The StuSie Law Review
I have no intention of boring anyone with tales of law school, but I thought there might be some interest in debating the pros and cons of come issues of actual law both here in the good 'ol US of A and around the world. The topic of this issue of the Stusie Law Review is what's known as "
Social Host Liability," and is basically the idea of holding someone civilly liable for the subsequent actions of their social guests. Let me illustrate this with a for-instance:
For instance, say I invite der Mistfink and Morsch over to play cards and have some drinks. A good time is had by all and then they leave and drive home. Morsch gets home without incident, but der Mistfink gets in a car accident and injures an orphan who, as a result, becomes a legless orphan. The question is, can the now legless orphan sue me for serving alcohol to der Mistfink, who caused the accident?
The courts are divided on the issue, with some (New Jersey in particular) saying yes, the majority saying no, and others saying yes if der Mistfink is a minor, but no for those of legal drinking age.
The implications of holding the host liable are not, I'm sure, lost on any of you - it means that any time you give anyone a drink at your place, you're opening yourself up to a potentially massive lawsuit. On the other hand, drunk driving and the like are also enormous social problems and perhaps need enormous solutions.
Basically I just wanted to open this up for comment...
Frühstuck im RioBar
Greetings Gents.
Since it's Sonntag Morgan where I am for but a few minutes more, I thought I'd throw out a State of the StuSie type post over some
Brötchen und Nutella.
- Two have joined our ranks, Herr Doktor Jones and the Right Honorable Herr Bork,
- Morsch took us on a liver-intensive trip through wine country,
- Der Mistfink laid bare the mysterious love/hate Austrians have for Bodie Miller, and
- Der Staubsauger left us wondering if he's a communist sympathizer, but in little doubt that he's a shitty neighbour.
In other news:
- The ever-beautiful Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Big Bench under the auspices that she was "causing the president to come under fire," but in reality because when she filled out a worksheet for the Senate judiciary committee they sent it back to her saying, "no seriously, fill it out for real."
- "Scooter" Libby made everyone proud by stepping up and denying it like a man, but nonetheless leaving the administration one crook short.
- As a subcontinent, India had a rough go of it, with a terrorist bombing in New Dehli that prompted police to warn citizens to "stay out of crowded places." Seriously, it's fucking India. Also, a train derailed due to floodwater washing away the tracks and dozens more Indians paid with their lives.
- In environmental news, 130 pilot whales took the easy way out on a beach in Tazmania. Tree-hugger hippies blame the Aussie Navy.
- And in fake news, man in the Dells is ok to drive according to bar love tester.
International Relations Brought Home
The world is indeed a small place. Having studied international relations, and being an avid follower of world news, I have come to appreciate at least some of the difficult international relationships that threaten to harsh everyone's mellow. What I never expected however, was to have these relationships recreated before my eyes on a micro level. My building is fast descending into a sort of cold war. It's cold because I haven't snapped yet. Maybe a more fitting analogy is the situation between the U.S and North Korea. Let me explain.
As many may know, the people downstairs don't like noise. I don't make much noise, but they know that I have the potential. They constantly ask me to turn my music down, even when it's at conversation level (and it's never any louder). I have politely complied with every request, but it's pissing me off. We have monthly meetings to deal with the upkeep of the building as a whole and yesterday I received the agenda for tomorrow's meeting which includes the following item:
- Reminding people to keep the noise down after 22:30.
This really chaps my ass. They're not talking about weekdays here folks, weekdays I'm supposed to go into blackout mode at 21:00. I'm like Anne fucking Frank up here, terrified that they'll hear me. I'm tiptoeing around in a condo I own for fear of creating a situation of open animosity which would make life very difficult indeed, and they keep pushing me.
So, to return to the IR analogy, I am North Korea. I have a big stereo, I haven't hidden it, and everyone knows I have it. I do not, however, use it. The people downstairs are the U.S. Admittedly, they've done much of the leg work for the building association including getting the gutters cleaned, the landscaping taken care of, etc. Sounds good, right? Wrong. I think the main reason they've done this is because they don't trust anyone else to, and also, nobody else has the time/energy. Lissi and I work very hard and we're up late a lot. Having said that, we're also almost always the first people out of the building in the morning when I take her to work at 05:45. The U.S. downstairs work cushy 9-5 jobs and have nothing better to do with their time than find things to bitch about. Plus North Korea's stereo scares them. They're terrified we're going to turn it up, so they keep trying to push these rules on me. 21:00 on weekdays. 22:30 on weekends. Pushing, pushing, pushing. But one of these days, and it may well be tomorrow, North Korea's going to snap. I don't even want to blast the stereo, do they have any idea how fucking busy I am? But they've pissed me off so much that I think I might, just to spite them.
Of course that's exactly what the U.S. wants. They want North Korea to snap, turn up our stereo and show the world that we are exactly the sort of trouble-makers they've been saying we are all along. Hell, that might even justify a pre-emptive war. I think the U.S. has some troops left that aren't dead yet, why not? Ok, now I'm just bitching about Iraq.
What a monfuckingstrosity of a problem that's turned into. Odd eh? Who could possibly have realized that our WMD Easter-egg-hunt turned Nation-building exercise would result in such a mess? 2,000 U.S. soldiers dead, that's 2 every day since we started. Not to mention more than 30,000 Iraqis. They voted on a constitution though, so I guess they came out ahead. I mean, the country's in shambles, the economy's in ruins, they can't walk in the streets for fear of dying and they're occupied by a foreign force not large enough to keep the peace but too large to be ignored by those that resent their presence. Oh, and we're not leaving any time soon, but don't worry, reinforcements aren't coming either. I mean first they tell us not to invade them, now they don't want us there, make up your minds, jeez...
Lets not forget that we're supposedly spreading democracy to those parts of the world too corrupt to adopt it themselves. At least that's the second reason they gave us, after the Easter-egg hunt turned out to be a bust. Nice work fellas, let's show 'em what freedom is all about. As it turns out, freedom according to the clowns we've got in charge is leaking the names of covert operatives, money laundering and crooked campaign financing. Yee haw...
Ok, I think I feel better now, sorry about that.
Schifoan, anyone?
Here's a little tidbit for those 200-some odd countries that don't give a rats patoot about world cup skiing. We Austrians and quasi-Austrians love watching skiing on television (whether we like it or not), mainly because there are two Austrian channels creatively named Österreichischer Rundfunk Eins und ORF2, and in nearly 14 months spent in Austria I have yet to see a program on the latter that wasn't either live coverage of parliament (seriously, what could they possibly be debating?), New regulations on Lederhosen length or a Ziehharmonika contest. Long story short, if the weather sucks on the weekend, we have no choice but to familiarize ourselves with the likes of Hermann Maier (a.k.a. the Herminator), Benjamin Raich (not to be confused with Reich), and of course our American hometown hero, Bode (pronounced Bodee) Miller!
Upon arriving in Austria, I was quizzed about my Bode Miller knowledge, and as you might expect it was nil. It turns out that he's a pretty decent skier from Vermont, or one of those other little tiny states over there, and he actually managed to dethrone the Austrians last year in the World Cup. Needless to say, Bode is now a superstar in Austria while remaining completely unknown in the good ol' US of A, where we idolize more interesting sports stars like Bart 'the pill' Farve and Jesse 'the Body' Ventura. Fighting against Bode is a host of Austrian stars that capture the hearts and minds of all Austrians (even those city folk in Wien), a titan of a Mannschaft that masters the technique and mechanics of skiing to the tiniest detail while the pesky American always finds a way to improvise his way down the slope.
This weekend, the 2006 ski season began with a bang at Hochsölden, a glacier in Tyrol. The jubilant crowd hoped that someone would finally reassert Austrian superiority in the Giant Slalom as Miller raced to the best time in the first run. Hopes seemed to be dashed...but hark...who lurks in the background, with his ape-like brow and forceful Austrian bellow? It's the Herminator! Back from injury for the hundredth time, skiing through the pain, and racing to a tearful first place finish in the first race of the year! Hip hip hoor...ok, who am I kidding, nobody cares anyway, so just watch the fucking olympics in Turin and call your skiing viewership good for the next four years.
Look Left, Look Right, Look Left Again - and prepare to be hit from The Right.
Ah, how quickly the mighty can fall. And I'm not just referring to the subject of the eloquent Mistfink's latest tirade, but rather the fact that my dominance over the blog has been snatched out from under my nose. It is now I that ride the proverbial coattails of another. Something something hoisted...something something petard. But nomatter, on with the bitching...
As tempting as it was to simply take the topic of Sadam's trial and run with it, I have chosen instead to direct my literary ineptitude squarely at the extreme right. What are those reactionary rascals up to now you ask? Burning books? Banning head-scarves? Oh, would that it were my friends, would that it were. At least Orwellian steps such as those are overt and cause even the most apathetic among us to indignantly raise their heads from the feed-trough of popular culture long enough to question their wisdom. No, what we're dealing with now is something much more sinister and secret - organization. I'm referring specifically to the extreme right in Germany, who have decided to take full advantage of the potential political deadlock afforded by the grosse Koalition to truly get their collective shit together.
What's all this alarmist nonsense you ask? Rubbish you say, the election results prove that the NPD poses no real threat to German politics, they won only 1.6%. But as ever the devil is in the details. True the 1.6% showing is far from the 5% that would fling the doors of the Bundestag open to the ideological heirs of the ehemalige Reich. What the election has delivered to the NPD however, is a shaky coalition that will take so much effort, care and attention to move in any direction at all that enemies of the status quo are free to conduct themselves as they will. But don't take my word for it - you can read it
straight from the horse's mouth.
These bastards have even taken to distributing CDs of hate-music to kids in high school. The idea is to use youth culture to forward the ideals of the NPD in the next generation. The CD is called "School Yard" and it's not just being distributed in Germany either. The Anti-Defamation League has issued a
press release warning parents and administrators of the disc, and as much as I hate to align myself with parents and administrators, I think we have a duty to at least be aware of this shit. The record company that distributes said hate music is called...wait for it...Panzerfaust. Yup, they're subtle too. Tracks from this latest compilation release, no doubt designed to bring forth xenophobic fervor within even the most open-minded of adolescents, include:
- Bound for Glory: "Hate Train Rolling"
- Brutal Attack: "Under the Hammer"
- Bound for Glory: "Teutonic Uprise"
- Before God: "The Last Line of Defense"
- Final War: "The Nationalist
And my personal favourite... - Aggressive Force: "Might is Right"
In other rechtsextremismus news, Toledo, OH, a city that is of course synonymous with hate to anybody who knows it, was the site of a riot last Saturday when white extremists identifying themselves as the "National Socialist Movement," attempted to stage a march in a "mixed" neighbourhood that they claim suffers from a gang problem. Contrary to popular belief however, it turns out that a white supremacist's march does not always alleviate a gang problem. In fact, and this will blow your freakin' mind, it can actually
exacerbate the issue. Whodathunkit? The "gangs" of the aforementioned "problem" showed up en masse when they heard about the proposed march and voiced their disgust at the group's intolerance and anti-social ideals by smashing the windows of a gas station, throwing bricks and rocks at police resulting in a dozen injured officers including one who narrowly escaped with her life when a brick came through her cruiser window, and looted and torched a local bar. Nice. Really, really nice. In the immortal words of Tom Tucker, "thanks for setting your people back a thousand years." Now if they'd seen how Freiburg handles those assholes, maybe that'd give 'em pause. Prolly not though.
A New Exercise in Hypocracy
Yesterday the United States' latest minion, the 'democratic' Iraq, began the court proceedings in what will most certainly trump the seemingly untrumpable O.J. Simpson case as the trial of the century. What could possibly be more entertaining for world television audiences than a former football star run amok with a dull hunting blade and a pair of cheap undersized driving gloves (not to mention porn stars, alleged bisexuals, an obviously lesbian prosecuting attorney, and shit, a low-speed Bronco chase!)? Well, Sadaam, you've outdone The Juice by best-exemplifying the characteristics of the biblical anti-christ, mowing down your own kind while also ushering in the renaissance of the terrible weaponry of World War I. Moreover, the scary black beard and the brash rhetoric is simply more marketable than Putin's classy, suit-wearing, under-the-table brand of despotism, and come on, who else has the cajones to order the execution of their own family members over a tasty cous cous and hummus breakfast. Only you, Mr. President, have earned the right to be front and center on the world's legal stage.
Yes, in the first day of the trial, Sadaam, perhaps expectedly, claimed to still be the rightful President of Iraq, and also rebuked the newly-appointed, obviously U.S.-friendly judges for being traitors to the Iraqi people. After all, Sadaam was forcefully removed from power by an unjustified invasion, right? Let's be straight, I think we all know and agree at this point in time that Mr. Hussein is indeed a huge horse's ass, and that he is perhaps one of the most ruthless and deliberate tyrants of our time. What I think many people overlook, however, is that there is in effect very little difference between what Hussein exacted upon the Kurds and various others, and what our esteemed Mr. Bush and several other world leaders have less deliberately done to countless others in much more diverse corners of the planet. The way I see it, the only difference is that we 'Westerners' have constructed such a complex clusterfuck of a bureaucracy around our power structures that it is all but impossible to assign any sort of blame on any individual (AOL keyword: US Army and torture). Furthermore, our current esteemed administration (and a handful of administrations before) have systematically made the various media their bitch, resulting in the fact even liberal media reflect the fact that the U.S., for example, indeed has good intentions, even if we sometimes are a blundering moron of a world superpower.
Following this vane of thought, I watched excerpts from the beginning of the trial yesterday and thought: so we want to convict good ol' Sadaam the anti-christ for knocking off a few thousand pesky Kurds, whilst the American troops are trigger-happily strafing central-Iraqi towns for thousands of stray Sunni's that just might possibly maybe perhaps be harboring thoughts of support for their former leader. The point is, it really doesn't matter whether a murderer uses poison gas or a tomahawk cruise missle, and it doesn't matter if your inner purpose is to maintain stability by offing those who oppose you, or if you 'free' a country with the goal of lowering oil prices by mowing down civilians. The Iraqi judges certainly have the evidence and support of the world to convict Mr. Hussein. In fact, it seems laughable that they even want to systematically examine the evidence; but if we as onlookers decide that Sadaam should hang, then we have the obligation to look more carefully at our heavily bureaucratized system of foreign policy and see that the rhetoric of 'freedom' and 'democracy' is about as believeable as Michael Jackson on the stand claiming he didn't diddle Macaulay Culkin. This trial is just another example of the winners writing history and being the ultimate judges in whose wrong is wrong, and whose wrong is right. Let's just hope that over one tyrant's dead body we can recognize our own great hypocracy.
Der Mistfink, der Leseratte
Holding on for dear life to the coattails of Herr Staubsauger (proud publisher of exactly 75% of all StuSie posts), I thought I would enter the critiques and reviews market, but not in the realm of moving pictures; rather, I derive great pleasure (and, of course, heaping spoonfuls of disgust) in the world of the written word.
My current situation as an employee of the esteemed Austrian Department of Education has afforded me, shall we say, a more than average amount of time to devote to devouring books like a super-obese Wisconsinite gorging themself with a basket of deep-fried cheese curds. And devour books, I have, dispatching Hesse, Hemingway, and Dostoyevsky while still having ample time to master the idiosyncracies of snowboarding in fresh powder.
That said, about one month ago I embarked on my most recent literary odyssey, "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson. And an odyssey it is: at 900 pages and approximately 5 kilograms, this historical novel not only substitutes as a paper weight, it also doubles as a blunt object, to be used on insolent students and charging dairy cattle. But that's not all: this hulk of a book is only the first of three episodes of a much larger epic called the Baroque Cycle, which in total exceeds 2600 pages. At first, this fact made me think two things (in no particular order): 1. Neal Stephenson is a man with nothing better to do than sit at his word processor of choice and expel horrendous amounts words more or less at random from his Metamucified asshole, and 2. By god, I've got to read this trilogy, if not so that I can say I read a series that has damnnear as many pages as Proust's seven-volume "In Search of Lost Time", than to somehow occupy the 153 hours a week that I'm not working.
Well, exactly 812 pages into the 900 page 'Quicksilver', I can honestly say that Stephenson has managed to create a historical novel that takes place before the 19th century that isn't as boring as Angela Merkel. In fact, Herr Stephenson has taken legendary characters like Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, The Sun King Louis XIV, Robert Hooke, Christian Huygens, and William of Orange and given them new life and personality. In following Stephenson's fictional characters Daniel Waterhouse, Jack Shaftoe and Countess Eliza we participate first hand in events like the first Royal Society of England meetings, the siege of Vienna by the Turkish horde, the death of Charles II, and the invasion of England by William of Orange. In addition to all of this, Stephenson is deft enough to stitch in his own fictional events to spice up Europe's 17th century (as if the Plague, the 30 Years War, the Glorious Revolution, and knickerloads of imperial intrigue weren't enough).
Tersely expressed, 'Quicksilver' is a bombardment of factual accounts and fictional adventure whereby the reader is kept on his toes while also learning about one of the most complex historical periods in world history. Indeed, during this time Europe first began exploring the world of investment, imperialism, drastic scientific developments, and generally improving their ability to exploit the living hell out of anyone living on a continent beginning with the letter 'a'.
Languagewise, the book sways between old-school English and modern prose, which sometimes seems a bit strange and annoying, but in general is a good way of giving the reader the feel that he is in a geniunely old setting without inciting the boredom of, say, Charles Dickens or Thomas Hobbes. So in the case that any of you find yourselves in the situation that you barely have to do any work at all, and the snow isn't yet ideal for skiing or snowboarding, and that in general you have nothing whatsoever better to do, than goddammit, read 'Quicksilver' and get smarter...and stuff.
Im Kino mit Stefan Staubsauger
Ja Haaaallo, ich bins: der Staubsauger, der Stefan.
I don't actually get to the Kino very much, given that it costs more to go see a big studio film that it does to produce many independent ones, but somehow I manage to catch some releases nonetheless. Lately I've seen March of the Penguins and Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.
La Marche de l'empereur as it was known au François, is all about how penguins, the world's wierdest fish, undertake an annual hike across Antartica to have sex and make more penguins. Apparently they choose to do this because the ice is thicker further inland and the babies don't fall in the water when it gets melty in the summer. Because of the time involved and the distance they travel, it means that the mom and pop have to take turns starving and freezing. So, to recap: emperor penguins have it tough. They walk for weeks on end across the world's largest desert without stopping so that they may spend months on end standing out in the wind in the middle of nowhere during the antartic winter without food. Despite all this walking they are poorly built for bipedal locomotion. They are considered birds but cannot fly. When they're not undergoing their miserable parade (that's probably a redundancy since I have yet to see a parade that wasn't miserable) they live in the ocean but they cannot breath underwater. Penguins are nature's most massively inconvenienced creature. That's basically the take-home message in this flick.
The Family Guy's recent foray onto the silver screen entitled "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story," is a basically a 90 minute episode of the show. I'd heard mixed reviews before I saw it, but I have to say I thought it was pretty good. You kinda hafta give 'em a break since it would be almost impossible to keep up the show's pace for that long and still deliver the number of laughs per minute we're used to. Given that, I'd say it's definitely worth seeing since Family Guy is right up there with the best shows on TV and the movie is certainly better than most of the tripeHollywoodd is churning out.
The main advantage to the movie over the show is that they could cut loose the swears and the innuendo, and that they most certainly did. It's a little disarming to see the now familiar characters throwing around the expletives like Dennis Leary, but pretty damn funny too. The best part is most certainly the weatherman with the "adopted pet of the week" segment. It's pretty fast, so you might miss it if you're still laughing at something else, but it's classic. In sum, meine Meinung nach, check it out for sure.
One last piece of entertainment news I want to mention grabbed headlines on CNN.com yesterday, cementing that outlet's already solid reputation for furthering the decline of actual journalism by pandering to the American People's lowest common denominator - the hunger for celebrity gossip. In this case, I use the term celebrity very loosely indeed. In fact, the so-called news had to do with the dude who wore the Chewbacca suit in Star Wars. The guy in the wookie outfit. Seriously, what the fuck?
According to the article, he married some Texan and has now become a U.S. Citizen. Apparently Chewie was until recently British, which is odd because as I recall his teeth were fine but the amount of hair always led me to believe he was Italian. How this qualifies as news worthy of international dissemination I have no idea. Perhaps the only thing of note is that this guy somehow manages to be uglier without the space monster costume. Chewbacca always looked like an animated version of something fished out of a giant shower drain, but this dude isn't TV ugly, or even Walmart ugly, he's circus ugly. Now that, I suppose, is newsworthy.
Turkey: The giant impoverished Muslim nation that could
One of the most interesting developments in European politics in the past month has been the successful opening of EU accession talks with Turkey. This is an unbelievably big step, in what direction remains to be seen. Personally I've always been a European Federalist at heart and I have always viewed enlargement as both a necessary and inevitable part of the overall Federalist plan for Europe. There are those who do not share my enthusiasm however - I'm looking at you Osterreich - and those that appear to on the surface but harbor deep-seated skepticism just below their progressive exteriors. To be fair, the number of Europeans who oppose Turkish membership is both large and geographically disparate. While Austria certainly made a lot of people hold their collective breath on October 3rd, their concerns are echoed all around the continent. Valery Giscard D'estang, the former French president is one high profile opponent who is of the opinion that Turkey's admission would spell the end for Europe. I am of the opinion that he has a girl's name and the balls to match. Seriously, sack up Valery, Europe has been in a constant state of flux for as long as people have bothered to keep track of things like flux. Honestly, this is a man who fought with the French resistance during the Zweite Weltkreig, and now he's arguing that letting Turkey in to the common market would ruin the beautiful thing that France and Germany had going. Not bloody likely.
In fairness however, there are of course very real and solid arguments against Turkish membership. The big one that gets kicked around all the time is the fact that it's a Muslim country. This much is true, and what's more, the conservative government that has done so much to push, pull and drag the country down the path to accession has a very real and potentially scary theological bent in the Islamic direction. Just look at the recent (thankfully unsuccessful) attempt to criminalize adultery. I mean, getting stoned and cheating on your spouse as a result is one thing, but the other way around, now that's HARSH. Luckily, public outcry has tabled that issue at least for the time being.
Another reasonable argument against Turkei is that it's big and poor. The big part is worrisome because at current population growth rates it would overtake Germany as Europe's big papa as soon as 2020, giving it a lot of sway. On the other hand, its size could potentially help restore the EU to a more even collection of big and small states. It started as 3 big and 3 small, but now it's more like 6 big and 19 small. The fact that it's poor is of course a concern since nobody likes sharing, least of all the French. I mention the French not just because they stink like onions, which of course they do, but because Greg is at least part French now. Seriously though, the French have always been greedy about the CAP and it's unfuckinglikely that they're going to want to give a giant largely agricultural country like Turkey anything like their fair share of the bloated subsidy program that is the common agricultural policy. The majority of Turks however, claim to be much more interested in availing themselves of foreign direct investment than of handouts from Brussels, but time will be the test of that.
There are also very good arguments for Turkey as an EU memberstate, and potentially the best one stems from the very fact that tops the list of complaints. Turkey's identification as a Muslim nation would give the EU a certain "diversity club" feel that it's currently lacking. This is Europe's big chance to show The West (although I'm not referring to any hegemony in particular) that the Us/Them divide does not actually fall neatly along religious lines, as convenient as that would be.
Another possible advantage to Turkish membership would be that it would make it much harder for any one country to hijack direction of the group. I must admit however, that hijacking has historically been the only way to get anything done, and close to equal representation and authority could have Weimaresque repercussions.
What I really wanted to talk about though, was the effect that the new groβe Koalition could potentially have on the Turkish expansion. Ms. Merkel, along with having all the charm of a red wine hangover, is predictably not a big fan of the whole idea. With her in the hotseat, Germany could well join Austria and throw a big loud naysayers dance party teif im Hochschwarzwald. Let's hope that good old Gerdy (who himself has doubts about Turkey depite his pro-expansion rhetoric) can keep her in check. Until then we'll just have to hope against hope that Angela keeps her clubbing pants in the closet along with her jockstrap.
The New Democracy in Europe?: Who Needs a Majority Anyway?
We Americans have lived under the fantastically stable umbrella of a two party system for well over a century, only occasionally being inconvenienced by such characters as the wrinkly Ralph Nader and Ross Perot, for whom no description is necessary. In any case, these rebellious third party candidates have always failed to make more than a ripple in the sea of American bipartisanship, and we have always been 'blessed' with administrations with an absolute majority mandate.
That said, we Americans have looked on curiously (and sometimes with fear) as long-standing communist, radically conservative, and tree-hugger parties have persisted in many European countries. Many of these parties have also managed to gain multiple parliament seats, and some have even managed to obtain places of relative power in certain regions. It is in fact rare in countries like Europe that a party achieves an absolute majority and is able to govern without the help of another party (the most recent government in Germany is the red-green coalition) In the recent national elections in Germany, we see that the two main parties are back in power, but that this power has been given to them by the voters strategically with a caveat the size of the Schwarzwald. But first, a digression:
Success of non-mainstream parties was best exemplified in Weimar Germany, where public unrest and discomfort (in the form of people hauling wheelbarrowfuls of Reichsmarks to the grocery store for a loaf of bread) led the people to support extreme parties in increasing numbers. We all know the result of the ensuing power struggle: something something Reich, something something Arbeiter Partei. But what is in many ways much more interesting than studying Nazi Germany is studying the current situation in Germany, where people are experiencing increasing levels of discomfort again (though there are not yet any wheelbarrows in the streets, about 13% of Germans are now facing unemployment, and the deficit continues to balloon, among other things).
In the last three years, the German Socialist Party (SPD), led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has watched their political stock take a severe nose dive, losing dozens of regional and provincial governments and seeing approval ratings of the previously popular Schroeder plummet. Now, a political party losing favor among the population in the face of economic and social hardship is nothing too groundbreaking, but the results of the election three weeks ago are. The SPD and coalition partners the Greens were practically clearing their desks out at the Bundestag and in the Kanzleramt months before the election, preparing it for the power transfer to the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Liberals led by Angela Merkel.
What ensued was an electoral curveball, and the CDU/CSU was the blundering batter that watched the ball slap into the catcher’s glove. The results showed the SPD and CDU neck and neck, while the Greens and FDP hung back with increasingly small percentages of the vote. Neither the CDU nor the SPD could muster an absolute majority, even with the help of their accepted partners, the FDP and the Greens, respectively. There are many reasons for the Ruckschlag of the Socialists after such a disastrous few years previous: Angela Merkel, for example, is about as charismatic as Ralph Nader on a near-fatal cocktail of barbiturates, and Schroeder’s ability to talk circles around debate opponents has been acknowledged by virtually all Germans.
In any case, these are only proximal causes of the SPD’s at least temporary return to favour. At work here is a much more widespread phenomenon emerging in European democracies: that of strategic voting. Now, most people would aver that the result of the recent German elections, a grosse Koalition of the two large parties, is the same as a political deadlock (much like the situation in the U.S. when the President is from one party and the Congress is controlled by the other). The German government, however, is structured differently: instead of one party ‘controlling’ the legislative arm of the government and another controlling the executive, in the German system the two parties in a coalition must divide up the ministers, chancellorships and parliament seats amongst themselves. In this election, for example, the CDU succeeded in negotiating Ms. Merkel’s way into Schroeder’s position. In return, however, the SPD receives 8 of the 14 minister positions.
So what’s the point, you ask? Well, if we look closely, we see that what would be a deadlock in the American system is actually mutual responsibility in the German system. Because both parties lay claim to policy-making positions in the government (the SPD controls foreign policy while the CDU has the secretary of state), they are both equally responsible for the progress made, or lack thereof, that results from the coalition. The voters, in more or less forcing the two giants in Germany to work together, have laden the parties with the huge responsibility of reversing negative trends, lest they both fall into the same trap as the democratic parties in Weimar Germany. We can only speculate what will happen if the situation worsens and people start busting out their wheelbarrows and wreaking havoc in the streets of Berlin, but we know for sure who will be responsible if they do.
Politics raises its ugly head
Although I have been traditionally unconcerned by the stereotype of lawyers being opportunistic money-grubbing assholes, my recent bid to join their ranks has given me cause to address it. The first two months of school and the first battery of exams almost complete, I was beginning to feel that the label was undeserved. Then I learned about an impending visit of a Berkley law professor and realized that, at least in some cases, they're evil too.
It came to my attention when I found out yesterday that Professor John Yoo is scheduled to speak in the atrium atschool. The topic is "Presidential War Powers and the War on Terrorism." My naive Madisonian outlook led me to believe that this gentleman was coming to expound on the administration's atrocious overstepping of the legal limits of their power. As it turns out however, John Yoo is one of the world's biggest assholes. Not only is he at least partially responsible for the aforementioned overstepping, he's fuckin' proud of it.
In his former capacity with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, while working for Alberto Gonzales, Yoo was one of the chief authors of a series of internal legal memos known, now that they've been leaked, as the "torture memos."
These memos basically "advised the President that he had almost unfettered latitude in his prosecution of the war on terror. For many years, Yoo was a member of the Federalist Society, a fellowship of conservative intellectuals who view international law with skepticism, and September 11th offered an opportunity for him and others in the Administration to put their political ideas into practice."
They were the driving force behind the massive expansion a program known as "rendering," a covert operation that involves taking foreign as well as U.S. citizens that are considered to be politically questionable and secretly moving them to custody in a nation that "does not restrict methods of physical and psychological persuasion." Fucking Torture.
Almost 150 people have apparently disappeared in connection with this nice piece of policy since 2002. At least one has come forward and described being taken onboard a private plane to Syria, where he was beaten within an inch of his life every day for several months.
And this is all part of the plan for our distinguished speaker. I guess that's one of the dangers of going to school somewhere that has a federalist society. We have lots of other folks to mind you, who plan to show up to greet Mr. Yoo and let him know that he is not welcome here.
For more information on rendering and the charming Yoo, check out the following link. For the top 50 worst hairstyles of all time, which is much funnier, click the second one. Peace.
The New Yorker "Rendering" Article50 Worst Hairstyles of All Time
Welcome to the StuSie.
Ok, so here it is, the barely anticipated blog we've talked so little about. Let the time-wasting begin...
I have no intention of boring anyone with tales of law school, but I thought there might be some interest in debating the pros and cons of come issues of actual law both here in the good 'ol US of A and around the world. The topic of this issue of the Stusie Law Review is what's known as "Social Host Liability," and is basically the idea of holding someone civilly liable for the subsequent actions of their social guests. Let me illustrate this with a for-instance:
