Bent Corner

Say what you will about Germans, but they love Barack Obama. German officials estimate that the presumptuous Democratic presidential nominee attracted at least 200,000 Germans to an Obama campaign rally held in Berlin yesterday.

That’s a whole lot of Germans!

According to my research, this is the largest political rally held in the city of Berlin since 1937.  And much like the 1937 political rally,  Germans attending the 2008 political rally were prohibited from bringing signs or posters.

Obama canceled a scheduled trip to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near the city of Kaiserslauternto.  It is the largest American hospital outside the United States and it provides treatment to American soldiers injured in Afghanistan.  When Obama was told by an Army official he could visit Landstuhl with his Senate staff, but not with his campaign staff, Obama canceled the visit.

It would seem that if he couldn’t use the visit for campaingn puposes, he was not interested in it.

Germans evidently love three things: hot potato salad, David Hasselhoff, and Michelle Obama’s baby daddy. I knew of the first two things, but I never realized the German people loved Barack Obama. They must love him. Otherwise the Obama campaign wouldn’t be holding a political rally in Berlin, right?

Why even would a U.S. presidential candidate campaign in a foreign country like Germany? This is something presidential candidates don’t normally do. In fact, this has got to be some kind of a first. Could this be what Barack Obama is referring to when he talks about Change™?  What other foreign countries will Barack Obama grace with a campaign rally?

These are exciting times!

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put the kabosh to the idea Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama giving a political speech in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. This would put an end to the long held tradition of American presidential candidates speaking in front of the gate made famous during the cold war for dividing East and West Berlin.

It’s unknown why Merkel would deny the German people the chance to attend a political rally for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. For years the German people have enjoyed attending political rallies for American presidential candidates held at the historic Brandenburg Gate.  Being that the Germans came up short in the recent Euro 2008 soccer tournament, basking in the glow of Barack Obama would most certainly bring much needed cheer to the German people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkelis is wrong to deny her people the pleasure of being in the presence of Barack Obama.

Poland faces Germany in the first round action of the 2008 European Championship. This photo ran in a major Polish newspaper. It shows the Polish manager holding the severed heads of German footballers Michael Ballack and Joachim Loew.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say somebody in Poland has a score to settle with Germany.

The games will be shown live on ESPN. The schedule can be found here.

(Photo: The Spoiler)

During World War Two, Nazi Germany transported six U-boat submarines 2,000 miles overland from Germany to attack Russian shipping in the Black Sea. The subs operated out of Romania for over two years, hunting and sinking dozens of Russian ships.

When Romania switched sides and declared war against Germany, it left the remaining three subs - three had already been lost in combat - with nowhere to go. They were scuttled by their crew as the war neared its end.

The location of the three U-boats has been a mystery. Until now.

Selçuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, has located one of the subs two miles off the coast of Turkey sitting 8o feet under the surface. He believes he knows the location of the remaining two.

I’ve always wanted to dive a U-boat. There are about seven that can be reached by SCUBA here on the east cost of the United States. I got to dive ship wreaks while I was in the Air Force and stationed on Guam. There is one Japanese tanker from Word War Two sitting atop a German cruiser from World War One. I once dove deep enough so that I could put one hand on the German ship while placing my other hand on the Japanese tanker. It turned out to be highly anticlimactic.

Guam had a lot of cool dive sites. It didn’t have any U-boats.

Link (Telegraph.co.uk)