Volker Bouffier answered citizens’ questions at the Hessentag

The Ministerpräsident (prime minister) of the State of Hesse, Volker Bouffier answered citizens’ questions at the Hessentag on Sunday.  The Bürgersprechstunde took place on the stage in Hall 1 of the Landesausstellung and lasted for an hour.

The question and answer session was chaired by Statesecretary and Spokesman of the government of the State of Hessen, Michael Bußer.

Ministerpräsident Volker Bouffier and Statesecretary Michael Bußer answer questions at the Hessentag in Oberursel

Ministerpräsident Volker Bouffier (r) and Statesecretary Michael Bußer (l) answering questions at the Hessentag

Topics covered included the school situation in Oberursel, the extension of one school in particular, although no answer here was forthcoming because it is apparently not something that the state is responsibly for, rather the local district council (Kreis).   Strangely, when that council was being elected, the politicians said the exact opposite. [Read more…]

Late-night links

Here are the news stories that have interested me this evening:
Facebook users suffer viral surge
I don’t like accepting new Facebook applications at the best of times.  Now I’ll be even more careful!
CIA destroyed 92 interview tapes
News about how the CIA treated interview tapes or terror suspects
University quiz team disqualified
The “University Challenge” winners have been disqualified because one member of the team was no longer a student.

Did you buy carrots today?

A while ago I was invited to a group on Facebook called “On May 15, 2008, everybody needs to go out and panic buy carrots” – a group with over 200,000 members!

I wondered how many people would actually go out and do this and kept a keen eye on the BBC News website today.

I’m sad to say that the idea doesn’t seem to have spread to my part of Germany. I went to my local supermarket this afternoon, but there were still plenty of carrots in stock and I didn’t see anyone buying any either.

The idea shows the power of so-called social networking sites: there are surely not many groups online with that many members.  But although Germany does have such sites, they do not yet seem to command the power over the people that they do in English-language countries.

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