New opinion polls put Social Democrats at record low | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 14.08.2009

Germany's Social Democrats have received yet another blow in their bid to challenge Chancellor Angela Merkel in the upcoming elections. Polls show support for the SPD at a record low. 

It is only six weeks until Germans head to the polls in a general election and prospects are as grim as they could be for Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He's the country's foreign minister and vice chancellor but most all he is the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) candidate to become the country's next chancellor. 

If Germans voters were to cast their ballots today, the SPD would get a mere 22 percent - one percentage point less than in the previous week.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Turkey PM aims to end PKK fight

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country must deal with the problem of Kurdish rebels in Turkey's south-east.

He gave no details of how this could be done, but his government is seeking opposition support for a negotiated settlement to the insurgency.

His comments came ahead of an expected announcement of a roadmap to peace by the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK.

The banned group is marking the 25th anniversary of its fight for autonomy.

France 24 | Vanished ship came 'under attack twice' | France 24

A cargo ship that vanished two weeks ago while passing through the English Channel was "attacked twice", a European Union spokesman said Friday. Russian warships are scouring the Atlantic Ocean for the missing vessel.

AFP - A cargo ship that vanished two weeks ago in the English channel appears to have been attacked twice, but not in "traditional" acts of piracy, a European Union spokesman said Friday.
  
"Radio calls were apparently received from the ship which had supposedly been under attack twice, the first time off the Swedish coast and then off the Portuguese coast," EU Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr told reporters in Brussels.
  
"From information currently available it would seem that these acts, such as they have been reported, have nothing in common with 'traditional' acts of piracy or armed robbery at sea," he added, without going into details.
  

France 24 | Rasmussen visited Kosovo to talk about exit strategy | France 24

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new NATO chief and former prime minister of Denmark, made a visit to Kosovo on Thursday. He hopes to gradually wind down the presence of NATO's 13,800-strong Kosovo Force.

AFP - New NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen made his maiden visit to Kosovo on Thursday to evaluate his plans to trim the alliance's security mission in the breakaway Serbian province a decade after war.

Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark, hopes to gradually wind down the presence of NATO's 13,800-strong Kosovo Force (KFOR) to a small reaction unit or withdraw it completely.

"I would like to stress that this decision only reflects the improvement of the security situation in Kosovo and... is conditionally based," he said in the capital Pristina.

It's cucumber time... | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

It's komkommertijd here in the Netherlands, or cucumber time for those of you who don't speak Dutch. It's journo speak for the fact that stories are thin on the ground at this time of year, when politicians and business types are taking their summer breaks.

Traditionally this `silly season' means a drought for journalists looking to fill their column inches, air time or web pages.  More often than not it means stories that would normally be thrown to the bin in editorial meetings are given a little bit more space to breathe.

For some reason, animals and their antics seem to fill the gap and find themselves making headlines that would normally elude them. So, to keep you up to date with the stories that are, but maybe shouldn't be, making the headlines, here's a digest of some this week's komkommertijd front runners:

U.S. to Resume Training Georgian Troops - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON -- The United States is resuming a combat training mission in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to prepare its army for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, despite the risks of angering Russia, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.

The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said.

Russian officials have been informed, American officials said. The training should not worry the Kremlin, they said, because it would not involve skills that would be useful against a large conventional force like Russia's.

"This training mission is not about internal defenses or any capabilities that the Georgians would use at home," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "This is about the United States supporting Georgia's contribution to the war in Afghanistan, which everybody can recognize is needed and valued and appreciated."

The World from Berlin: Who Should Bear the Costs of Swine Flu Vaccinations? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

German health insurance companies have hashed out a compromise with the federal government over who should pay for swine flu vaccinations. German commentators say the debate should never have happened in the first place.

After a week of debate, the tempest in a teapot over whether German insurance companies would have to bear the cost of immunizations against swine flu was settled on Thursday. Insurers will be responsible for immunizing up to half of Germans, and the costs of the rest of the population will be picked up by the federal government.

DDP

German insurers will have to bear the costs of immunizing at least half the population against the swine flu. The fight pitted insurers against Health Minister Ulla Schmidt, who wanted insurance companies to shoulder the costs of immunization. Vaccinating half of Germany could cost more than €1 billion ($1.4 billion), according to the Health Ministry; insurance companies said the price would be significantly higher.

The first wave of immunizations is set to begin in the fall, with health care workers and other high-risk groups at the head of the line.

German commentators greeted the compromise with a remarkable display of unity -- against the demands of the insurance companies:

Trade dominates German-Russian summit in Sochi | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 14.08.2009

Meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks on human rights, Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs and boosting trade. 

Both leaders spoke in favor of deepening their economic cooperation. Medvedev praised Merkel for her crisis management skills and referred to signs that the German economy could be pulling out of the recession.

Germany is Russia's biggest trading partner in Europe, with bilateral trade between the two countries rising to a record 47.2 billion euros ($67.2 billion) in 2008.

Medvedev said he was eager to find joint solutions with Germany to the economic crisis. The crisis, he added, was a "chance to deepen their economic ties."

Rising wave of fraud plunges Bradford & Bingley deeper into the red - Times Online

Bradford & Bingley, the nationalised mortgage lender, has laid bare the dire state of its loan book and said that a rising wave of fraud dragged it to a £160 million loss for the first half of the year.

The figures came as the Council of Mortgage Lenders gave warning that the economy remained fragile and predicted that repossessions and arrears would continue to climb this year. The CML has forecast that 65,000 people will lose their homes this year, up from 40,000 last year and just under 26,000 in 2007.

B&B, which was the UK's largest lender to landlords before it was broken up and its mortgage book nationalised last September, said yesterday that 40 per cent of its mortgage book was in negative equity, up from 30 per cent at the end of 2008. Impairments on bad loans ballooned from £75 million last summer to £328 million. The first half pre-tax loss of £160 million was up from a loss of £27 million in the first half of 2008.

Hat tip Calculated Risk

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

My hope is that this will not be limited to the Salon. It would be great if other people would post diaries too  and I am not thinking only of the Swedes, but also those who have been in Sweden, or would like to travel to Sweden, or just plain want to know more about it too.
Any topic goes, like:
*    Style of Government, Parties, Politics
*    Economy
*    Culture and History
*    Nature and Environment
*    Health and Education Systems
*    Food and Recipes
*    Literature and Music
*    Travel and Travelogues (with pictures if possible)
*    Etc.
So, basically any topic goes, as long as it has to do with Sweden and helps us here on ET to learn more about that country.

In the mean time there has been a first story about Sweden. If you haven't read it yet, you can read it following the link:

Nomad:   Quintessential Sweden

Sweden's Princess Madeleine to marry - Telegraph

"Today, Tuesday 11 August 2009, the engagement between Her Royal Highness Princess Madeleine and Mr Jonas Bergstroem was announced," the palace said in a short statement.

The palace announced the nuptials after the king received approval from the Swedish government, according to procedures set out in the constitution. Sweden's Princess Madeleine, the youngest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, is engaged to marry her boyfriend, the Swedish royal palace said on Tuesday.

Swedish women, the ideal woman? - the European magazine ~ Cafebabel

The myth regarding Swedish women had its genesis at the beginning of the sixties; Federico Fellini introduced the luscious Anita Ekberg to the world in the film

La Dolce Vita (1960). The image of the Swedish actress luxuriating in the Trevi fountain remains etched in people's memories.

Across Europe, a string of films depicting statuesque Swedish women followed afterwards. In Spain,

Tres suecas para tres rodriguez saw its release a few weeks after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, which set the tone. Three young female Swedes in bikinis on holiday make an exhibition of themselves on the beaches of Torremolinos in Malaga, and openly pull three young 'Rodriguezes' (p>'quedarse de rodriguez' is a saying referring to those men left behind when their other halves are away - ed). In a very pious catholic country, the film caused a stir amongst more than a few worshippers. The myth of the Swedish temptress was born.

Sweden's Cecilia Malmström: 'I'm a politician. It's not my task to impose an identity on people' - the European magazine ~ Cafebabel

The Gothenburg-based politician, 41, has been EU affairs minister since 2006. We talk institutional reform, economic crisis and Turkey in part III of a special edition marking the six-month Swedish presidency of the EU, which began on 1 July

In a recent speech in the Netherlands presenting Sweden's EU priorities, you quoted the French former MEP and intellectual Louise Weiss, who had said `European institutions have produced European beets, butter, cheese, wine, veal and even pigs. But they have not produced Europeans'. You added: `It is not my task as a politician to convince people to feel more European.' Isn't that precisely one of your priorities?

Vietnamese workers in north-south berry dispute - The Local

Vietnamese migrant workers, in Sweden to harvest berries, have gone out on strike in protest at the tough working conditions, according to a report in local newspaper Värmlands Folkblad.

"They were unhappy at the remuneration and wanted to stop picking. But not all. The seventeen who came from south Vietnam wanted to continue to work. It seems that they had been locked up by the north Vietnamese," Mats Persson told the newspaper.

Several police units, interpreters and Stockholm embassy staff have been obliged to travel to the small rural community of Branäs in Värmland to mediate in the conflict between the groups of Vietnamese and their employers.

The Vietnamese migrant workers are spending the summer working to pick berries and many have taken out loans on their houses and borrowed money from friends and family in order to make the trip to Sweden.

Youth unemployment doubles in Sweden - The Local

Unemployment in Sweden amounted to 251,000 in July, with a further 4,400 served notice.

Among the nation's youth unemployment has now doubled over the past 12 months.

The number of redundancy notices has declined since March and the fall in vacancies registered at employment agencies has eased off, according to new figures for July from the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen).

The Local: 'Elk explosion' in southern Sweden

Hunters in the south of Sweden have reported an 'explosion' in the elk population in the wake of winter storm Gudrun that swept through the region in 2005.

The National Board of Forestry (Skogsstyrelsen) has reported that the elk population appears to have doubled since 2005, according to a recent inventory by hunters, Sveriges Radio's Ekot news programme reports.

"In the central parts of the storm areas it looks like we have seen a dramatic increase of elk stocks," Christer Kalén at the board told Ekot.

The elks have been able to forage for more food as a result of Gudrun felling a large number of trees.

"The cleared forests are a real smorgasbord for the elk," he explained.

Swedish consortium enters battle for Volvo

Online: http://www.thelocal.se/21482/20090815/

A new consortium dominated by Swedish owners has at the last minute joined in the battle to purchase Volvo Cars from Ford Motors.

The engineering trade union at Volvo Cars is reported to be behind the initiative due to provide opposition to the possibility of a Chinese owner, reported business daily Dagens Industri.

Konsortium Jakob AB was listed at the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) in July. Employees in Sweden and Belgium will have the chance to buy into the company with two monthly salaries. Volvo dealers will also reportedly to be offered the opportunity to buy in. AB Volvo, as well as an unnamed Swedish institutional investor, is also to have expressed interest in joining the consortium.

Roger Holtback, CEO of Volvo Cars from 1984-1991 and vice president of AB Volvo between 1990-1991, is reported to have sought American financiers.

Handelsbanken Markets has been cited as the consortium's financial advisor.
The purchase price, since Ford will remain a minority owner, is estimated at approximately 15 billion kronor ($2.08 billion).

A consortium of the state-owned Chinese car manufacturer Geely is still believed to be the most likely candidate for the purchase. In June, Geely denied any plans to purchase Volvo Cars.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

EUobserver / Icelanders protest bank repayment package

The bank-crisss in Iceland land last autumn has cast long shadows. Almost one year after Iceland's banks collapsed, the affair threatens to unseat the government and kick the country's EU bid into the long grass.

Over 3,000 Icelanders demonstrated outside parliament, the Althing, on Thursday (13 August) against a proposal to compensate clients of the online Icesave bank for money lost when it went bust last year.

Icelandic hot spring

Icesave was Landsbanki's online savings unit in the UK and the Netherlands and attracted over 320,000 British and Dutch savers with high interest rates.

When Landsbanki was nationalised in October 2008, the Icesave deposits were lost but only domestic clients' savings were guaranteed, creating anger in the UK and the Netherlands.

Johann Hari: Cruel and out of control: the new face of debt collecting - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

The poorer you are, the easier it is to become trapped in this system

Sometimes it takes a casual phrase to really reveal the gap between a slice of our ruling class and the rest of us.

The Tory frontbencher Alan Duncan says that living on £64,000 a year - which puts him in the richest 4 per cent of the population - means a life on "rations", and "no one who's done anything" will want to live on it. Boris Johnson says wages for a second job of £250,000 are "chicken feed", even though they are more than what 99.99 per cent of us earn. (He must have an army of gargantuan chickens). David Cameron doesn't even know how many houses he owns, and his heiress wife says a windfall of up to £250,000 from selling a property is "nothing life-changing".

Yet out in the real Britain, the median wage is £23,000 a year. Half earn more; half earn less. Underneath this figure, there's another: the average personal debt is £29,500. As individuals, we owe more than we earn in a year. This is a relatively recent development, and it happened for an underlying structural reason.

Since the early 1980s, average incomes have stagnated, even as the economy - and people's expectations - have continued to grow. How is this possible? Under Thatcher and (alas) her New Labour successors, for the first time since the 1920s, growth went almost entirely to those at the top. People like Boris and former oilman Duncan saw their real incomes soar - and shoot off far beyond everyone else. So to keep up, the middle class and the poor turned to credit. They stayed with the rising tide by building a life-raft out of credit cards and personal loans.

Zen and the art of modern macroeconomics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

I am submitting a doctoral dissertation regarding the impossibility of economically evaluating the real world. As hoped, my calculations, with great consistency, predict and explain nothing. Please mail my diploma.
Thank you. -- Jim Hansen

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Burmese villagers 'forced to work on Total pipeline' - Asia, World - The Independent

French energy giant accused of profiting as new testimony gives shocking insight into junta's labour regime

The French energy giant Total is at the centre of allegations that Burmese villagers are being used as forced labour to help support a huge gas pipeline that is earning the country's military regime hundreds of millions of dollars.

Testimony from villagers and former soldiers gathered by human rights workers suggests that Burmese soldiers, who provide security for the Yadana pipeline on behalf of Total, are forcing thousands of people to work portering, carrying wood and repairing roads in the pipeline area. They have also been forced to build police stations and barracks.

One villager, identified pseudonymously as Htay Win Oo, told researchers from the Thailand-based human rights group EarthRights International (ERI): "Since early 2009 I've [witnessed] Burmese soldiers ... that are stationed near our village ask our village to build a new police camp. The soldiers ordered villagers to build a new camp in late March. The land where they set up the new camp belongs to local villagers ... the soldiers ordered villagers to help build it. Villagers had to cut bamboo, wood, and leaves for the building and at the same time they had to build it."

Extending the Horizon for Woman's Aid Projects in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

KABUL -- Off the dust-coated Kote Sangi road in the Afghan capital stands a worn beige sign on stilts with blue painted letters advertising the Women's World Market.

Behind the sign, however, neither a market nor any women are to be seen.

Instead, what six months ago was a darkened shopping mall with few open stores and even fewer female customers is now a bustling cement shop filled with men searching for construction supplies.

The Women's World Market, which opened in 2007 to donor fanfare, was designed to give women the opportunity to own their own shops, earn income and learn about business in a secure, women-only environment. But its out-of-the-way location -- in a western Kabul district best known for selling construction materials -- meant store owners had little neighborhood foot traffic to draw upon. This problem, coupled with high prices and a shortage of distinctive products on offer, meant the mall never caught on with Afghan customers.

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Egyptians escape Somali pirates

Egyptian fishermen on two boats captured four months ago by Somali pirates have escaped from their captors, officials say.

Police information indicated that two Egyptian fishing boats, held off the coast in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, broke free on Thursday after overpowering the pirates holding them. 

There were also unconfirmed reports that some of the pirates had been killed.

Authorities in Puntland said the fishermen had been arrested, and their boats seized, by local security forces in April for illegal offshore activities.

It was not clear how many people were on board the boats during Thursday's getaway, although some reports suggested the presence of at least 30 fishermen.

Details of secret CIA prisons released - Telegraph

One prison was in a renovated building on a busy street in Bucharest, Romania. Another was in Morocco. A third was on the outskirts of another former Eastern bloc city.

The prisoners were moved back and forth and they were kept in isolated cells, often in freezing conditions, he said.

There were non slip floors and wooden walls which detainees were slammed against. They also used the waterboarding torture technique.

willing to be a one-term president


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Blog Me No Blogs: OPERATION FOREVER: AFGHANISTAN

' Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile. The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off. The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown. At Bagram, according to a written statement provided by a spokesperson for the base, Army Maj. Chris Belcher, the "Military Police receive few reports of alcohol or drug issues."

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Biden had it right: Rural Russia is dying of poverty, neglect | McClatchy

... A major study that the United Nations released in April, authored by leading Russian experts, projected that Russia would lose at least 11 million more people by 2025. Another U.N.-sponsored report said last year that the population could fall to as low as 100 million in 2050.

That report cited a recent improvement in fertility but cautioned that, "while these favorable trends may last another five or six years, all recent forecasts . . . predict that Russia's population decline will only intensify."

"There's a risk that in the most negative situation, Russia will stop existing as a state," said Olga Isupova, a senior demographic researcher at the Higher School of Economics, a leading private Russian university in Moscow. <...>

The talk of alcoholism isn't confined to handwringing clergymen and small-town doctors. A study published this June examined three Russian industrial cities with typical mortality trends and found that during the 1990s, more than half of the deaths of those aged 15 to 54 were alcohol-related.

The findings, authored by a blue-ribbon panel of experts including representatives of the Russian cancer research center and the University of Oxford, suggest that Russia is drinking itself to death. ...

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Antarctic glacier 'thinning fast'

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to research seen by the BBC.

A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year.

Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise.

The work by British scientists appears in Geophysical Research Letters.

The team was led by Professor Duncan Wingham of University College London (UCL).

Marmite and co: disgustingly debatable foods in western Europe - the European magazine ~ Cafebabel

Travelling around Europe, you're never safe from a bad gastronomic surprise, be it vegetable yeast spread, bull's tail, pig's head paté, mushroom spread and much more ... brace your guts. Plus, a recipe for stewed oxtail

25% of Brits pack a pot in their suitcase to go on holiday." This could easily be the gastronomic scoop of the year... but rather than a saucepan, it's their jar of Marmite, the main ingredient of which is vegetable yeast (made of microscopic moulds and very rich in vitamin B1), that a quarter of the population cannot live without for two weeks in a row. The sales and marketing team at Marmite (born in 1902!) needed nothing more to produce an amusing publicity campaign. Because Marmite, and its bitter taste, divides the English palette. It's black or white, as the slogan says: Love it or hate it.

Smoke-belching Trabant to be reborn as electric car - Telegraph

The Trabant, the smoke-belching national car of Communist East Germany, is to be reborn as an electric car fit for the environmentally conscious 21st century motorist.

The new model will make its debut at the Frankfurt motor show next month, almost 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and mass productioon stopped.

Its manufaturers hope its green credentials will put an end to the Trabant being the butt of jokes and and an enduring symbol of the imploding nation.

Ancient royal tomb found in Scotland - Home News, UK - The Independent

Archaeologists stunned as dig unearths 4,000-year-old burial treasures unrivalled anywhere in Britain

Hidden beneath a four-ton slab of rock and surrounded by ancient carved symbols of prehistoric power, a spectacular high-status potentially royal tomb, dating back 4,000 years, has been discovered by archaeologists in Scotland.

The find - of international importance - is unique in Britain. The excavations at Forteviot, near Perth, have yielded the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler buried on a bed of white quartz pebbles and birch bark with at least a dozen personal possessions - including a bronze and gold dagger, a bronze knife, a wooden bowl and a leather bag.

The discovery has huge implications for Scottish history. Forteviot has long been known to have been a great royal centre in the early medieval period. It was a "capital" of a Pictish Kingdom in the 8/9th century AD - and one of Scotland's earliest kings, Kenneth MacAlpin, is said to have had a palace there.

Germany's Weirdest Festivals: Summer Fun, Teutonic Style - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Duck races, a beard championship and the Mud Olympics: Germany hosts a wealth of quirky festivals and competitions each year. While some tournaments are a question of brute force, others are all about looking as silly as possible. SPIEGEL ONLINE provides an overview of Germany's strangest competitions.

The man is clad in oozing mud from head to foot. His eyes sparkle against his grey-brown body suit. He has the typical look of a Mud Olympics participant, just a couple of minutes after the games have got underway.

Whether it is fish tennis, an eel relay race or mud football, the goal is always the same: to get utterly muddy. "You become one with the mud, you become part of the natural environment," says event organizer Michael Behrendt, describing the lure of the mud fight. And now the successful event is in its sixth year. These days teams with fanciful names like "The Mud Dogs," "Silt-Woodlouse FC" or "Henry's Mud-Splashers" have to register for the competition months in advance in order to secure their place in the mucky proceedings.

Arpad Bella, the border guard who helped to bring down Iron Curtain - Times Online

As Europe celebrates the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism, politicians are scrambling to claim credit for bringing down the Iron Curtain. But Arpad Bella, a name unknown to most, has one of the strongest claims of all.

Mr Bella was the Hungarian border guard on duty at his remote crossing on August 19, 1989, when hundreds of East German refugees forced their way through it.

The first mass border breakout since the failed Hungarian revolution of 1956 accelerated a chain of events that led to the collapse of the region's dictatorships, and the Berlin Wall crumbled in the months that followed.

Now, the pastoral scene on the narrow road out of Hungary to the Austrian village of St Margarethen belies the dramatic events that unfolded two decades ago. Locals amble back and forth between the two countries, a combine harvester trundles through the fields and the late summer sun glints on verdant meadows.

[Murdoch Alert]

Mysticism, drugs and rock n roll -  Trouw/Presseurop

Glastonbury is not only famous for its performing arts festivals. Pilgrimage, spirituality, drugs, nature -- since the 1970s, the town on the imaginary Isle of Avalon has welcomed all sorts of visitors in search of spiritual awakening.

With the arrival in droves of meditation disciples in the 1970s, the small town of Glastonbury became the new-age capital of Europe. Over the years, the festival of performing arts which is held there every summer has become the world's largest open-air pop carnival. Every year, tickets are sold out even before the festival programme has been published. Glastonbury also hosts a wide range of hippie festivities, like Tibet week, with the monks of the Tashilhunpo monastery as special guests. 

With its many legends, the Somerset landscape has strong mystical associations. Tradition has it that Glastonbury is built on the Isle of Avalon, which was located in the marshes of the same name. The sacred hill of Glastonbury Tor has attracted pilgrims since the Stone Age, and in the 11th century the bones of King Arthur were allegedly disinterred there in the chapel of the abbey, now in ruins.

Hawkwind's 40-year space trip

You can't be me, I'm taken

Daily Kos | Whole Foods Damage Control Begins

Just received this in the the my good ole inbox from Whole Foods.  Will comment further, but let's start the discussion here.  Are you satisfied?  Unimpressed?  More livid than ever?

Full e-mail below the fold...

My thoughts in the annotated version below that...

John Mackey hiding behind his PR flacks.  Mr Big Dick-Swinging Texan on the pages of the WSJ may have bit off more than he could chew.

I'm not sure whether the PR flacks' response is hilarious or simply more insulting.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

NNIRR: Demand MS Reunite Indigenous Mother & Baby Daughter!

Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English; she speaks Chatino, an Indigenous people from Oaxaca, Mexico that, spoken by some 50,000 people.

The hospital provided her with an "interpreter" who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital's interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.

The hospital's social worker reported "evidence" of abuse and neglect because:

• The "baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;"
  
• The "mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula." (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
  
• "She does not speak English which puts baby in danger."

WTF?

I only found out about this because El Pais is recycling month-old stories as "filler" for the slow month of August...

The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.

FT.com / Europe - French minister calls for ban on burka

An outright ban of the wearing of the burka in France would help stem the spread of the "cancer" of radical Islam, according to the country's Muslim minister for urban regeneration.

Fadela Amara, who is of Algerian descent, said the veil and headscarf combination covering everything but the eyes represented "the oppression of women, their enslavement, their humiliation".

Sounds like France has found its August cucumbers.

Fadela Amara, a long time human rights and women rights activist, has joined N.Sarkozy's government (and UMP ruling party) in 2007.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

American pilot blames 'British beer' - Telegraph

An American pilot preparing to fly a packed aeroplane while twice the legal alcohol limit blamed his intoxication on strong British beer he was not used to, a court heard

Captain Joseph Crites, 57, said the unfamiliar tipple was stronger than alcoholic beverages he usually drank and he did not realise it would put him over the limit when he turned up at Heathrow the next morning.

Security guards smelled alcohol on his breath as he was about to take charge of an American Airlines Boeing 777 heading for Chicago with 204 passengers on board.

A bit of a storm in Belgium after a new phone company launched a PR campaign to advertise free internet on their mobile phone network. Apparently using the slogan "Gratis is voor Hollanders" (free for Hollanders) got them in a bit of a muddle with Belgian Committee of Ethics and that slogan and two others had to be dropped - because it would be offense.

Also the use of "Gratis is voor janetten" - janetten being a slang word for homosexuals - was scrapped. Other swear words could be maintained and were not considered offensive, like "sletten" (bitches) or "bospoeper" (someone who has sex in a forest). The last one is derived from a popular television series...

Which means, I guess, that the use of "Flamands" and "Hollanders" is now equal to a swear word more offensive than "bitches". :)