🎶 Jetzt kommen die lustigen Tage...🎶 www.rbb24.de/panorama/bei...

We are so back! 🌱🏵🌱🏵🌈

"Unlike other leaders who have met with Xi, Merz was publicly pointed. He paired pledges of cooperation with an accounting of how a flood of Chinese exports and an unfair playing field are harming German businesses and contributing to the loss of thousands of jobs." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/w...

The Eberswalder Wurstfabrik, once East Germany's largest sausage factory (after the Volkskammer itself), is being closed with over 500 jobs being lost. A hard blow for those folks and their families, and the end of a historic brand for folks in the eastern German states. www.rbb24.de/wirtschaft/b...

Sumer is icumen in www.rbb24.de/panorama/bei...

My new German phrase of the week: was discussing the upcoming Berlin transit strike with my students and one said, "Der Fußbus fährt immer" (the "foot bus" is always running, ie, you can always walk).

Nobody is going to believe me, but he was back again this morning! Same exact time, station, same red polka dot pajamas and house slippers, same brand of half-empty beer. And he somehow managed to choose my car again (OK, I always board the car that lets you out right beside the station escalators).

Classic Berlin moment on my way to work early this a.m.: guy got on the subway at Kottbusser Tor station wearing only pajamas and house slippers and chugging a beer. At 6:45am. 3C/38F air temperature. (and if you don't know Berlin's Kottbusser Tor, think New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal area)

"If we keep electing men like Trump, they will keep undermining our foundations, until they collapse. One day that may well happen. But on Friday, the Supreme Court said not this day. On this day the separation of powers prevails. On this day the Constitution holds." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/o...

"This is a clear legal case — even more so than the case decided last week. When affected parties challenge the new levies in the coming days, the courts should step in and put a halt to the levies. The president has replaced one set of illegal tariffs with another." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/o...

This is an interesting way to parse the Winter Olympics final results. Norway (with a smaller population than Colorado) dominates on the powder, less so on tracks and before juries.

Sometimes I lie in bed awake at night and think how if Branson had never left that note that Anna found just in time to prevent him from dumping that gunk all over the general, he would have done the deed, been kicked out of Downton, and so would never have married Sybil and become the estate agent.

The famous notes East German spokesman Schabowski read on the night of November 9, 1989 are the center of a mini-scandal. A group of journalists demands to know who got paid the 25,000€ for selling the notes to the German Historical Museum, and how they got ahold of it. www.rbb24.de/politik/beit...

Forgot Eva Marie Saint, the senior of the surviving lot, who is 101!

Pips #189 Hard 🔴 3:52

Hitchcock had some long-lived leading ladies. Hedren (The Birds) turned 96 last week, Kim Novak (Vertigo) turned 93 two weeks ago, Joan Fontaine (Rebecca) died at 96 in 2013 (she was Olivia de Havilland's sister, who died in 2020 at 104, finally winning the last round of a lifetime sibling rivalry).

arte is showing Hitchcock's classic The Birds, which I have seen a million times and visited most of the shooting locations when I lived in SF (the school is actually some distance inland in the town of Bodega, separate from Bodega Bay) yet I did NOT know Melanie Griffith is Tippi Hedren's daughter.

This is fascinating. How far back can you go in the history of English and still understand this time-travelling blogger? (Spoiler: German speakers may have an advantage here) www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

Mürzzuschlag? I don't get it. Why would anybody pay extra just to go to Mürz? I mean the Brahms Museum is nice but if you're not a skier, there isn't much else.

Drum roll: furthest points on the compass you can travel to by rail from Berlin, with a maximum of one connection allowed:

People who comment on my rail posts to remind me that I can just take a flight and get to these places in under two hours for less than half the cost:

As far as I can make out from seat61 and other sources, the farthest you can go via rail from Berlin without a change of train is Stockholm (15hrs). With a single change of train it would be places like Madrid or Barcelona (via Paris) or Bucharest (via Budapest or Vienna). Also Vilnius (via Warsaw).

Caturday night fever

gahhh...finger slipped and I misplaced a totally obvious one.... Flashback for Feb. 21, 2026 26 points 🟩🟩🟥🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I'm using my work transit benefit to get back on the Deutschlandticket bandwagon. I am digging the feature on the DB website that lets you choose only the "free" routes the pass covers. So I can actually get from Berlin to my old alma mater of Würzburg, albeit a much longer journey time of course...

I notice on the German Railways site the former EuroCity (EC) branding for the Berlin to Prague run has switched to the RailJet (RJ) branding. I guess it is because all the equipment has now been swapped out to the far superior modern comfortjet cars (other than the beloved classic dining cars).

The wonderful Sandra Hüller (perhaps best known to English-speaking audiences as the "Queen of Auschwitz" in the haunting film "The Zone of Interest") wins the best actress trophy at the Berlinale awards ceremony. The film, "Rose", comes out in theatres in April. www.spiegel.de/kultur/berli...

This is exactly what Gorsuch was referring to in his concurrence: national economic policy should be the result of a deliberative process, not the vengeful ravings of an angry old man tweetstorming at 3am while parked on the crapper. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/b...

What is funny is that I always think of Ramadan in terms of privation, but when you look at some of the culinary traditions around the evening iftar meal it is (at least once you get through until sundown) quite a time of feasting. Not even having a single sip of water all day is a tough one though.

It would seem to me that a purely lunar calendar would be a big drawback (for agricultural purposes for one) but then I read that the lack of alignment with the solar year can be seen as a benefit, as feast and fast times (such as Ramadan) rotate through the seasons every 33 years.

And yes, there are other authorities to levy tariffs, but those come with significant constraints, which means that Trump can't just throw at 3am tantrum on the crapper at Mar-a-Lago and tweet "You're tariffed!" to any foreign leader he feels threatened by. That is what SCOTUS took away today.

JFC. Finally. It was illegal on its face from the beginning and made no sense. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

Here in Berlin we're all excited about the uptick in temps in the coming few days finally coming out of the monthslong icebox, so of course our Debbie Downer local weather forecaster has to remind us that snow is historically far more likely on Easter than Christmas. So we have a long way to go yet.

Here's how poor East Germany (and the Eastern bloc) was: at the time of the Peaceful Revolutions, less than half the population had their own bathroom and toilet, an amazing 20% of housing didn't have indoor plumbing at all (in 1989!), and this was considered *the most successful* Communist economy.

"Driver, why have we stopped here? This isn't the Howard Johnson's!" "I know a little German. He's sitting over there." "It all sounds like some bad movie..." "In women's tennis, I always root against the heterosexual." God I love "Top Secret", one of the greatest comedies of all time.

I still haven't seen any of LAST YEAR'S Oscar movies, with the notable exception of "A Real Pain." Culkin totally deserved that nod.

During a performance of Richard III in Berlin, the actor performing the title role accidentally flung his (prop) sword and hit a woman seated on the front row. Luckily it was more shock than actual injury, and the actor called her the next day to check in and apologize. www.rbb24.de/kultur/beitr...

Sucks to be a traveler going in and out of Berlin this weekend, as practically all the escalators to the very steep upper and lower track levels are defective and the ones at Südkreuz were shut down as a precaution. The elevators (and commuters) are entirely overwhelmed. www.rbb24.de/wirtschaft/b...

This isn't some radical left libtard Democrat saying this, this is the Murdoch-owned WALL STREET JOURNAL saying this: www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

The President of the United States is slumped dead asleep at his own sycophantic "Board of Peace" summit. And yes, the obvious joke makes itself. And we all drove Sleepy Joe out of office for this?

Despite the icebox weather here in Berlin, the coming of spring is slowly coming in sight. I think the last time we had highs in the 50s F/10s C was back in early November.

"California adopted its rules with the admirable intention of maximizing access. But the system has failed. When elections are quickly decided, it builds confidence. When uncertainty lingers, Americans wonder why government can seem less competent than it once was." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/o...

So SCOTUS, with its fabricated-out-of-thin-air immunity doctrine, has actually made American presidents less accountable than LITERAL royalty.

The German government has decided on an earlier date for the election of a new Federal President, as the last allowable date 30 days before the incumbent Steinmeyer term ends on March 18 would fall on the weekend of the 2027 Munich Security Conference. The new date for the vote is January 30, 2027.

The unusually (for recent years) cold, snowy winter has brought Germany's largest construction project, the upgrade to the track and stations on the Hamburg-Berlin HSR, to a standstill, with DB announcing no real work on the overhead lines had been done for over 6 weeks. www.rbb24.de/panorama/bei...

"In diesem Jahr starten die christliche Fastenzeit und der islamische Ramadan am selben Tag. In Braunschweig ist ein interreligiöser Spaziergang geplant, bei dem sich Interessierte über das Fasten austauschen können." www.ndr.de/nachrichten/...

In an unusual turn of the calendar(s), both the Islamic fast of Ramadan and the Christian fast of Lent start on the same day, today. Ramadan for the Islamic year of 1447 ends with the celebration of Eid al Fitr on March 19, a thirty-day fast. Lent in many Christian traditions ends on Holy Saturday.

Berlin back in the icebox again. But long-term forecast is pointing to milder temperatures, perhaps even 10C/50F early next week. We haven't seen two-digit temperatures in a long, long time this winter.

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