HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!




Give 'em hell!!!











And here's some good news from across the pond:

There's gonna be general elections in Germany this September, one year early. Schroeder called for them after the recent disappointing election results for the SPD-party in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Curious reasoning, shooting yourself in the foot like that, but hey, you don't hear me complaining:

But Christian Wulff, the state's (in this case the state of Lower Saxony, another "Bundesland" making up the federal Republic of Germany)conservative prime minister and Germany's most popular politician, was licking his lips at the prospect of an altogether different delicacy.

"There will be new elections in Germany. This means a change in the content and style of politics," he said. "Then the hard work will begin. Our leader, Angela Merkel, will carry out the kind of economic reforms that were implemented in Britain over the last 15 years."

Opinion polls show the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) way ahead of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD), with Mrs Merkel poised to become Germany's first female leader.

CDU-strongwoman Mrs. Merkel, 50 and physicist by formation, may indeed very well become Germany's first female Chancellor this autumn. Being from the former DDR, she is very much aware of who won the Cold War and is subsequently strongly pro-US. By contrast, Mr. Schroeder, during the whole of the Cold War sitting comfortably on his warm ass in West Germany, is known to have sent one of the last DDR czars, Egon Krenz, congratulations with his "victory" in the communist dictatorship's sham "elections".


From Sweden comes a similar sound: Over half of government's MPs could quit.

Fewer than half the MPs in Sweden's ruling red-green coalition plan to stand for re-election, according to a new survey by Swedish Radio.

Asked whether they would consider standing at the next election, fewer than half of MPs in the Social Democratic, Green and Left parties answered in the affirmative.

Of 144 Social Democrat deputies, only 67 said that they definitely intended stand in the 2006 election. Eighteen said that they did not intend to stand, with 31 MPs currently uncertain. Twenty-eight did not respond to SR's question.

This contrasts with the attitude of MPs in the right-wing alliance, which is currently riding high in opinion polls. Forty-two Moderate Party deputies said they planned to stand next year, with only six planning to stand down, and a further seven either uncertain or not responding.

Hat tip to Fjordman, my fellow blogger from Norway. Now, I don't know if you sometimes visit his blog. While the described phenomenon above is ground for optimism, it does not take away the fact that Sweden, and by extension the whole of Scandinavia, is facing tough times. Still it's another indication of a major political shift to the right throughout Europe. Here's hoping for the future.

MFBB