and put a shitload of small Kneipen (pubs) in danger of going out of business in NRW (no smoking period).

In the polls, it doesn't matter if this is merely believed or is actually happening. But for the curious mind, is small pubs in NWR going out of business?

Because the same was claimed loudly in Sweden when smoking was banned in all restaurants and pubs, and then nothing happened. People drink, go outside to smoke (and it is a bit chillier here in the winters) and then go inside and drink some more. Only effect I know about is that people in the beginning complained about the smell at dancing establishments. Previously the smoke had covered the smell of sweat. But I guess they eventually invested in air fresheners or something.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

Now that the TVDuel is over, leaving heaving spin doctors and salivating media to stick their appropriate postmortems, is it possible that the most rational course for the future is to wish for the greater of two evils, rather than the lesser?

The SPD has never demonstrated the capacity to learn from electoral defeat, and will likely prefer the obscurity of splendid isolation even as Linke eventually overtake them. But they will keep being less bad than Black-Yellow. So the focus should be on gaining voters for Linke rather than bleeding the SPD of voters.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.