I Like This Kind Of Music (Jim Ringo)

Jim Ringo: I Like This Kind Of Music

Need to add something to yesterday's post, I forgot about the whole phenomena of anti-american demonstrations in the 60s and 70s, so I guess it is not really the external image of the US that is or better was that amazing, but rather the internal one, to which I am probably highly susceptible simply because I read a lot of American books/magazines/newspaper articles. Generally a confusing topic, I think the quality of my thoughts/sentences about this shows that too.

The british government has decided to ban smoking. How astonishing is it that all these liberal anglo-saxon countries (USA, Great Britain & Ireland(is Ireland anglo-saxon initially?)) regulate in this area, that traditionally smoke crazy countries (Great Britain & Ireland again, Italy) outlaw smoking in public places, whereas Germany, infamous for its amount of bureaucratic regulations, does nothing whatsoever? Is this just a sad statement about the impact of tobacco company lobbying in Germany or does the government need the money flowing in through tobaccao sales that badly? Weird and ultimately sad, ain't it?

Interesting (and probably last, at least from here) article regarding the Danish carricatures.

Two opiniated statements on Kobe going for 81, one by Oscar Robertson, one by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who much to my surprise I just found out, is a bestseller author nowadays (even though the fact that he seems to write books with other people only makes me squirm).

Last but not least, I'll feed y'all a rumour circulating the halls of the Bundestag (German parliament) and Auswärtiges Amt (Department of State), supposedly Iceland wants to join the EU and is having early entry talks with high level officials in Brussels. If this is true, remember that you read it here first. Small quirks of working in the Bundestag I guess. I'll actually post some stuff I researched for work sometime in the next couple of days btw.

PS:
Just read last wednesday paper, The FR writes that the new (female) Greek secretary of state's most powerful weapon is her 'charming smile'. Seriously, how can anyone claim that equality does exist, when so many of these statements representing a certain mindset are still floating around? Bush's most powerful weapon is his moronic grin? Chirac's, his evil hand kiss? Fuckin' BS this. Guess I should keep quiet on this as I am part of the group of silent benefiters, but I mean hey, this is the fuckin 21st century.