Successful cross border projects such as the Thalys or the Eurostar project have served the European consumers while German state-owned railway services become constantly more expensive. If you compare the market services with state services you will easily find out that the forces of markets satisfy the demands of citizens much better and create growth, jobs and opportunities.  States can guarantee rules but do not create wealth and jobs.

The referendum which was accepted by the Court must be voted on by June 15th. In order to be valid 50% plus one citizens must vote. The referendum is called to abrogate certain articles of the present Italian electoral law, known as the Porcellum, so as to render it slightly more acceptable to civilization.

However, the racist Lega Nord- largely responsible for writing the law in the first place- would be the big loser were the abrogative referendum to pass.

It goes without saying that the referendum would pass by an overwhelming majority.

The only way to stop it is to postpone it to another date other than the European elections, as well as local runner-up administrative elections, to discourage citizens from once again going to voting.

In order to postpone it, a decree will be promulgated by Poffarbacco in Person which will fix referendum voting on the 21st of June- just as school gets out and the brainless masses hit the beaches.

Were the referendum to be voted together with European elections and the administrative elections it is alleged that the state would save 400 million euros which would go better to the earthquake emergency. The Lega Nord has contested this sum, alleging that a separate election would only cost about 180 million euros.

Italian earthquakes "cost" from 15 to 40 billion euros over time. As of now, no more than a 100 million has been earmarked as emergency funds.

State coffers are dry.

If the referendum costs so much, it's the fault of those asshole citizens who wanted it in the first place.

After I had lurked there for a while I started noticing some guy named BooMan23 who would show up every once in a while and write these really good, really interesting diaries about politics.  I eventually followed one of the links to his blog and found a home.  Like DKos, only better.  Where DK is like a perpetual political rally, where everybody is primed for a fight most the time, BT was more like a gathering at the Student Union where folks like to hang out together and discuss things rather than always trying to win an argument.

Around the same time, some French guy named Jerome started writing really good diaries about wind power on DKos and sometimes on BooTrib.  I hadn't been on BT very long when I heard that Jerome was trying to put together a new blog with a European focus.  I thought that might be interesting, so I signed up soon after it started.  And found another home.  Like BooTrib, only global.


Somewhere in cyberspace, the ghost of de Chardin is smiling.

Promoting American cultural hegemony, a primary tenet of which is that everyone must dress as slovenly as possible...

 In Catholic school I was taught that dressing like a bum, unless you are one, and even then you should were your best clothes, if you have any, is a signifier of disrespect for God, who created us, and why can't we return the favor by wearing something that compliments our beautiful human form?  I don't know about the God bit, but I agree with the rest.   Is there not a connection between our outward appearance and human dignity?

George Will on April 16, 2009:

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

Sorry I'm a day late with this Drudion, but I was in London yesterday at the G20 anti-Kapitalist protests that focused on the Bank of England. Unfortunately, I totally fucked up my plans through sheer yokel paranoia and came away empty handed. Intending to meet up with my dear friends, the writer Gyrus and U-Know editor Merrick, at Liverpool Street Station, at 10.30am, I left our W. Country home at 6am and was in central London just before nine. Nervous that there would be thousands of people milling about, I arrived on foot at Liverpool Street a full hour early, to be confronted by hundreds of police already in place. Of course, I was dressed extremely dodgily, with my hair up in a black wig and dressed in the kind of all-purpose rural chic that couldn't have been further from my regular Rock God image (!). The police, however, were so fucking paranoid that they conducted a Stop & Search on me at the top of the escalators at 10.20; a full 40 minutes before the march had even started.

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But what got me most was how the police discovered all of my gear but still didn't realize I was wearing a 99p black eBay wig! On the Stop & Search report I'm even described as having `Hair: black, short.' I can't show you my face on the self-portrait I took as I plan to use this disguise again in the future, but Holy McGrail referred to it as Scargill Chic and pointed out that there are clearly blonde tufts visible from underneath the rug. If McGrail could suss it from the crappy mobile phone photo (shown above), then so much for the West's so-called War on Terror. What the fuck!

you are the media you consume.

A suicide bomber struck an Iraqi military base Thursday in an attack that Iraqi officials first said killed 16 soldiers but later maintained no one died but the attacker.

The conflicting death counts came at a time when Iraqi officials are under increasing pressure to stop attacks. Last week, angry Iraqis in Baghdad hurled stones at police and soldiers because they failed to stop a car bombing.

The suicide attacker wore an Iraqi military uniform in Thursday's bombing -- the fourth major attack on Iraqi security forces in a week. That raised troubling questions about insurgents' ability to infiltrate the country's armed forces or to receive help from inside their ranks.

On a range of seaside mountains between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, two visions of China's future development stand side by side. The slope of the mountains is busy with construction workers building roads and swank modern trophy homes, each with a two-car garage. The valley below is carpeted with acres of bright green chemical-fed golf courses, their sand traps winking up in playful floral patterns. This is the future as California-style, auto-based sprawl.

On the ridgeline above this stands the other vision: four tall wind turbines face the South China Sea, receiving the steady ocean breeze. The turbines of the Da Mei Sha wind farm are part of the country's rapidly rising renewable energy sector. This small wind farm represents an alternate future: that of China as a green technology giant.

The People's Republic of China faces two problems that could be addressed with one solution.

Windpower in China.  I think that the rest of the planet is starting to go through that same takeoff that Germany, Denmark, and Spain went through 10+ years ago.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg