It's been a bumper year for competition entries. I'm not sure if that fact should make me happy or sad.

The way the contest usually works, is that works by British authors are eligible for the Protz Shield. All other nationalities compete for the Papazian Cup. But this year there were some non-English language entries. Being a generous kind of bloke, I've decided to introduce a third category to recognise that disinformation and plain old bollocks aren't the sole preserve of those writing in English. All I have to do is think of a name for the trophy. Anyone have a suggestion?

While you're pondering that, here are the entries for your amusement and . . what's the opposite of education?



Tandleman said...

    I claim that JW Lees invested India Pale Ale. It was called Jumbo Ale after Indian Elephants. You must have seen Lees Jumbo Ale in the brewing books, but not IPA, which proves my point.

    What do I get?



Atis said...

    I have plenty of claims, but unfortunately none of them in English.

    Just one quick translation from a quote from a recent press release (quoted by a news site below) by one of the largest Latvian breweries (Royal Unibrew).

    http://www.financenet.lv/nozares/348110-alus_sacensibas_uzvarejis_kastanu_alus

    Lacpleša Chestnut beer is a traditional ale, brewed in accordance with methods used in Europe since medieval times. Ale, similarly to Pilsener, denotes name of the beer style. Ales for the first time were brewed in the UK, London, in the 17th century. During those times, the most popular was the pale ale. Nowadays ales are widely available in England, Belgium and the North America.

    Lacpleša Kastanu alus ir tradicionals eils, bruvets saskana ar metodem, kas Eiropa pastav kopš viduslaikiem. Eils, tapat ka lagera vai Pilzenes tipa alus, ir alus veida nosaukums. Pirmo reizi eila tipa alus bruvets Lielbritanija, Londona, 17.gadsimta. Taja laika popularakais ir bijis gaišais eils. Musdienas eila tipa alus ir loti izplatits Anglija, Belgija un Ziemelamerika.




mentaldental said...

    "The last sub-variety is the Imperial IPA, so named because the beer was originally produced for exportation to czarist Russia."
    http://www.suite101.com/content/whats-an-ipa-a26747

    And there was me thinking this was just a previously non-existent style made-up by American home brewers.

    That's a cracking article by the way! Yes I know you have already quoted it but I liked this one.





StuartP said...

    OK, here's the usual nonsence from Beer Advocate, but with an interesting new twist:-

    First brewed in England and exported for the British troops in India during the late 1700s. To withstand the voyage, IPA's were basically tweaked Pale Ales that were, in comparison, much more malty, boasted a higher alcohol content and were well-hopped, as hops are a natural preservative. Historians believe that an IPA was then watered down for the troops, while officers and the elite would savor the beer at full strength. The English IPA has a lower alcohol due to taxation over the decades. The leaner the brew the less amount of malt there is and less need for a strong hop presence which would easily put the brew out of balance. Some brewers have tried to recreate the origianl IPA with strengths close to 8-9% abv.

    Watering-down the ale for the troops, eh? That's a new one to me. I wonder if there is any evidence for that...



Scott said...

    Scottish Ales according to Garrett Oliver in his book, "The Brewmaster's Table," p.153.

    "From the earliest day, Scottish beer was different. The hop cannot grow in cold, blustery Scotland... Even when the Scots started to import hops, they did so grudgingly and at considerable expense. Not only were hops expensive, they were English; this did not exactly endear the hop to the Scots, who constantly sought to blunt arrogant England's expansionism. Scottish beer drinkers cared little for the taste of hops, and brewers used them sparingly, only for their preservative qualities... Scottish beer even fermented differently from English beer. Colder ambient temperatures led to slow, cool fermentations by ale yeast strains that could stand the northern chill. Long cool fermentations tend to produce malty beers with muted fruitiness, even when ale yeasts are used. Scottish beer took weeks rather than days to ferment, and then settled in for a long cold storage before being served. In this regard it resembled Bavarian lagers more than it did English ales."





Craig said...

    I, uh... woah, wow. There are so many.

    http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/why-did-the-british-invent-india-pale-ale-and-how-do-the-hops-in-india-pale-ale-help-preserve-the-beer

    Ron, The last sentence is going to make you cry.


"India pale ale was invented by George Hodgson, a brewer at the Bow Brewery in East London in the 1790s, who took his pale ale recipe, increased the hop content considerably, and raised the alcohol content by adding extra grain and sugar.

Hodgson also added dry hops to the casks at priming, when sugar is added to allow secondary fermentation, and conditioned the beer with more sugar than was typical for pale ales.

The high sugar priming rate probably helped keep the yeast alive during the voyage and resulted in a very bitter, alcoholic, and sparkling pale ale that could withstand the rigors of travel while having a reasonable shelf life in India.

With such large amounts of hops and alcohol, what did it taste like?

Hops are the most expensive ingredient in any beer and a modern brewery probably couldn’t brew a genuine nineteenth-century India pale ale economically.

With so many hops, a young IPA would hit the cheek cells like paint stripper. However, the long voyage and the pale ale futures market meant the beer usually spent 12 months aging. This turned the hop bittering from an aggressive taste to a fine bouquet, which some writers described as reminding them of a French white wine.

We have carried out much research on IPA. In the brews we made, especially those based on Edinburgh recipes of around 1840, the taste after a year was unlike anything currently on the market. It certainly wasn’t overpoweringly bitter.

The combination of hops and alcohol provided a very powerful antibacterial environment, but there was still much that could go wrong.

The ale was vented before the long voyage to prevent serious explosions during the crossing and this may have introduced bacteria. It was also not easy to sterilize the casks before filling them. However, it was a trade worth pursuing because of the huge volume of empty cargo ships returning to the colonies and the cost of carriage was very low.

Many brewers who exported porter, or Imperial stout, to Russia during the nineteenth century increased the beer’s life by boosting its hop and alcohol content.

These dark porters, brewed in England but popular with Russian royalty, were high in alcohol, sweet, and dense, and survived the journey from Britain to the Baltic and across Russia. They are still popular in the Baltic states, where they are still brewed. Samuel Smith’s of Yorkshire produces a fine example.

At the same time as IPAs were becoming popular, the first golden lagers of Plzen (known as pilsners) were spreading fast, making use of the new railways and liberal doses of Saaz hops.

Most IPAs tend to be bitters that are hoppier than the norm, although a handful of “historical IPAs” weighing in at 6 percent or more alcohol by volume, still less than the 10 percent plus of the originals, are brewed by such micro-breweries as Burton Bridge and Freeminer."







Gavin said...

    I haven't got the actual quote but Protz had a classic one in Beers of the World a few years back.

    Holt, Plant, and Deakin used to make a premium bitter called Entire. This beer is now being reproduced under the Old Swan, Ma Pardoes brand. In an issue of Beers of the World from a few years ago, Roger Protz claims that in the Midlands the word Entire refers not to Porter but to a type of strong pale Mild, his theory being based entirely on the existence of Pardoe's Entire, which is a bitter.




Gavin said...

    Finally, Entire (4.4%) is a strong amber mild, a Black Country speciality that is quite different to the 18th century London style known as Entire or Porter.




Matt said...

    One last entry for the Papazian Cup, it's brothers, Jason and Todd Alström, founders of BeerAdvocate, on altbier:

    "long before lagers Germanic brewers brewed ales, which have been crafted in Germany for at least 3,000 years. Not many specific styles of beer can be traced thousands of years, however Altbier is one of them. An ale at heart, "alt" is German for "old" and helps to reflect how far back this style has been around."

    http://beeradvocate.com/articles/260

    Where to start?

    The idea that altbier has existed unchanged for thousands of years. And the maddening, ahistorical insistence on fitting it into the American homebrewers' category of 'ales'. Their seeming ignorance that lagering is what makes an altbier makes me wonder if they have ever been to Düsseldorf and drunk it. If they ever saw it described as an 'obergäriges Lagerbier' their brains might just explode.




Rod said...

    During the 18th century, both Munich and Vienna were well-established brewing centers....... They differed, however, in that Vienna was brewing ales and Munich, its renowned bottom-fermented lagerbiers.

    Florian Kemp at allaboutbeer.com





Rod said...

    "Porter is said to have been popular with transportation workers of Central London, hence the name. Most traditional British brewing documentation from the 1700’s state that Porter was a blend of three different styles: an old ale (stale or soured), a new ale (brown or pale ale) and a weak one (mild ale), with various combinations of blending and staleness. The end result was also commonly known as "Entire Butt" or "Three Threads" and had a pleasing taste of neither new nor old. It was the first truly engineered beer........."


    Beer Advocate, beer styles section. There are many contenders for the prize to be found here.




JessKidden said...

    One of my recent favorites, from a Boston, MA, USA based website about beer and wine called "French Oak":

    "Lager is the German word for “storage” and the beer is named so as the beer is stored for at least three weeks before being served and is most often served chilled. For this reason and due to lagers’ colder and longer fermentation process, ales had long been more available and widely consumed than lagers. But in 1953, lagers became very popular due to a newly invented way to ferment lagers called “continuous fermentation”. The process allowed for the production of lager beer at a much faster pace and made possible the mass production of lager beer at a rate competitive with ales."

    http://frenchoaktv.com/beer/lagers/




Rod said...

    I've mentioned this in the original Protz Shield thread, but I now enter it as a formal contender -

    On beerpages.com it says that pilsner was first brewed in
    "the Czech village of Pilsen."

    Three mistakes in five words is going to take some beating, although I have to say that my personal favourite for sheer head-shaking "you-what-ness?" is Pete Brown's assertion that Hoegaarden is a Bitter............




Rod said...

    "Pale Ale is an American term for Ales; other countries use different names for Ales. For example England calls them Bitters, Germany Altbier and so on. Although Pale Ales are generally medium bodied with a light golden to light copper color, India Pale Ale, Amber Ale, and Red Ale fall into the Pale Ale category."

    "Stouts and Porters are generally very malty because they are made using roasted malts and barley. There are also other ingredients that are used like oatmeal, coffee, chocolate and milk. They are usually heavy bodied"

    "England is one of the few countries in the world where ales are more the rule than the exception. Also beer is still traditionally matured in caskets at the pubs, instead of at he brewery. Beer in England is normally served at cellar temperatures.

    Beers is eastern England generally contain more hops than other regions. Traditional styles of English beer are Bitter, Mild, Old Ale, Brown Ale, India Pale Ale, Porter and Stout."

    "When most of the United Kingdom weren’t using hops because of growing climates, Scotland imported hops extensively for their brews."

    "Pale lager does not have a noticeable amount of bitterness or aroma. This type of beer includes quite a few varieties, but the best know are the Helles and the Pilsner. It can be difficult to differentiate the two, but it becomes easier when one remembers that in a Helles, the hops flavors should dominate, while in a Pilsner, the malt should take precedence."

    Read more at Suite101: Types of Lager http://www.suite101.com/content/types-of-lager-a296566#ixzz18D4ydqDY

    You will have understood by now that this is a target-rich environment...........




Rod said...

    I promise this is the last, but it's a good one.....


    "was probably monks and nuns who discovered the importance of adding hops......
    Flavoring beer with hops was known as early as the 9th Century, however, because of the difficulty in determining the proper ratio of hops to other ingredients, using hops only gradually became an accepted practice...... Many countries soon adopted laws requiring the use of hops. In England, such laws led to riots and revolts because the English preferred naturally sweet ale to bitter beer."

    Read more at Suite101: The History of Beer - Dark Ages, Middle Ages & Discovery of Hops http://www.suite101.com/content/a-brief-history-of-beer-part-2-a250635#ixzz18D8QxAVW

    A lot of nonsense there I think




Barm said...

    I've seen Protz argue a couple of times that the word lager "may" be etymologically related to English larder. This insight is based on both word beginning with "la" and having something to do with cool places.






Stan Hieronymus said...

    "German brewer’s in the medieval period brewed beer in its most pure form. German beer purity law of 1516 prohibited use of any additives in beer. The only ingredients added in beer were malt (rice or barley), hops, yeast and water."

    - http://www.buzzle.com/articles/preservatives-in-beer.html

    (The word rice has since been removed, but was there as recently as Dec. 4. The original did not include the word "Reinheitsgebot," but that is there now.)





Yuri Katunin said...

    Ron!
    May I also particapate?
    That's great I think to get a prize: http://www.beer-pages.com/2009/11/brewdog-go-bonkers.html:
    "...it's not beer at all, as brewer's yeast cannot work beyond a strength of 12 or 13 degrees. "
    :-))
    Probably a live in paralell world. I could easely ferment up to 21% without any speciphic technics. Just yeasts... They do exist.
    Warm fermented regards to Roger!




Steve Hannigan said...

    This looks like a fine tale! Embellished with the statement that it was healthier for the fighting soldier.

    IPAs (India Pale Ales) were originally designed for export to the British Army out in India – the higher levels of hops and alcohol both acting as preservatives to keep the beer in top condition during the long hot sea voyage. IPA’s were developed to stop soldiers drinking the ridiculously strong local tipple – arrack, which, combined with infected water, was putting close to one third of the army out of action.
    Chimera will quench the thirst of even the most parched soldier! The Empire, and therefore civilisation, was built because of beers like this.

    http://www.downtonbrewery.com/en/our-beers/regular-beers/chimera-i-p-a/index.php





Rod said...

    I knew I'd soon be able to come up with a couple of contenders. How about -

    "Technically, Hoegaarden is a bitter rather than a lager - it's top-fermented. It's also a very old, traditional recipe."

    Or do you prefer -

    "In 1876, he [Adolphus Busch] discovered Pasteur, and found a great pilsner recipe in the Czech town of Budweis, and Budweiser beer was born." ?

    Both from Man Walks into a Pub by Pete Brown. Doubtless I can find plenty more where they came form....






Matt said...

    Here are a couple of recent words of wisdom from Protz.

    First, on the launch of Greene King's Very Special IPA:

    "The original IPA recipes used an abundance of malt and hops and the large quantities of pale malt provided sufficient natural sugar to produce the high alcohol content that characterises the beer.

    "Because the hop acts as an antiseptic and a preservative, the addition of vast quantities of hops added further protection for the quality of the ale during the long voyage to India."

    http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/festivals/2010/11/greene-king-ipa-is-very-very-s.html

    And second, on Budweiser Budvar's decision to sell unpasteurised lager in the UK:

    “We are now getting close to a real ale version of lager, how it was 100 years ago. We are tasting tradition and defending the traditional way of making lager beer.”

    http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=7&storycode=68454&c=1

    Hmm, I'm pretty sure lager was being force-carbonated and pasteurised by 1910...





Ed said...

    Ben McFarland for saying before the invention of Pilsner Urquell in 1842 "all beer was dark, cloudy and more often than not a little lousy".

    Or should it be him saying "Before white-coated boffins with spectacles, clipboards, pipettes and brains the size of Luxembourg discovered pasteurization in 1860, all beer was made using spontaneous fermentation"?





The Beer Nut said...

    I nominate Kristy McCready of MolsonCoors for this one. On the subject of Grolsch, last Tuesday:
    "a beer brewed to the same recipe since 1615."

    Should corroborating evidence appear I will, of course, withdraw the nomination.






StuartP said...

    From 'beer-pages.com - all you need to know about beer'

    PALE ALE
    A name applied to a particular bottled-version of draught bitter, pale ale was first brewed in London in the mid- 18th century, but did not gain fame until Bass produced this style of beer at its Burton-on-Trent brewery, since when Burton has become synonymous with pale ale. This is because the Burton water contains gypsum, which precipitates the most ultra fine sediments suspended in a beer, providing a much paler shade of ale: hence Pale Ale, thus Burton Pale Ale. See also India Pale Ale.

    So, the creation of Pale Ale: nothing to do with the manufacture of Pale Malt, but all down to gypsum in the water (!) acting as finings. And it is only available in bottles.





Pete Brown said...

    Not directly beer related, but in his CAMRA IPA book, my favourite RPism is "India was first colonised by the British in 1782."

    Among the thousands of British people who lived in places like Surat, Madras, Calcutta and Bombay from 1608 onwards, this must have come as a big shock to Clive of India, who fought the Battle of Plassey in 1757, establishing British ownership of Bengal and shattering the power of the Mughal Empire.

    And unlike malt and hops arcana, that's something we all learned about at school...





Ryan said...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504&feature=related
    If this were in writing, it quite possibly might win






Matt said...

    OK, here are my entries for the Papazian Cup, both involving the man himself:

    "Using my 5.5% alcohol by volume (abv) homebrew recipe for a Czech-American style “amber-Helles” floral hopped lager we ramped up the recipe to 8.3 % with uniquely American techniques and blends of international hops, malt and yeast."

    An "amber helles", seems like yet another "craft beer" style has been born thanks to American homebrewers. Wonder what the "uniquely American techniques" used in brewing it are?

    Followed by an "Imperial Helles Bock": "The beer is unique. It does not fit any particular style."

    http://www.examiner.com/beer-in-national/charlie-fred-and-ken-s-imperial-helles-bock-released-by-sierra-nevada-details-here





Oblivious said...

    Here are my two so far, complements of the BJCP

    Traditional Scottish session beers reflecting the indigenous ingredients (water, malt), with less hops than their English counterparts (due to the need to import them). Long, cool fermentations are traditionally used in Scottish brewing.

    Mild: May have evolved as one of the elements of early porters.






Rod said...

    Guess who, talking about Mild -

    "The name came from its low level of hop bitterness, not a lack of alcohol.....in the 18th century, drinkers started to turn against the extreme roastiness and bitterness of the porters and stouts that dominated the market.....I imagine that brewers drastically reduced the strength of mild following World War Two to save on duty. It didn't do the style any favours...."






Rod said...

    "BROWN ALE
    This is the bottled version of draught mild, thus the opposite number to pale ale (the bottled version of bitter), which is why a "brown and light" is the equivalent to a "mild and bitter" for the bottled beer drinker. Brown ale is dark brown in colour, slightly sweet to very sweet in flavour and often a touch stronger than it pale ale cousin. Despite its fame, Newcastle Brown is not a true brown ale, being much lighter in colour, less sweet and significantly stronger in alcohol"

    Quite a lot of nonsense there, at
    beer-pages.com






Pivní Filosof said...

    I have a couple of gems by Harry Sasón, a celebrity chef from Colombia.

    "In fact, beer and bread had the same origin: if you add more flour than water and let it ferment, you get bread; and if you add more water than flour and let it ferment, you get beer."

    "...based on their colour, beers can be divided in pale and dark, and the difference is that the latter are brewed at higher temperatures and with roasted barley and malt, which adds a creamier density and a more bitter taste"

    And my favourite.

    "...Lagers, a kind of pale beer of moderate flavour, very common in the US".





Matt said...

    Anyone think bitter and pale ale are synonyms for the same style of beer? Here's an American homebrewer to put us right:

    "Bitter, Best Bitter and English Pale Ale are the three styles of beer that make up...Light English Ale in the BJCP style guide... They all originated in England with the advent of lightly-kilned malt in the late 1700's... The BJCP style guide separates them based on starting gravity...English Bitter is the lowest-strength version of this beer. It is a session beer, with a starting gravity of 1.030 to 1.03. With an alcohol content of only about 3½%, you can start early on this one. The name bitter suggest a high hop level, but this is not necessarily the case. The name actually comes from a comparison to English Mild, a brown ale with only half of the bitterness...Best Bitter, also called Special Bitter, starts off with an original gravity of 1.039 to 1.045. The malt profile is usually much more apparent in these beers. The bitterness level is a bit higher than bitter, though there is considerable overlap. Fuller's London Pride represents this style, though it is considerably maltier than most examples...English Pale Ale is the strongest beer in the family. This beer is generally designated Extra Special Bitter when served on tap, or Pale Ale when served in bottles. Starting gravity ranges from 1.046 to 1.065. Both malt flavor and hop bitterness level considerably higher in this beer. Bass Ale is typical of this beer."

    http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/englishale.htm








Jeff Alworth said...

    This stands as one of the oddest press releases I've ever gotten, from Estrella Damm in Spain, on the subject of their beer, Indedit:

    “INEDIT was developed from the belief that there was a need for a beer that could complement a dining experience," said Ferran Adrià, elBulli Executive Chef.... INEDIT is a unique coupage of barley malt and wheat with spices which provide an intense and complex aroma.... With its delicate carbonation, INEDIT adapts to acidic, sweet and sour flavors. Its appearance is slightly cloudy, and INEDIT has a yeasty sensation with sweet spices, causing a creamy and fresh texture, delicate carbonic long aftertaste, and pleasant memory."






Wasn't that a lovely dinner of disininformation? Try not to get indigestion.

The winners will be announced soon. Before christmas, I promise.

This is a different treatment of the recent survey of Turks in Austria, with some extras from the perspective of a Bavarian paper, The Bavarian Courier. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

Islam More Important Than Democracy
by Detlef Kleinert

Unsettling Study: Integration in Austria — Many ethnic Turkish immigrants want archaic, Islamic sharia law

Vienna: In our neighbor land of Austria, too, integration of Turkish immigrants is proving difficult. A new unsettling study verifies that more than half of Austrian Turks want introduction of the cruel sharia law.

When the subject of integration is discussed in Austria, Turkish immigrants frequently see themselves as victims. “Racism manifests itself from day to day,” quotes the Viennese daily newspaper Die Presse, nowadays a self-appointed expert on immigration. The question of whether the majority society can expect immigrants to learn the language and to — if not wholly take on — at least accept the constitution and the culture, is of no real interest to many Turks in Austria. It is enough for them to have a stereotyped enemy on whom they can offload all shortcomings.

A study by the Gfk Austria (offshoot of the Society for Consumption Research based in Nuremberg) authorized by the Austrian interior ministry and recently published — “Integration in Austria” — confirms the extent to which Turkish immigrants are different from immigrants from other countries. More than half of the approximately 220,000 ethnic Turkish immigrants — 2.65% of the entire Austrian population of 8.3 million — in all seriousness demand that the Austrian justice system introduce Islamic law, i.e., sharia. For almost three-quarters (72%), following religious commandments is more important than democracy. For 57%, religious laws and regulations are more important than Austria’s. And almost half of the Turkish immigrants believe the many criminals in Austria show where democracy leads.

The study also shows: Young Turks develop a strong attachment to the subculture; they feel more strongly tied to Islam than to the society in which they live. And that is true even though in most cases they have been born and have grown up in Austria. 45% of the Turks confess to lacking sympathetic understanding of Austrian society, its lifestyle and dominant values. And about half of the ethnic Turkish population feel more bound to their old homeland than to Austria. 55% refuse a non-Turkish marriage partner for their son or daughter.

Especially interesting — and contradicting the complaints of the Turkish speakers — is the fact that other immigrants (1.4 million foreigners live in Austria) have far fewer problems with integration. While the Turks feel themselves to be only 26% integrated, with Poles for example, it is 53%. This may have something to do with chosen media. 76% of Turks watch Turkish TV daily and only 30% click on ORF (Austrian Broadcasting).

The attitude of many Turks aside, this study shows a very positive picture of integration in Austria. The great majority of immigrants feel that they are integrated; more than three-quarters consider it “very important” for immigrants to be committed to learn German. Once again, it is shown to be superficial to talk about “foreigners” in connection with integration. In reality, there is no “foreigner problem” in Austria, definitely though. a problem with Turkish immigrants.

This picture of Turkish mentality can be completed by another survey carried out with the support of the EU. It concerned a Jewish community, not in Austria but in Turkey. According to it, four of ten Turks refuse to live near a Jew; about a third don’t want a Christian neighbor. More than half the Muslim Turks completely reject non-Muslims being active in the Turkish justice system, in the army, in the police or in the secret service. And more than 40% spoke out against Jews or Christians having important positions in science or the health services.

That is not all: 57% of Turks do not want an atheist as a neighbor, 20% reject a foreigner as a neighbor. Even Vice President Bülent Arinc called this survey result shocking; not far from his mind was the hoped-for entry to the EU. From Premier Erdogan — often identified as “moderate” — no such thing was to be heard.

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Chancellor's remarks, which claimed multiculturalism had 'failed utterly', interpreted as a shift rightwards from previous views

Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the death of multiculturalism in Germany, saying that it had "failed utterly" , in what has been interpreted as a startling shift from her previous views. The German leader said it had been an illusion to think that Germans and foreign workers could "live happily side by side.

"We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality," she said at a conference of the youth wing of her Christian Democratic Union party at the weekend, referring to the gastarbeiters, or guest workers, who arrived in Germany to fill a labour shortage during the economic boom of the 1960s.

"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other'. But this concept has failed, and failed utterly," she said, without elaborating on the nature and causes of this failure.

Merkel's verdict marks a shift in her previously liberal line on immigration which had always put her at odds with the more conservative wing of the party.

While she stressed in the same speech that immigrants were welcome in Germany and that Islam was a part of the nation's modern-day culture, her remarks positioned her closer to Klaus Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier of the Christian Social Union, who last week called for an end to immigration from Turkey and Arab countries.

They also align her with Thilo Sarrazin, the former Bundesbank member whose book on how the failure of many of Germany's 16 million immigrants to integrate was contributing to Germany's decline led to his dismissal.

Sharing the same podium as Merkel in Potsdam, Seehofer also said "multi-culturalism is dead" and that both the rightwing parties were committed to a "dominant German culture". If Germany did not revise its immigration policies, he said, it was in danger of becoming "the world's welfare office".

Seehofer insisted his statement was "an attempt to stop rightwing lunatics" but Jurgen Trittin, for the Greens, called the comments "shabby" and in danger of "lending social acceptability to views similar to those of rightwing extremists". There is a labour shortage in Germany. The chamber of industry and commerce has said that Germany is short of 400,000 skilled workers and that the gap is costing €25bn a year, equivalent to 1% of growth annually.

While industrialists have called on the government to remove obstacles stopping more skilled workers entering Germany, citing lengthy bureaucratic procedures as well as unrealistic thresholds, others say that long-term unemployed German workers should be given more of a chance first. Merkel insisted in her speech that immigrant workers should not be considered "until we have done all we can to help our own people to become qualified and give them a chance".

The issue has caused tension within Merkel's year-old coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats.

Labour minister Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Merkel's party, has said it was an illusion to believe people were queueing up to enter Germany.

"For several years more people have been leaving our country than entering it," she said in an interview. "Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward."

Merkel faces pressure to take a tougher line on immigration, particularly on so-called "integrationsverweigerer" or those immigrants who show a lack of willingness to adapt to the majority culture, by, for example, refusing to attend German language classes.

While trying to embrace both sides of the debate, including repeatedly calling on Germans to accept that foreigners are a part of their country, Merkel cannot have ignored the popular response with which Sarrazin's book was received, nor the repeated polls in which Germans have indicated a growing intolerance towards immigrants which observers say is linked to fears about economic stability, even though the economy is showing strong signs of recovery.

Last week a study by the Friedrich Ebert foundation found more than 30% of people questioned agreed that Germany was "overrun by foreigners", while a similar number said they believed that some immigrants had only come to German to take advantage of its social welfare, and "should be sent home when jobs are scarce".

The interactive infographic overview titled "Das Oktoberfest Heute" [br-online.de] (designed for a separate pop-up window accessible here) was produced for the Bavarian Television website to reveal all sorts of statistical information surrounding the yearly Oktoberfest festival in Munich. For those who never heard about this drinking carnivale: the Oktoberfest is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world's largest fair, with some 6 million people attending every year.

The shown statistical information ranges from the expected weather (cold), over the historical beer consumption (~1.643.204l), the used electricity (~2.960.000kWh) or the number of mass-fightings (38), to the total number of visitors from New Zealand (4). While designed in the German language, most information is self-explanatory. Try to click several times on some of the line graphs to reveal more detailed information.

See also:
. Uber-Widget Dashboard
. World Cup Dashboard
. Museum Statistics Dashboard

As the debate about immigration and integration rages on in Germany, conservative Bavarian politician Alexander Dobrindt said on Friday that the country must protect the German language in its constitution.

Can the simplistic populism of a Tea Party-style political movement work here?

European elites sometimes look down their noses at the populist style of American politics and wilder manifestations of the "culture wars" that deform much of US public debate. For their part, Americans reply that three times in the 20th century their money and armies rescued Europe from militarism and worse.

This week another self-styled rescue operation was launched when champions of the Tea Party movement — patron saint, Sarah Palin — came ashore to support the Taxpayers' Alliance and other populist grassroots movements keen to shrink the state and the tax bill of the (mostly) better off.

Will it work here? There is a distinctive tradition of conspiracy theory politics which has been evident in American life since the republic's 1780s infancy, when a bunch of naive Enlightenment rationalists called the Bavarian Illuminati – supposedly mixed up with Freemasonry and that leftie, Thomas Jefferson – caused panic in the wake of the French Revolution.

Masons, immigrants, especially Catholics, Jews, communists and, of course, assorted racial minorities have all been targets of virulent popular movements. Western Europe had them too, and persecution of minorities recurs, as France's Roma are being reminded.

But there has been nothing since the anti-fascist inoculation of 1945 to match the McCarthyite witch-hunts of the 50s, the absurdities of the anti-red John Birch Society, let alone the kind of paranoia which denounces Barack Obama as a Kenyan-born communist/socialist/fascist bent on destroying the American way via healthcare reform.

The core belief which distinguishes what the historian Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) called "the paranoid style of American politics" is a visceral dislike of government, especially the federal government in distant Washington DC. Ronald Reagan's joke that the most terrifying sentence in the language is "I'm from the government, I'm here to help" does not amuse voters in Canada, let alone Europe. Flood-stricken Pakistanis could probably do with a spot of decent government, as could New Orleans.

But a strand of Americans, especially people who see themselves as the dispossessed "real" people of the heartland (not those cosmopolitans in New York in LA) see Washington not simply as greedy and corrupt but as a plot to undermine liberty and free enterprise.

Under strong leadership, such "know-nothing" movements have usually been beaten back by progress and prosperity. But the American middle (ie skilled working) class has been suffering job losses and wage stagnation for decades, its living standards sustained by cheap credit and cheap Chinese goods until the 2007-9 bank bust.

In such circumstances the Tea Party's simplistic populism strikes a chord. Strange then that America's poor have borne the burden of reckless tax cuts and deficit spending policies (military casualties too) of wealthy Republican presidents, both Bushes, while Clinton and Obama – both children of poverty – are excoriated.

Europeans are not so easily inclined to hate the state or socialised medicine, more widely resistant to string-pulling by wealthy Berlusconis or Murdochs. The Tea Party too may implode. But as global power shifts eastwards, only the foolish would dismiss resurgent extremism on either side of the pond.

The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for line level cooks to join its culinary team for a period of 20 months. Minimum qualifications: Culinary Degree; plus 2 years experience in the culinary world. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Positions available with start date September - November. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications. For interview appointments in Seattle in September, send personalized e-mail and resume to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Please do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

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Filed under: Aftermarket, Motorsports, Coupe, Performance, Videos, Celebrities, Luxury, Racing

When VF Engineering comes to party, they do so in the biggest way possible. The crew recently invited the guys from The Smoking Tire out to Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch for a little taste of exactly what the tuner is all about. Instead of bringing a handful of reworked cars for an hour or so of track antics, the VF Engineering team rolled out every supercharged beast in their possession. That means that while the company's relatively mild mannered 510 horsepower Porsche 911 was in attendance, as was the equally sinister widebody BMW M3.

If you've spent any time perusing the VF Engineering site, odds are you know a little about that diabolical Bavarian. The car uses a custom-fabricated intake manifold that spends its off time on display in the Met. It's just that gorgeous. But as pretty as all of the custom metal work is, it pales in comparison to how impressive the power figures are. Running just six pounds of boost, the VF Engineering team has managed to wring 620 horsepower from the Bimmer. How's that for tire-shredding glory? Go ahead and hit the jump to see Matt Farah tear it up in both cars. But be warned, there's some slight NSFW language.

[Source: YouTube via The Smoking Tire]

Continue reading Video: The Smoking Tire wrings out the 620 hp VF Engineering BMW M3

Video: The Smoking Tire wrings out the 620 hp VF Engineering BMW M3 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re a self-respecting man and you haven’t played a second of foosball, then you should be ashamed of yourself. Now, if you do know what the game is, then we have quite a surprise for you.

The boys from Audi have taken a break from designing vehicles to present to us the most awesome foosball table you can possibly ask for. Not only is it made from pretty state-of-the-art materials, like aluminum casing, but the Audi foosball table, at least according to the folks from Ingolstadt, "meets the high standards demanded in professional tournaments."

According to Wolfgang Egger, Head of Audi Group Design,"It’s a attractive task to transfer our cars’ design language to other day-to-day articles, and the results are often surprising! The Audi Design soccer table features large-area, flowing surfaces and sharp, clearly defined lines. The brushed aluminum frame creates an exciting contrast to the white body. Our design team looks forward to displaying one of these tables at our Concept Design studio in Munich."

Each of the 20 special edition foosball tables will be built by Leonhart, a Bavarian company that has produced foosball table games since 1949 and is the benchmark for which all other foosball tables are compared to. Leonhart will be building the tables from the ground up with Audi’s design being used as the platform to which the tables will be made. Deliciously enticing, isn’t it?

But as is the case with something as desirable as this table, the price tag to scoop up one of the 20 tables isn’t for the faint of heart - or money. One table will set you back the equivalent of $16,000, which means that even if you want one, there’s a big chance that your bank account will probably convince you otherwise.

Special-edition Audi Foosball Table can be yours for $16,000 originally appeared on topspeed.com on Tuesday, 1 June 2010 13:00 EST.

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The ‘Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members and their families stationed overseas, is looking for Massage Therapists and Estheticians to join its Spa team for a period of 13 months (entry level only). The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications. For an interview appointment in Seattle in June send personalized e-mail and resume to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Please do not sent any attachments; send resume/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality/food service industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications. For interview appointments in Seattle in June, send personalized e-mail and resume to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality/food service industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications. For interview appointments in Seattle, WA in June, send personalized e-mail and resume to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

 

Beckett with a different personality disorder – Greg, Goodreads reviewer

There are geniuses and there are geniuses. And Spike Milligan may have been one or the other. Spike wrote other novels but none betters this. It took him four years and he swore he'd never write another:

This damn book nearly drove me mad. I started it in 1958 and doodled with it for 4 years. I don’t think I could go through it all again...

There is, it is said, a fine line between madness and genius and Spike Milligan has slipped off it many times in his career on both sides. Mostly he has straddled it which does sound painful.

Puckoon is a work of genius and a work of madness, about three-quarters genius to one-quarter madness. The more the book progresses the more jumbled it gets and eventually it crumbles to pieces in our hands, the main protagonist literally left hanging but it works in exactly the same way that Spike’s many TV sketches work where the characters are left mumbling, “What are we gonna do now?” whilst shuffling off camera.

Puckoon is a satire in exactly the same way that Dr. Strangelove is a satire and there are surprising similarities. Both deal with significant (and very serious) political events: with Puckoon it was the partitioning of Ireland; with Dr. Strangelove it was the threat of nuclear war. Both involve two warring nations: Russia vs. America and Britain vs. Ireland and therefore different ideologies: communism vs. democracy and Roman Catholicism vs. Protestantism. Both end in pandemonium. Actually they don’t but they could have if Kubrick had stuck with his original idea of a cream pie fight in the war room; Puckoon climaxes with a brawl in an old folks’ home. They were both written at the same time: Puckoon was published in 1963, Dr. Strangelove was released in 1964. They both involve ex-Goons: Milligan was chief writer but Peter Sellers’ ability to play multiple characters – as he does in Dr. Strangelove – went a long way to making the show a success.

The events in Puckoon take place over a few weeks in 1924 when the Boundary Commission has just about agreed on where the border between Northern and Southern Ireland will lie. The only thing that stands between them and getting to the pub before closing time is “the microcephalic community of Puckoon” a fictitious village which Spike locates “[s]everal and a half metric miles North East of Sligo”. When an accident destroys the surveyor’s equipment they decide to get the matter over with by all putting “one hand on the red pencil and draw[ing] a line that falls naturally and peacefully into place:”

In what was meant to be a solemn moment, all hands held the pencil and pulled slowly across the map. All was silent, the room filled with suspicion. Occasionally a gasp rent the silence as they all strained for the advantage.

‘Steady, someone’s pulling to the benefits of Ulster.’

‘Lies, all lies.’

‘Who gave that jerk?’

‘Ah! I felt that.’

‘Swine!’

Finally the pencil reached its destination. Faces broke into relieved smiles and a series of rapid unplanned handshakes ensued.

The problem is that the border cuts right through the heart of Puckoon separating houses from outhouses, the church from its graveyard and annexing a corner of the pub where the locals crowd because the drink is thirty percent cheaper there. Here is a good example of the chaos this causes:

Mr Murtagh, stinking town clerk and amnesic, arose with a sheaf of closely typed quarto papers, removed his reading glasses and began to read.

‘Ahem! Report of an accident on the Ballyshag Bridge over the River Puckoon. As we all know this bridge has been divided in two by an unthoughtful boundary commission.’

There were three cries of ‘Shame!’ and one of ‘Bastards!’

Last week, a motor car containing a driver and a charabanc of old pensioners were in collision. The car finished on the Ulster side of the border and the charabanc on ours. As a result the case was being held in two countries at once. Witnesses were rushed by high-powered car from court to court to give evidence and they weren’t getting any younger. The driver of the charabanc, a Mr Norrington, a retired English actor, had been thrown from his driving seat, his body laying athwart the border; now his legs were being sued by the passengers of the charabanc, and his top half was claiming damages from the car driver.

The solicitors predicted that the case would last three years because of the travel involved.

It’s farcical. It’s supposed to be farcical, though no more farcical than building a wall through the middle of Berlin. The Berlin Wall, which began its constriction in 1961, wasn’t the only wall apparently and more than 20 German villages encountered a similar fate. One was Mödlareuth:

While the 166km-long Berlin Wall turned West Berlin into a capitalist island in communist East Germany, Mödlareuth was divided by the other wall, the 1,400km inner-German border of concrete, minefields and watchtowers.

After the second World War the Bavarian side, including the village church, was suddenly part of the American, later Allied sector, while the school and the pub was in the Soviet zone.

[...]

A 700m-long concrete wall, three metres 30cm high, was eventually constructed through the centre of the village in 1966, surrounded by a death-strip with automatic machine guns and a separate run for guard dogs. – "United" German village remains divided, The Irish Times, Oct 4, 2005

 

I have no idea whether these events were known to Spike when he wrote this book but clearly the arbitrariness of borders was.

When an attempt is made to bury one of the locals across the border in what had now become “British territory”, Barrington, the customs officer in charge of the Border Customs Post, has a few preconditions:

‘I presume the deceased will be staying this side permanently?’ ‘Unless someone invents a remarkable drug – yes,’ answered the priest. ‘Then,’ went on Barrington, ‘he will require the following: an Irish passport stamped with a visa, to be renewed annually for the rest of his – ‘ Barrington almost said ‘life’ – ‘stay’, he concluded.

Well, that was that. While the deceased is off having his passport photo taken it’s decided that all corpses on the Unionist side of the border be exhumed, repatriated and reinterred on Irish soil. A plan is concocted involving the church’s newly appointed gardener, “Dan Milligan, son of a famous paternity order”.

Milligan is the reluctant hero of the book. We meet him right at the start. He is the personification of idleness:

With a roof over his head he had ceased to work, living off his [war] pension and his wits, both hopelessly inadequate.

For a while it feels as if the book is going to be Milligan-centric but as more and more characters are added to the mix he does tend to get lost in the fray – both the metaphorical and the literal one. In many respects this feels like a book of cameos because many people – Milligan’s wife, for example – only appear for a few lines and then vanish again. In the film adaptation Milligan’s wife is played by one of Spike’s daughters and she’s barely onscreen for a minute.

What makes Milligan such a fascinating character is the fact that he’s self-aware; he realises that he’s a character in a work of fiction. There are several interchanges with the writer. At one point in the novel, he stops and “looks” at the bottom of that page of the book (the one we're reading) to see which page he's on and in another he says:

I’m gettin’ out of dis chapter, it’s too bloody unlucky for me.

There are occasions too when the author addresses us directly. It’s fun to see the fourth wall treated like this especially when Milligan begins to lean on his relationship with the author getting him to change the plot to suit him. At one point finding himself about to be shot by the sentry guard...

Milligan looked imploringly out of the page.

‘For God’s sake don’t let him shoot me, Mister.’

at which point the author has the soldier about-turn and march away. Of course Milligan can’t resist pressing his luck:

‘God, you got all the power in this book.’ He stroked the stubble on his chin. ‘You havin’ all the power of de author, can I have a request?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dat dirty soldier that nearly pissed on us, make him do something that will get him into trouble.’

The soldier returned to his post, sloped arms, fired three rounds in the air, dropped his trousers and sang Ave Maria. The Sgt of the Guard came hurrying from his tent.

‘Private Worms?’ he shouted, ‘You’re under arrest.’

A powerhouse raspberry was the reply.

Needless to say the author doesn’t always jump when Milligan snaps his fingers. Oh, no. And Milligan gets his comeuppance by the end of the book.

Apart from the many asides – Spike loves to digress – there is an actual honest-to-goodness subplot involving a considerable amount of explosives which the I.R.A. decide should be smuggled though the checkout in a coffin. The I.R.A. for the purpose of this book consists of “[t]wo little men with the arse out of their trousers”, Shamus Ford and Lenny Braddock, thereafter referred to simply as “two ragged-arse men” who never have more than one cigarette between the two of them. Two hundred and eighty pounds of T.N.T. masquerading as the late Mrs Eileen Ford passes through the border crossing with all the requisite paperwork and is buried on the English side. Needless to say when Milligan and his cohorts sneak over to dig up their coffins they return with one filled with explosives and the bombers head off with the body of the late Dan Doonan.

There is also a sub-subplot concerning an escaped black panther which no doubt to keep costs down never made it into the film and I doubt it appears in the stage play either.

It’s easy to read Puckoon superficially as a very silly book. It is a very silly book. Milligan’s taste in humour is silly. All you have to do is listen to five minutes of any Goon Show to realise what makes him laugh. It’s the flexibility of language. With the Goons he had the option to include silly noises and with his Q series there were many visual gags but the core of his humour has always been the subversion of the Queen’s English and indeed the British establishment:

"Spike's humour was all about irreverence, and I like that," says [Richard] Attenborough. "I know I'm regarded as an establishment figure, but I was crucified by the establishment for Oh! What a Lovely War, Gandhi and Cry Freedom. So I relate to Spike. Irreverence is an essential part of our culture. I admire that enormously." – Bob Flynn, 'It's fantastical, magical stuff', The Guardian, 23 July 2002

Humour has changed over the years. Things you could get away with in the 1960s are verboten now. There will be those who look at Puckoon and regard it as sexist and racist and it is. It has also sold over six million copies and never been out of print. In the same way that South Park will have a go at anyone Milligan was the same. The book has been filmed as I’ve said (with mixed success) and also adapted for the stage. Theatre director Zoë Seaton was well aware of the flaws in the original text but felt that today’s audiences were sophisticated enough to take Milligan’s politically incorrect flourishes in their stride:

It was written in the 1960s and you’ve got a Jewish character with a big nose, and a panto-style Chinese policeman. That’s something we’re not used to nowadays. But we wanted to be true to the book, and we also remember what Spike said: “I’m not racist, I hate everybody.”

The simple fact is that no one comes out of this book smelling of roses, especially the Irish who are caricatured to within an inch of their lives; the Paddywhackery is laid on with a trowel. Spike did not hate everyone by the way. He was a great humanitarian and in some of the more serious moments in the book, all two or three of them, that comes through like the conversation in Holy Drinker between Dr. Goldstein and the village grocer O’Brien on the subject of abortion in which Goldstein has this to say:

It’s a bloody cosy little argument that, for the likes of get-rich-quick- abortionists. It’s not a child, it’s just formed, it’s just – it’s just – just anything they want to call it to ease their bloody consciences! A mother sees her child born deformed due to some drug she took during pregnancy and has the child put to sleep! What right have we? When a man is mutilated in the war we don’t kill him! We are the cowards. We can’t stand seeing a deformed child. That child could grow up and enjoy life. Happiness is a state of mind, not body.

I’m not sure how well these asides fit in with the general tone of the book – he certainly didn’t preach during his Goon Shows – but they are good points and often overlooked when people talk about the book. The fact is they really get lost, buried in the onslaught of gags and wordplay which is what people love about him. A lot of the time you’ll read things and not always realise he’s being funny like this malapropism:

It was only the rubber tyres on me bike save me from being electrified.

or referring to himself as “an unsuspecting’ human bean”. It’s an old joke. It doesn’t matter. A younger, better one will be along in a minute. But probably what stands out is the Irish “logic”. Milligan asks Murphy why he’s wearing a “terrible lookin’ trilby” to which Murphy replies:

We sold der hat stand, an’ dere’s no place ter hang it.

Or take this interchange:

‘I heered a crash,’ said Murphy. ‘I examined meself, and I knew it wasn’t me.’

‘It was me,’ said Milligan, ‘I felled off me bi-cycle. Tank heavens the ground broke me fall.’

‘Oh yes, it’s very handy like dat,’ said Murphy.

I’ve read this book three times now. It still confuses me even after watching the film twice but mainly because the film takes liberties with the text. It doesn’t matter. If you treat the book like a collection of loosely connected sketches then you’ll cope just fine. As a great novel it has a long way to go but as a great comic novel it stands alone in exactly the way that Spike Milligan did in real life. He had a completely unique approach to humour.

If you’ve never heard of him then this is as good as any place to start. If only because you’ll be able to pick up one of those six million copies for pennies. My own copy is a 23^rd reprint from 1982. It’s beginning to show signs of wear (as is its owner) but I wouldn’t part with it. And you won’t want to yours. And even if you’re flush and want a shiny new copy you’ll still be pleased to note that the original illustration by Spike himself still graces the cover.

For more about Spike Milligan see my two-part post, here and here.

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! Employment can begin at any time during the year. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality/food service industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications.. For interview appointments in Seattle in June, send personalized e-mail to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! Employment can begin at any time during the year. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality/food service industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications.. For interview appointments in Seattle, WA in June, send personalized e-mail to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

Nic Neumann
1654 Electric Avenue
Venice CA 90291
Phone: 858 822 8770
Email: nic@nicneumann.com

OBJECTIVE

To attain a position in an architectural and design environment to use my extensive experience as an architectural designer and business developer, foreign language fluency, personable demeanor and success oriented drive.

QUALIFICATIONS

„P Over 10 years of business development in the architectural, design and construction field
„P Competent in Sales, Advertising, Promotions & Public Relations
„P High level of Computer Literacy & Internet Marketing Expertise
„P Detail Oriented with Excellent Organizational Skills
„P Refined Presentation, Negotiation and Contracting Aptitude, Auto Cad 2010
„P Success Oriented, Strategic, Personable and Assertive
„P Fluent in English and German

EXPERIENCE

Nic Neumann & Associates - Architecture, Design & Construction 2003 to Present

Projects:
Smith Residence, Bernie TX - Architectural Planning, Landscape & Interior Design (Published)
Lemperle Residence, La Jolla CA - Project Architect for Jonathan Segal FAIA (Published)
Neumann Residence, Aspen CO - Remodel & Interior Design (Published)
Swiss Re, New York NY - Office Design
Hugo Boss, New York, NY - Showroom Design
Partner Re, Greenwich CT - Office Design
Limn, San Francisco CA - Showroom Design
Shanks Residence, San Antonio TX - Interior Design

Bulthaup Corporation - Vice President 2002 to 2003

Business Development. Expanded the US operation with 5 new showrooms. Established new markets, create demand, project forecast.


USM Haller Furniture - National Operations Manager 2000 to 2002

Business Development. BaaN key user, Supply Chain Management for entire US Operation. Purchase, Inventory Control, Logistics, Production.(ERP,MRP,CRM). Implement Quick Ship Program, developed master schedule using demand and forecast. Operate Inventory Integrations, updating, balancing, Implemented virtual private network with dealers and sales force.


Architecture & Design Clients 1983-2003: Bulthaup, USM Haller Systems, Panama Agency, Olymp, Phoenix Product Design, Hans Grohe, Mercedes Benz, Swiss Re, PartnerRe, MoMa, Moshiko Koshino, Standard, Harz Studio, Green World, Duravit, Goldpfeil, Trust Financial Group, EuroCard Open, RedCube, Schlumberger, Swordfish (movie set)



EDUCATION

B.A. Business Management & Finance - Stuttgart, Germany
B.A. Architecture & Interior Design - Stuttgart, Germany
Modo Arredamenti - Bologna, Italy
Diploma/Intern, Behr Moebel - Stuttgart, Germany
Management Training, Mercedes Benz - Stuttgart, Germany
Journeyman Carpentry and Technical Education - Stuttgart, Germany

Computer Skills: AutoCad 2010, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, BaaN, ERP Enterprise Resource Planning, MRP Manufacture Resource Planning, CRM Customer Relations Management, IT Information Technology support



INTERESTS

General Design and Construction, new building technologies, information technology, reading.

Family & Friends, a Challenging and Rewarding Career, Nature, Travel, Outdoor Sports & Recreation, Spirituality & Philanthropy

Invention

www.mobilewashunit.com

Design Prize, Braun Corporation Germany
Medical Prize for Invention, Fresenius International
Bavarian Government Prize for Invention

'Art was important and valued in the Soviet Union. Likewise friendship, because there were things that united us. Now money dominates everything'

When Gramophone magazine attempted to rank the world's best orchestras a year or so ago, the intention was to judge great musical institutions. But with hindsight, the real winner to emerge from the process was not an ensemble, but an individual. The Latvian Mariss ­Jansons found himself in the remarkable position of being the only conductor in charge of two of Gramophone's top-10 orchestras: Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw orchestra – which came out on top, narrowly beating the Berlin Philharmonic – and the sixth-ranked Bavarian ­Radio Symphony ­orchestra.

Unsurprisingly, Jansons is reluctant to make distinctions between excellence at this level. "Of course they are both very, very good," he says, "and in my position, I treat them equally. A ­little as if they were two sons." But that doesn't mean he objects to differentiating between excellence and mediocrity. "Brought up" in the Riga opera house by his singer mother and conductor ­father, he learned his craft as a conductor in Leningrad in the fiercely competitive Soviet music system. He earned a reputation as an orchestra builder in Oslo in the 1980s, when he steered the Oslo Philharmonic from obscurity to international stardom. He then moved to Pittsburgh, where he became a leading figure on the world stage, before his triumphant return to European music-making in Amsterdam and Munich.

"You always have to fight for the best," he says. "That took different forms. In the Soviet Union music was respected, but there were many other problems. In Oslo you had to battle for the art itself." He spent 23 years in Norway, "fighting first for better players and better salaries. And then for a new concert hall for us to play in." Jansons revolutionised the orchestra's sound, but didn't get his new hall, and when he left there were bad feelings on both sides. "It was a strange thing," he recalls. "Norway is a very democratic place where everyone must be equal. That is obviously good. But when it means that it is politically impossible to say that one orchestra is better than another, even though it is obvious, that makes things very difficult for art."

Next week he is in London with the Bavarians, who are following Barenboim and his Beethoven concertos in the Southbank Centre's Shell Classic International series of concerts. In their only UK concert this year they will perform Shostakovich's 10th symphony, which marks a return to Jansons's roots. As a child he moved to Leningrad when his father, Arvid, became assistant to the legendary conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, who had premiered many of Shostakovich's symphonies, including the 10th immediately after Stalin's death in 1953. Jansons was not only privy to his father's discussions with Mravinsky about the music, he later took over his father's job at the orchestra and met Shostakovich "many times, but only really as an observer. He was a very nice man but also very nervous, and I remember him mostly for being quiet and polite."

In mid-career Jansons consciously began to conduct less Russian work, partly because he was wary of being typecast and also because he wanted to explore new musical worlds. But he always kept conducting Shostakovich. "I first became involved with his music when, even in the Soviet Union, his work was not as admired as it is today. Russian people were the first to understand it and love it because everything about it is so much about Russia. It has been wonderful to see his music embraced all over the world in the years since as it speaks to me in a very particular and important way."

Shostakovich may be a special case, but Jansons's approach to music generally is as much spiritual as it is professional. "For me the two most important things in this world are art and religion. We must take care in ­assessing the value of our life to support these two things. Everyone knows that if you go to the theatre or a concert, or read a great novel or go to a wonderful exhibition, then when you come away, so long as it is good, you are inspired. Great music, and all great art, is food for your soul and your heart. Without it we might as well not exist."

Even watching him rehearse, there appears an almost physical sense of him reaching into himself to tease out slow passages, and in the livelier sections his animated promptings see him leaving the podium to become airborne. In Munich last month, on his 67th birthday, he rehearsed for three hours in the morning, listened to a proposed CD recording in the afternoon, performed a concert in the evening and then attended a dinner in his honour given by Munich's political and business elite. The next day he took another three-hour rehearsal, gave a two-hour interview over lunch and performed again in the evening. While iron dedication and constitution-­sapping schedules are par for the course for leading conductors, there is a sense that in Jansons's case, especially in the light of his medical history, the sheer intensity of his drive is elemental.

In 1985 his father died of a heart attack in Manchester while working with the Hallé orchestra. By coincidence, Jansons was conducting in the UK at the same time, but the show went on. In 1997 Jansons too suffered a heart attack, while conducting the closing scene of La Bohème in Oslo. A second followed a few weeks later and he was fitted with a defibrillator. In Oslo, remarkably, even as he fell to the floor his right hand still attempted to keep time. "Or at least that's what the orchestra said afterwards. I was unconscious so I don't know. But it didn't surprise me that much. Music has ­always been so much more than simply what I do."

Jansons was born in 1943 in Nazi-­occupied Riga, where his Jewish mother had to give birth in hiding. With the war over and the country under Soviet control, his parents returned to the ­opera house and Jansons went too. "We didn't have a babysitter, so I went with them every day and it became part of me." At home he remembers playing "Opera House", a game in which he would first pretend to be the conductor taking a rehearsal, "and then I would change into my imaginary tails and I would conduct the performance. I would also sing and dance ballet and would take two pieces of wood and pretend to play the violin. Music absolutely filled my mind."

He began to play the piano and violin seriously at the age of six and at 10 experienced his one and only glimpse of a possible life not utterly devoted to music. One of his neighbours in early-1950s Riga was a leading football coach who had watched him kick a ball about. The coach approached Jansons's parents to ask whether they might consider sending their son to a specialist sports school. "They didn't hesitate even for a second," Jansons laughs. "'Absolutely not,' they said. 'He will be a musician.'" And just as he followed his parents, so the Jansons dynastic tradition is continuing down the generations. His daughter from his first marriage is an accompanist at the Maryinsky theatre in St Petersburg – "she, like me, didn't have a choice about music because we gave her music lessons when she was young" – and his "opera-obsessed" granddaughter has just been offered a stage-manager job at the opera house.

He now says that if the family had stayed in Riga he might have "pressured my parents into doing something else. But instead we moved to Leningrad and everything changed." His father took up his conducting post in the city, and Jansons had to learn a new language, join a music school of extremely talented pupils and carry on his ordinary studies. "I learnt how to work very hard. My mentality completely changed and I developed this great sense of responsibility and seriousness about my music. I became a different person."

As his career progressed, he says, he had to overcome accusations of nepotism. "In Russia at that time, if you were the child of a working man and you followed in your father's footsteps you gained respect," he explains. "But that was not true if you came from the intelligentsia. There was suspicion." He began to step out of his father's shadow in 1968 when he was picked out by Herbert von Karajan from a masterclass of young conductors. Permission to work further with Karajan was refused by the Soviet authorities, but he was soon accepted on an exchange programme that allowed him to shadow the Austrian conductor at three Salzburg festivals.

"I was with him from nine in the morning until 11 at night every day. He was a great man with great ideas and because he was Karajan he could fulfil these ideas. He was like a bird flying in the air while the rest of us were on the ground. He seemed to be above it all and he could see everything."

When Jansons won the Karajan ­conducting prize in 1970 he was offered a job by Mravinsky, and when his father died Jansons took his place as number two conductor at the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra. Jansons has maintained his links with the orchestra and the city – from 1971 to 2000 he served as a part-time professor of conducting at the St Petersburg Conservatory and still maintains a home there, though he rarely has time to stay in it – and says that, despite the restrictions placed on him, when he looks back at the Soviet system he still sees good as well as bad.

"Of course there were injustices which everyone is glad have gone. But among the good things lost was a very high level of music education. I know it was partly political and about showing that the system, just as with sport, was better than the west. But it was nevertheless exemplary. And also, because we had few material goods, there was the compensation of a much higher spiritual value to life. Art was important and valued. Likewise friendship was very important because there were things that united us. Now money dominates everything and is the only measure. I would much prefer to see more of a balance between the material and the spiritual."

When he was approached to take over the Oslo Philharmonic in the late 70s, the Soviet authorities again refused permission. But in one of the accommodations by which the system functioned, he was allowed to take on the responsibilities of the job without actually signing a contract. "It is difficult to explain how it worked," he says. "It was not the law of the country that you couldn't travel, it was a party rule. But they wanted foreign income. So while I was in Oslo I gave 90% of my ­earnings to the Soviet state. You could say I had received a wonderful education from them for free. But 90% was still a lot."

It wasn't until Gorbachev and perestroika in the mid-1980s that Jansons's position was formalised in Oslo, but despite the uncertainty, and the disputes about a new concert hall, he elevated the orchestra to a new level of recognition. The rancour attached to his departure has recently been rekindled by the orchestra releasing a recording of him conducting Mahler's seventh symphony within months of the Bavarian Radio orchestra's recording of the same symphony – "that was very stupid" – but when he "analyses the years we had together, I had a fantastic time. I was young and the ­orchestra was young, and we had a wonderful spirit. It is like first love. Even though it might end badly and you go on to other things, you don't forget it, and that whole process was something that probably happens only once in a lifetime between an orchestra and a conductor."

In Munich he is again engaged in a campaign for a new concert hall to replace the poor acoustics and municipal drabness of the two halls the Bavarian Radio orchestra currently call home. He rates his chances of success as 50:50, "which is not that good, but I am an optimist by nature. Munich is a rich city with a strong appreciation of music, so I think in this case it is more a matter of getting people to agree how to do it."

If future programme planning is any guide, then the dispute will not result in him leaving Munich as he did Oslo, and it seems likely he will renew his contract when it expires in 2012, so allowing him to continue on the same musical and, by extension, spiritual path. His Lutheran faith has been a natural part of his life since childhood, and he is dismayed at what he sees as the moral decline of the modern world. "I'm not saying you can get rid of drugs or killing or corruption in an instant, but in the 21st century our spiritual life should be on a higher level than it is. I think children in the west should be in serious contact with both religion and the arts as a fundamental part of their education. They both make you think about important questions about the world: why we are here and how we should live."

He says his health is good and his schedule is realistic, although he does complain that he finds it impossible not to keep working, even when supposedly on holiday. "I do have a three-week vacation every year and in the first week I do no work at all but by the second I am studying scores. I know it would be better to have three weeks of no work at all, but it is very difficult for me after all my training. Since I was a child in the Riga opera house I have filled my life with thinking about music."

It was when in a Swiss clinic, after the second heart attack, that despite never having smoked or drunk, he learned that he was a prime candidate for heart disease by dint of his genetic inheritance, diet, age and stress levels. Ostentatiously removing a large dollop of cream from his soup, he explains that his diet is now under control. "But I am stuck with my genes and my age, and as for the stress . . . "

Although he has tried to take on less guest conducting, "I know I haven't really slowed down enough. But I have two wonderful orchestras. I can come to great musical cities such as London and play the music of Shostakovich. If you're invited to conduct the Berlin or the Vienna Philharmonic, it is difficult to say no. I have long and friendly relationships with London orchestras and I want to play in New York and Vienna and Tokyo. What can you do? In the end, that's the thing about conductors. They don't retire."

Philip Oltermann on an entertaining tour of German history

The most treasured possession of the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg is Martin Behaim's Erdapfel, the "earth apple". Created in 1492 by the King of Portugal's court geographer on a visit to his home city, the earliest ­surviving terrestrial globe is a work of precise craftsmanship and vivid ­scientific imagination, perfect but for the exclusion of the as-yet-­undiscovered America. Germany's museums are crammed full of groundbreaking maps and globes such as this one, which seems particularly ironic given that the country's own borders have, through the ages, been consistent only in their inconsistency. As confessed museophile Simon Winder notes in his cheerful tour through German history, historical maps of the country resemble nothing so much as "an explosion in a jigsaw factory".

Germania is an apt title for Winder's project, not because the province of the Roman empire bears much of a resemblance to the place we know nowadays, but because Roman senator Tacitus's book of the same name has managed to fire up the German historical imagination like few others. A polemic rather than straightforward reportage, Tacitus's Germania contrasted the decadence of the imperial capital with the simplicity of the savages from the provinces, conjuring up a people who were more geographically and ethnically unified than they had ever been in real life. Ever since, German nationalists have scrambled back to Tacitus's text whenever the fever of nationalism has seized the country. Middle-Ages-mania reached a climax with the Nazi cult of holy knights and ancient forests – finding a bathetic climax with Hermann Göring's absurd attempt to reverse-engineer an authentically medieval breed of the long-extinct aurochs.

Winder's book starts in 9AD, with the tribal chieftain and original "Hermann the German" Arminius's defeat of Roman troops in the Teutoburg forest, and packs up in 1933 ("just as everybody who had made Germany so remarkable a place packs up"). This means the subtitle contains at least one sneaky sleight of hand: plenty of ancient history here, but no economic miracle of the 1950s, no student protests of '68, no terrorist crisis of '77 – crucial events, some would argue, for understanding modern Germany. Neither is there a lot of Geist: Kant and Hegel barely feature. In Golo Mann's German History of the 19th and 20th Century – still the standard text at many German schools – philosophy is the glue that binds the pieces.

Even without the postwar dramas and the big ideas, it's a very entertaining read. Winder's might be a fairly conventional kings-and-queens sort of history, but it has connoisseur's eye for marginalia and manages to illuminate some fascinating hidden corners. How many recent books on German history have, for example, bothered to look beyond the fascist rallies and war crime trials to appreciate Nuremberg's commercial history in the Middle Ages? For Winder, Free Imperial Cities such as Nuremberg are "the real heroes of Germany", pairing "toy-town geniality" with reason and cosmopolitan values: promising side roads that came to an dead end in 1933.

German provincialism has been bemoaned by generations of historians. For Winder, it's the country's redeeming quality. As he flings himself with unashamed glee towards Quedlinburg's crumbling castles, Darmstadt's Jugendstil church towers or the Prince Bishop of Würzburg's cabinet of curiosities, you believe him. His enthusiasm for the pokey holes of German history is always echt, even when the object of his affection is plainly inauthentic. In one of the best passages of the book, Winder takes his time to pick apart the architecture of Emperor Heinrich III's palace by the city gates of Goslar, a crude blob of concrete and bronze, sexed-up with hero-worshipping Prussian frescoes in a 19th-century fit of medievalism. It's more medieval kitsch, but Winder tells its story with genuine excitement.

It could have been an even better book if it wasn't for another disparity between title and content. "A personal history" promises an intertwining of personal and political narratives, with Timothy Garton Ash's The File: A Personal History (1997) still a masterclass in this difficult hybrid. For Winder, "personal" means first-person interjections about how much he loves the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt (very much) or how much he hates marzipan (quite a lot). Which is, in the author's own words, "perhaps more odd than interesting". Fashioning anecdotes into something of general interest isn't Winder's forte.

Early on in the book, he confesses that he has never really managed to get his head around the compound nouns and modal particles of the German language ("I reeled into my adult life with a virtual language blank, beyond an ability to order beer or ask for platform numbers"). Which in itself is fine, but is it really an excuse for the fact that in over 400 pages, Winder doesn't manage to have one proper conversation with a German? Some of them speak English, apparently. It makes the "personal history" bit seem like little more than a publishing fad, and adds a cheap gloss to an otherwise rewarding read.

And then there's Soepkipje who's pictures can be found on her fotoblog she used all olive oil and made different fillings, would love to try her bavarian cream ones! Nicole, Bread, butter and buns, was transported back to her teens when she baked Ensaimadas, she actually lived in Mallorca once...sweet memories indeed!
Andreas who is travelling with us to catch some -much needed- early sun at Delta's kitchen:
Kelly shares her Ensaímadas in her Messy Kitchen, breaking a lance for pork fat and butter; the good stuff (her words ;)
Stay tuned for the next episode of Bread Baking Babes around this time next month on a blog near you, another one of my fellow Babes has already dreamed up a new and exciting recipe and we're getting out our gear and flourdusting our work surfaces...

Germany, the land of the interstate/motorway without speed limits; called “The Autobahn” You also may have heard of their motorcars that run quite nicely on the fastest road in the world. Does BMW ring a bell?

And now, the country with the fastest stock motorcycle for under fourteen grand, is poised to give the Big Four motorcycle manufacturers a real run for their money.

Welcome to the world of Bavarian excellence and the BMW Motorrad S 1000 RR Superbike.

This machine is no ordinary 1000cc motorcycle. In fact, you really should look at it as a bike that delivers everything you need in any class of Sportbike, Supersport or Superbike and also includes the 600 contingents amongst us.

I recently had a conversation with Joseph Maechler, the chief tester of the BMW Motorrad S 1000 RR, who has been working on the project since it was a hand-built prototype. Joseph had ridden over 60,000 kilometers on the machine for testing purposes. 25K of that was racetrack time, with the remainder on the road. His vision for the motorcycle, from the rider’s position, was for it to be in between a Yamaha R1 and a Honda CBR/Fireblade. Not too radical, but racy and comfortable for taller or shorter riders. He said, “Their aim was to develop a motorcycle that could be ridden to the racetrack, on the track, and then home again.” From a comfort perspective, they really have done that.

The riding position of the machine is not too “over the front.” Riders can sit on the bike without too much weight on the wrists. However, the ground clearance is a little suspect at very high lean angles, which could result in some people wearing down their toe sliders and boots on the right foot. I don’t normally suffer from that too much when track riding, but I did get caught out a couple of times on a long right-hand sweeper, which leads me to question the ride height a little. But overall you sit comfortably, stretched just enough to push your weight over the tank and onto the front wheel while still having the ability to move across the tank when changing position.

The styling of the machine is awesome. Whether you personally like the front light cluster is subjective. I like it. It’s a great original design and over time I think people will get used to seeing the cluster in their rearview mirror and relate it to the S 1000 RR, just like we do now with a Yamaha or a Ducati.

The designers seemed to think of everything. They recognized the predominant design language of the Supersport class with its “tail up, nose down” aerodynamics. On the right-hand side of the bike is the unmistakable “Gill” design of BMW. On the left, the large airflow port also gives a glimpse into the workings of the machine. The cutout in the windscreen reduces the buffeting at high speed. I sure can vouch for that useful feature.

BMW has designed the S 1000 RR with the novice rider in mind as well. Even someone who has never been on a track or ridden a liter sport bike on the road can ride this without any concerns of overpower delivery, down shifting too early or braking too hard.

The 193 HP motor has been surrounded with technology so advanced that even cracking open the throttle mid-corner at 45 degrees isn’t an issue. The S 1000 RR has technology directly developed from BMW’s Formula 1 research. It allows you to choose what type of machine you would like to ride at the click of a button. So, if you are new to sport bike riding and are thinking about getting a 600 middle- weight machine, the S 1000 RR could be for you. Or if you’re in the market for a 1000cc bike the S 1000 RR could easily be your choice, too. And, it’s only a $1,000 list price more than its nearest 1000cc competitor (stock price listing of the basic model is $23,800.00).

BMW is so confident that any level of rider, novice or advanced, can ride the S 1000 RR that it has negotiated a contract with Keith Code for his California Superbike School. His Superbike schools across the country will use the S 1000 RR as the motorcycle for all of the students learning to ride on the track, replacing the Kawasakis previously used.

Both novice and expert students will use the BMWs, something made possible by BMW’s Dynamic Traction Control (DTC). That alone has to tell you something about riding this machine and how easy it can be in the right setting.

DTC, with its lean angle sensors, is the main reason behind the power delivery control. The linked back and front wheel ABS work without any pulsating or interference when braking. The slipper clutch that enables you to go from sixth gear to first with no back wheel lock-up is also a huge advantage. Add in a quick shifter that enables you to move up the gear box without using the clutch and you have a bunch of features that make the S 1000 RR what it really is -- one truly unique ride.

All of these extras on the S 1000 RR are designed to offer buyers a bike that suits their riding style. As they advance and get used to the bike, they can choose what type of mode to ride in, depending on conditions. The DTC has four riding modes, Rain, Sport, Track, and Slick. I can see everyone really using all of the modes if the machine is used to its fullest potential on the road and track.

Rain mode really does turn the power delivery down. It has a linear delivery curve with no spikes across all the modes. Riding in this mode makes you feel like you couldn’t crash if you tried, which was really  fun on the test run. You do feel the bike being held back when you open the throttle. We kept pushing the traction of the back wheel mid-corner by literally opening the throttle fully and feeling the bike manage how the power is transferred to the back wheel, with no worries of a high-side. The lean angle sensors are engaged at 35 degrees.

Sport mode takes things up a notch. First, the lean angle sensor kicks in at 45 degrees. It enables all of the power to be used when the bike is above that angle; it only has 5 percent damping of overall power so it feels much quicker than it does in Rain mode. The Race ABS works on both the front and back brakes, but it’s not obtrusive.

Track mode gives you a 48 percent lean angle. You’re able to apply power much earlier in this mode and it does give you a sense of security when exiting the corner and getting on the gas prematurely. Slick mode enables riders to turn the back brake ABS off by touching the back brake pedal slightly while riding. It also allows the bike to slide into fast corners under heavy rear wheel braking. So, what’s all this talk without action? It’s time to hit the track! While at the Palm Beach International Raceway I put it to the test.  I barreled down the back straight into a tight right- hand bend after braking from around 170 miles an hour. It worked superbly; I could feel exactly what the back wheel was doing. The lean angle is 53 degrees in Slick mode before the sensors let the bike appreciate full force.

You also have the ability to turn DTC off altogether and turn the bike into its stock set-up in any mode.

I used all of the modes thoroughly throughout the test, but my favorite was Track. It gave me just enough feel when I was banked over from the accelerator. And the power being transferred to the rear wheel had a little forgiveness, if I pushed too early. Being able to get on the gas and push my head down behind the screen while cracking open the throttle as far as I could and pushing the “quick shifter” skyward, really turned loose the 193 horses. The slipper clutch was so forgiving that I didn’t think twice about coming down from sixth to second, while at the same time stomping on the brakes and letting the Race ABS help me before diving into the next bend.

On the road, all of the extras will be very useful. However, I also think anyone that rides this machine will naturally have an issue with radar guns or Vascar, because of the ease of riding fast.

The suspension is also neat and accessible. The key enables you to manage all of the high-speed compression damping settings with the exception of the rear shock on the fly.  You need a tool in the tool kit for the rear shock. All of the front settings are easily adjusted, too. We altered the front while testing and it took no more than a minute. Rebound and Compression damping on the rear is also visible but just a little more time-consuming than the front. Everything is numbered so you won’t forget where you were before you started playing with the settings. Again, it’s just another thought that BMW put into the bike to enable the rider to get more involved with the machine.

Another value-added to consider with this bike is resale value. People will want to buy it as a used bike with DTC, ABS, Slipper Clutch and the Quick Shifter. You might want to think about that when purchasing new. If you have the money to spend on accessories, do it. You won’t be disappointed.

This machine redlines at over 14,200 RPMs, which is considerable for a 1000cc and It’s all due to the Cam followers developed by BMW. They allow for aggressive valve lift and timing and, at only 14 grams, it helps save on the overall weight.

Other weight-saving parts include the aluminum fuel tank, which is approximately 3.3 lbs lighter than that of the nearest Japanese competitor, and the engine at only 132 lbs. I can’t say the stock exhaust is designed to be a weight-saver though. The two catalytic converters enable the machine to be street legal all over the states and live up to any other governmental changes that could change with omission laws soon, but it does look a little bulky. Underneath, the large front silencer box really is quite ugly because of the two catalytic converters.  Akrapovic produces an aftermarket exhaust that is much more pleasing to the eye. According to BMW, you don’t need a power commander with it.  One of the demonstration machines was also covered in carbon, which really did add class.

So, why was this bike built by BMW and why now in these current tough economic times?

Well, for one thing, BMW has an aging target market. In fact, according to their research, their typical customer is a 47-year-old male. Since the average age of a 1000cc rider is 23, developing a 1000cc motorcycle means they can tap into a whole new market.  The Big Four manufacturers have 88 percent of the 1000cc market and BMW wants some of it. This motorcycle provides them with a huge opportunity to increase sales and reach a different demographic.  Plus, there are also the aftermarket parts, apparel, and drag racing segments that add to the overall top line.

BMW is forecasting that in its 84-year motorcycle history, this will be its best selling machine by the end of 2010. That may be a bit of a tall order, but the bike certainly has a considerable advantage over its nearest competitor.

I have to say after finishing testing this machine I WOULD go out and buy one right now. Being first at my local “bike night” with one of these machines would be wonderful, just for the ability to show other riders what this bike has on it. Then there are the local tracks. I would love to take this in stock  form and race it “as is” in one of my local weekend race meetings

If you really are in the market to buy a sport bike, check out BMW Motorrad S 1000 RR.  Ride it in Rain mode and compare how forgiving it is when you click up to Sport. Then, ride it in Track mode, moving into Slick when you really want to smoke your competitors. But do ride it, your heart will thank you.

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! Employment can begin at any time during the year. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications.. For interview appointments in San Francisco in February, send personalized e-mail to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! Employment can begin at any time during the year. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications.. For interview appointments in Seattle, WA in March, send personalized e-mail to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

If you are taking a break from college, or have just finished up and are unsure what your next step is, this might be for you! The 'Edelweiss Lodge and Resort', a Department of Defense resort for US Military Members stationed overseas, is looking for people with great customer service skills to join its hospitality team for a period of 13 months. The resort is located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Entry level resort positions (Housekeeping, F&B;, Custodial and Cooking) available. No management positions available! Employment can begin at any time during the year. No German language skills necessary. Dorm style housing/transportation provided. Minimum qualifications: 1 year post High-School employment in the hospitality industry.

Check out our website: www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com for full details and applications.. For interview appointments in Seattle in March, send personalized e-mail to: interview@edelweisslodgeandresort.com (Do not sent any attachments; send all resumes/cover letter pasted into e-mail as text.)

Must be US Citizen

With the advent of the New Year comes a slew of new movies to see, new adventures to take, new situations to laugh at, new heroes to cheer with, and new moments to cry for. The following is a list of upcoming films that includes major releases and more specialized productions. There’s something for everyone here, so take a little time out of your day to make some early plans for how you’re going to spend the next few weekends.

15 JAN

What: The Book of Eli

Who: The Hughes Brothers, starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman

Where: Wide

The Hughes Brothers return to the screen nine years after their last outing, 2001’s From Hell. They tell the story of a man named Eli (Washington), a wanderer in a post-apocalyptic American wasteland. Eli may be able to save the world, but there are forces at work that don’t want to see that happen. Washington leads a strong cast for an apocalyptic thriller, and the trailer for this thing looks awesome.

29 JAN

What: Edge of Darkness

Who: Martin Campbell, starring Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone and Danny Huston

Where: Wide

The guys behind The Departed now bring you Edge of Darkness. The film is about a detective (Gibson) who, while investigating the death of his daughter, uncovers things far more sinister. The film had trouble finding a studio, likely due to Gibson’s involvement, and has been shelved for almost two years. As a whole, the film looks entertaining if not run-of-the-mill.

What: Police, Adjective

Who: Corneliu Porumboiu, starring Dragos Bucur and Vlad Ivanov

Where: Landmark Varsity

Romania’s official submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar is a black comedy about the obfuscations of language. Ordered to arrest a teenager who offered drugs to his schoolmates, Cristi, a young undercover cop, must determine whether the punishment fits the crime. He’s faced with the decision to arrest the boy or face the wrath of his unapologetic superior. The film has garnered a number of awards on the international circuit, including the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

What: The White Ribbon

Who: Michael Haneke, starring Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Tukur

Where: Landmark Harvard Exit

From celebrated director Michael Haneke comes the film that is being hailed as his masterpiece. On the eve of the Great War, strange events are occurring in the small town of Eichwald. Are the citizens being punished? And who is behind it all? The film won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes and is thought of as the strongest contender for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

05 FEB

What: North Face

Who: Philipp Stölzl, starring Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas and Johanna Wokalek

Where: TBA

It’s 1936, and before the Berlin Olympics arrive, the Nazi propaganda machine needs something to trumpet. Enter Bavarian climbers Toni and Andi, who are recruited to climb the north face of the Eigar mountain, known as “the Murder Wall.” The film, based on a true story, chronicles the life-and-death struggle the climbers faced as things go from bad to worse. The screenplay won a German Film Critics award.

12 FEB

What: 44 Inch Chest

Who: Malcolm Venville, starring Ian McShane, Ray Winstone and Tom Wilkinson

Where: TBA

Sporting one of the best ensemble casts in decades, 44 Inch Chest’s leads sound like a wicked cross between Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). Colin (Winstone) has just watched his wife of 21 years, Liz, leave him. Together with his old gang, Colin and the boys make plans to kidnap Liz’s lover for revenge. 44 Inch Chest looks to be a very profane and dark good time.

What: Valentine’s Day

Who: Garry Marshall, starring Jamie Foxx and Julia Roberts

Where: Wide

Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) tries to rediscover his old magic with Valentine’s Day, a romantic comedy about couples falling in and out of love in LA on the titular holiday. The impressive cast, including Foxx, Roberts and Anne Hathaway, is rounded out with sure-fire crowd pleasers like Taylor Lautner, Jennifer Garner, George Lopez and even Taylor Swift.

What: The Wolfman

Who: Joe Johnston, starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt

Where: Wide

Del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, a man who returns to his homeland to find his brother missing and a gruesome beast preying on the villagers. Talbot meets up with his estranged father (Hopkins) and his brother’s fiancée (Blunt), and soon finds himself dealing with a darker side of himself he had no idea existed.

19 FEB

What: Shutter Island

Who: Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Emily Mortimer

Where: Wide

Scorsese’s latest film was pushed back from this past awards season, but it’s been faring extremely well with test audiences. Two U.S. Marshals (DiCaprio and Ruffalo) are brought in to investigate the disappearance of a psychotic killer (Mortimer) from a high-security mental facility. It soon becomes apparent, however, that not everything is as it seems. Shutter Island holds some very dark secrets of its own. This one for sure looks like a winner.

26 FEB

What: Cop Out

Who: Kevin Smith, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan

Kevin Smith, the man responsible for Clerks and Dogma, is planning on a glorious return to the screen with Cop Out, a story about two cops (Willis and Morgan) who get more than they bargained for on their daily beat. It’s great to see Willis in a comedic role again, and having Morgan, from TV’s 30 Rock, along for the ride should be a lot of fun indeed. The early footage is both hilarious and foul mouthed, so good times are likely in store here.

05 MARCH

What: Alice in Wonderland

Who: Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter and Stephen Fry

Where: Wide

Tim Burton is the only filmmaker who can make macabre not just commercially successful, but also appealing to families. He’ll do it again with his reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic, in which 19-year-old Alice (Wasikowska) returns to Wonderland in order to dethrone the Red Queen (Carter) and end her evil reign. Depp stars as the Mad Hatter, joined by Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.

12 MARCH

What: Green Zone

Who: Paul Greengrass, starring Matt Damon

Where: Wide

It may look and sound like another Jason Bourne film, but apparently, it’s not. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon team up again for Green Zone, in which a U.S. Army officer (Damon) goes rogue in order to hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Most films about the Iraq conflict have been full of preaching and hand wringing (notable exception: The Hurt Locker), but at least this one will have some bite to it.

What: Greenberg

Who: Noah Baumbach, starring Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig

Where: TBA

Baumbach is back in mumblecore mode, returning to the look and feel of his 2005 indie classic The Squid and the Whale. Stiller plays an aimless, jobless New Yorker who heads to LA in order to work out his life. While there, he begins a relationship with his brother’s assistant (Gerwig), who may have more in common with him than either realizes.

19 MARCH

What: Season of the Witch

Who: Dominic Sena, starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman

Where: Wide

Even if this one doesn’t turn out so well, it should at least have some camp value. Fourteenth-century knights bring a woman, suspected of witchcraft, to a monastery. There, the monks come to believe that she could possibly be the source of the Black Plague. The film comes from Bragi F. Schut, one of the writers of the half-decent but ill-fated TV show Invasion. Sena, the director, is best known for his 2000 film Gone in 60 Seconds.

26 MARCH

What: Clash of the Titans

Who: Louis Leterrier, starring Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson

Where: Wide

Call it fan fiction for the Greek mythology crowd. This remake of the 1981 B-grade classic sees Perseus (Worthington) taking on Hades (Fiennes) before the latter can conquer Zeus (Neeson) and unleash the hordes of the underworld on ancient Greece. Naturally, a number of beautiful women, gods and otherwise (including Izabella Miko and Quantum of Solace’s Gemma Arterton), will appear in the most minimalist of Greek clothing.

What: Hot Tub Time Machine

Who: Steve Pink, starring John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and Clark Duke

The title says it all. Four dudes accidentally travel back to the ‘80s in their hot tub, and shenanigans ensue. As Cusack says in the redband trailer, “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Ever.” Bubbling with all the same internet hype that had Snakes on a Plane flying high (before it crashed at the box office), here’s to hoping this ridiculous-looking comedy turns out just as well as it can.

Reach reporter Robert Frankel at weekender@dailyuw.com.

Location: Mountain View, California, 94043
Position: Full time
Required education: Bachelor's Degree
Area(s) of expertise desired: Clinical Research, Immunology, Oncology

Description
BN-ImmunoTherapeutics (BNIT) is a subsidiary of Bavarian-Nordic (http://www.bavarian-nordic.com) located in Mountain View, CA. (Please appy to this open position through Craigslist only, and not through our Corporate website.)

BNIT is developing active immunotherapies for cancer and is seeking a highly motivated Research Associate/Senior Research Associate with expertise in immune monitoring assays.
The position will involve conducting complex cellular immunology assays. The incumbent will be responsible for processing and testing clinical trial samples, data analysis and presentation.
Requirements
The candidate must possess a BS/MS degree and a minimum of two-five years of research experience. He/she must be able to strictly adhere to standard operating procedures (SOP)s which include conducting clinical studies in accordance to Good Laboratory Practices (GLP). Excellent knowledge and technical expertise in the following fields is required: FACS operation, immunoassays such as ELISPOT and ELISA, human primary cell culture, and processing human blood samples. The candidate must be organized and detail-oriented, possess exceptional record-keeping and communication skills, as well as demonstrate flexibility to work under unpredictable clinical sample schedules. Previous experience in industry is highly desirable.

Specific Duties and Requirements include:
-Processing human blood from clinical trial patient samples
-Performing humoral and cellular immunological assays such as ELISA, ELISPOT, Cytokine Secretion, and CFSE proliferation assays under SOP
-Working under a GLP environment
-Possessing outstanding tissue culture techniques
-Independently operating a BD FACSCalibur and/or BD LSR II flow cytometer
-Understanding fluorescence measurement concepts and fluorescence compensation
-Having previous experience with CellQuest, Diva and FlowJo software is preferred
-Understanding of immunological concepts
-Demonstrating flexibility to work under unpredictable clinical sample schedules
-Mastery of MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is required including the ability to work in both the PC (Windows) and Macintosh environments
-Excellent command of oral and written English language, interpersonal skills, and self-initiative are essential

We offer a competitive compensation package including stock options, healthcare benefits and a 401(k) plan.