"I am neither a man nor a woman. I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred."

Said the type of person who is the reason for the new law in Germany that allows parents to leave the "gender" line blank on birth certificates.

"Germany and France demand talks with US over NSA spying revelations."

"The revelations are threatening to create a major rift between the US and its European allies," says the Guardian.

Despite US efforts to placate Angela Merkel – including a phonecall made by the US president, Barack Obama, on Wednesday – she has refused to conceal her anger over the issue. "We need trust among allies and partners," Merkel told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. "Such trust now has to be built anew... It's become clear that for the future, something must change – and significantly."...

The latest confidential memo provided by [Edward] Snowden reveals... that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.

After Merkel's allegations became public, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring her phone in the past.

"Bestiality brothels are spreading through Germany faster than ever thanks to a law that makes animal porn illegal..."

"... but sex with animals legal, a livestock protection officer has warned."

Last November German authorities said they were planning to reinstate an old law forbidding sex with animals after a sharp rise in incidents of bestiality along with websites promoting it....

Hans-Michael Goldmann, chairman of the agriculture committee, said the government aimed to forbid using an animal 'for individual sexual acts and to outlaw people 'pimping' creatures to others for sexual use.'

German 'zoophile' group ZETA has announced it will mount a legal challenge should a ban on bestiality become law. 'Mere concepts of morality have no business being law,' said ZETA chairman Michael Kiok.

"The Government is never slow to say that Hitler was to blame for the Second World War."

"I think the Government is very frightened of taking any sort of view that might suggest we upset the Germans all over again."

"On the British Government's side at the moment what they call the non-judgmental approach seems to me that they are not willing to say outright what the historians I most respect believe, which is the First World War was not morally different from the Second World War, it was an unspeakable experience for Europe and the British people but it was for a cause worth fighting."

"Left-wing feminists are protesting the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience — a 27,000-square-foot lifesized pink estate — opening in Berlin...."

"'They present an image of cooking, primping and singing, as if it were in some way life-fulfilling,' Socialist Alternative editor Michael Koschitzki, 27, told German newspaper Der Spiegel. 'The Barbie Dreamhouse is the expression of a conventional role model that isn't OK,' he said.

The Berlin movement has led to an "Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse" page on Facebook, which displays a cover image of a dark-haired girl saying, "I can't stand pink!" in German.

Ich habe kein Bock auf Pink! That's from the Facebook page. Google translate would have gone with "Ich kann es nicht ertragen pink!" All I can say is that I am now confident that I know how to say "pink" in German. Google translates "Ich habe kein Bock auf Pink!" as "I have no mood to Pink!" — which reminds me: I have no mood to socialist alternative male German feminists. Ich bin nicht in der Stimmung für eine sozialistische Alternative männlichen deutschen Feministinnen.

Now... how do you say "The Barbie Dreamhouse is the expression of a conventional role model that isn't OK" in German? Der Barbie Traumhaus ist der Ausdruck eines herkömmlichen Vorbild, das nicht OK.

I'm quite sure I know how to say "pink" and "OK" in German. Okay? Ok, raus, Deutsch pinko feministische Männer.

"In place of clothes, the woman had words like 'bra' and 'shirt' scrawled on her uber-toned body in black marker."

"Some commuters barely batted an eye when the naked stunner climbed aboard a commuter train."

"With fewer than 200,000 Jews among Germany's 82 million people, few Germans born after World War II know any Jews or much about them."

"To help educate postwar generations, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Berlin features a Jewish man or woman seated inside a glass box for two hours a day through August to answer visitors' questions about Jews and Jewish life. The base of the box asks: 'Are there still Jews in Germany?'"

Performance art... what can't it do?

"The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar..."

"... who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered...."

In the first years of the 1st century, Roman legions conducted a long campaign in Germania, the area north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, in an attempt to expand the Empire's frontiers and shorten its frontier line. They subdued several Germanic tribes, such as the Cherusci. The tribes became familiar with Roman tactics of warfare while maintaining their tribal identity. In 9 AD, a Cherusci chieftain named Arminius defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, a victory credited with stopping the Roman advance into Germanic territories and forming the birth of German history....

Much more happens in Germany, today's "History of" country.

There are 5,000+ castles in Germany, and many of them come onto the real estate market every year.

Priced from $650,000 to $26+ million, which seems kind of cheap, but the upkeep is high, and you might not be able to drive all the way up to it.

[One] family must park and take a five-minute uphill walk to the front door, which is accessed by a drawbridge. As a result, the family uses a small tractor or a conveyor belt from the valley floor to get everything from groceries to building materials up to the castle....

"Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness."

"Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear."

"European explorers and missionaries.... compared the organisation of the kingdom of Burundi with that of the old Greek empire."

"It was not until 1899 that Burundi became a part of German East Africa."

Unlike the Rwandan monarchy, which decided to accept the German advances, the Burundian king Mwezi IV Gisabo opposed all European influence, refusing to wear European clothing and resisting the advance of European missionaries or administrators. The Germans used armed force and succeeded in doing great damage, but did not destroy the king’s power. Eventually they backed one of the king's sons-in-law Maconco in a revolt against Gisabo. Gisabo was eventually forced to concede and agreed to German suzerainty.....

With WWI, Belgium took over, running things "through indirect rule, building on the Tutsi-dominated aristocratic hierarchy." Independence came in 1962, and "Tutsi King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng established a constitutional monarchy comprising equal numbers of Hutus and Tutsis." Horrific events follow.

In Burundi, today's "History of" country.

"Wanted: Harvard seeks 'adventurous woman' to give birth to cloned Neanderthal baby..."

Second photo down in the right-hand column at Drudge right now:



Link goes to the Daily Mail:

Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School... said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human. It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.’

So Drudge changed the quote, substituting "female human" for "woman," actually making the scientist seem less creepy.

He told German magazine Der Spiegel: ‘Neanderthals might think differently than we do. They could even be more intelligent than us.'

Clue to creepy scientists: When you've got a proposal for an edgy medical experiment on human beings — especially when it implies a dream of an improved species — don't use Germans to get your message out.

In fairness to Church... I'm going to assume he's just horsing around, cogitating about what is possible, and that he's certainly not currently seeking that adventurous female human.