Displaying 31 To 60 Of 255 Comments Hi, kesmarn. I was busy over the day. But I will respond to your question in an hour or two, if that is okay with you. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 9:52 am KQuarks – you wrote: “Frankly I would be more concerned why Europe is moving more to the right these days.” Well: In fact, it’s a constant to and fro. The european countries’ political system isn’t static, but highly dynamic and is always looking for a new equilibrium, following the political currents. And that is how it should be. In times of economical distress, people ALWAYS tend to stick to the known faces and become conservative – i.e. they want to CONSERVE, what they have. But as soon as times bear the promise of improving circumstances for the peoples’ life again, people become more daring and begin to see to optimize our political system again, to alleviate inequalities and spread the national wealth more evenly among the population. This is purely logical and rational. What I find completely illogical and, in fact, irrational, is the American peoples’ strong affiliation to their ineffective two-party-system – while all other mayor democracies in the world have proven beyond doubt already, that the political discourse, plurality, social behaviour and the leveling of social inequalities benefit VASTLY from a multi-party-system. Hell, even the Brits have a third party in the meantime – they have Conservatives, Tories and Liberals in their Lower House. In Germany, we have 5 (FIVE!) different parties in the Bundestag, and even they get along civilized with each other and, in the end (and most of the time) produce coherent, surprisingly social, political legislation. A political culture with many different, sometimes divergent, sometimes convergent opinions expressed by a multitude of parties is like a natural habitat filled with many different lifeforms: It might be quarrelsome to live there on occasion, but the place as a whole is vivid, healthy and productive. The American Congress, on the other hand, often gives me an impression like the La Brea-Tarpits, in comparison. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 3:16 am I have come to the clue, that changing America has become more of a pitchfork- than of a pencil-job, Keven. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 2:08 am Good morning from Germany, bitohistory! Very good story, very important topic. In fact, one of the most important topics at all in US-american politics, actually – while it not only involves K-Street, but other, foreign entities like J-Street, too. Sometimes I feel like the USA has become Gulliver, who has been caught by the Lilliputans and is now being led around at the nose with tied hands after the Lilliputans’ will and for their pleasure, stumblig about and helpless. We ought to get this topic elaborated over a longer period of time and make it one of our core issues, to spread the news and help people get active on campaign-(or donation)-finance reform, to ever have a chance to bring about CHANGE in America, I believe. At times, i really don’t know what do make of president Obama’s actions. This topic, for example: He had all means in the USA POSSIBLE to REALLY bring about change in this wonderful country right after he got elected. Never in the history of the USA was there a president, who had a greater majority of people behind him, willing to follow him on the path to a real, complete overhaul of your country like him! But he fell so quickly for promises and whispers of center-right Washington establishment, that I sometimes cannot but think that he was, in fact, one of them already, even before he ran for presidency on a strong, left ticket – and now is only showing off those traits of character, which relly define him and his beliefs. Have we ALL been betrayed by this president? Well: Sometimes, I feel like it. And if I were one of you, I would STRONGLY consider to finally take the duty and expose myself to the pain of establishing a REAL, center-left, majority-compatible compatible party in the USA, for the good of your country, for the good of your people and for the good of the world as a whole. And don’t you even DARE think, that this can’t be done. Because, I have done exactly this myself already. And I can tell you this: YES, YOU CAN! » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 2:06 am Hi there, Moongal6! You are welcome! Make yourself at home on the planet of the intelligent, whitty and friendly people. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 2:11 am Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Hi there! In Germany, the papers are all abuzz about Germany’s participation in the NATO-occupation of Afghanistan, renamed “war” for propaganda purposes. Among the german population, our participation in this occuoation is wildly unpopular, with a disapproval-rating percentage ranging well in the 70’s (SIC!). But our Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to be hell-bent to kowtow to the will of America, to continue this mess. Over the years, it has become painfully obvious to me, that we are living in an age of weak, indicisive and wagering politicians, who abhor taking chances for real change and improvement, and rather forfeit them than taking ANY risk of being, perhaps, wrong, whatsoever. In former days, politicians were giants: Bismarck, Churchill, Lincoln. Those were the right men at the right place in the right time. But today’s politicians are all dwarfs. Welcome to the Age of Mediocrity. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 2:20 am Un(der)reported News —Weekend Edition 😆 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 4:40 am Yep. I wanted to indicate the mystery behind the fastest train in the world – the Shinkansen. Obviously, it didn’t work… 🙁 BTW: Kalima, how do you make the laughing smiley? 🙂 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 4:17 am bitohistory, in Europe, the french TGV-trains (“Train a Grande Vitesse” – High-Speed-Train) and the german ICE’s (Intercity Express) are travelling long distance at average speeds of 200 mph daily, on a regular base on a continental highspeed-railroad network. Besides that, we have separate systems for cargo-railroads and for commuting, too. Nothing is perfect, but the european railroad systems in many ranges come close to the optimum. And then there was the japanese Shinkansen… 😎 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 6, 2009 @ 3:01 am Yep – they bite at the front and stinge at the rear… » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 4:51 pm Nellie, I will NEVER be able to show these pics to my girlfriend – or I will have to share my place at her side with one of those cute, yet fast and BIG-growing puppies ASAP… 😉 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 4:46 pm Perhaps, Pyrene » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 4:10 pm Cannon-fodder for the MIC… » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 3:38 pm In the Pyrenee-mountains on the french-spanish border, shepherds breed a special race of dogs to protect their sheep from wolves. These “Pyrenean Mountain Dogs” look almost exactly like sheep, regarding their appearance, size and weight, their fur and their colour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyrenees These dogs are bred and raised with sheep, live with sheep all the time and, hence, believe they are sheep themselves. This way, they accept a herd of sheep as their pack. Can you imagine the unpleasant surprise a wolf must feel, when he tries to sneak into a herd of sheep at night for dinner – only to find out, that some of the sheep have sharp teeth, will start to bark and growl, as soon as they smell you, and will start chasing you, instead of you hunting them? 🙂 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 3:37 pm A kingdom for a Llama! And wasn’t part of the staff of Monty Python’s “Knights of the Coconut” made up of Llamas, too…? (Me thinks, we urgently need a Llama-thread, KQuark!) 🙂 “LLAMAS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!” » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 3:19 pm “NOAA: North American 2008 Cooling Attributed to Natural Causes » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 5, 2009 @ 1:29 pm You are relieved. You know, it’s only, because you are a newb… 😉 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 1:49 pm My now 19-year-old- daughter Justine is a clinically proven dyslexic. When she was a kid ad school, she abhorred reading like the plague, because it made her feel so helpless, when she was struggling with every word and with every letter of a text. But then, when she was 11, the first Harry Potter-novel was published. First, she ignored the book completely; it would only have been another guaranteed reading failure in a long line of reading failures, which had lined up in her short life, already. But then thefirst Harry Potter-film came out, and then the secon book. People were fascinated of the film, and the kids at school were talking about the adventures of Harry Potter day after day. Then, her big, baaaad daddy had an idea: I continued to buy my little one the Harry Potter-books, but never insisted on her reding them. Instead, I only took her to every Harry Potter-premier again year after year after year. One day, when I called her, to chat with her a little over the phone – Justine is living with my divorced ex-wife – my daughter suddenly fiercely interrupted me, before I could say anything more than “Good evening”, and claimed: “Daddy, I cannot talk to you now, I am reading Harry Potter!” – and hung up again. Late my ex-wife told me, that the peer-pressure at school became so overwhelming, because everybody else was talking about harry Potter, that Justine all by herself one day took out the first Harry Potter and began to read it: First letter by letter, then word by word, line by line, until she could read it fluently, when she had arrived at the end of the book. Since then, she has not only read every Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight – you name it – but has become a true book worm, who is hooked on books and can’t go past ANY bookstore without peeking into the door and buying at least one book. In fact, I have begun writing my own novel actually especially for her, too – which has brought me close to her than a thousand visits at the zoo with one another or watching movies at the cinema could ever have achieved. So, yes: The power of the written word is immesurable and unfathomable. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 1:47 pm It’s FRIDAY? And you are telling me that NOW? (“PEW! Made it!”) » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:14 am Rich Misty is a guy? I always thought, he/she was a girl! » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 9:06 am Time to move to Canada and start a self-sufficient life, BigDogMom. Don’t you think? » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 11:06 am And here go the greedy Brit bankers: From The Times “Defiant banks pay millions in bonuses” A fresh row over City bonuses is set to engulf ministers after it emerged last night that 200 executives at Lloyds, the partly state-owned bank, are set to receive one-off payments worth up to 80 per cent of their annual salaries. They will receive the money for integrating Lloyds with HBOS, which has led to more than 11,000 job losses at the combined bank since January. It comes amid signs that the Government will not stop Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by the State, from paying massive bonuses to 20,000 investment bankers. If there has ever been ample proof, that corrupt politicians are COMPLETELY in the bag with the banksters, it’s THIS. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 11:01 am The share of fixed income for bankers in continantal Europe – less “Great” Britain, of course… – is higher by far than in the US-american banks’ salary systems. Also: Over here, bnuses have to be EARNED – i.e. bonuses will only be paid, if the bank does better than expected at a certain point, but they will be nixed, if it fares worse than anticipated. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:53 am The FTT is about to come in Europe soon, too. The Brits are fighting it desperately, as always, because they are minions of the Canary Wharf (Britpendant to Wall Street). The german government is negotiating the details of a german domestic FTT already, France is mulling it, and even PM Brown knows exactly, that GB is broke, and simply NEEDS the cash generated by an FTT, to stayafloat. So Brown, like the other european governments, is actually pushing this FTT through, even if it may be the last thing he will ever do as PM (Which I hope it is…) » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:43 am New York is the Las Vegas of the rich. Wall Street is the Las Vegas Strip of the rich. The stock exchange is the gambling hall of the rich. Investment banks are the croupiers of the rich. And you are the chips. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:30 am Balancing their own accounts, which they had looted and burned through during the last boom’s gambling spree, until the bubble went bust in September 2008. Basically, the people have re-funded the banks the cash they have gambled and lost before, while paying out huge bonuses to those, who CAUSED that mess, TWICE since. Figure this: The accumulated 2009 Wall Street-bonuses are expected to be 60 percent HIGHER than the bonuses of 2008 – and this, while 2009 is the first full year of the economic crisis! Unfathomable? No, systemic. » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:22 am This is GOOD! Which is ample reason for any “decent” Republican to fight it tooth and nail… 😉 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:09 am I’M NOT WORTHY! 🙂 » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:06 am Same problem here in Europe. The banks are hoarding cash, rather than lending it. About the scale of the problem, see here: US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession “Both bank credit and the M3 money supply in the United States have been contracting at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression since early summer, raising fears of a double-dip recession in 2010 and a slide into debt-deflation.” » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 10:02 am Your good news are our bad news: Yesterday, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz stated, that the new C-class Mercedes, which is the cash-cow of the Merc model range, will be built in the Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, USA http://mbusi.com/ , because it would cost 1600 Euros less to manufacture it there, than in Germany. This is the strong side of the weak Dollar: It makes the USA an interesting location for manufacturing goods for exports, again. Next_ Electric cars, wind turbines and large solar power arrays, please! » Posted By Mogamboguru On December 4, 2009 @ 9:34 amComments Posted By Mogamboguru
Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.
December 4, 2009
«« Back To Stats Page
Home Stats