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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (251929)	9/19/2005 12:14:30 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573952

CJ Your argument just makes no sense. Max Mayfield called Nagin on Saturday and told him to evacuate the city. And he called the governor. Only after receiving these calls did they act. Your thought process is convoluted. You apparently think that the local officials whose responsibility it was to handle the orderly evacuation were unable to do so in a timely manner. Yet, you think the federal officials, who had not even the legal right to be involved at that point, should have done so? What you're saying makes no sense. Nobody believes that the federal government can or should act as first responders. Yet, in this instance, you think they should have responded more quickly than the locals themselves? Again, you're trying really, really hard to lay this off on Bush when the facts just don't support it.

To: combjelly who wrote (251929)	9/19/2005 5:38:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573952

What a conundrum? The citizens of the former GDR are one big pain in the ass! <g> ************************************************ Germany turns hard left to limbo** Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent in Berlin September 20, 2005 A STALEMATE election result has left Germany floundering for political leadership and dashed hopes that the poll would lead to rapid reforms to revive the world's third-largest economy. A new left-wing party led by former East German communists set up the deadlock by lifting the hard-Left presence in parliament from two seats to 54, enough to stop either of the mainstream coalitions from securing a governing majority. The alliance of ex-communists and disgruntled left-wing members of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling Social Democrats had campaigned against labour reforms and cuts to welfare benefits, and it succeeded beyond most expectations. Conservative leader Angela Merkel is likely to become Germany's first female leader after her party narrowly won the most votes but the result of the next two or three weeks of coalition negotiations is not certain. Any coalition she forms is unlikely to agree on the sort of reforms needed to lower Germany's 11 per cent unemployment rate. A new election is a distinct possibility. A defiant Mr Schroeder has complicated the picture by claiming that he would be able to remain in office and set up a new government even though he had won fewer votes or seats than the conservatives. The buoyant 61-year-old Chancellor acted like a winner after a stunningly successful election campaign in which he slashed the uncharismatic Ms Merkel's longstanding opinion-poll lead from a massive 20 points a few months ago to less than one percentage point at the ballot box. "I do not understand how the (Christian Democratic) Union, which started off so confidently and arrogantly, takes a claim to political leadership from a disastrous election result," Mr Schroeder told cheering supporters. "Apart from me, no one is in a position to form a stable government," he said, promising to provide "the next four years (of) stable government under my leadership". Ms Merkel's Christian Democratic Union won 225 seats in the 613-seat parliament, just three more than Mr Schroeder's Social Democrats. Ms Merkel's preferred coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democratic Party, also outdid Mr Schroeder's allies of the past seven years, the Greens, by 61 seats to 51. But neither coalition could secure a majority because the Left Party soared from just two seats held by ex-communists in the old parliament to 54 in the new parliament after securing 8.7 per cent of the vote, easily crossing the 5per cent threshold required to win a large swag of seats under the nation's proportional representation system. Every other party has vowed not to deal with the Left Party, which won about 25per cent of the vote in the former East Germany and about 5per cent in the west. The political confusion in Berlin drew groans from German business leaders and disappointed leaders in other European capitals who were hoping Europe's biggest nation would provide badly needed economic and political leadership at a time when its neighbours France and Italy are led by shaky governments. The euro currency and German stock prices slid on the election result. Ms Merkel is expected to try to form the nation's first "grand coalition" in three decades by convincing the Social Democrats to form a cabinet with her own party, banishing into opposition the Green Party led by Mr Schroeder's popular Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer. But such a grand coalition would struggle to find common ground on reforms, and business leaders said it would be the worst possible outcome. Juergen Thumann, the head of the Federation of German Industry, said the result was "bitterly disappointing" and would make it much more difficult to govern the nation, which accounts for 30per cent of the European Union's economy and is the world's biggest exporter and third-biggest economy behind the US and Japan. The only previous grand coalition ruled from 1966 to 1969 and was considered a failure. Mr Schroeder insisted that if any coalition were formed between the two dominant parties, he would be its leader, a claim Ms Merkel shrugged off, saying she had "a clear mandate" to head a new government. The only way to avoid a grand coalition would be for Mr Schroeder or Ms Merkel to woo their rival's junior coalition partner. But the leaders of both the FDP and the Greens were quick to declare last night that they would not swap sides to form such alliances. The need for economic reform polarised the electorate, with the only parties to increase their support being the FDP, the strongest supporters of liberal reform and deregulation, and the Left, the strongest opponents, who vowed to block labour and welfare changes. A grand coalition would also have major differences on foreign policy. Ms Merkel and Mr Schroeder have vowed not to send troops to Iraq but she is much more determined to improve Berlin's ties with Washington and London, take a tougher stance with Russia and put new pressure on Paris to reform the EU. Ms Merkel also differs from Mr Schroeder by opposing Muslim Turkey's entry into the EU, an issue that will come to a head as soon as October 3, when Turkey's accession negotiations are scheduled to begin. theaustralian.news.com.au