Lots on France & Germany

Apparently, they're hot topics for different, similar, and overlapping reasons:

Sarkozy is resented for not speaking proper French.

Merkel and her coalition face tough challenges in the upcoming elections in Germany.

French newspapers are struggling, but the government is not about to let them go belly-up; they're married, in a way....

France has found its Palin in Marine LePen. Equally crazy, undoubtedly smarter... must be watched and kept from power....

Sarkozy and Merkel fairly and objectively portrayed as an unlikely but functional pair. I can totally see the tension. And, although I do not like Merkel's general politics and her party's associations with a religion, I do think her stance on the European financial crisis is the healthiest and the most likely to guarantee the European Union's survival.

The Iron Lady Had a Rusty Interior

I just read on The Daily Dish that Margaret Thatcher wanted to prevent the reunification of Germany, and pleaded with Gorbachev to try to do the same. To learn more, read the original article in The Times, as well as the transcript of the newly disclosed Thatcher-Gorbachev conversation from the same source. The stance against the reunification of Germany is made known on page 2 of that transcript.

Times Are A-Changin'

The Economist had an article today about the discrepancy in approval rates of the United States between Eastern and Western Europe. Approval rates apparently soared in countries like Germany or Great Britain, but merely budged upward in countries like Poland and Romania. The article puts a lot of the blame for the phenomenon on the U.S. stance on the missile defense system that had been promised to eastern European countries but is no longer planned, as well as on the NATO actions regarding the region.

I would venture to add that many countries in Eastern Europe still have a lot of misconceptions about the United States and its role in European and world affairs, as well as in the politics that each party represents in the United States. In other words, it makes no difference whether a Democrat or Republican is president; to Eastern Europe, America remains America. Obama's race may have a role in it, too... but that's just my opinion and I cannot support it statistically.

And I also liked their cartoon on the article.

Those Commie Europeans

They have things figured out pretty darn well if you ask me. The French are probably the kings of vacation time in the world and the rest of Europeans are right behind them. There's good news for all of them: vacation time leads to happiness and health.

Birth Rates

According to The Economist, a new study in Nature contradicts the popular belief that the rich have fewer children. With a rise in the Human Development Index (indicator of better life), populations in those countries began to have fewer children. As the HDI increased further, however, those same populations began to have more children, as indicated by the graph below. Many factors are suspected to be behind this trend.

On related news, Europe is showing an overall increase in its birth rate. Certainly good news for those xenophobic nativists who fear that the increases occur only within muslim immigrant populations.

Those Commie Europeans

Call them what you will, but France and Germany both experienced an increase in their GDP for the second quarter, signaling what many believe to be an easing recession or even an exit from the recession for both those countries as well as an ease on the European economy at large. Experts are crediting government support of the automotive industries for this progress.