Admittedly this is not a very interesting post, but I am trying out a service called TwitPic.
So here is my first TwitPic photo: a park bench in the sun, taken last weekend:
© G.Tappenden 2009
Should I post more photos this way?
Amtsleitung
April 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
The word Amtsleitung has two possible meanings:
1. It can refer to the phone line between the exchange and the socket in a flat or house, also known as the Letzte Meile (last mile).
2. It can also be used to talk about an “outside line” in a corporate environment. People talk about “ein Amt holen” or “eine Amtsleitung holen”, ie. obtaining an outside line. Since ISDN is more popular in Germany than other countries, even private homes may have internal extension numbers require a number, eg. 0, to ring an external number.
To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:
(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)
A president on hunger strike
April 11, 2009 By 1 Comment
I had to look twice at the headline on the BBC News website yesterday: “Bolivian leader on hunger strike”. Surely they didn’t mean Evo Morales?
They did. But then, there are not many other Bolivian leaders that get reported on the news here. President Morales has gone on hunger strike until the Bolivian senate passes a new law.
It all sounds a bit crazy and certainly something that I would not expect to happen in Europe. Can you imaging Gordon Brown or Angela Merkel going on hunger strike to get their respective parliaments to pass new legislation? Or indeed any of their predecessors?
So what’s it all about?
Well, if I understand everything correctly, then the law should reform some of the electoral boundaries within Bolivia. Now, when a country like the United Kingdom reforms their electoral boundaries an electoral commission takes into account social developments such as the number of people living within a given area. It then makes recommendations to parliament as to the changes. Ideally this happens in the middle of a Government’s term of office, so as not to affect the outcome of any elections.
In Bolivia’s case, the changes appear to be along ethnic lines and already the media is predicting that President Morales would stand to benefit in future elections from the changes.
The electoral boundaries should be drawn up to make elections as fair as possible, and the elected members of the senate have a responsibility to make that this is the case. Trying to force the senate into approving those boundaries beyond their will surely has no place in modern democary?
