Saturday, June 18, 2005

None of the news that's fit to print

I've been in country for about 18 hours now and am trying to catch up on news since I was more lax about it (due late night drinking with colleagues) on this past trip than I think I've ever been. Through limited access to news in Poland, I knew about the following:
  • The Michael Jackson not guilty verdict
    • my colleagues were not surprised, though they think him guilty and the parents of any child allowed to spend time alone with him even more guilty of using their child for a payday (that fact alone is seen to be the one thing that will always protect Jackson and assist in further potential victimization of children)
  • The Schiavo autopsy results
    • the Europeans, in general, thought Congress was stupid and inhumane intervening supposedly on Terri Schiavo's behalf
    • I overheard one comment about the possibility of a Frist Presidency which included a reference to that threat possibly assisting the EU in getting back on track (the whole common enemy theme)
Sadly, I saw little coverage of the documentation indicating that Bush lied & Blair complied in the development of a pseudo-legal reason to invade Iraq while in Poland. I was terribly disappointed in this as I hoped to have some dead brilliant "Don't Forget Poland" post for the BBA collection (this may well be because I spent more time cavorting with my colleagues after hours and what little political discussion we had was focused on the state of the EU). I did see/read some German coverage en route via coverage of planned early national elections in Germany. Schröder has only two things going for him in the upcoming election: the fact that he stood his ground against Bush especially in light of the Downing Street Memo and additional leaked information that the Germans take seriously, and the fact his rival (Angela Merkel, remember the name - she will be the next Chancellor) in the CDU party is relatively weak in that no plans/program ideas will be pulled together in time for early elections.

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