After long and intensive discussions to sound out the electorate, I have decided to throw my Pickelhaube into the ring and declare my candidacy for President of the United States in 2008.

My first choice for running mate, I am delighted to say, has accepted my offer -- so we can announce the Dream Ticket:

Vote Ethelred-Dragon in 2008!

We promise wanton destruction; eternal unremitting servitude; occasional annihilation of small villages by flying reptiles to serve as an example; and a chicken in every pot (in our kitchen). We also promise to rename the United States of America to Ulterior Motive of Ethelredia, with the District of Columbia destroyed in a concerted dragon burnination and then renamed Crater of Solemn, where the Hoard of Ethelred (the new name of our Treasury) will reside (in the form of a big pile of loot). All shiny objects will henceforth be the property of SolemnDragon, unless they emit lasers or projectiles, in which case I got dibs. Oh yes, and all politicians from before our regime will be enslaved in our Imperial Coliseum for various new kinds of bloodsports, to be invented by our Minister of Sport (see below).

I nominate Em Emalb to be our cigar-chomping Minister of Defense (secretaries are soooo 20th century) and Field-Marshall for our conquests (but not too much, lest it go to his head), FortKnox to run Fort Knox, Some Woman to be Minister of Ikea, Smoochy-Bear to Warden of the Privy Council (if I ever have to take a leak), and arb to be Minister of Sport (with footie to be the new national sport).

All other applicants for positions in our Administration (to be posted below) must have the following qualifications:

1. Simpering acquiescence
2. Willingness to take a bullet for us (maybe even from us on a whim)
3. Blatant sycophancy
4. Lack of imagination beyond tying shoelaces in interesting ways
5. Suicidal dedication to our cause

Vote Ethelred for God-Emperor (formerly known as President) and SolemnDragon for Tiara-Wearing Burninator-in-Chief (formerly known as Dick Cheney)! Victory will be ours! As my esteemed colleague and running-mate has said:

If you can't beat em, burn 'em, yeah THAT will learn 'em!

I was subjected to some kind of Slashdot hit job, so I will respond vigorously here.

OK, let's talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.

I'm being asked this on Slashdot. Digg just had a geek run in their little "Dictators On Hold" blog falsely claiming it was based on the book "Dictatorships for Dummies", with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the "Dictatorships for Dummies" book.

And I think it's very interesting that all the Slashdot readers, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with planning to seize power. All of those slashbots thought I was too obsessed with planning. They had no meetings on becoming my minions for nine months after I wrote my first journal. All the Slashdotters who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much -- same people.

They were all trying to get me to stop playing Risk in 2003 the next day after I lost Siam, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and conquered Australia.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms: Smoochy-Bear, FotoKon. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that my photo had anything to do with Smoochy-Bear shaving his head or was paying any attention to it or even knew Smoochy-Bear's hair was a growing concern in October of 2003.

But it would've shown the weirdness if we'd left him bald right then, but I wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Some Woman, a feminist warlord, hijacking 22 of my journals. I was writing as a humanitarian mission. I had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of discussion or to keep anybody out.

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Confessor was born, I had battle plans drawn to go into Washington, overthrow the government, and launch a full-scale attack on the rest of the world.

But I needed henchmen, minions, in Uzbekistan, which I still haven't got.

But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the Slashdotters who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

So you did Slashdot's bidding on this journal. You did your nice little Slashdot hit job on me. I want to know how many other would-be dictators you've asked that question.

And you've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever. But I had the thirst for conquering this country. I tried and I failed to get Smoochy-Bear a wig. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

...

(For those living under a rock, this is based on this.)

This began as a response to NeMon'ess' journal, but took on a life of its own:

...

The cynic in me wants the Democrats to lose, maybe by only a hair.

Think about it. Two more years of this sort of thing...and then what happens? The Republican Party would practically collapse. Who knows, maybe the Libertarian Party (or some other movement, say the Greens) would even become a major third force (or at least the more libertarian types in the GOP would say "screw this, we're leaving"). I'm not really a fan of American Libertarianism, but it's a damned sight better than the B.S. ideology that the Bush Administration has been pushing for six years.

OTOH I'm not too sure the country can take two more years of said B.S. ideology.

Even so, if the Democrats win big, it pretty much means a Republican in the White House again in 2008 (Americans usually don't like to have the same party control both the legislative and executive branches) -- one who will probably be an improvement over Bush, but one who will also likely be just as beholden to the same groups as Bush is now: fundamentalist Christians, neo-conservatives, know-nothing nationalists and energy companies.

And I'm not sure the Democrats are even ready. I'm singularly unimpressed by their current leadership: Their impending victory (if polls are to be believed, which they probably shouldn't be) isn't the result of their own skill or ability, but because of the spectacular political failures of the Bush Administration. Warner would have been halfway interesting, but the rest are just talking heads (including Hillary). Edwards is the closest thing, but after his horrendous performance against Cheney in the debate in 2004, I've lost patience with him. None (except perhaps Hillary) are remotely as talented as Bill Clinton was (is!), and none really have any interesting ideas except to bash Bush.

Thus two more years in the wilderness could actually help them until a new leader emerges (Obama? Warner again? Clark? Someone else not even on the radar yet? Maybe even a crossover from the Republicans, such as Chaffee or Bloomberg or -- if things got weird enough -- Giuliani?). And as a leftish kinda guy who likes to think more long-term, that sounds like a better idea to me.

Thus I'm not really looking forward to a big win for the Democrats. In fact, none of the current options looks terribly good to me.

So my absentee ballot sits awaiting sufficient postage. And I wasn't too pleased picking though the ugly options. *sigh*

Oh well. At least it is an optical ballot, for fsck's sake. Diebold and pals can shove their touchscreens right up their ungreased asses.

THIS is a knife block.

No word yet on whether BoE has ordered one.

I was using Safari just now and was hurriedly clicking around, and inadvertently reduced my UI to a bare minimum.

Sorry sir, no more address bar for you!

HB2Smooch, HB2Smooch, HB dear Rob, HB2Smooch

In honor of today (well, by now actually yesterday in Central European Time) being German Unity Day, their national holiday, a bit of German Zen for you.

Germany has a thing for regulations and laws, and above all for thoroughness (though what they mean by "thoroughness" -- Gründlichkeit -- isn't always what you'd expect). This is often a...rather interesting...combination.

You see, in Germany there is (like in the UK) a mandatory subscriber's fee for all who own a TV and/or radio. It is, in effect, a small tax just for owning a radio or TV (or more than one of each). The money goes straight to the state-owned broadcasters, who thus don't need to rely on advertising. It also costs in the ballpark of €200 a year (if you have both TV and radio and aren't freed from having to pay, such as if you're unemployed), or €70 a year if you only have one or more radios.

It used to be that this fee was only if you owned TVs and/or radios and were a private household.

Well, the public broadcasters have been casting about for how to get more money. So they have now decreed that, as of 1 January 2007, any computer with Internet access is to be classified as a "broadcast-reception ready device". Well, in a way it seems reasonable, since nowadays with TV cards and Web streaming (which the state channels also provide), a computer is indeed kind of like a TV. Still is a bit annoying.

The added way they're making a money grab: Now businesses are also liable for the fee. Technically one business only needs to pay that €200 a year for the entire "household" (it doesn't matter how many TVs or radios you own), but still, business are understandably not happy about suddenly having to pay what amounts to a new tax just because they have Internet access.

But wait, it gets better.

Thanks to the way the GEZ has written the new regulation, ATMs in Germany are now classified as TVs and banks must now pay this tax. Because ATMs are, after all, computers with Internet access.

Not that you'll be watching "Kojak" on one anytime soon, but hey, theoretically possible, right?

...

Meanwhile, on another front, this tidbit is even more bizarre. You see, Germany recently enacted legislation empowering their version of the Library of Congress -- called the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, or German National Library -- to begin archiving German Web pages as part of their mandate to archive any and all German-language literature. In a way, it kinda makes sense to do so, to preserve Germany's cultural heritage for the future and all that, and after all there are privately-done things that point the way.

But the Germans just had to find a way to make this into a train wreck.

For you see, the way the law is written, it is not just the responsibility of the DNB to gather and maintain this archive. It is also the responsibility of anyone -- anyone -- who maintains a website in Germany and in German to make sure copies of their "Web publications" are registered with the DNB...and whenever a change is made, a snapshot of the changed version of the site (all of it) is also to be sent in. The DNB has helpfully (and, uh, perhaps a tad naïvely) set up an FTP server for the purpose, with a website where you can register your site(s) for the archive.

Dynamic content? Databases? Banner ads? Podcasts? Streaming live video? None of this is accounted for by the law as an exception, but it's all somehow supposed to be archived. Every byte.

If you don't want to use FTP, by the way, you are allowed to print out your site and mail it in. (Really.)

What's even more daft: Even if the content is password-protected and private, it's (again, the way the law is written) supposed to be archived -- and thus publicly accessible through the archive. Aunt Reba's vacation photos and Playboy's member's area: all of it's gotta be archived. All then publicly accessible.

What about illegal content? Say, a neo-Nazi site denying the Holocaust? Gotta be archived. And it would thus be publicly accessible through the archive, thus making the archive break one law in order to fulfill another one.

So what if someone refuses to go along with this? Up to €10,000 in fines. For each violation.

Of course, dead tree publishers have yawned over this and said that a similar requirement has existed for years for books, zines, parish bulletins, etc., anything that's printed -- it's all supposed to be in the archive -- and few actually comply, with no consequences ever resulting. Still, I don't much like having all webmasters being made potentially criminal at a stroke. Not to mention if I had to file a complete copy of every site I maintain every time I changed it, I'd literally not have time to do "real" work.

Needless to say, there's been a fair amount of protest over this, and hopefully the law will be revised. But B.S. like this happens surprisingly often, because in Germany, the laws tend to be written by civil servants, not by open committees with public testimony -- so by the time the public finds out about what's going on, the law's already been passed. So they go back to the drawing board, and "fix" the law later, while hinting at law enforcement to...well, wink wink...sorta ignore the law for a bit.

It is often truly a wonder that this country functions at all. Then again, the (East) Germans were the only ones who damned near got Communism to work.

I've always said that it was no accident Kafka wrote in German. *sigh*

THE SCENE
Ethelred and the Confessor are looking at the morning paper over breakfast. The Confessor spies an ad for a men's outfitter. He commences to pointing at pictures and identifying them.

CONFESSOR [pointing to a man in a suit and tie]
Man!

ETHELRED
Yup, that's right. That's a man.

CONFESSOR [pointing to another man in a suit and tie]
That's a man, too!

ETHELRED
Mmm-hmm, that's a man, too. He's wearing a suit.

CONFESSOR [pointing to a third man in a suit and tie]
And that's a man, too!

ETHELRED
Right. And Daddy's a man.

CONFESSOR
No. Daddy's not wearing a suit.

...

BACKGROUND
I like to call the Confessor a "goofball", because he is, well, a goofball. Jokes around a lot, giggles and that sort of thing. The Confessor even likes it when I call him that, so he often refers to himself as a goofball, and interestingly he says Daddy is also a goofball, but not BoE or Gloriana (I suspect machinations of BoE in this).

THE SCENE
Ethelred and the Confessor are sitting in the kitchen together. Gloriana has crawled up to the safety gate in the kitchen door and has propped herself up on it.

CONFESSOR
That's Gloriana!

ETHELRED
Yup, that's Gloriana.

CONFESSOR
She's Confessor's sister. [He tends to speak of himself in the third person. Hasn't started with the royal "we" yet, though.]

ETHELRED
Yup. She's your sister. And you're her brother.

CONFESSOR
No, Confessor is a goofball.

In a recent shocking discovery, some forgotten archival footage from World War II was found in a vault in Berlin near the Führerbunker.

The truth will out.

Since BoE wants to go back to work next year, I've vaguely thought about getting an au pair to take care of the young'uns. Recently, in a local group for English-speaking ex-pats, an au pair sent an e-mail to the group's discussion list, so I dropped her a line to ask what au pairs make 'round these parts and so on. She said she got her job though GreatAuPair.com, so I commenced to poking around the site a bit.

I came across a profile of a "22-year-old British girl" named Sophie, whose picture raised a flag with me. Her profile description, however, is priceless.

"Hi, I am looking for a new experience. I love children (do we all say that?!!) I have never been an aupair before but have done quite a lot of babysitting. I'm reliable, friendly and down to earth. I'll happily help with housework and if I could be considered as one of the family for a while it would be great. I like travel and have been all over the world though not stopping for long! I love pets and enjoy horse riding. I'm a good swimmer and am flexible and will fit in with your requirements. One thing I'd like to add is that I enjoy naturism so if possible I'd like a family who wouldn't mind me not wearing clothes at home some of the time. Well that's about it for now, hope to hear from you!"

(Why sure, I think I'll recommend this one to BoE!)

Whoever made that profile page owes me a keyboard.

Some time ago, we got some magnetic letters for the fridge so that the Confessor (now the ripe old age of two and a half) can map out his plans for future conquest (and learn to spell).

Not long afterwards, he was pointing at letters and identifying them. E! he said. Right, said I. U! he said. Right, said I.

So he rearranged some letters to say this:

E U Y

He pointed at it and said confidently, "Edward!"

Therefore you should fear the worst. He won't even leave spelling alone when he takes over.

He also is picking up useful vocabulary from his old man, though he has some trouble with diphthongs and tends to leave out the second consonant.

So he says "Oh Sit" a lot.

I try to tell him off, but I'm usually laughing so much that he thinks he should do it again. Whenever anything happens, he says "Oh Sit" and Daddy starts giggling.

Then it dawned on me recently that he wasn't saying "Dump Truck", but...uhm...something that sounds a lot like "Dump Truck". That Daddy says a lot when he's driving. Uhm.

He also can count up to 20 in both German and English (though today I think he may have suddenly discovered how to get past twenty in English). The problem is that he doesn't stop counting. If you ask him to, say, count the number of wheels on a toy car, he'll point at them and count one, two, three, four...and keep right on going, so that his toy car has 18 wheels according to him. I suspect this is an early way of creating hyperinflation to ruin the peasants.

Meanwhile, for you to print out and hang on your wall, a portrait of your Imperial Lord and his heir.

Some unfortunate soul tried contacting me via e-mail and failed to grovel sufficiently before begging me to do him a favor.

We do not do 'favors'. We require that you sign away your firstborn child, or if you do not have one or never produce one, your left nut. If you do not have a left nut, or a right nut, then you must volunteer for harem duty. Unless you're ugly. In which case just go away.

Anyway.

The thrust of his message was that he wanted to know where he could hear German via live stream. Since there are other people here who may wish to practice their German (or are maybe just plain bored), I give you the following:

The Radio Station by Imperial Appointment (also known as Radio 21, a classic rock station) has a live stream here.

If you prefer classical music, the other station His Imperial Majesty (that would be me) listens to is NDR Kultur, with streams in RealPlayer and Windows Media. You can find it by clicking here. NDR Kultur is not just classical and more "artsy" music, but also news and readings of literature by well-known German actors and personalities.

If you go on the Deutsche Welle site, on the German version under "DW-Radio" and "DW-TV" in the right column, you can click on links to streams of their German radio and video feeds, also in Real and WMP.

In particular Deutsche Welle may be good for those wanting to practice their German, because it's mostly news, so you hear a lot of things you'd be familiar with from other news programs anyway. They also tend to speak more slowly and clearly.

For more slangy stuff (and more "authentic" colloquial German), try Radio FFN, which is the most popular station 'round these parts. Visit their site, then click on "Webradio" and then on "HIER geht's zum Webradio!". However, they warn on their site that they have a limited number of streams, so if you get a File Not Found or other warning, the stream quota may be full.

So...schmeißt Eure Radios an und hört gut zu. Your survival under the Confessor's régime may depend on it.

I have two OS X Dashboard widgets that both show the Hannover weather forecast, one in Celsius and one in Fahrenheit. Still, one would think the rest of the weather report would be the same, but German weather got the best of them:

If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes.

My uncle was declared dead today.

I phrase it in that rather odd way, because of a number of things. First, it turns out he was actually dead Friday. He went into the hospital with a sore on his foot, which as an elderly diabetic is a bit of a problem, so into the clinic he went. A blood clot got out of the sore and caused him to stop breathing, which...no one noticed, and no one knows how long he wasn't breathing. They revived him and put him on a respirator, so he was technically "alive", but the reality is that he was probably already dead for all intents and purposes.

That was confirmed when they found out today that he had had a cardiac arrest on Friday while he had stopped breathing. (Great hospital, huh?)

So they pulled the respirator today and let him die "for real" this time.

The other reason for the detached way of phrasing it is that I was never terribly close to my uncle to begin with. He generally treated my dad like crap, even at an early age (his nickname for my dad was "Mutt"); he never gave me the time of day during my childhood, until my parents told him that I had become a National Merit Finalist, and suddenly he wanted to get to know me...so on the phone he told me he'd be proud to lend me money. Uhm, thanks, but no thanks.

The next time I spoke to or saw him was two years ago, when we were in Virginia for my brother's wedding. The one and only thing he said to the Confessor was a gruff "hey kid, speak some Kraut!", and that was it. Hah-hah, very funny. He hardly spoke to BoE, either.

Thus I don't really feel any particular loss myself. What I do feel is a pang of regret that I won't make it to the funeral, not because I want to mourn him, but because it's another missed opportunity to see other members of the family that I haven't seen in a long time. In particular I'd like to get to know his two kids better, both successful lawyers in the Atlanta area -- in particular his daughter and I seem to have a lot in common (aside from her having a rather higher income), and we have traded e-mails once in a blue moon, in which she seems quite pleasant. Amusingly, judging from a couple pictures I've seen of her online, she looks a lot like how I imagine Gloriana will look when she's older.

And, of course, I would be missing a chance to see all the Slashdotters in the Hotlanta area.

So the funeral's on Thursday, and I'll miss it (though the rest of my family will be there). A plane ticket would run me €1800 or so, which I ain't got. Oh well. *shrug*

If on the wild chance my relatives see this, my condolences to my cousins (and if y'all want to send prayers or good vibes, send 'em thataway). I wish I could say I share your sorrow, but...well. I feel for you anyway, and I hope your father rests in peace. Be well.

Yarrrrr.