Martin Gardner, 1914-2010, one of the most influential figures in scepticism | Chris French | Science | guardian.co.uk

Like hundreds of thousands of other fans throughout the world, although I never met Gardner, I am sure I would have liked him if I had. By all accounts he was a shy man who did not enjoy appearing in public. I feel I know something of him through his books and I mourn his passing. However, his loss will obviously be felt so much more keenly by those who did have a close personal relationship with him. James Randi, himself a towering figure within scepticism, is one such person. I leave you with his words:

My world is a little darker...

Martin Gardner has died. I have dreaded to type those words, and Martin would not have wanted to know that I'm so devastated at what I knew - day to day - had to happen very soon. I'm glad to report that his passing was painless and quick. That man was one of my giants, a very long-time friend of some 50 years or so. He was a delight, a very bright spot in my firmament, one to whom I could always turn to with a question or an idea, with any strange notion I could invent, and with any complaint or comment I could come up with.

Also in the Washington Post: Martin Gardner, 95, revered author and 'Alice' expert, dies

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

Last year he got a spam email with a registry form a company directory (really -- what are they good for?), and duly filled it out, misreading its advertisement as registration being for free. (Really -- and this is not a guy who would normally not get suspicious of a cheap bargain.)

When he got the invoice, he asked for cancellation, but was informed that he ignored the 7-day deadline for that, and only the next years' subscription can be cancelled. So he paid up. (Really -- and this is not a guy who otherwise doesn't ask for advice before paying.)

Fast forward to a week ago, when in comes an email that we please pay up on another invoice. Now the issue was pushed back and forth between boss, sub-boss and accountant, until it landed on my desk (resp. screen).

Looking through the past exchanges, several warning signs went up in me: no full fulfilment of contract terms on their side, lacking contract dates, shifty terms & conditions formulations, cancellation was already promised once, the invoice which we never received was supposedly sent well before it should have by terms & conditions, the emails from the supposed HQ in the Netherlands are signed by non-Dutch names, one of them a "Ms Alessia"... So I went googling, and the first hit is... STOP EU Business Services Trading as the EU Company Directory / Euro Business Guide / European Business Connection, a page on a whole site dedicated to the company directory scams (an invention of Hamburg native and Switzerland resident Meinolf Lüdenbach). Ironically, the worldwide operating fake Dutch scammers that got my boss appear to be a Romanian-Hungarian outfit, and they eluded law enforcement for four years.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

For those less familiar with the man, while Merkel's neoliberal deviations are machiavellian appeasing of his FDP coalition partners and the economic-liberal wing of her own party, and her government's recent EU-level amok run is also a move of the self-overestimating clueless behind events, Koch is a market-fundie rambo (despite total failure in 11 years in his home state) and nationalist, with the additional distinctions of being a rabble-rousing xenophobe, a culture-warrior social conservative, a rhetorical sharp-shooter, and a stager of fake outrage who can survive being caught lying.

Koch claimed that the reasons for his resignation are private (and said he will enter the private economy in a few months...). Also, there are leaks out that he planned this a year ahead and told Merkel. I have my doubts, though: he tried to undermine Merkel until the end, the last time when in the wake of the CDU's big loss in the NRW elections. But, he lost that round against the chancellor, too. In suggesting a new route for the CDU, he of course tried to grab the federal government policy initiative, and that by suggesting a cut in education and daycare subsidies (daycares being a longtime anathema to social conservatives), for which he got flak even from Bavaria.

Then again, despite Koch's exit, the government is moving along a similar path: with the FDP's tax cuts now passé, the goal is now budget savings, and where to start it when not a reduction of Harz-IV...

On the longer run though, things could get interesting.

• Koch's exit strengthens Merkel within the CDU again, after the façade of her hovering-above-the-ground politics was unravelled in the Greek crisis.
  
• There is no replacement for Koch on the CDU's Right, or its economic-liberal wing. This means the whole CDU will move closer to the real Merkel, towards the left (though that's still somewhere 25 years in the past).
  
• If that happens, the question will again arise if a party right of he CDU will emerge. For now still the only candidate I can see is the CDU's umbilical twin, the Bavarian CSU, which could go all-German.
  
• Some German media also speculate about a new party uniting the heavyweight dropouts: Koch, former economy super-minister and recent SPD traitor Wolfgang "coal lobby" Clement, and onetime Merkel ally in opposition, later  easily sidelined rival, present neoliberal media ideologue Friedrich Merz. But I can't see how the three would meet in one party other than the already existing FDP.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan