Four more years! Four more years! Part 2

Look for the punctuation marks to realize the difference to my last post.

Tina and I we celebrated our fourth anniversary last Thursday (March 15th). We went to the Würzhaus, a nice previously opened little restaurant in Nuremberg. A play on words by the way, restaurant is "Wirtshaus" in German, and "Würzhaus" would mean spice house.

A colleague of Tina has said a few weeks ago that we have lighted a turbo in our relation:

March 15, 2003: Got together
March 1, 2004: Moved in together
About April 1, 2004: (exact date unknown): Fathered Emma
August 19, 2004: Marriage
December 16, 2004: Tina gave birth to Emma
February 24, 2006: Bought our house
December 15, 2006: Moved into our house

If we keep this pace I wonder what happens next? Any predictions are welcome.

Four more years! Four more years?

Today is the 4th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraque war. Not at all a day to celebrate. But a day to look back in, well mainly anger.

What has happened? What have been the reasons for starting the war:

• To expel the despotic Iraque regime of Saddam Hussein: Success
• To destroy the weapons of mass destruction: Never found
• To repacify the land and the region: Failure
• To satisfy the urge for revenge for September 11: Phyrric victory
• To form an "Axis of Good" against the "Axis of Evil": Disintegrating
• Overall victory: Failure

Altogether a desaster for the U.S. They failed all along the line.
Thousands of dead people on both sides. Assaults almost every day. Destroyed culture, robbed museums and archaeological sites.
Scorched earth policy.

Perspectives? Vague and not encouraging. Can some thousand soldiers more be a solution?

At least Donald Rumsfeld and his unbearable rhetoric have disappeared. The gap that George W. will left behind will substitute him entirely.
I do not envy the next American president. No, not at all.

Game of the Year? Phoenix Suns edge Dallas Mavericks

The Suns and Mavs staged an epic battle Wednesday night. But there can be only one winner. This time the Suns brought a little bit more to bear. Sad for me as a Mavericks fan but a sportsman should be a good loser.

Amare Stoudemire had 41 points and 10 rebounds, and Steve Nash scored 10 points in the final minute of regulation, capped by a tying 3-pointer with 2.7 seconds left. He finished with 32 points, 16 assists and eight rebounds.

As for the Mavericks Jerry Stackhouse scored 33 points, his most in three seasons with Dallas, and Dirk Nowitzki added 30 points, 16 rebounds and six assists. He had eight points and seven rebounds in the third quarter, when the Mavs turned what had been a 16-point deficit into a 15-point lead going into the fourth quarter. Again close to a triple double, a good performance but not good enough this time.

Phoenix rallied by opening the fourth by making eight straight shots and 10-of-12. While that set up Nash's great finish, four missed free throws by Dallas - including two by Nowitzki - were equally important.
The Mavericks remained shaky at the start of overtime, then Jason Terry scored five points in the final 48 seconds, including a long 3 over Nash with 4.5 seconds to go that the second overtime.
Stoudemire helped Phoenix take it from there, although it still took a missed 8-footer by Nowitzki as time expired to end Dallas' 23-game home winning streak and tighten the race for the top seed in the Western Conference.

The next classic will take place on Sunday when the Detroit Pistons host the Dallas Mavericks. The best teams of the Eastern and the Western Conference will cross the blades. Another chance for a brick in the wall to become MVP for Dirk.

Rhombus poem - Spring

Spring
Spring feelings
Spring feelings grow
Spring feelings grow tremendously
Spring feelings pass by
Spring board
Summer

First are the bees or dying without a trace

They are gone. They have left the beeyard alone, didn't care about the young offspring. They never appeared again the older, adult bees. Didn't leave dead bees behind. Millions and millions of bees disappeared in North America in the last few months. More and more American beekeepers who open their beeyards for the first time after winter in these first warm weeks report the same: One beeyard after the other is empty. No bees are at home. Shocking!

At the west coast almost 60% of the bee colonies have collapsed, at the East coast and in Texas almost 70%. More than one half of the American states is struck and parts of Canada. The same happens in Spain and Poland. First reports come from Swizzerland and from Germany as well - but nowhere it's as bad as in the U.S.

It is a strange, creepy phenomenon that haunts the bee colonies. Science has given it those name, which it has reserved for something that can't be described yet, or maybe ever: disorder. They speak of "Colony Collapse Disorder". Scientists know much about the symptoms but very little about the reasons.......
But the know that it would be a catastrophy when the bees would disappear. A catastrophy for mankind, too. It could be a writing on the wall, a warning that something has gone out of balance.

About one third of the human food is dependend on bees directly or indirectly: Between 80 and 90% of apples, pears, plums and many other fruit are pollenized by bees . Also melons, almonds, peppers, pumpkins, raspberries and about 90 other fruit and vegetable species- but also animal food like clover and the widespread -especially in the U.S.- alfalfa. There are no real alternatives to bees.
Researchers say that stress has become too much for the colonies. They say that it is a wonder that nothing has happened sooner. A bee colony is a complex super organism that has adapted to the most difficult circumstances in millions of years. But in the last 10 years the bees have become weak. Maybe there is really only one reason that will be found but there could be many that have overwhelmed the bees: Consolidation of farmland that left very few boundary ridges, mono cultures and a too perfect forestry that didn't leave a single hollow tree trunk in the woods. Cities and suburbs that overgrow the earth. Pesticides that poison the bees. Illnesses and parasites that attacked the bees, introduced in the course of transcontinental dispatch of breeding bees.
One sentence is cited oftenly at the moment. A sentence of Albert Einstein: "If the bees disappear, then mankind will live only four more years; no bees any more, no pollination any more, no plants anymore, no animals anymore, no human beings anymore....".

Veiling or unveiling - that is the question. Or: Egypt?

Al-Ahram reports that Canadian Hadeel Al-Shalchi (blog), who decided to live as a veiled woman ten years ago, gets a culture shock when she arrives in Cairo.
Almost everyone is wearing one there, the choice is fantastic. "Coming from a country lacking in scarves, I spent time in scarf shops like a person at an oasis in a desert. I would stand wide-eyed in a shop and think to myself, "Oh my God - I want them all!'"
As time goes by however she starts to suspect that a herd mentality is the driving-force of much Egyptian hijab-wearing. "Many women seem to wear the veil without thinking. They use phrases like 'I don't want to go to hell', or 'it's something I have to do', 'my parents told me', "it's what everyone does"... Stickers decorate metro stations warning girls to wear the hijab before meeting their God on the Day of Judgement -- do you feel guilty for not wearing it? Do you want to be seen in this immoral state? ... And if a girl chooses not to wear the veil, then she is either ready to be catcalled or harassed by men on the street, or she's a Copt."

She has written an open letter to Egypt as well. It's very interesting.

The end of blogging

In the year of 2007 besides other cathastrophes of mankind (the dying out Tiger Slug, German EU-precidency), the end of blogging will take place surprisingly. First the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. Then the news spreaded like wildfire. First in the Süddeutsche blog then in the anti Süddeutsche blog blog. Pie-Burglar, LOLZ-Master and !Aphroditos were next. Cathy-Carefree 88 and AngryMetalBlogger then reported the whole shebang to "their buddies": "It is over! Never again blogging fun for us :-( ". These short post in AngryMetalBlogger caused 288 comments; many readers showed their dismay: "Holy shit, is it over? My world is perishing!" wrote TorfRock. "But isn't it good"? polemized NoNonsenseZZZ. A heavy controversy between both started with bad insults. DoctorsWhoDoNotPlayGolfBlog.org and the MetaMetaBlog (the blog which questions the critical blog coverage critically) reported about the fight. !Aphroditos tried to moderate; his hint that the article of the Süddeutsche Zeitung deals with a different issue was not heard: Many blogs post "Help me I'm dying!" and "How much longer?". Meanwhile JellyfishPorn.gov investigates the reason of collective blog dying: It is Hildegard "Hildi" Treitschke, a 84 years old retired woman from Hamm (Westfalen), the only person who has no blog in the whole world. Allegedly she does not need "that stuff" a friend of her reported at Hildi'sCuriousNeighbours.de smugly. Lawblog.us now thinks about legal measures.

News from poetry part XIV

Folgen der Trunksucht (von Robert Gernhardt)

Seht ihn an den Texter.
Trinkt er nicht, dann wächst er.
Misst nur einen halben Meter -
weshalb, das erklär ich später.

Seht ihn an, den Schreiner.
Trinkt er, wird er kleiner.
Schaut, wie flink und frettchenhaft
er an seinem Brettchen schafft.

Seht sie an, die Meise.
Trinkt sie, baut sie Scheiße.
Da! Grad rauscht ihr drittes Ei
wieder voll am Nest vorbei.

Seht ihn an, den Hummer.
Trinkt er wird er dummer.
Hört, wie er durchs Nordmeer keift,
ob ihm wer die Scheren schleift.

Seht ihn an, den Dichter.
Trinkt er, wird er schlichter.
Ach, schon fällt ihm gar kein Reim
auf das Reimwort 'Reim' mehr eim.

I tried a translation but I think this is not possible. I pass but if anybody can help me, go ahead!