Those entrusted with supervising the Internet have in recent times made explicit efforts to keep it from being an exclusively Western/English/Latin alphabet phenomenon, resulting earlier this year in the acceptance of Cyrillic (e.g. Russian) and even Arabic words as Internet addresses, or URLs. Now the Süddeutsche Zeitung informs us (The “ß” becomes even sharper) that German has achieved its own mini-triumph for Internet inclusiveness: from 16 November a new character to be allowed in URLs will be the “ß” or “Eszett,” an historical letter in the German language that traditionally has denoted a double-s.

Ah, but note that “traditionally,” that “historical”: nowadays the ß is actually not used so much, ever since the spelling-reform agreed to in 1996 (implemented over the following ten years) that sharply restricted its approved cases for use. In olden days you would be sure to see it all the time when reading German if only for daß, which is the German “that” or “which,” i.e. the subordinate-clause conjunction (e.g. “I would have to conclude that . . .”), but all that you see anymore these days is of course dass instead. Often you don’t see it in Straße, or “street,” even when used as part of a street-name; and, indeed, in this same article announcing that one can use it in URLs the letter in question is barely used it all unless in direct reference to the “ß” itself: otherwise I find only a heißt and a ließe, and then a größten in the caption to the (rather irrelevant) accompanying illustration.

Well OK, I also found it somewhere else: in the “www.scheißhoppenheim.de” sort of URL which the piece’s author, Hermann Unterstöger, facetiously suggests it will now be possible to register. That word-construction is based upon Scheiße – a word proudly featuring its very-own “ß” but otherwise not very nice or polite; I assume its similarity to the corresponding English profanity allows me to decline giving you its meaning outright. But you have to wonder about the many other things German delegates to ICANN (in charge of internet addresses and protocol generally) should be addressing themselves to, instead of this barely-useful development which seems to offer scope to the flowering of the creative talents only of German dirty-words specialists.

NATO these days is undergoing somewhat of a crisis, having to do with the Alliance’s efforts in Afghanistan. Officials from the various NATO lands will deny it, but recent developments in Afghanistan itself have been further shaped and amplified through a serious of previously-planned security conferences to produce some serious tensions.

It seems some NATO alliance partners are rather unimpressed with the level of contribution offered by certain others, and are ratcheting up the pressure on these laggards to get more with the program. This argument dominated the NATO conference of defense ministers held last week in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. As you can expect, the US is the leading country among that first group, but Canada has been complaining as well. That country currently has 2,500 troops stationed in dangerous southern Afghanistan, by Kandahar, and has even threatened to send those troops home once its current commitment comes to an end if there are no new troop commitments to southern Afghanistan from other NATO allies. (more…)

Over here on the European continent we perhaps a bit self-righteously presume that we’re in a somewhat better position to act against global warning – and to deal with the inevitable coming gasoline price-hikes, whether there is a war with Iran or no – than, say, North America due to a transport network that is not so predicated on the personal automobile. But then the German newspaper-of-record, the FAZ, comes out like it did today with an article entitled Train Travel Does Not Protect the Environment. (more…)

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan . . . yes, you remember that we also fought a war there, in late 2001 against the Taliban, mainly because they were sheltering Osama bin-Laden and his Al-Qaida organization and refused to give him up. To keep order in that war-torn and fragmented country, and to give its central adminstration headed by “Transitional Chairman” Hamid Karzai a chance to get started with rebuilding, since December, 2001, there has been a so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) there, mainly in the capital city Kabul and surroundings. (more…)