After three failed terror attacks in London and Glasgow, the Brits continue with the big public events this weekend, like the Gay Pride Parade, Wimbledon and the concert for Diana. The German paper Tagesspiegel praises the "stiff upper lip." The Nosemonkey in London has the right attitude and writes "Terrorists these days are rubbish."
Would Germans and Americans be as cool and continue with business as usual?

Shortly after the London attacks of 7/7/2005, the We're not Afraid campaign started. Remember the funny pictures demonstrating fearlessness in solidarity with Britain and in defiance of the global terror movements? A good reminder from the "We're not Afraid" About us page:

We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear. We are not afraid.

The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or 32.8%, went to religious organizations. The second largest slice, $40.98 billion or 13.9%, went to education, including gifts to colleges, universities and libraries. About 65% of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.
"It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism. Gaudiani said the willingness of Americans to give cuts across income levels, and their investments go to developing ideas, inventions and people to the benefit of the overall economy. Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%, while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

On June 5, 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall addressed the graduating class at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, delivering a 12-minute speech that changed the world. Within days, his remarks became known as the Marshall Plan. The following month, European leaders met in Paris to discuss how they could cooperate regionally to qualify for Marshall’s offer of massive U.S. financial assistance. Ten months after Marshall’s speech, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved the European Recovery Program. (...) By the time the Marshall Plan ended in 1952 – five years after Marshall’s speech – the United States had invested $13.3 billion, and the years 1948 to 1952 had recorded the fastest economic growth in European history.

Many Germans believe that the Marshall Plan was alone responsible for the economic miracle of the Fifties. And when scholars come along and explain that reality was far more complex, they are sceptical and disappointed. They should not be. For the Marshall Plan certainly did play a key role in Germany's recovery, albeit perhaps more of a psychological than a purely economic one. The Plan gave the Germans back some of their self-esteem. It opened up new perspectives. It gave them the boost - a positive mind-set - which released their energies and made them work all the harder to rebuild their country. The Marshall Plan did what it set out to do - help people help themselves. Because of the Marshall Plan myth, a lot of East Germans and Eastern Europeans immediately invoked the Marshall Plan after the communist regimes tumbled and the extent of their own economic plight became only too clear. In fact, as Western leaders searched for ways to help, the Marshall Plan became a buzzword.

June 5, 1972, was the 25th anniversary of George Marshall's Harvard speech, and German Chancellor Willy Brandt was determined to come up with a very special anniversary present as a sign of his nation's appreciation. He flew to Harvard with a moving speech in one pocket and a large check in the other. His thank-you gift: the "German Marshall Fund of the United States," an independent American foundation to be paid for by Germany, and designed to "increase understanding, promote collaboration, and stimulate exchanges of practical information between the United States and Europe."

The Marshall Plan ... is not a philanthropic enterprise ... It is based on our views of the requirements of American security ... This is the only peaceful avenue now open to us which may answer the communist challenge to our way of life and our national security.

Traditionally, wages in Germany are set according to industry-wide collective bargaining agreements and detailed rules determine what kind of work receives what kind of pay. Because of the strength of trade unions in Germany, wage settlements were generally pretty favorable to workers.
While the American minimum wage, which dates from 1938, was put in place to keep employers from exploiting workers and giving them an income on which they could survive, Germany's generous social welfare system provided that protection. No one would work for wages that were under a certain level, because welfare benefits could give them a basic income.
"That has acted as a kind of virtual minimum wage," said Joachim Ragnatz, an economist at the Halle Institute for Economic Research.
But more and more holes have developed in that system. Welfare benefits have been cut back. Unions have lost clout and some sectors, especially in the service industry, have opted out of collective bargaining agreements. (...)
A study just released by Ragnatz and Marcel Thum from the Ifo Institute for Economic Research says increasing the minimum wage to 6.50 euros per hour, as the Social Democrats have called for, would result in a loss of around 465,000 jobs. Raising it to 7.50 euros would kill around 621,000 jobs, according to the report.

McGovern and Emerson have introduced legislation that would add $4 billion to the annual federal food stamp budget, which was $33 billion last year and covered 26 million Americans. (...)
"We're trying to get this debate going," McGovern said. "There are more working people today getting food stamps than six years ago... There's not a member of Congress that doesn't have hunger in their district." According to the rules of the challenge, the four House members cannot eat anything beside their $21 worth of groceries. That means no food at the many receptions, dinners and fundraisers that fill a lawmaker's week.

Number of daily bombing missions, June-Nov 2006: 18.
Ratio of bombs dropped in 2006 to 2005: 10 to 1.
Number of counternarcotics police in all of Helmand province: 38.
Number of vehicles they have: 3.
Percent of Americans who believe the war in Afghanistan “was worth fighting”: 56; Percent who do not: 41.
Percent who think the U.S. is “doing enough” to rebuild Afghanistan: 63.

Larger than the next 10 largest Afghan cities combined, Kabul estimates its most basic needs require $55 million this year; its budget is $4.5 million. Residents complain, but they cope. Despite the smell of sewage and mile-long walks to get drinking water, Kabul finds ways to function.

Ruzicka initially came off like a blond surfer girl (she was much given to exclaiming "Dude!" and "You rock!"), but underneath the effervescent exterior was a tough-minded humanitarian advocate who had little tolerance for leftist anti-war demonstrators. Ruzicka understood that wars happen despite the demonstrations, and she wanted to do something concrete to alleviate the subsequent damage to human life.

Lately, there has been a skein of such dangerous discoveries here, one with deadly consequences.  On Monday [October 24, 2006], a highway worker was killed when his cutting machine struck a World War II bomb beneath a main autobahn southeast of Frankfurt, setting off an explosion that ripped apart the vehicle and wrecked several passing cars, injuring their occupants. Hours later, a weapons-removal squad defused a 225-kilogram, or 500- pound, bomb found next to a highway near Hannover. The police said the device was a British aerial bomb - one of tens of thousands dropped on German roads, factories, and cities during Allied bombing raids. 
Last week, 22,000 people were evacuated from a district of Hannover after three bombs were discovered near a house. It was the second-largest evacuation for a disposal operation since the end of the war.

Between August 14 and October 8, around 20 people were killed in southern Lebanon by cluster munitions. Land mine activists said last month that cluster bombs are still killing or injuring three to four civilians a day, a third of them children. (...) Cluster bombs burst into bomblets and spread out near the ground. While some aim to destroy tanks, others are designed to kill or maim humans over a wide area. Experts have estimated an unusually high 40 percent of the bomblets dropped on Lebanon failed to explode on impact. Around 115 people have been injured by bomblets since the war's end.