Germany. We will buy her boots at put her on the cover of Brigitte.

Good for laughs, anyway.

I vote CDU, but...

Guido Heinen is a columnist for our Die Welt newspaper. He wrote a column about the "Homeless Conservatives." Here's a bit of it in translation:

"It's not that the (CDU) has moved to the left, rather it has marched into programmatic imprecision. ... The CDU presented the people with a load of single-measure building materials. But they had no blueprint to go along with it."

What was Angie's message?

I vote CDU, but I was not sure at first.

Then I found it, and here is Angela Merkel's message, translated from German into English:

Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.

If you want my future forget my past,
If you wanna get with me better make it fast,
Now don't go wasting my precious time,
Get your act together we could be just fine

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give,
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.

What do you think about that now you know how I feel,
Say you can handle my love are you for real,
I won't be hasty, I'll give you a try
If you really bug me then I'll say goodbye.

Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give,
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.

So here's a story from A to Z, you wanna get with me
you gotta listen carefully,
We got Em in the place who likes it in your face,
we got G like MC who likes it on an
Easy V doesn't come for free, she's a real lady,
and as for me..ah you'll see,
Slam your body down and wind it all around
Slam your body down and wind it all around.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give,
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta, you gotta, you
gotta,
you gotta, you gotta, slam, slam, slam, slam
Slam your body down and wind it all around.
Slam your body down and wind it all around.
Slam your body down and wind it all around.
Slam your body down zigazig ah
If you wanna be my lover.

As the Brits might say, "Bend 'em like Beckham."

Right?

Sometimes I Dream

It is not of a better world. It is not even of an always-tolerable world.

I dream of a rational world, which does not mean that everything will be tolerable in the sense at least that I would want to tolerate it.

And a rational world, a rational universe mandates a creator-god. I am not talking about some guy who sat around and made the heavens and the firmament. Too many people think of God in that way.

God need not take any form at all. That this God, who is essentially infinity, decided to take a finite, human form and live amongst us is perhaps the greatest mystery. That he'd let us kill Him is something I can't comprehend.

That is love. That is real love. And it is beyond what I can understand.

Plenty of things are.

And I do not mean to preach, or to tell you, "Hey, you understand like I do." No. Your undertanding is your own, and I respect that.

But what I am writing about is the one thing that every one thing has in common with every other.

And I will climb down from this horse before you call me drunk. But it is on life, you dig?

Either way, do not sleep with strangers.

Hurricane Rita

Category 5 or 4 or 3. 2, 1, ZERO.

Do hurricanes dissipate, pass into nothingness or little bit a valueless collection of nasty thunderstorms (Donnerstürme).

An old song from Amerika:

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Mambo Number 5

One, two, three, four, five
Everybody in the car, so come on
Let's ride to the liqueur-store around the corner
The boys say they want some gin and juice
But I really don't wanna
Beerbust like I had last week
I must stay deep
Because talk is cheap
I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita
And as I continue you know
They are getting sweeter
So what can I do I really beg and you my Lord
To me flirting it's just like sport, anything fly
It's all good let me dump it
Please set in the trumpet

Chorus:
A little bit of Monica in my life
A little bit of Erica by my side
A little bit of Rita is all I need
A little bit of Trina is what I see
A little bit of Sandra in the sun
A little bit of Mary all night long
A little bit of Jessica here I am
A little bit of you makes me your man.

Or maybe not.

Hurricane Rita was front page in my hometown paper, a million miles from Texas.

nichts ist neu: nothing is new

The elections is the elections. You wonder who or what is the government trying to prove, and it turns out that it is not trying to prove a thing. It does not have to prove anything.

The proof, they tell you, is in the pudding. And the pudding is outside on the table and has a film on it.

Probably Un Chien Andalou.

I heard these lyrics is a song by a Britisch musical group and the are a quarter century years old:

I walked through the city limits,
Someone talked me in to do it,
Attracted by some force within it,
Had to close my eyes to get close to it,
Around a corner where a prophet lay,
Saw the place where she'd had a room to stay,
A wire fence where the children played
Saw the bed where the body lay,
And I was looking for some friends of mine.
And I had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.

The cars screeched hear the sound on dust,
Heard a noise just a car outside,
Metallic blue turned red with rust,
Pulled in close by the building's side,
In a group all forgotten youth,
Had to think, collect my senses now,
Are turned on to a knife edged view
Find some places where my friends don't know,
And I was looking for a friend of mine,
And had no time to waste.
Yeah, looking for some friends of mine.

Down the dark streets, the houses looked the same,
Getting darker now, faces look the same,
And I walked round and round.
No stomach, torn apart,
Nail me to a train.
Had to think again,
trying to find a clue, trying to find a way to get out!
Trying to move away, had to move away and keep out.

I have no idea what to make of it.

The United States of America has another hurricane storm.

So what do you all think of Chief Justice Roberts?

The question has been answered, and I will bet you missed it.

Simon Wiesenthal is Dead

Simon Wiesenthal is Dead. Age 96.

Officials at the center pledged this week to continue Wiesenthal’s work and also to maintain his legacy. Hier said he last spoke with Wiesenthal only two weeks ago. An exhibit on the Nazi hunter’s life has been set up at the center’s sister organization, the Museum of Tolerance, where a memorial service also is planned for next week.

If there are any Nazis left, and I don't mean those snotty-nosed little nazi punks, they are old and disgusting. Weisenthal was indeed old, but he possessed a nobility the Nazis and their little soldiers refused.

No one will replace him.

In Germany, we will not forget.

I met him briefly about ten years ago in Paris. Mr. Weisenthal died in Vienna.

The world is empty...

We walked in the cold air -
Freezing breath on the window pain
Lying waiting

A man in the dark in the picture frame
So mystic and soulful.
A voice reaching out and a piercing cry

It stays with you until
The feeling is gone
only you and I
This means nothing to me

This means nothing to me

Oh Vienna -

The music is weaving -
Haunting notes pizzicato strings

The rhythm is calling
Alone in the night as the daylight brings a cool empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey sky

It fades to the distance.

The image is gone
only you and I
This means nothing to me

This means nothing to me

Oh Vienna -

This means nothing to me

This means nothing to me

Oh Vienna.