Ramen Review

… our Federal Minister for Economics and Technology threw the towel rag[de:] this weekend.

“I had no idea of the Ministry of Economics’ address [til I was picked as their big kahuna].”
(FRG Federal Minister for Economics and Technology Michael Glos, November 2005[de:])

We get some faceless 37-year-old übernerd named Karl-Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. The last bit is “Baron of and at Guttenberg”, meaning that his clan did not just legally own that fief, but also resided there. Roman Catholic, married … read more

“[... Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will be operational by 2009 ...]”
Spokesman Mohsen Delavizi, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. November 18th 2008
n-tv gives some details[de:] IRNA lacks; I have no idea where they got it from. Al-Jazeera does not carry the news yet. Neither does CNN. In any case, the Germans claim that they’re doing final outfitting in Bushehr as of now and adds a “we hope” before the quote above.
I observe: there is not a cratered landscape littered with debris … read more

I won’t discuss the G20 meeting, as it’s gonna be all over the papers.
Markets have slid nervously, are rather volatile and partly decoupled. The reaction on the G20 meeting, I suppose, will be unison. As the DJIA has left last week in a pessimistic mood after a good start, the N225 has actually a chance to pull quite far ahead of it. I do not know whether this matters in the long run; I suppose not.

FRG Minister of the Interior … read more

n-tv put up some Forsa poll data[de:] today. Forsa are opinion-making bigwigs; supposedly they randomly chose people for those polls and call them up or so. I have been called up once for a political poll — I think even by Forsa. But IONO whether it was for this kind of poll; they usually ask whom one would vote for if there were parliamentary elections next Sunday, and I can’t remember being asked that.
I’ll go through the items one by … read more

When I cam home from that party yesterday, something interesting happened in the tube train.
All of a sudden, there was a ruckus, guys screaming around and everything. Some man had jumped up and was gesticulating at some adolescents and shouting at them furiously. He was Persian perhaps; he looked vaguely “Arab” (this is not to insult any Persians that might feel insulted by this ;-) ) but not quite; he certainly did not have the looks of a Maghrebi, but … read more

“the fine print
In the course of the last week, one new term has come into play …”
(moi, October 28th 2008)

So there we go[de:]. I still have no idea what this means, but so has everybody.
Big… fnord….

As regards this country, they presume -0.8% “growth” (whatever that is). Given the speed of recent developments, I’d rather want to assume -1.2% in my internal calculations, no matter what I tell the yokels. Possibly -1.5%; and if things really start to roll, up up … read more