[wolf78]

In a rare fit of soundness of mind, the notoriously leftist "Spiegel" managed to publish an editorial condemning the German government for its malicious callousness.

What a refreshing sight.

[MNlurker]

Wow. That is one hell of an editorial. That minister should be taken out back and dealt with.

[CSM]

President Bush should announce that all Foriegn aid is cancelled while we recover from this natural disaster.

[Peach]

I don't believe this report is true. FNC reported this morning that Germany has offered relief help to the US. Russia has as well. I don't have a link - it was a banner on FNC.

[Americanwolf]

Hurray for common sense from Germany....

I especially like the shots that this guy took at the Forgien minister.

[Billthedrill]

To those who only read the excerpt - read the whole thing. Devastating.

[MarxSux]

That Trittin guy is a Green Party member.

[Arpege92]

"Katrina" is a German name, so I blame the Germans for this hurricane! ;-}

[Michael81Dus]

I too was astonished about the clearness of this article. Thanks for posting.

And prayers continuously going up for the citizens of the affected areas, especially for the people of the New Orleans region, which are supposed to leave their (former) homes for at least 4 months. As it looks today, New Orleans seems to be lost. What a sad week!!

[Madame Dufarge]

Wow, great article.

"It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still rained down from US troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind."

[monday]

"Nice words to be sure, but that was it. No pledges of aid money, no announcements of immediate help -- although finally, two days later, the German interior minister did manage to come out with a hesitant offer of assistance."

This sounds like the complaints that the US govt. was being selfish the week after the tsunami flooding. Typically governments are never the quickest to respond to emergencies. All that bureaucratic incompetence and inertia makes it surprising they ever get anything done.

[joesnuffy]

Take ALL our troops out of Germany now.

[hershey]

This out of control US capitalist monster says heartfelt thanks to 'Spiegel'.

[Clemenza]

Schadenfreude

[clyde asbury]

Maybe we should have hit Dresden harder in 1945.

[Keith in Iowa]

The Krauts, Surrender-Monkeys and the rest of the EU should be pulling their weight in Iraq, and free us up to take care of our own. Whazoo apertures.

[flieger]

Good thing we have elections here in Germany on September 18, and right now it looks as if we will finally get rid of that bunch of idiots (quite a few of them are criminals, IMO).

Oh man, I hate them!!!

What do you expect from a chancellor who calls Putin a "picture book democrat"?

Best wishes to all you folks in LA, MS, AL, GA and FL! My thoughts are with you!

[SunkenCiv]

---

"The American president has closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes such as Katrina -- in other words, disasters caused by a lack of climate protection measures -- can visit on his country." Who wrote this? None other than Jürgen Trittin, Germany's minister of the environment... It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still rained down from US troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind.

---

[okie01]

My dear Herr Trittin:

Be advised that the United States intends to institute repossession procedures stemming from the Marshall Plan. Accordingly, please take steps to disassemble your infrastructure and ship it back to us -- c/o the Port of New Orleans.

Screw you very much, a$$hole.

The American People

[optik_b]

This makes me not want to buy any German products.

[SunkenCiv]

The Biotech Boom
by Karen Lowry Miller
[original, dead link]

When Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker started out as a biochemist at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, he could assume that if he worked hard, he would eventually win recognition from his peers and perhaps a science prize or two... Protesters were calling him a murderer and harassing his kids on their way to school. The police found his name on a terrorist hit list. He had to install a security system in his home and travel with bodyguards... One of the protest leaders who helped demonize Winnacker was Joschka Fischer, a Green-party minister from the state of Hesse. Like many radical groups at the time, the Greens were fervently against anything that smacked of Nazi-style eugenics -- just about anything with the word "gene" in it. That also included a new plant for manufacturing a genetically engineered protein for hemophiliacs, which Winnacker strongly supported. In the end, the protesters got their way. Pharmaceutical giant Bayer decided to build its plant in the United States, taking 1,300 new jobs abroad.

That was 12 years ago. These days the prevailing attitude toward biotechnology couldn't be more different. Fischer is still a Green, but he also happens to be Germany's foreign minister and a cabinet member in the government. The Greens, now part of the political mainstream, are no longer against genetics. On the contrary, they are presiding over a dizzyingly rapid expansion in Germany's biotechnology industry.