The Pathos Meter

Harriet Miers

2005-10-11T16:57:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-28T04:45:00.000+02:00

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...

2005-09-26T04:46:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-25T04:48:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-24T04:02:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-23T03:12:00.000+02:00

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

2005-09-21T02:36:00.000+02:00

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.

Bundestag

2005-09-20T05:03:00.000+02:00

Volker won.

The rest is something where no one likes or trusts each other. The CDU and FDP can team up, but that is not a governing majority. The SDP and the Greenies can join forces, but that is not a governing majority. The left party is insane and they do not like anyone.

This looks like it will have to be CDU and SDP forming some kind of coaliton, and this probably means that Schroeder stays as chancellor.

Someone liked the word "Bundestag," like perhaps it was a car or a gun or a video game. It means "Federal Legislature."

I like "Bundestag" better, also!

I pronounce it like "BOON-di-shtagh."

Someday I will write a poem in English and I will call it Bundestag.

Someday I will light fire to the tallest tree in the forest the climb it wearing aesbestos pants.

My Election Day

2005-09-17T02:46:00.000+02:00

This is my America blog, but I have to talk about the election we have on Sunday.

I do not get to vote for Schroeder (SDP) or Markel (CDU). No one does but their district, but one of them will run the Bundestag when this is over. I like the American system where nobody sneaks up on you like that. If you like your local Representative, you vote for him even if you hate the guy in charge of his party.

In Germany,it's two parts. I get two votes.

THere are 598 MPs in the Bundestag, 299 for districts and 299 for parties.

If I liked Schroeder, I'd vote for my MP Volker Kroening (SDP). If I liked Schroeder but hated Kroening, what could I do? A vote for Kroening is a vote for Schroeder.

That is as close as I get to voting for Schroeder is voting for Kroening.

But I happen not to like Schroeder or Kroenig.

Merkel is like Schroeder except she likes the USA a little bit. And she will not let Chirac be our Foreign Minister. So in that case, I could vote for for her by voting for Bernd Neumann (CDU), whose suits do not fit and he has a face made out of rubber. Maybe Bernd could be foreign minister. He speaks French.

My other vote is for the lists. That's where I pick a party and that means I vote for a list of people who belong to that party. That's kind of like voting for Schroeder or Merkel, but they're not on our list.

It is the same thing.

I wwill not vote for THe Left or Green. Maybe the FDP, but they are not holding rallies. I do not even remember her name, but I think it is a woman.

We need a Prime Minister who will restore our national pride by annexing France, and throw the fringe guys out the window. The moustached one is hated.

A point of fact.

2005-09-14T05:00:00.000+02:00

This is my United States blog. I love the idea of the United States, where not everybody is so German, and I blog here in English. On my German blog, for my German friends, I blog in German. I do not tell them about this blog, and I will not tell you about that one.

This is a point of fact.

A point of view.

Is religion a point of view? Not if you have one. If you have a religion, and you know, is is a point of fact.

New Orleans Mayor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco wants the dead out of New Orleans pronto:

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at FEMA on Tuesday, complaining the agency is moving too slowly in recovering the bodies of those killed by Hurricane Katrina.

The dead "deserve more respect than they have received," she said at state police headquarters in Baton Rouge.

She said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency still has not signed a contract with the company hired to handle the removal of the bodies, Houston-based Kenyon International Emergency Services.

Calls to a FEMA spokesman in New Orleans and the Homeland Security Department in Washington were not immediately returned.

She has joined federal Senator whatshername -- Landrieu -- in wanting to punch out President Bush.

It could be that they are drunk or just to weepy.

Dresden was another place, time, world

2005-09-13T05:08:00.000+02:00

Großvater always whined that you got his city, you burned Dresden to a few pieces of charred wood. You understand, you killed a lot of civilians who did not per se vote for the Reich. I told him that we were up to some pretty nasty behavior at the time. He told me about his church. He loved that church, but he loved his new one too in Bremen.

I would say to him: "Woo woo." Make the sound of a train, and he did not know how to answer. How do you answer that? He said he didn't know, and I asked him what he was doing in Poland and he said he was fighting for his home.

He knew. That's why the train bothered him.

As well it should, sick old bastard.

Which brings me to what you are doing to Baghdad: same guys, Yanks and Brits. If Großvater and I were Iraqis, I could make the sizzle sound of somebody in a vat of acid or a gunshot. Saddam Hussein was a monster just like that other thing/man.

But no one is bombing Baghdad. Except this punk person from Jordan.

Don't like King Abdullah, but I'm a bit sweet on his wife. Noor? No, that is his stepmother.

Like Cindarella.

His wife is Raina. Her photo is HERE.

There is something very sinister to all this, and it must be excised. We do not have to be careful if we cannot manage to be so.

Important Post, I

2005-09-12T05:25:00.000+02:00

Some blog posts might change your life, and you would not know it from the face of things. Of the post. It might seem to your congizant eye to be a series of barely connected thoughts.

Don't sleep lightly. It is doing quick work on your psyche.

Fire it up baby

Get up, get up
Get up, get up, get up, get up
If you're curious, and you got the notion
Let's do it, just start the commotion

Get up, get up, put your body in motion
Let's do it, just start the commotion

Hey

Ba ba ba, ba ba ba, ba ba ba
Ba ba ba ba ba ba

Let's do it, just start the commotion

Get up, get up, put your body in motion
Get up, get up, put your body in motion

Start the commotion, start the commotion, start the commotion
Start the commotion, start the commotion, start the commotion

G-roovy
Hey

Once again, one considers considering.

Focusing on your muse, a commune, is impossible with crashes and screams --

GET OUT OF THERE... WEIRDO!

Some kind of roadblock, I guess.

Federer. Spelled backwards, it's reredef.

Alma Redemptoris Mater, a song of the Renaissance, a chant. Like they sometimes do in UK.

It was a one-off dirtjam when England came good.

This was one such post, but do not dwell on your psyche, bebe.

The Blandest Flavor

2005-09-11T05:29:00.000+02:00

It is not mint.

Look here, we are not put here to worry about blandness. It is a theater in which were are. It is a stage. And we have to scrub the darned thing, as one would stitch a sock in time saves nine.

That is as close to English adage as I care to get.

The blandest flavor is Budweiser. It is like doing your girl on a raft: fooking close to water.

The hurricane in the United States, they turned it into a political campaign.

Those people are STUPID.

More bland than Bud.

Jimmy Carter and the bald guy

2005-09-09T23:21:00.000+02:00

The American President Mr. Bush fired Mike Brown from his emergency agency because he was not bald like the other guy.

The other guy came on CNN and said, "Hey look at me, I am bald. I am going to FIRE Brown because TIME magazine said he cheats on his tests and invents the implausible."

The news people in United States run the country.

They say that American President Bush was wrong for not preventing the dykes from breaking into New Orleans, and the Houston Chronicle compares it to "President Richard Nixon [&] the Watergate break-in" and "the Whitewater land deal by former President Bill Clinton."

They want a Hillary Clinton independent commission.

It should be headed by national figures of unassailable independence and credibility, such as former President Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Their mission would be to examine the failings of the Katrina relief effort, in a setting open to the public, and to document the facts.

I actually typed this out once, keep it in my America scrap books:

I heard a young man speaking out just the other day;
I stopped just to listen to what he had to say;
He spoke straight and simple -- by that I was impressed.
He said, "Once and for all, why not the best?"

He said his name was Jimmy Carter and he was running for President,
And he laid out a plan of action -- made a lot of sense!
He talked about the government and how it used to be, for you and me;
That's the way it ought to be, right now:
Once and for all, why not the best?

He spoke plain and simple and I began to understand
I was listening to quite a man, talking to me.
I began to see...
We need Jimmy Carter!
Why settle for less?
America --
Once and for all, why not the best?

We need Jimmy Carter!
We can't afford to settle for less,
America --
Once and for all, why not the best?
Why not the best?
Why not the best?

The Americans elect a lot of clowns to be President. He was one of them.

He is senile, but he has better legs than Ché Guevara.

Jacko and Katrina

2005-09-07T23:08:00.000+02:00

Jacko the American pop star whom we love well is writing a song, or he has written it already, about that U.S. Hurricane Katrina. It is called From the Bottom of my Heart, and it probably deals with the sensitive topic of children in the aftermath.

He is upon Bahrain, they tell us, where there are probably lots of children. (If not, the oil sheiks can purchase some children on the black market.)

As somebody writes:

Germany encourages children to enjoy childhood and preserve this time for discovery, play, and innocence. These things disappear as we age and succumb to society’s conventions.

Which is true, to an extent, but we have got the lady with the dead babies in the flower pot. I do not like the story, so I will not link. Hopefully, you will not have to hear it, since it is more grisly even than Jacko.

All the fat man sought was acceptance. But he did not bathe. Michael Moore.

Hurricane Trina and the Odd Couple

2005-09-02T02:20:00.000+02:00

They are evidently killing each other like animals in New Orleans, USA:

Fights and trash fires broke out, rescue helicopters were shot at and anger mounted across New Orleans on Thursday, as National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order across this increasingly desperate and lawless city.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and he and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing -- no food, no water, no medicine.

This cannot be good. It is a bad thing when their clergy are running around shooting people. To think, and I do, that Rev. Clark, he is almost a septaugenarian.

It is an old song by The Clash:

White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own

Black man gotta lot a problems
But they don't mind throwing a brick
White people go to school
Where they teach you how to be thick

An' everybody's doing
Just what they're told to
An' nobody wants
To go to jail!

All the power's in the hands
Of people rich enough to buy it
While we walk the street
Too chicken to even try it

Everybody's doing
Just what they're told to
Nobody wants
To go to jail!

Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?

You tell me. Pictures I see on CNN, they have the people shoved onto a bridge, looking for a bus. "Underclass," the TV lady says.

On Nov. 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down he knew she was right. But he also knew that some day he would return to her. With nowhere to go, he appeared at the home of his friend, Oscar Madison. Several years earlier, Madison's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?

Look, it all comes back.

Chin up. Don't vote Green.

Fashion is a Template

2005-08-30T05:31:00.000+02:00

It is. Fashion is a template for success, if you don't fail first.

Politically, the best dressed candidate sometimes does win.

Angela Merkel is beautiful, in her own frumpy way, but I know for certain that Schroeder will survive the election. Why? Because he's cute as a button, or he thinks he is, and that's all it takes.

Look, this one's American. I'll explain: for the CDU to win, she's got to tie herself to George Bush. If she ties herself to George Bush, she will lose. So she can hem and haw and Zarqawi will firebomb her frumpy self.

They're rats. All of them, and I mean Zarqawi and not Gerhard and Angie.

No, no, no, no. The Americans are going to lose this war, or at least not win it. The Americans won't let the Americans win this war.

Zarqawi's going change his name to Ho Chi Minh, the United States will elect John Edwards or some other dope, and the U.N. will take over.

And the Caliphate won't issue passports.

It's sick, sick, sick.

But that's a worst case scenario.

The Americans could ignore the Sunnis and themselves (some), fit Iraq into a necessary straitjacket of its own making, and walk away.

The Iraqis then ought to hand these soldiers roses. Rumsfeld can say: "FAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! I told you so!"

Been a long time

2005-08-29T04:43:00.000+02:00

'S been a long time since I have posted a note in this blog of mine, but I can no longer sleep and it will storm in New Orleans, the United States. My buddy, Bohm, tells me that it is God invoking wrath upon George W. Bush. And thank you Jerry Falwell, Bohm, or whatever your name is.

Michael Moore is in a fat farm.

We've never had a category 5 hurrican in Germany, but it does rain a lot.

I like Charlie Parker.

I saw a girl on CNN. She read the news. I forget her name. I'd like to date her.

I've almost finished another sonata, and one day you'll all play it.

Pretending with pretenders

2005-08-23T05:12:00.000+02:00

Not a one of them foretold that which was to be said, but this did not bother the august Clampette. He or she continued to mosey, as if nothing had happened.

"I'm not feeling alright!" shouted Mia, as she fell to the ground and exploded, rocking the apple cart and the horse on which she road.

When worse gets to worse -- the graph! the graph! -- it is time for the worst -- the graph! the graph-- to get presentable. The graph. On the Wall.

It could be a long night. It just might.

Look at it this way, August in Germany is traditionally after July in Germany, and I don't know what the hell they do in the Netherlands. - Paulus Vandersloot might have known before he snapped the girls neck with his bare hands.

She sells seas shells by the sanctuary.

"I'm cleaning the litter box!" the hot, young wife boasted. "I'm cleaning the litterbox!" Her pudgy husband wrinkled his ugly face and countered: "I can't hear you!"

For, if we don't find the next whiskey bar, and for there's Basie, Miller, Satchimo, and the king of all, Sir Duke. And with a voice like Ella's ringing out, there's no way this band could lose.

Everybody all over.

All over.

(translated from Sanskrit)

Right on, Maude

2005-08-22T04:38:00.000+02:00

The sitcom Maude spun off from All in the Family in 1972, and it ended it 1978 when Maude was elected to Congress. Shortly after that, it become Dorothy on The Golden Girls.

The Maude 2.0 Primer (1.0) was written by Theodore "Ted" McCombs and is available in PDF.

This brings us to Cindy "The Allmother" Sheehan.

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider
She didn't care if the whole world looked
Joan of Arc with the lord to guide her
She was a sister who really cooked
Isadora was a first bra burner,
Aint 'ya glad that she showed up
Oh yeah
And when the country was falling apart,
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up
And then there's Maude
And then there's Maude
And then there's Maude
And then there's Maude
And then there's Maude
And then there's Maude
And then there's that Old conpromisin' enterprisin'
Anything but tranquilizin', Right on Maude!!!!

It's all a stinking joke, dig? I shan't tell you the punchline because a) I don't like you, and b) you don't care.

When freedom dies, my purpose goes with it. I don't want to kiss a suicide bomber or fly an aeroplane into the bathroom.

Not cool, not cool... just not cool.

Now piss off.

New Post on New Blog

2005-08-21T22:08:00.000+02:00

My name is Georg Muffat, and this is my first blog post.

Like Kemosabi, of course it's me
I'm better known as the Master G
A firing squad, sensed the danger
When they're stung by the rapping ranger
Had a little talk with my medicine man
He said, "Get them squaws, fast as you can"
To all you girls, that wanna join my Tribe
Just move to my rhythm, and feel my vibe
Put up a fuss, in the end you'll agree
When you come inside, my tee-pee
As I said before, you could sense the danger
When you're stung by the rapping ranger
When Silver and I, take a ride
All you suckers better step aside
I sting squaws, then I run away
HIYOO Silver, is what I say!

Ho! Ho! Wowowowowowowowow!
Hit it gang!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Aowowowowowowowowowowowo!

Tonto, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...
Kemosabi, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...
Custer, jump on it, jump on it, jump on it...
Apache, jump on it, jump on it, wowowowowowowowowo!!
A-hunga-hunga-hunga-hunga

The Master G, indeed.