I could. Drove through it a couple of years ago on the way to Croatia. Absolutely beautiful countryside. Really pretty.
Me too, because our Hausmeister is Slovenian, and recently gave us a nice bottle of his country's white wine.
Yes, I could. When Mrs Trump III was born (she is nearly as ancient as me), it was actually Yugoslavia. They used to teach Geography when I was at school and I still have my atlas and my father’s school atlas – which is a fascinating glimpse of the old British Empire and which Imperial powers owned what territories around the world before WWII. Nowadays the countries that I cannot find on the map are the ones that have been created by old ones splitting up without much publicity. I can find Myanmar because that is just renamed Burma but a lot of those former Russian federations like Kyrgyzstan might be a bit trickier.
What a shifting, turning, devil this Trump is. Should get along famously with our very own Boris J.? http://www.dw.com/en/i-was-always-a...residential-candidate-donald-trump/a-35929474
I know that as a non-resident of Germany I am not confronted or directly affected by Mrs Merkel's decision to allow 1 million plus migrants into the country during 2015, and likely more since, however both my heart and mind support her decision. I have read with interest all the articles posted by yourself and others which clearly detail crimes committed and other disturbances caused by the migrants; I make no excuses for the perpetrators especially as the state of Germany has 'welcomed' them when very few other EU countries took this moral and honourable step. I am also aware that a large number of new 'citizens' causes upset to portions of the general population and can produce a substantial and immediate change to smaller communities. I only hope that in due course the migrants will learn how to live, act and operate within, what is possibly, the most liberal state in the EU. My only satisfaction is that, in what is likely to be the high point in their popularity, the AfD has achieved only limited electoral success in the recent 'local' elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. If their support plateaus at the current twelve to fifteen per cent leading up to the 2016 election I think that would show that a substantial majority of the German population is not willing to be swept up and influenced by AfD's policies. I repeat that my view on Mrs Merkel and in particular her 'former' policy on migrants is based solely on 'news', information (mostly negative) gleaned online and my lengthy visits to Koln and Munich. This is where I agree with Mr Trump; his current appreciation of Mrs Merkel. His view will likely change many times before the 8th of November.
You make good points, BK, and I understand your feelings on this very tricky subject. The main problem with most citizens and residents here (and I in all honesty think I have it right), is her total rejection of some form of control when she made this huge decision in September, 2015. She ignored the advice of her cabinet and other colleagues (this should never have been allowed), ignored the concerns of border states such as Bayern, and just did not think things out at all. The rest is history.
Cheers SH. I have always wondered if she realised the vast number of migrants who would enter the country almost immediately after she made 'her' decision in September 2015. At least plans seem to have been in place or were quickly put in place to 'distribute' the migrants throughout all the federal states within the country. From the output on both UK and other news programmes a similar 'feeling' has been apparent in both the UK and in Germany in that communities, whether cities, towns or villages, with very few to hardly any migrants were the most vociferous in their opposition to accepting any refugees. The comments made by the citizens of Sunderland and Schwerin were remarkably similar! Talking of the pride exhibited by the burgers of Sunderland when they were the first constituency to vote for 'Brexit' it would be ironic if the current views of the board of Nissan came to pass and the UK's withdrawal from the single market affected their investment in their Teesside plant which currently employs seven thousand locals!!! Looking for an outsider in Sunday's Prix de La Foret to back up my ante post punt on Limato at 9/4!
It looks like the media have decided it is time to stick the knife in The Donald: Trump Tax Records Obtained by The Times Reveal He Could Have Avoided Paying Taxes for Nearly Two Decades No doubt some will say it is The Establishment fighting back against the outsider...
It's an odd sort of world in which a billionaire property dealer is an outsider fighting the establishment. He's been pretty free with the 'Crooked Hilary' slur up to now. So he can hardly be surprised when his own affairs become the subject of scrutiny.
Not sure of Mr Trump's financial/company operations during 1995 but a 'loss' of $916 million seems a touch careless!
No shock in any of the NYT's allegations about Trump's tax affairs. Taxes are only for the little people - that's been evident for ages. What is incredulous is that Trump is making this any sort of a race. I guess it just shows the contempt with which the electorate hold politicians in general.
Reading the piece, Mr Trump made a few ill-advised investments including an Atlantic City casino business that subsequently folded and he paid way over the odds for a hotel in Manhattan that he had to write down. In reality, it does not look like he has done anything illegal – this appears to be tax avoidance rather than tax evasion, otherwise he would be looking at the world through a window with bars on it. If we look at our banks that were bailed out, they have been writing down their bad debts for the past few years against their profits.
It is widely reported that Pence won the two 'unknown' Vice-President nominees' debate. However, Governor Pence seems to have shot himself in the foot badly with that "That Mexican thing" remark. Seems some of Trump's bellicose nonsense has rubbed off on him? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37561346 There are thousands of Mexicans working and paying taxes in the U.S. who are justifiably upset with Pence, as the 'tweets' indicate. The one from a Ms Pili Tobar being especially hard-hitting.
It never feels right to leave a story unfinished so, for those with the time and energy to go back to the original post in August last year, I've put the money where the mouth is in accordance with the principles outlined there. I've waited much longer than usual to place the bet, because (a) it took me forever to grasp that Trump was really going to be the Rep.nominee and (b) I really couldn't predict which way the market would jump. Long story short, I've laid Hillary at 1.36 this week to - for me - a substantial sum. There's no way I intend to let the bet ride until the result's declared, so either she keeps on shortening and I show some sort of loss when I bale out; or the two edge closer and I take the profit when my nerve cracks. I confess that I haven't read the Betfair small print about what happens if a nominated candidate is assassinated or withdraws for medical reasons, but I don't really expect either of those ;things to happen (there again, I didn't expect Donald to get the nomination, either). I'll be available for mockery and abuse in November, or when I close out the bet.. Meantime, sit and enjoy with me the dystopian world displayed nightly by Fox News.
You take a day off from the US Presidential race to go to the races and when you get home The Donald has surely become a dead man walking politically. There may be plenty of American men that will still vote for somebody who appears to advocate groping women but there surely cannot be any women. This could be an election where virtually no women vote at all – one of the candidates seems to be just generally unpopular with women because she stood by her man when he played around with an intern in the White House whilst the other appears to make misogynists look like a harshly treated element of the male sex. Surely no man with a daughter can vote for him. Even The Donald’s wife thought what he said was indefensible (especially since they had only just got married) but when The Donald went on air to apologise he could not stop himself from excusing his views by claiming that Bill Clinton was some sort of woman abuser. He could at least have pointed out that no cats were harmed in the recording of his comments. The next Presidential TV Debate is guaranteed to be a ratings winner – this is the open goal that Hillary and her people cannot miss unless Putin hacks into the TV networks to make sure it is not broadcast.
