FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

It's easy to stay level-headed when you have no heart. The Swiss will ever be a mystery to me.

I wish that Helen and Nimh would quit baiting each otther. Why these two very interesting and crankily individualistic people would find the other's cranky individuality so apparently annoying is beyond me. If, on the other hand, what I see is mutually satisfying sparring, than I wil concede my gaucherie and retreat.

Thomas - no, not formally, but it was overrun by leftists for decades.

The last refuge for those without argument: "I'm from there, so I know better". If anyone ever catches me saying that on a Dutch thread, please shoot me.

The Deutsche Welle has for over fifty years now been the public radio station that broadcasted globally to represent the perspective of the FRG, formerly West-Germany, a country in which the Communist Party was actually banned from 1956 to 1968 ... but it was "communist". And you know so, because you're from Germany. Whatever other Germans may say. Ehmm, OK.

George - my comments to NIMH are in no way personal, simply a reminder of his political views often expressed in this forum.

I'm out of here until next weekend anyway - firewall comes back up on computer at 0800 EDT. Have fun!

NIMH - you are mistaken: I'm not from Germany.

Steve - the whales were playing the Japanese whaling boats; there's one more round in that Whaling Conference and I'm rooting for the cetacean team, backed by Switzerland: the country is inland but it currently holds the top sailing award previously known at America's Cup, don't forget

There is nothing satisfying about facing HofT's recurrent wild allegations on most varying matters of politics, and I deeply wish I was not a compulsively anal fact-checker, so I could just let it go. This is my loss. I see something asserted that's just plain wrong, incorrect, bizarre even, and I respond - instead of shrugging and assuming people will guess by themselves that it's wrong. I'm not being coy here; I seriously hate myself for it - it takes a surreal amount of time/energy whenever it comes up, and tends to multiply itself. I've retreated from A2K several times because of it.

There is also nothing satisfying about being confronted with a poster who tends to seep her every second post with some kind of unnecessary personal putdown or insinuation - though it was HofT's scandalous reference to Lash's illness a few pages back that truly took the biscuit so far. Although they always skirt the terms of use, they spoil the experience of any A2K thread they appear in (mine, anyway).

I have gathered from your and Blatham's remarks that Helen is extremely erudite on some specific topic(s), and has won your respect through that. I have not had the fortune to observe what topic that would be; I'm guessing it might be zoology, or classical literature, both of which I'm ignorant of myself. Meanwhile, I've seen several people chased out of threads by Helen's meanness, and I wish someone else would speak up about it once in a while as well.

But I'll give it a rest and simply avoid the threads she's in, instead.

Keep it up, Nimh!!!!

<-grateful for acknowledgement>

Huch? I've always thought that it was extremely center-right, and it's programs for the east were even more right. - Okay, in the leading positions were all CDU/CSU members .... and due to the status as civil servants, they stayed there, and stayed .... :wink:

Obviously you have never worked in Germany, unlike Helen. And you have to admit it's easy for a foreign observer to mistake a "CSU-ler" for a communist, given the hunting-buddy relationships between the two camps during the time she was working there.

I mean, I sack CSU'ers and commies in the same bag and hit at them :wink:

Enjoy -- it's only three months until the elections, when it will be just the other way round. :wink:

Nimh,

I like and admire you because you are smart, curious, even tempered (usually), interested, and interesting. You are a bit more willing than I to wade into the detail of statistical analyses, but I have no difficulty sorting that out from the rest. I'm quite sure that I also present you with a mix of good and bad which you perhaps choose to manage in a way that - overall - is somewhat satisfying. I know that in the heat of argument I can get more than a little overbearing and sometimes offensively condescending. I hope that those with whom I interact here will see through and overlook these transgressions and see instead the wonderful guy behind all that Blatham and I disagree about almost everything. However, after some real hostility at the beginning, we found some engaging qualities in each other ( I came to value his wit, erudition, and good nature - he undoubtedly discovered in his inner heart that I am right and he wrong, but just can't admit it.)

Walter is a very good guy, but sometimes he drives me crazy by correcting the smallest error in something I write - even peripheral matters. However, his good nature, instant research and sound reporting more than make up for it.

Same goes with Helen. She is smart, wonderfully knowledgable, and very insightful. Like you and me, she has strong opinions and is quick to express them - even with a few put downs here and there. However I suspect that, for her, is more or less similar in meaning to my overbearing condescension in argument - a rhetorical excess, nothing more. You, by the way have been known to occasionally pile on an overkill of statistical data when confronted with an interpretation you find incorrect.

We constitute an amusing menagerie of cranky but interesting characters - none perfect, all individualistic, and all adding something unique and valuable to the sauce we, together create.

So shrug it off and focus on the good stuff.

Walter would you put Angela Merkle in a bag with the commies?

Would that be unfair on decent communists?

Opinion is interesting, but facts are sacred.

No, Angie is ... .... ..... different.

In what way?

As she seems destined to assume the Imperial Throne, I feel I have a duty to get to know her.

I'm too biased on her.

Since, however, she's (kind of) Thomas' future political partner, he may start his encomium on her :wink:

She's a physicist. If physicists run the universe, they can run Germany too. Nuff said, except that Wikipedia's article on her looks informative and accurate.