News

I received a new edition of Atlantic Times today, a monthly newspaper about Germany. It’s a pretty interesting read; it’s also completely free if you live in the United States or Canada. I figured there might be some folks out there who’d be interested in it, thus this blog post. Here’s the blurb from their website:

In October 2004, the first issue of The Atlantic Times was presented to the American public – a German monthly paper for lawmakers and newsmakers, business and opinion leaders in the United States.

We launched The Atlantic Times to stop the drifting apart of Europe and America, and especially Germany and America; to end the transatlantic estrangement caused by the Iraq crisis; and to build on common ground while learning to live with our differences.

The Atlantic Times has featured articles by prominent public leaders – politicians, businessmen, media people and academics. In interviews and backgrounders we highlighted many weighty issues that could potentially divide us.

Our basic message, in print and online, has been, and will be: We are still friends, and we must remain friends. So let us not confront each other with swollen necks, but let us reason together.

You can read some of the articles that have been in their paper on their website, like this one on America still having friends in Europe. (Link may very well be dead in the future; I believe they only offer a few articles at a time, and I think they may just reuse the same URLs over and over.) If you want to set up a subscription for yourself, go here.

I’ve tried to stay away from politics here, because I don’t think arguing about them really goes anywhere, but I couldn’t pass this one up. Yesterday, President Bush took part in a news conference at the White House. Apparently, he was asked to sum up his feelings about the Democratic wins in one.. facial expression. Here was his response:

[Source of image: CTV.ca]

I’m sure anyone who has a computer already knows this, but…

Apparently Steve Irwin was killed while filming a documentary about dangerous marine life. Ironically, he was killed by a stingray, a creature normally considered non-aggressive and timid. It was swimming below him when something spooked it. It lashed its tail spike up, which pierced Irwin’s chest, and presumably, his heart. He died shortly afterwards.

This is a real bummer. A lot of people thought Irwin was just crazy (or stupid), but I didn’t really think of him as either. I just saw him as passionate about what he did. He really, really loved animals. I think it was pretty clear that he loved what he did for a living.

It’s really weird that he ended up being killed by a stingray, after having handled countless crocodiles, venomous snakes, and other highly dangerous animals. Even if that weren’t the case, it still would’ve been a total freak accident; I saw on a news article yesterday that apparently, there are only 2 recorded cases of fatal stingray strikes, ever. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time…

Edit: Hm, somehow or another, I’d accidentally closed the comments on this post. Not sure how I managed that; I never close comments. They’re open now.

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