is there nothing obama can’t do?

…of course 5FF has it….

…whilst junior shamelessly rips off SDA headlines….

things you won’t read about in the MSM

Update: June 17 2009:

From the comments – good catch Gordo.  At least the National Post has a Bloomsbury item on this non-news event.

______________

Update: June 16 2009:

This is very significant news, because, as Michael Barnett writes in an email, one of the following must be true:

1. The Japanese are trying to secretly divest themselves of about 25% of their US debt. (They own about $600B in US debt.)

2. The Japanese are acting as Chinese or North Korean agents in trying to help them divest themselves of US debt in secret.

3. There is an enormous sum of counterfeit US debt out there and these guys are trying to sell some of it.

None of these cases bodes well for the US debt market.

__________

June 14 2009:

So, apparently two Japanese nationals were apprehended at the Italian / Swiss border carrying $134 Billion in US Treasury bearer bonds.   

1 3 4 Billion….Kind of blows the doors off the tired customs dude asking whether you are carrying $10K doesn’t it? 

At any rate, you might think that two people carrying the equivalent of 1/4 of the entire Canadian debt might rate a front page mention in more than a couple of our intrepid journals, and yet – mysteriously quiet.  [sound of crickets].   For instance, if you or I were to have in our possession the equivalent to the entire GDP of several african nations, and we were caught at a border with it, maybe the local, nay the international press might be interested.  If they’re fake it’s a story.  If the bearer bonds are real, its also a story!  

Go here to read some analysis… Its weird, but then again….

around the world – part 38.5 (the montenegrin riviera)

Coast of Montenegro near Budva

yet another ‘industry’ ripe for an OBailout

Its a good news bad news sort of story – of free spending big labour suddenly falling on hard times following substantial spending during the 2008 US presidential elections.  Coincidentally the new administration slashes funding to the very department charged with enforcing disclosure of union election spending.   

The WSJ carries a story today [print edition - europe]  about the hard times which have befallen two large Union organisations, the SEIU and AFL-CIO.  According to the story, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ..”spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama“, but sadly have found themselves indebted to the tune of $2.3mil.  Meanwhile the AFL-CIO carries liabilities ‘equal to more than 80% of its $189mil (!) in assets. 

I tried to hold back the tears, but was laughing too hard.

news you can use

The last thirty seconds or so with the ‘deputy press secretary’ are priceless….

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny’s

http://www.theonion.com

around the world – part 38.3 (white knuckle bus tour – or channelling your inner dictator)

June 09 2009:

Forcing the Plebes to the side of the road

There is nothing quite like being escorted at breakneck speed along narrow winding mountain roads in a motor coach with police cars forcing the plebes off to the side of the road.   With lights flashing, paddle waving and horns blaring our escort emphatically signalled to the unlucky montenegrins that  a bus load of somewhat important persons was hammering down on them and that any time - NOW! – would be a good time to get off the road.     That might sound just a titch unsympathetic and just a bit aristocratic, but really who wouldn’t enjoy this?  The locals I suppose.

Of course, nature being in balance and all that, action counteraction etc etc, it does get a little dicey when the local cement truck decides to challenge the right of way being implemented by the local gendarmes.  Bit of toss up who would have won that, but I would have given it to the cement truck on points. 

But then again no risk, no reward right?

Admit it.  You know that in the darkest corner of your hearts you harbour a longing for an unimpeded route, swept along at high speed with countless locals figuratively bowing before your presence.  It awakens the inner dictator in all of us.

around the world – part 38.1 (syldavia)

June 08 2009:

Ruined Castle near Budva

Syldavia,  a land of barren hills hard by the adriatic – stark and beautiful and sometimes known as Montenegro (although I suspect that Herge might have had Albania in mind) is the scene of my latest wanderings.  I arrived here on Monday the 8th and will depart three days later having barely scraped the surface of this harsh country. In Herge’s imagination, Montenegro, Albania, in fact anywhere in the Balkans was fantastically ‘other’ in a here there be dragons sort of way. I don’t blame him. It is a country that demands your attention – blistering hot in the summer, rocky, stubble covered hills and breath taking beaches and seascapes. The women are all six feet tall, gorgeous and serious. The men, short, fat and attached to the end of a cigarette. Go figure.

Word to the wise: Montenegro Airlines is where old airliners go to die. I flew in from Vienna on a Fokker 100 – about 1000 years old yet piloted by young lads desparate to impress the stunning stewardesses (”shining like a newly minted penny” to quote the corgi). Mind you it is a bit of toss up whether one might want a new and well maintained aircraft adorned with ancient battleaxes schlepping gruel onto your tray (see Air Canada), or the crap shoot of an ancient aircraft populated with amazons –  providing that frisson of interest as one simultaneously contemplates the idea of breaking apart at 25000 feet yet accompanied by some of the best looking women one will ever meet whilst flying. 

To add even more excitement;  the pilots got in on the act as apparently, even a jet liner held together with duct tape can be made to simulate a fighter jet – our hard spine compressing landing was embellished with a couple of good hard tarmac bounces thrown in for good measure, no doubt leaving a few rivets on the runway.  So there I was in in Podgorica (bet you never thought I would wind up there!) happily confronted with the decison to immediately board the motor coach or settle in for a few pints while waiting for the attendees from later flights.  Points to those who guess how many beer I had.

around canada – part 4 (montobello quebec)

June 02 2009:

Chateau Montebello

And so I find myself at Chateau Montebello Quebec -should you ever find yourself contemplating a weekend sequestered away from the distractions of Ottawa or Montreal - do consider this very pleasant retreat. 

The promotional material offered by the Hotel website does not do justice to the resort.  The entire experience, in my view, has been well calculated to inspire maximum relaxation.

How to get there: 

By Car – 401 east towards Montreal.  At exit 721 take Hwy 416 towards Ottawa.  Enter Ottawa and join the 417 east towards Montreal.  Exit at PineGlenn and head north towards Carling Avenue.   Join the Ottawa River Parkway from Carling and take the Island Park Drive bridge towards Aylmer Quebec – follow signs for highway 50 east towards Montreal.  Leave 50 at Thurso and take Quebec Highway 317 south and then join 148 east towards Montreal. Through Pleasance and Papineauville, to Montebello.  Look for the signs for Chateau Montebello as soon as you enter the town.

famous last words….

 …”Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he’s confident General Motors Corp. will turn its financial troubles around and pay the province back billions of dollars that were given to the company to ensure the success of its restructuring plan.  “We’ve really pushed them up against the wall in terms of the conditions we’ve exacted,” he told a scrum of reporters at Queen’s Park“….

So this would be after GM somehow obtains profits from a new stable of small cars (which have historically had razor thin profit margins) whilst simultaneously attempting to meet politically motivated environmental policies handed down from the white house and protecting CAW jobs and benefits?    I wait with bated breath…..

Nothing to see here folks – move along, move along….

was this the change you were hoping for?

Will someone please give all the Canadian idiots who were hoping that the installation of The One would make everything allright a good round of happy slaps.   Apparently things aren’t working out exactly in our favour…

Trade Wars Brewing In Economic Malaise
Outrage in Canada as U.S. Firms Sever Ties To Obey Stimulus Rules

careful what you wish for

On occasion and what with the economy in the tank, some folk muse openly about imposing carbon based penalties on China – a new form of protectionism if you will.   The implications of this need to be understood before our poll happy politicians attempt to score domestic points – fortunately some cautionary thoughts are available over at Marginal Revolution.  RTWT.

• It can be very hard to identify and isolate the energy inputs into an exported product, especially if the host government is uncooperative and a lot of money is at stake.
• Last I checked China was funding a big chunk of our government’s debt.  Confronting them would have to be bundled with a regime of extreme fiscal conservatism and unilateral foreign policy.
• Chinese citizens wanting clean air at home are possibly our biggest ally so let’s not alienate them.

here there be dragons (or war memorials in small town germany)

I had just finished reading Red Storm over the Balkans, a very detailed history of the failed Russian offensive of April / May 1944 into Romania, when Edward the Corgi co-incidentally reminded me of a small yet significant feature of the Greding town war memorial.  The memorial, like many in towns all over western Europe and North America, records the names of town folk fallen in service of their country.  The Greding memorial dates from the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 with the last entries being from the Second World War. 

However, on closer inspection you notice an interesting feature.  Those who fell in battle in both the Franco Prussian war, and the Great War for Civilisation* (that would be WWI for all you ahistorical postmodernists out there) are annotated with specific locations (an exception is made for those who served in the Kriegsmarine, where the location is annotated with an ocean name), but a large percentage of those who fell in the second war are noted as having fallen only in ‘osten‘ or the east.

War Memorial Greding

Now this is curious for a number of reasons.  Germany, being an industrial nation, and a bureaucratic state similar to those others in western Europe of the day, and culturally predisposed to following rules (alles in ordnung) surely records must have been kept.  That even during the days of their darkest regime, there must have been bureaucrats toiling away in some nameless office block of the personnel section of the Wehrmacht, filing away posting messages, keeping unit and battalion records and together these might produce at least an idea of where each individual soldier had served and fallen.

Apparently, not as easy as one might think.  Keep in mind that from January 1943 (the surrender of Von Paulus’ sixth Army at Stalingrad) the German Army was more or less on the defence (albeit a rather mobile defence with some significant reversals for the Russians at times) for the remainder of the war, fighting in ‘terra incognita’ at least until late 1944, an area for which accurate maps and other detail was largely unavailable to both sides.   To complicate matters further, the Soviets dug up/bulldozed/destroyed any Wehrmacht (not to mention Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Romanian) cemeteries upon retaking their ground, so that not only were the families of the dead not allowed to visit the graves of the lost, in Russia, there are  no graves to visit.  Add to this the visceral feelings of hatred amongst the two belligerents, the sheer scale of the battles and casualties, the rapid movement of the lines, it all adds up to an inability to state for certain exactly where many sons of Greding are buried.  

In contrast, visit one of the beautifully kept (by public subscription, I believe) German military cemetaries in France where the families of the fallen often conduct pilgrimages to the gravesites, and you can understand how the idea of “the East” must have taken hold, particularily when the shear size and timescale of the Eastern Front is considered, with the climate extremes etc.   Without in any way excusing the excess of the horrific regimes on both sides of this largely now forgotten war, the young German soldiers who served for years in “the Land of Dragons” had no choice in the matter, and did the best they could under conditions we cannot imagine.  They deserve better than just vague reference to the east.

But there it is: ‘osten‘.  Small comfort for the families of Greding.

 _________

*  E the C will insist.   Grateful to the shorter legged canine for all the helpful editorial comments.

german as she is spoke (sumpf)

One of the curious things about language is not only the common roots of many words, but the divergence in meaning that similar words have taken over time as they progress through related languages.  Take German for instance - sumpf means swamp or marsh, while in English sump means, a hollow or pit into which liquid drains, such as a cesspool, cesspit or sink.

When exactly was the point of departure?  Clearly both words imply a common meaning at some time in the past, and yet over some time have diverged to mean quite different things, and yet not far enough apart to obscure the original meaning.

ruv, true ruv….

….mixing a little princess bride with North Korea, how bad can it be?

around the world – 37.2 (die inner-deutsche grenze)

Sunday May 03:

border post @ moedlareuth

About two years ago I had stumbled across the old inner-german border whilst wandering near Coburg.  That brief experience lead me to begin researching the very physical manifestation of Churchill’s ‘iron curtain‘.

Google being  my friend – it didn’t take too long to find websites which are dedicated to preserving the history of this particular border.  In the course of my googling I came across the curious case of the ‘little berlin’ or the town of Moedlareuth.  This town, which even today remains tiny, sits in a picturesque valley, with a wee stream dividing it in half.  The stream also marks the boundary between the German provinces of Thuringa and Bavaria – notable because this also marked the extent of the Soviet Zone of Occupation after WWII and subsequently became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik-DDR 1949-1990).      

From 1952 until 1966 the DDR strengthened its border with the federal republic, becoming eventually one of the most heavily militarised zones anywhere – perhaps with the exception of that between North and South Korea.  In moedlareuth it was particularly noticeable as the border ran right through the middle of the town passing quite close to buildings.   By 1966, the temporary fencing was replaced with a 14 ft high double wall backed up with electrified fences, watchtowers, minefields and machine gun posts manned by the volkspolizei (’vopos‘) creating a death zone which became almost impossible to cross.

And so, presented with the opportunity to go and see remnants of this border, early sunday morning, off I jetted towards moedlareuth.  A beautiful sunny day, the wide open autobahn - no need to repeat my previous musings about driving fast cars in Germany. 

_______________________________

 Note:  in this first picture, taken from the former East German side – from right to left – the vehicle track along which  border / security forces would patrol, the plowed soil intended to reveal footprints, the small ditch with the vertical rise on the left, thus preventing any vehicles from ramming the electrified fence, and further to the left – but since removed – was the 14ft high concrete wall (although a segment remains just out of the picture).  Between the fence and wall the 10m wide strip was planted with land and anti personel mines.    The only border in the world designed to keep its residents in.  In fact the East Germans essentially thought of those who escaped as ‘deserters’.   The pamphlet “He Who Leaves the German Democratic Republic Joins the Warmongers”, Notizbuch des Agitators (”Agitator’s Notebook”), published by the Socialist Unity Party’s Agitation Department, Berlin District, November 1955, had this to say:

Both from the moral standpoint as well as in terms of the interests of the whole German nation, leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity.

Those who let themselves be recruited objectively serve West German Reaction and militarism, whether they know it or not. Is it not despicable when for the sake of a few alluring job offers or other false promises about a “guaranteed future” one leaves a country in which the seed for a new and more beautiful life is sprouting, and is already showing the first fruits, for the place that favors a new war and destruction?

Is it not an act of political depravity when citizens, whether young people, workers, or members of the intelligentsia, leave and betray what our people have created through common labor in our republic to offer themselves to the American or British secret services or work for the West German factory owners, Junkers, or militarists? Does not leaving the land of progress for the morass of an historically outdated social order demonstrate political backwardness and blindness? …[W]orkers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists.

 

electrified fence and watchtower - moedlareuth

 

the death zone - moedlareuth

 

 

border at moedlareuth 1946

machine gun bunker inside the death zone @ moedlareuth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to get there: 

By Car from Greding:  turn onto the Autobahn 9 (A9) north towards Nuremberg, following signs for Berlin / Hof.  Leave A9 at exit 33, joining A72 towards Hof.  Take exit 3, north towards Toepen.  In Toepen follow signs for the Deutch-Deutches Museumto moedlareuth.