objective taste

When I came to Munich, I expected to compare different beers, and figure out which one was the best. Little did I know, the quality of beers is not a matter of taste, there is an objective ranking. Most importantly, Löwenbräu is "piss beer" and Augustiner is the best. This is not a matter of opinion. All the other beers fill some sort of mushy middleground, although it seems like Spaten is considered pretty crummy, while people like Paulaner. Bottom line: if you want to seem like you know about beer in Munich, just say that you like Augustiner. It's the right answer anyway. That stuff is frickin' good.

nyc strike

It's amazing how being affected by a strike can change one's view on labor unions:

The Transit Workers Union went on strike, and with that a 20 minute commute became a four-hour march with millions of bridge and tunnel kids through ice and wind.

Like that the city halted before rush hour, for some-thousand ignorant overpaid lazy and expendible selfish workers.

The strike is illegal under New York's Taylor Law, a law in place for obvious reasons. The city seems determined to break the TWU, and hopefully it will end happily like the NWA strike. Outsourcing, scabs, and restructuring sans all former employees.

New York can litigate the union, and oh I hope they break and cripple them beyond all recompense.

Heh.

disappointment

The Hong Kong WTO deal doesn't add up to much in the way of cutting farm subsidies (read about it here, here, and here). Jerome a Paris at DailyKos has it right: as with every trade deal, the devil's in the details. It's good to see they're at least talking about cutting farm subsidies, but too bad they can't get much substantive accomplished..

ag subsidies

The big sticking point of the upcoming Doha Round WTO talks is almost certainly going to be agriculture subsidies and quotas. Namely, the European Union won't want to get rid of the policies that protect their farmers. The EU's agriculture subsidies essentially amount to a Europeanization of what once was French policy.

And it's really pretty bad policy. According to The Economist, CAP (Ag subsidies) are 40% of the EU's budget. This, despite the fact that farmers make up only 2% of the workforce. Subsidies make up an average of 90% of a farmer's pre-tax income. Hmm, sounds like terrible policy, kind of like in the United States.

Unfortunately, like in the United States, Euro farm subsidies don't appear to be going anywhere. It's one of the principle demands of the French, which is the second most important member of the EU. The Germans bankroll the thing and get to determine all the monetary policy; the French pay a fair amount into the cash register, agree to get along with the Germans, and get their agriculture policy through.

It's not like the US will be in any position to get high and mighty at the WTO. Ethanol. Oh, sure we passed CAFTA, but why are there still terribly costly sugar quotas? Farm subsidies remain one of the worst worldwide policy disasters in the developing world. Maybe if the Netherlands, Malta or some other country with no farming to speak of ascends to hegemony, they can kick the crap out of us and set the world straight.

scandal?

You'd be amazed at what passes for a scandal in Germany. And it has nothing to do with any current politicians.

Everybody knew that Schröder would pursue a lucrative private sector opportunity after losing the Chancellorship. That's where his connections and past lay. There was even a lot of speculation that he called the election when he did because he was sick of being Chancellor and would prefer to work for a big company. Now he has a job, with the Baltic Sea Pipeline Project, which just happened to be a project he advocated as the Chancellor. Hmm.

The other question being raised is that apparently Putin helped ol' boy Gerd get the gig. Schröder is very popular in Russia thanks to his strong anti-Iraq War stance and other things, and he's also popular with the Russian higher-ups thanks to the pipeline and such. People aren't happy that Schröder might have been cuddling up to authoritarians in order to further his post-government career options.

This seems like it might be unethical, but it's strange to me that it's such a big deal. To me, taking the job doesn't make the deal unethical. If the pipeline was a boondoggle (over which there has no debate) this would be real scandal and cause for concern. After all, that's exactly what Duke Cunningham did. But if the merits of the pipeline are sound, it seems like wasting a lot of hot air on a politician who's already out of office is a bit silly. There's no indication that malfeasance goes beyond Gerd, and the outrage seems to be directed at him personally. Find something real to bitch about. Like... oh... I don't know.... say the economy.

World Cup draw

Soccer is a religion here. My favorite German politics blog chimes in on Germany's group for the World Cup:

Ecuador, Poland and Costa Rice: the knock out rounds should be a sure thing, otherwise we'll have the next national depression.

No similar luck for the United States, who are in the most difficult group in the tournament. Looking forward to Germany-England at some point.

tookie!

Sometimes, people just pick the wrong example for their causes. I was pretty surprised to see that Tookie Williams made the front page of Der Spiegel, because apparently there's a big outcry in Europe against his execution. This likely stems from the fact that Mr. Williams has some celebrities on his side. Of course, Michael Douglas and Snoop Dogg probably know little about the facts of Tookie's case. And this seems a bit extreme:

Some of Williams supporters have gone so far as to put his name forward as a nominee for both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The argument these guys are making is that Tookie's role as an influential gangsta (founder of the Crips?) back in the day has made him an important actor in preventing kids from joining gangs. Some idiots even say that he has saved 150,000 kids. How exactly we could measure and know this would be an interesting proposition, if it weren't patently false (on both counts):

But gang experts dispute Williams' claims to have founded the Crips and say he has little influence over teens. Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton has said that few gang members had likely heard of Williams before press coverage of his execution.

Plus, Tookie refuses to tell the cops about the Crips, because that would make him a "snitch." So this dude who won't talk about a gang that he didn't start is getting celebrity support for clemency because of an overrated influence on poor kids? Color me unimpressed. Celebrities are stupid.

I'm against the death penalty, but there are a lot of innocent people who have been executed and are on death row that make a much better case than a notorious and semi-repentant gangster.

something

I can't really think of anything good to write, but I hate to let the blog lay fallow. So here's some garbage just to demonstrate that I'm not dead.

One thing I found interesting is that according to Wikipedia, the Brazilian National Soccer Team has 20 players with a total of 25 names and surnames (and this generously counts the "Junior" in "Roque Junior" as its own name). This means that 15 of the 20 players only have one name. I knew that Brazilians were all one name wonders, but this makes things really confusing. So I decided to make a primer, for myself as much as anything (you never know when this information might come in handy).

Ronaldo: The most famous active Brazilian. Striker for Real Madrid.

Robinho: The child of the crew at age 21. Also a striker for Real Madrid.

Adriano: Super striker for Inter Milan. Good at free kicks.

Ronaldinho: FC Barcelona midfielder. Arguably the world's greatest footballer.

Kaka: AC Milan midfielder. The reason we say Ronaldinho is only "arguably" the world's greatest. Certainly either the best or second best midfielder in the world.

Juninho: Lyon midfielder. The best free kick specialist in the world. Too bad "Bend it like Juninho" doesn't have a ring.

Ze Roberto: Bayern Munich midfielder, tricky little guy with the ball, hard to pin down.

Renato: Never heard of 'im.

Emerson: See Renato.

Cafu: AC Milan defender. Nobody cares about defenders though.

Lucio: Bayern Munich defender. See Cafu.

Great, well now I have no excuse for not knowing the difference between Juninho and Robinho in conversation (believe me, it comes up).

welcome to europe

I finally got a bike.
This is big shit. It may be a super heavy girly bike, but it's a bike nonetheless. Instead of riding the subway and paying money to be shut underground, and only come out of the hole at my destination, I can now ride through the streets, enjoy the scenery and the weather and all that.

Furthermore, my aquisition of a bike and the subsequent termination of my U-Bahn month membership now means I have no way to get to the giant grocery store (since it's against the law to ride a bike on the freeway). Some might see this as a limitation. I think it's great. No longer will I buy massive amounts of food twice a week. Instead, I can patronize Wimmer, mein Bäcker für immer (my bakery forever), and the local deli.

No more crowded Saturday afternoons at the grocery store. No more buying way to damn much of everything. Just getting a loaf of bread, some ham and a brick of cheese and putting them in the basket of your bike (yes, my bike has a basket!) is the way it was meant to be.

referats

I just got back from giving my referat (presentation) for my Democracy in Latin America class. Basically, every class consists of a Referat and a Hausarbeit, which is a 15 page paper you write about the topic of your referat. You'd think that since German students give presentations four or five times a semester, they'd get good at it. You'd be completely wrong.

Essentially, they put together super thorough handouts for the class, then go through said handouts point for point. It is unbelievable tedious. The presentations are so unengaging, so scripted and so dull, that it's almost impossible to stay awake. It's a lot like a lesson from the worst professor ever, except that there is no incentive to pay attention because the entire lecture has already been transcribed and handed out. Why even care? Referats are really one of the worst ideas ever, especially if you aren't going to teach students how to present properly. It would appear to defeat the purpose.

Well, I'd love to say that my Referat was different, but it wasn't. It was a group project, which was nice because I only had to talk for a quarter of the time. Oh, and if my biggest issue is being unengaging during a fifteen minute presentation given in my second language about a topic I know little about, then I'd say I'm in pretty good shape.