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.

Archangel Mikhail Gorbachev

In this interesting interview in The Nation, Gorbachev is not parsimonious in self-praise, though one should give the man credit where it's due. We often forget that the fall of the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European 'Communist' régimes was due to the efforts of people there—both those in power and those who took the streets. Reagan was just one side of a dialogue that would not have been if the other party had turned a deaf ear like they had done for decades.

Glücklich Oktoberfest!

I'm definitely going to try to make these pretzels one of these days....

(Source: Wired)

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.