Über die Freiheit / de libertate

I’ll drive a fucking Prius before I give up my soft toilet paper. Fuck you ecomentalists.

Reason’s Matt Welch exposes the two sides of Obama.

Personally, only one month in, I’m going to say Obama is a failure. The stimulus bill itself is enough to lose hope. What a crock of shit. The liberal defenses of it seem to amount to–ala Andrew Sullivan–’I don’t really know anything about economics, but gosh, Obama’s really smart so it must be a great idea!’.

I think Will Wilkinson sums up Obama from start to finish.

Oratorywise, so good. Ideawise, so weak. Combination, so dangerous. 

PS. Since when did Nate Silver become a legitimate political commentator? He’s a fucking Sabermetrician, or in other words, the world’s biggest waste of a perfectly good calculator. Fucking baseball.

Slumdog was going to be a straight-to-DVD. The piece of shit would have been a waste of a perfectly good DVD, hell it would have been a waste of Betamax too.

The end is nigh.

[W]e must also recognize that hope alone will not be enough.

- Michael Wilson, Canadian Budget Speech, February 26, 1991.

The real reason George Mason University has a strong libertarian influence in its economics and law faculties.

An exchange in the University of Saskatchewan’s student paper The Sheaf has recently come to my attention. It started with an article by the Jewish Students’ Association (JSA) in the January 29th edition (pdf, 10.8mb, A12) which argued that the military effort by Israel against Hamas was justified because of the 8000 or so rockets that had been fired by Hamas (or others) in the civilian population of Israel. The writers go on to say that “[t]he death of over 1,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza is tragic but it is not genocide” and that “there has been a disproportionate number of Palestinians versus Israelis killed during this conflict” but ultimately it’s because of Hamas’ deliberate positioning in densely populated civilian areas.

Overall I judge this letter to be reasonable. Obviously their position is pro-Israeli and their biases in that direction are clear, but everyone has a particular vantage point on a situation. Ultimately, the point of the article attempts to justify the response, but I do believe it is reasonable. As their final two lines point out, “Isn’t Israel just doing what any other sovereign nation would do? If rockets were fired into your neighbourhood, wouldn’t you respond?” I think these are important questions to ask. The rockets to exist and it is not an option to simply ignore them. The debate, then, should be centered on what is a proper response. I don’t pretend to have a magic answer here, but I cannot join in the kneejerk response that Israel is 100% wrong in its response. It is almost certain that Israel has made many mistakes in their response and I think many Israelis would be forthright in that admission.

In response to this letter, Kieran Conway, wrote a letter in the February 5th edition of The Sheaf (pdf, 22.1mb, A16). I would like to say that this known Marxist wrote a fair and balanced response to the JSA, but I just can’t. Conway brings up a few fair points that were conveniently left out of the original article but it doesn’t rescue the letter from the absurd.

Conway states that the JSA “would like readers to believe that the siege on Gaza ceased in 2005 as an act of good faith on the part of Israel. In fact, the war on Gaza has proceeded unceasingly since that time in the form of economic blockade (an act of war by any definition), limitations on personal mobility and preventing relief organizations.” To be clear, the Gaza pullout or the “Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan” did occur and the Israeli government forcibly removed Jewish settlements from the region. As for the economic blockade, that is a legitimate issue. In generally I am against blockades because I don’t think they are productive and they harm innocent people, but to say they are “an act of war by any definition” might be overemphasizing the strictness of language and ignoring the complexity of international law. And I would also add that the border issues are not exclusive in this issue. Egypt has also been active in closing the border with Gaza due to a fear of Hamas.

Conway also asserts that Israel is preventing medical supplies from entering the region; however, this is disputed by the Israelis. He also notes the Nov. 4 incursion into Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces. This too, existed, and was a breach of the agreement. Of course Conway would never admit that there might (and I’m not saying there was) have been a reason to do so. This really just shows Conway’s refusal to accept any culpability on the part of Hamas and the Palestinians. I think the New York times best summed up the issue:

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of bad faith and of violations of the Egyptian-mediated accord, and each side has a point. Rockets from Gaza never stopped entirely during the truce, and Israel never allowed a major renewed flow of goods into Gaza, crippling its economy. This is at least partly because the agreement had no mutually agreed text or enforcement mechanism; neither side wanted to grant the legitimacy to the other that such a document would imply.

To look at this issue an think it’s only the fault of X is patently ignorant of reality. Conway next goes on to say that democracy is, without question, good. To him Hamas is legitimate because it was elected. I would argue this is a spurious assertion. Democracy does not instill a magical power on something to determine legitimacy. And to a point Conway is correct to say that other governments including Canada, the US and Israel should not simply have veto power over what a sovereign nation. Yet, even with that truth, it also implies that Hamas should be immune from questions of its legitimacy simply because of this lauded system we call democracy.

If one were to create a different example I think it would show how shaky such an assumption is. Say the majority of Germans voted a neo-Nazi party into power. (Just to be clear I’m not saying Hamas is like the Nazis, though parallels might be found, I only use it as an example because it is generally regarded as evil and repugnant.) If such an event were to take place in Germany would we simply say “Oh well, it’s up to Germans to determine “their political self-determination.” Of course not, we would condemn it. So just because Hamas won (indeed only a plurality) it does not mean that someone cannot argue that their system is corrupt. Conway also throws in, for good measure I’m sure, that Israel is the only obstacle to a Palestinian state. This however is risible.

Conway’s argument for the Palestinian casualties also seems to be based on a bias and misinterpretation. He states that “Palestinian casualties are not greater in number because Hamas militants hide among high-density areas but because Israel uses American-supplied sophisticated jet fighters to bomb Palestinians.” I was not aware that these two things are mutually exclusive. He also states that “Gaza militants fire shoulder-mounted missiles at random into southern Israel.” While he’s correct that Palestinian weapons are less sophisticated, he’s factually inaccurate that the weapons are shoulder-mounted. The most used weapon (outside the simple Kalashnikov) is the Qassam rocket, and it’s not fired from the shoulder.

Next it is argued that, “Deterrence was never the point of Israel’s campaign. The bombardment was strategically designed to do the most economic, social and individual damage in Gaza; not to ‘destabilize Hamas’ as the writers argue but to make life unbearable for Gazans.” This is pure conjecture, unsupported by evidence. To assume this was the “design” one has to premise their thoughts with a negative view of Israel. It is certain that Israel does want to destabilize Hamas, this much is clear. But to state with certainty that the “economic, social and individual” damage caused by Israeli is designed to do that much is unfounded and arrogant.

Conway would also have people believe that connections between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Holocaust are justififed because “several war crimes investigations against the IDF are currently underway and even Haaretz…has called for investigations of war crimes.” Despite innocent lives being lost due to Israeli actions (justified and unjustified) that doesn’t necessarily mean that a comparison to the Holocaust is warranted. The Holocaust was a methodical and systematic destruction of approximately 6 million Jews. To make the comparison one has to make three assumptions: 1. That Israel is deliberately killing non-combatants. 2. Israel has a defined hatred of Palestinians 3. That the numbers and method of killing are on a comparable scale. I don’t think that any three of the presuppositions are valid beyond a superficial or individualistic examination.

Conway’s most laughable declaration is in his allocation of blame. To Conway’s simple, but “impartial”, mind the Jews are wholly to blame.

With an open mind, a fair interpretation of the history will lead you to the conclusion that the truth does not ‘lie somewhere between opposing views.’ Israel is an apartheid state and Palestinians, not Israelis, are the victims.

Only a person who is deeply arrogant and hateful could come to such a conclusion on one of the most complex issues in contemporary society. The use of apartheid also betrays any sense of impartiality since it reflects Jimmy Carter’s dishonest, mistaken ridden and hyperbolic Palestine Peace not Apartheid and the unjustified belief in the efficiency Carter’s advocacy.

To conclude his letter Conway brings up the story of his grandfather who supposedly worked with the UN to help Palestinian refugees further negating his claims to objectivity. Conway also calls on the JSA and “other Zionists refuse to acknowledge this fundamental truth: the state of Israel’s foundational act was displacing another people.” First off, he uses the term Zionist as a slur which is a stalwart of anti-Semitic persons. And secondly he assumes that Israelis don’t think that people were displaced. This is a mighty assumption and mostly without warrant.

The truth about the foundation is, contra Mr. Marxist, somewhere in the middle. Jewish settlers began purchasing large tracts of land in the late 19th and into the 20th centuries. While this never amounted to the majority of land (at most 10%) it goes against the belief that the Israelis stole everything. Indeed the majority of Israelis land was obtained, as Franklin Foer has stated, the traditional way. “Jewish sovereignty and ownership were established the way these things usually are: by war. Israel confiscated all land owned by the British government, mostly desert and mountains, after the 1948 War of Independence.” So while there were surely violations that look place, it is largely mirrored by how the rest of the world was formed. The fact that such events took place within the last 80 years gives a modern bias. To what extent would Conway accept violence among North America’s First Nations groups for the reclamation of disputed land?

Overall I think Conway is betrayed by a false sense of impartiality and perhaps by aligning himself with arguments parallel to anti-Semitism. He speaks of “the legitimate hatred of the Israeli state, not of the Jewish people.” Had he stated ‘legitimate disagreements with Israel and its policy’ perhaps he’d have a point. But to speak of hatred as though it’s natural is downright dangerous. Additionally, his belief that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are simply distinguishable is difficult to take seriously. The canard is made by many people who think that they can somehow hate the abstract concept of the state while not hating the people. While it might be possible, it’s not likely. It sounds a lot like evangelicals: ‘We dont’ hate gay people, in fact we love them, we just want them to go away and stop being gay.’

When I look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict my first reaction is that the issue is most certainly somewhere in the middle. But upon reflection I come down on the side of Israel more than the Palestinians (though that doesn’t mean a lot since I still put their respective responsiblites close together). This does not mean that I minimize the actions on the part of Israel. On the contrary I think the Israeli government has made many mistakes including causing the death of innocents and in continuing economic blockades among numerous other things. But where I see the differences is in the aims of the two sides. Leaving aside the controversy over the creation of Israel (since the state already exists), the Israel government does take into consideration the civilians and other innocent persons despite accusations to the contrary. Whereas, on the other hand, Hamas (and even less legitimate socio-political elements) deliberately focus on terror and the harming of innocents. I simply need more evidence of deliberate civilian targeting to change my mind.

One of the arguments for scoring the debate on the side of Palestine is that Israel and its right-wing are primarily responsible for preventing a two-state solution. I, however, find this argument unconvincing. First its predicated on the belief that Jimmy Carter is doing good work and secondly that such utopian beliefs bring forward utilitarian consequences. Historically it was the Palestinians who prevented such a thing from happening, such as the 1947 “United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine” which was approved by Jewish residents but rejected by Arabs. To be sure there has been some retrenchment of the right-wing but I think there are fair points in saying “moderate Palestinians are too weak to control the West Bank” and thus a separate state would be a terror state. Of course then one could say that it would be better or at least no different than the current situation.

As for the current conflict, the so-called Gaza conflict, there certainly are issues. There have a number of calls for war crimes investigations over the conflict. But the problems of evaluating such an accusation are immense. First, Hamas has been accused for the same thing only in different ways. And then you have the trouble of evaluating the death tolls. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights says “1,284 Gazans were killed and 4,336 wounded,” with 894 of the dead civilians while the Palestinian Ministry of Health claims “1,324 dead and about 5,400 injured.” Meanwhile the Israelis claim these numbers are incorrect or at best misleading. Israeli identified 1200 of the dead and concluded that 580 were known terrorists, 300 were civilians and the remaining “320 names yet to be classified are all men…but [they] estimate…that two-thirds of them were terror operatives.”

Ultimately, I two things convince me that I have to (narrowly) come down on Israel’s side. I think The Economist best sums up the first problem. It notes that though “Hamas is more pragmatic than its charter suggests,”

On paper, Hamas rejects Israel’s existence outright. Its charter, which contains anti-Semitic slurs and slanders, seeks to establish sharia law on all the territory of mandated Palestine, between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean. It glories in martyrdom. Since 1993, and especially during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) from 2001 to 2004, it has carried out more than 100 suicide attacks on Israeli civilians, killing at least 400. It has sanctioned the firing of rockets, though mostly home-made and rarely lethal, at Israeli towns across from Gaza. It reviles its secular rival, Fatah, for its supposed treachery in accepting the Jewish state and the principle of Palestine’s partition.

Secondly, some polling highlighted in The Economist convinces me I can’t see it from the Palestinian side. These are from the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre a Palestian firm:

1.
2. This seals the issue for me:
Or as I like to rephrase the issue:
3.
4. Interestingly, however, you see this result. I’m not quite sure how this works with result #1.

Though foreign policy experts Hussein Agha and Robert Malley claim in a January 19 review that “[t]hroughout the years, polls consistently showed respectable Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a negotiated two-state settlement” a recent poll of Israelis by Angus Reid Global Monitor finds differently. Either this poll is flawed (the wording is slanted) or recent events have changed Israelis opinions:

5.
Earlier reports have had very different results.

[Editor’s Note: These are preliminary thoughts and reflections and they should be taken as such. When I refer to anti-semitism I’m not necessarily assusing anyone of such (though it’s possible), rather I am pointing out parallels and the dangers of such ideas. When I say that I support Israel’s side in the issue it should not be taken, whatsoever, as a blanket support for Israeli policy. Indeed I see much to criticize and lament. The blockade should end. The Palestinian should be given a state. America should stop subsidizing Israel. The United States and Canada should get out of the Middle East. Every loss of life is terrible whether it be Israeli, Palestinian or naive American college students. I don’t pretend to have the answer, but it certainly isn’t working now. Both sides need to realize they are not 100% correct and white, liberal college kids need to realize it’s a complex world.]

(more…)

Radley Balko uncovers damning and disturbing evidence. Spread the word.

Just in case you thought that anti-evolution people were exclusive to the United States, Michael Shermer is here to remind you otherwise.

• Angela Merkel is getting an honorary doctorate from the the former University in Exile.
• Air Berlin is still suffering.
• Younger teachers in Berlin just got a 46% raise!
• Axel Springer Verlag is holding an exhibition of Auschwitz blueprints at its headquarters.
• New film about the Berlin Wall.
• Tacheles, an artists commune founded shortly after reunification, has an uncertain future.
• The German Historical Museum has lost a court case related to art stole by the Nazis.

• In that way, though, Taft fans can claim him as something of a pioneer—reaching for a new understanding of North American relations. University of Toronto historian Robert Bothwell calls Taft “imaginative and accommodating” toward Canada. And though his original motivations were not entirely neighbourly, his essential understanding of the Canada-U.S. dynamic is now one taken for granted as natural and obvious. [Macleans]
• “It’s purely a formality, but one of those significant formalities,” said Robert Bothwell, the director of the international relations program at the University of Toronto, of Mr. Obama’s visit. “Fundamentally, it’s significant for us. I don’t think it has any resonance in the United States.” [Ottawa Citizen]
• “It will be planned within an inch of its life,” said Norman Hillmer, professor of history and international affairs at Carleton University, who recalled how during one visit the Secret Service even brought toy cars to map out the motorcade for the RCMP. [The Globe and Mail]
• During Kennedy’s visit to Ottawa, writes Carleton University history professor Norman Hillmer, the president “seemed to go out of his way to spend time” with the Nobel Prize-winning Pearson, while treating Diefenbaker more brusquely. If that history is a guide, current Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff has an opportunity this week to develop a relationship with President Barack Obama — and score political points. [Toronto Sun]
• “The whole economic picture is so complex, but when the American economy starts to recover Canada’s economy will quickly follow suit,” says Doug Owram, deputy vice-chancellor of The University of British Columbia Okanagan and author of History of the Canadian Economy. [Canadian Business]

Sadly, not one of the congressmen has responded yet. I was ready to stimulate the shit out of this economy, but instead I have to mix drinks at home. You fail, legislators.

Read the rest of Jacob Grier’s awesome post here.

The Heritage Foundation has now updated its coverage with a transcript of Arnold Kling’s comments:

I think about what’s going on as an economist but I feel it as a father. My wife and I have three daughters between the ages of 19 and 25. And when I see what’s being done to their future I’m really angry. Back in September when they were talking about taking $700 billion dollars to unclog the financial system I wanted to yank Henry Paulson out of the TV screen and say to him: “Keep your hands off my daughter’s future.” But he got away with it. For me it felt like sitting there watching my home being ransacked by a gang of thugs. And now we’ve got a new gang of thugs and they are doing the same thing. So that’s how I feel, now back to how I think.

If that’s still racist, then I give up.

County budgets and toilet paper have one thing in common: Every little bit helps.

That’s why leaders in Des Moines County will consider an idea to charge jail inmates for bathroom tissue to help wipe away a $1.7 million deficit next year. [Des Moines Register]

Yes, because we inmates to wipe less.

You find some, even when it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately this garbage has been passed on by the otherwise excellent Andrew Sullivan.

Arnold Kling, who I disagree with in many ways, wrote a post where he stated:

Most of the bill makes no sense from a stimulus perspective. But all of it makes sense from a reparations perspective.

To which some greasy fuck and author of Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants(!!) named James Wolcott objected saying that Kling’s use of “reparations” is clearly an example of race-baiting. The fact that just above this Kling had used the term with in the context of World War I (”To the Democrats, the Bush tax cuts were a heinous evil, comparable to Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality in World War I”) doesn’t seem to phase him. Indeed Wolcott thinks it irrelevant. To defend his thesis that Kling is a Klansman Wolcott states,

Oh dear me no, protested Kling. No coded race talk was intended. He was actually thinking of the Treaty of Versailles….Idiotically hyperbolic and baseless as Kling’s caricaturing is (seriously, name me one frigging Democrat who invoked violations of Belgian neutrality in railing against the Bush tax cuts), it did open the door ajar to possible acquittal on the racebaiting charge. To cool things down, Kling…closed off comments before the mosh pit got any gnarlier.

So let’s see, this explanation is only a “possible acquittal”, because Mr. Wolcott has reasoning skills of a small child. Even then these (non-racist) comments are still “idiotically hyperbolic and baseless” just cuz. And let’s be clear, Kling did not argue that the Democrats were literally arguing it was like violating Belgian neutrality, he was saying some people were treating as though it were the same moral level. That is only mildly hyperbolic. As for the closing down the comments, that’s pretty rich coming from someone who blogs without a comment section.

So why was Kling’s WWI defence only a possible acquittal? Well because Mr. Wolcott found the smoking gun! At an event about the stimulus at the Heritage Foundation Kling stated,

I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. … [The Obama Administration] is destroying my daughters’ future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That’s how I feel, now back to how I think.

To a rational reader it might seem like a bit much, but the logic is sound. This continued indebitness will be placed upon future generations who will be forced to pay for it. It’s a sense of helplessness. So what’s racist about it? He said thugs!

Now if Kling can’t comprehend the implication of racial menace encoded in daughter-gang-thugs/home invasion, he’s either fatuously clueless–too innocent for this wicked world–or weaselly disingenuous, and a drama queen either way.

Yes of course, if someone mentions “thug” it must be a slight at Obama. Because Obama’s black you see! Racism! Racist!

Sorry, people, you don’t get to unilaterally decide that a term is racist in every single context. It helps absolutely no one–black or white–to go around data mining for racism where it just doesn’t exist. In fact such things set the world back and do not work at forwarding understanding and dialogue.

What I really see here is linguistic prescriptivism. That is, a certain subsect of the Obama supporters have decided that they get to decide what is or is not a racist way of speech. To them reparations and the word “thug” can only be used one way. The fact that in general reparations refers to World War I and that “thugs” is a general, not black, term doesn’t seem to occur to them. (Also the fact that Obama’s economic team is almost exclusively white–Geithner, Romer, Orszag, Summers, Goolsbee–doesn’t also seem to be a clue) I’m sorry, language doesn’t work this way.

If every time someone disagrees with the Obama administration and uses a term that is one way or another is tangentally related to a racial term, it’s going to be a long four (eight?) years.

And just for good measure Kling co-blogger David Henderson digs up some of Wolcott’s anti-Semitism:

The photo on Cato’s website of Senators Jim Bunning and Roger Wicker holding up the ad as if it were an encyclical issued from Milton Friedman’s crypt was irrefutable proof that nothing hits the G-spot of white-haired guys with thin lips and mean glasses quite like a dose of free-market fundamentalism first thing after coffee.

If Wolcott can’t see how this is anti-Semitic he’s either fatuously clueless or weaselly disingenuous.

Edit: I see Sullivan linked to anti-Kling hackery earlier.

A pretty embarrassing take-down of a CATO economist.

First, there was no “take-down” since it was 9 fucking years ago and secondly, Cato is not a goddamn acronym. From now on Sullivan works for the ATLANTIC.

The men, on average, responded genitally in what Chivers terms “category specific” ways. Males who identified themselves as straight swelled while gazing at heterosexual or lesbian sex and while watching the masturbating and exercising women. They were mostly unmoved when the screen displayed only men. Gay males were aroused in the opposite categorical pattern. Any expectation that the animal sex would speak to something primitive within the men seemed to be mistaken; neither straights nor gays were stirred by the bonobos. And for the male participants, the subjective ratings on the keypad matched the readings of the plethysmograph. The men’s minds and genitals were in agreement.

All was different with the women. No matter what their self-proclaimed sexual orientation, they showed, on the whole, strong and swift genital arousal when the screen offered men with men, women with women and women with men. They responded objectively much more to the exercising woman than to the strolling man, and their blood flow rose quickly — and markedly, though to a lesser degree than during all the human scenes except the footage of the ambling, strapping man — as they watched the apes. And with the women, especially the straight women, mind and genitals seemed scarcely to belong to the same person. The readings from the plethysmograph and the keypad weren’t in much accord. During shots of lesbian coupling, heterosexual women reported less excitement than their vaginas indicated; watching gay men, they reported a great deal less; and viewing heterosexual intercourse, they reported much more. Among the lesbian volunteers, the two readings converged when women appeared on the screen. But when the films featured only men, the lesbians reported less engagement than the plethysmograph recorded. Whether straight or gay, the women claimed almost no arousal whatsoever while staring at the bonobos.

Read the rest of this titillating story about women fucking–or not–in the New York Times Magazine.

There is a fascinating post over at Language Log about racist language. Give it, and its follow up, a gander.

I found this to be particularily interesting:

My son Calvin is black. When he and I and his black Jamaican mother Joan lived together in Britain and later in the USA for many years, and we did sometimes see racism rear its ugly head. For us, it was not an abstraction. Joan and I have been spat at in the street (in Britain, by the way — never in the USA) for just walking along together. That gets pretty close to home. [Emphasis added]

And here was a comment that confused me. I can see how the term FOB could be racist, though I’ve only ever heard that term used by Asians against other Asians. But as for the other term I’m stumped. 

Also, being in the Bay Area (SF) and teaching at a mostly Chinese American school, I hear “Viet” as a pejorative term for Vietnamese kids as well as “FOB” for the new immigrants that try to look and act American. The new immigrants catch on pretty quickly to that. [Link]

Is wanting to fuck Freida Pinto really a good reason to pretend a movie is good?

Boycott Kelloggs!

The last two weeks in Regina has been a good time for movies. The vast majority of award winning/nominated films opened over the past two weekends.

These films, in order of greatness are:
1. Revolutionary Road
2. Frost/Nixon
3. The Reader
4. Milk
5. The Wrestler
6. Defiance
…
7. Slumdog Millionaire

PS. Richard Roeper has lost his fucking mind.

Eastwood is at his growling best, and the cast of mostly unknown supporting actors is uniformly excellent.

Usually I’m a strong supporter of people being “innocent until proven guilty,” but I’ll make an exception here. Throw away the key!

Update: 

Comment of the century from RiderFans.com

This is shocking considering he’s a relatively handsome man. He could probably get any chick he wanted.

Here’s the beaut:

As a dual citizen of Canada and the United States (and nearly a citizen of Romania, dammit dad!) I know the advantage of holding multiple passports. Not only is it just cool, it also massively extends the area in which one can live and work. 

Here in Canada a new law is soon to come into effect which returns the citizenship to many Canadians who unjustly lost their citizenship after becoming citizens of another country between 1947 and 1977. On April 17 these “Lost Canadians” will regain their citizenship. This is an example of one of the few good laws spurting out of Ottawa these days.

The really good news is that Will Wilkinson will become a Canadian on that day. Tis a day to celebrate.

Now someone just needs to convince Germany to review its regressive citizenship laws.