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December 21, 2005

JackM. (Desolation Row) Starts Blog-War With Austria

The power of the blog must not be misused, Jack.

I thought it was pretty smart of me to pick fights with other bloggers. Nothing draws a crowd like a fight, I reasoned. JackM. has taken that to a whole new level and picked a fight with an entire country.

JackM. posted his happiness about Schwarzenegger giving his Austrian hometown the finger after that town decided to name a building after convicted, executed murderer Tookie Williams.

One of Austria's biggest newspapers linked him, and the Austrians are angry with him. For some reason, though, they think it's Bob Dylan's blog.

It will be amusing when Bob Dylan has to make a statement that he's not connected in any way with Letters from Desolation Row.

Below the Fold Update: Dr. Symes weighs in, flooding the zone

The love affair between Schwarzenegger and Graz is over. Arnold has returned the ring.

The ring in question? The “Ring of Honor,” previously bestowed upon favorite son Arnold by Austria’s second largest city, Graz.

The rift started with Schwarzenegger’s refusal to grant clemency to Tookie “You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him” Williams. Seems his hard-heartedness irked some of the politicians there in Graz, and they decided to express their disapproval last week with a proposal to remove Schwarzenegger’s name from their city’s big soccer stadium.

Representatives from the Social Democrats (SP), the Greens and the Communist Party (KP), traditionally strong in Graz, joined forces to push through the proposal, despite the objection of mayor Siegfried Nagl of the conservative People's Party (VP).

"It's getting on our nerves that we're again and again being criticised for Schwarzenegger's actions in California," said SP vice mayor Welter Ferk.

"We're not exactly basking in glory for being brought into the public limelight in connection with the death penalty.

The proposal passed, but apparently public signatures still needed to be collected to properly enact it. And that delay gave time for Schwazenegger to go on the offensive.

Mr. Freeze fired off his own ice-cold request that his name be removed and upped the ante by returning their “Ring of Honor” in the mail.

On Monday, Schwarzenegger caused a stir by turning the tables on Austrians who criticized the governor's refusal to block the executions of convicted killers. He sent Graz officials a letter asking them to remove his name from a soccer stadium and stop using it to promote the city, and said he was giving back the ring because it "has lost its meaning and value to me."
…

"Graz will not have problems in the future with my decisions as governor of California, because officially nothing connects us any more," Schwarzenegger told the daily Kronen Zeitung in an interview for Tuesday's editions.

Harsh words for your home town. And their reaction?

In an interview with The Times on Tuesday, Graz City Councilman Karl-Heinz Herper called Schwarzenegger's reaction to the dispute "not exactly nice."

Well, what the hell did you expect, Karl? That he should accept your euro-slap with a smile? Let his hometown betray him like a good Austrian? Screw that. This is Schwarzenegger we’re talking about. You knew he was gonna come after you like your name was Sarah Connor.

Arnold played this just right. The ring was never that big a deal. Graz, though Austria’s second biggest city, ain’t Vienna. (Dear Austria: Graz? Seriously? That’s your number two?) The Consumer Reports prestige rankings for Austrian citys’ 'rings of honor' show a big drop-off after number one.

And, frankly, even Vienna’s ring ain’t all that. It’s still in Austria. And Austria, last time I checked, was still a landlocked country.

Me, I wouldn’t have accepted it in the first place. Yes, it’s one thing to accept a ring of honor from a city in a European country. It’s quite another to accept it from one in a landlocked European country.

Landlocked punks.

posted by Ace at 12:35 PM

Comments

Dang it!!
Looks like we crossed

Posted by: lauraw on December 21, 2005 12:39 PM

Eh, it happens.

Posted by: ace on December 21, 2005 12:50 PM

Thank you both for the posts. I appreciate it.

Posted by: Jack M. on December 21, 2005 12:52 PM

I guess this proves that there's no such thing as bad publicity after all.

Oh, Ace & Laura-- don't cross the posts. That would be bad.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on December 21, 2005 12:57 PM

Oh, man, this is sad. I didn't see TWO posts when I when to go up. I'm coming down with mine.

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes on December 21, 2005 12:59 PM

Oh, great, Reo. I was in the process of linking to your article when you take it down? wtf? Anyway, I liked this line:
You knew he was gonna come after you like your name was Sarah Connor.

Posted by: on December 21, 2005 01:07 PM

I've been trying to pick a fight with the Swiss for months, now. You should see how those clockmaking bastards are avoiding me.

That's right -- walk away, you pussies, walk away.

Posted by: The Colossus on December 21, 2005 02:10 PM

Colossus...you have to bait the traps with chocolate. They are crazy about the stuff.

Where's my Hugh Hewitt link, by the way? Surely nothing demonstrates the power of BLOG! more thoroughly that one man's ability to piss off an entire country!

So far..I'd give my effort a solid B+. No foreign heads of state have offered to surrender, and no Austrian territory has been siezed.

Yet.

Posted by: Jack M. on December 21, 2005 02:47 PM

We surrender.

Sorry for the delay; we were at lunch.

Posted by: France on December 21, 2005 02:50 PM

I thought Vienna was in Austria, not France.

Posted by: Mike on December 21, 2005 03:36 PM

I thought Vienna was in Austria, not France.

Preemptive surrender.

Posted by: Sue Dohnim on December 21, 2005 03:44 PM

Vienna is a stop on the orange line of the DC Metro.
You mean there's another one?

Posted by: harrison on December 21, 2005 04:57 PM

California is Arnold's home, not Graz. California pays his salary, not Graz.

And Arnold knows it, and did the right thing. He's our governor, he doesn't work for them.

Arnold may have retained his Austrian citizenship, but he's American through and through now, and has about as much respect for European opinion as anyone in this country who isn't to the left of Chomsky.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on December 21, 2005 06:18 PM

California also has four times as many citizens as Austria and a hell of a lot larger GDP.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on December 21, 2005 06:22 PM

Graz, on the other hand, has a fairly neat castle on a big rock at one end of town, and a museum devoted to Franz Ferdinand, the guy whose assassination kicked off the War Century.

It's not a bad place. But for an American it's ultimately dispensible.

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke on December 22, 2005 08:02 PM

eerrm... only for information: nobody in austria thinks, that the site belongs to bob dylan...
you're funny though

Posted by: queen kong on December 27, 2005 09:28 AM

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Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

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🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

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If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

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🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

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Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

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